What Would David Stern Do

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 Guys, now that part five of

spk_0 Pobletoy finds out why Leonard Steve Balmer,

spk_0 Clipper's aspiration has dropped on Monday.

spk_0 He's officially hit many series territory.

spk_0 This is a many series that we were watching unfold

spk_0 in podcast form.

spk_0 Clipped season two?

spk_0 Funny should mention that, I mean,

spk_0 cause I've done a little wish casting here.

spk_0 I've got a cast.

spk_0 Ah, I've got some crew members for the dramatization.

spk_0 Okay, so Pablo's doing the docu series on his podcast.

spk_0 I wanna fictionalize it.

spk_0 Oh, so this is like OJ and America?

spk_0 This is Clipped.

spk_0 It's an American crime story.

spk_0 It's Clipped.

spk_0 There it is.

spk_0 It's all happening.

spk_0 And so I'm gonna start with the title.

spk_0 All right, we'll start with the title.

spk_0 It's nice and easy.

spk_0 Lofty aspirations.

spk_0 Okay.

spk_0 Lofty aspirations.

spk_0 We're aiming high.

spk_0 We got aspiration in there.

spk_0 What about white loftess?

spk_0 Lens at a white lotus?

spk_0 No.

spk_0 Tom, I'll take your feedback at the end.

spk_0 Please let me finish my elevator pitch

spk_0 before I take notes.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 There's two ways we could go with this story.

spk_0 We could have a little bit more lighthearted,

spk_0 a little more Clipped action, a little more comedy and fused.

spk_0 If we're going that way, we gotta go with Pablo's Spider-Man meme.

spk_0 We've seen him in studio with Andrew Lopez

spk_0 from the Bear and Platonic.

spk_0 Yep.

spk_0 Doppelganger.

spk_0 That's if we're going a little more lighthearted.

spk_0 But I'm not satisfied with that.

spk_0 We need a project that's going to match

spk_0 Pablo's own journalistic ambition.

spk_0 We're aiming for trophies.

spk_0 Pablo's not optioning his life rights

spk_0 unless he thinks that he's getting an Emmy or an Oscar.

spk_0 And in that case, we're casting Stephen Yoon.

spk_0 Oh, I thought you just hit Pedro Pascal.

spk_0 He's in everything.

spk_0 But we're going with Stephen Yoon

spk_0 from Walking Dead, Minari, Beef, Mickey 17.

spk_0 Okay.

spk_0 Next up, it's a two-hander, okay?

spk_0 Who's the most powerful figure

spk_0 on the other side of this story?

spk_0 We've talked about him a lot.

spk_0 Dance Raptor?

spk_0 Uncle Dennis?

spk_0 Uncle Dennis.

spk_0 And nobody could play Uncle Dennis

spk_0 quite like Denzel Washington.

spk_0 So now we've got Stephen Yoon.

spk_0 We've got Denzel Washington.

spk_0 We've got Denzel Washington storming

spk_0 into the Toronto Raptors owners office.

spk_0 We've got Denzel Washington negotiating

spk_0 with aspiration and with the Clippers.

spk_0 All those scenes are going to be a 10 out of 10.

spk_0 That payment is late.

spk_0 Now, Prattam Silver.

spk_0 Now this one was a little bit tougher

spk_0 because we got to get somebody

spk_0 who's going to commit and shave his head.

spk_0 But we also need somebody who's the right frame.

spk_0 And I thought of nobody other than John Turtaro.

spk_0 Oh, okay.

spk_0 Ooh, well done.

spk_0 I like that one a lot.

spk_0 That's your favorite so far.

spk_0 John Turtaro is Adam Silver.

spk_0 Now, is he going to shave his head, though?

spk_0 He's got a shave his head.

spk_0 He is.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 No ball caps around here.

spk_0 We're ponying it up.

spk_0 Maze.

spk_0 No ball caps.

spk_0 We're shaving his head.

spk_0 And we're not talking about freshly shaving.

spk_0 Like he's going to have to shave and get some sun.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 So that it looks like he's in bald for a while.

spk_0 Tom, I have this theory that if you're an actor,

spk_0 you got to pay a bald character.

spk_0 You don't shave your head, you're fraud.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Is this extended SNL?

spk_0 Because that's a weekly show.

spk_0 You can do ball caps there.

spk_0 No, no, I'm talking about the movie, like something real.

spk_0 Like, oh, I don't know, Terminator Salvation.

spk_0 Your name is Elena Bonham Carter.

spk_0 Wow.

spk_0 Just as an example, I'm just pulling from the blue.

spk_0 Hmm.

spk_0 Weird.

spk_0 Well, speaking of Cinephob, we had a movie where we called someone

spk_0 Steve Balmer.

spk_0 I mean, do you remember which one that was?

spk_0 Oh, no, I don't.

spk_0 It's volcano.

spk_0 And the actor in question is John Carroll Lynch.

spk_0 He's not alive, is he?

spk_0 He's a dead ringer for Steve Balmer.

spk_0 He's still alive.

spk_0 He looks more like Steve Balmer than ever.

spk_0 Oh, wow.

spk_0 He looks way more like Steve Balmer than the guy they

spk_0 tried it out for clips.

spk_0 So John Carroll Lynch.

spk_0 There he is.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Is our Steve Balmer.

spk_0 They conned him.

spk_0 Okay.

spk_0 Now the most important casting yet, Tom, it's a Menel Hassan.

spk_0 Oh, I've been this.

spk_0 Who is playing a Menel Hassan in this very serious Stephen

spk_0 Yoon led Pobletori series?

spk_0 We need somebody with a bit of levity.

spk_0 We need somebody who's fulfilling a means role in these

spk_0 Pobletori finds that episodes.

spk_0 I'm going with the guy having a great moment on peacemaker

spk_0 right now.

spk_0 Tim Meadows is a Menel Hassan.

spk_0 No, it's like 15 years older than me.

spk_0 I mean, so bummed.

spk_0 Come on.

spk_0 Look, he's so mad.

spk_0 He's so mad.

spk_0 Tim Meadows is like 58.

spk_0 What are you doing?

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 All right, what about Dave Chappelle?

spk_0 No, Dave Chappelle is like 55.

spk_0 What are you guys doing?

spk_0 Like Pete Stanfield.

spk_0 That's a guy who could play me.

spk_0 Well, unfortunately,

spk_0 like he Stanfield might be occupied for colline.

spk_0 He is my casting for Kauai Leonard.

spk_0 But I also have a pitch.

spk_0 So maybe Lakith can play a mean because I have a pitch

spk_0 where Kauai Leonard is like a Milford Man

spk_0 in a rest of development.

spk_0 He's never seen or heard.

spk_0 You never seen him.

spk_0 We have scenes with Denzel and John Carol Lynch.

spk_0 They're in the meetings and then just off camera.

spk_0 Silently whispering is Kauai Leonard.

spk_0 A lot of shadows, a lot of over the shoulder shots.

spk_0 It's kind of like Michael Jordan in air.

spk_0 Yes.

spk_0 We never actually see Michael Jordan locked by plants

spk_0 or columns that are conveniently placed in the room.

spk_0 We've got the press conference and it's shot over his shoulder.

spk_0 We see whoever plays Ramona asking the questions.

spk_0 Did you perform any services for him?

spk_0 When you say I understand him, what do you mean?

spk_0 The contract you signed and how much money you were to receive.

spk_0 What you were supposed to perform for those services?

spk_0 I understand a full contract and services that I had to do.

spk_0 Like I said, I don't do the deal with the conspiracies

spk_0 or the click date and at least my journalism is low

spk_0 and non so that's what it is.

spk_0 Well, I think the allegation was that you didn't form

spk_0 any services for them.

spk_0 Is that accurate or did you mean the point?

spk_0 It's accurate but it's, oh, this is all known to you guys.

spk_0 So they've come to you in a big group a while ago.

spk_0 So we already knew that this was going to happen.

spk_0 So.

spk_0 Did you were named as like the largest creditor in the

spk_0 bankruptcy file in the right to do?

spk_0 Did you actually get the money that was owed to you

spk_0 in the contract or?

spk_0 No.

spk_0 The company went belly up and it was right.

spk_0 As everybody knows, you want any more questions

spk_0 or more details about the company that has done owner

spk_0 or whoever else is involved in the fraud and win them.

spk_0 I think it said they owed you $7.00 or something.

spk_0 I'm not sure I'll leave back up the books but not as a

spk_0 more than that.

spk_0 Sure.

spk_0 Do you have any idea how much you actually made on that?

spk_0 No, it was like two or three for you to use it on.

spk_0 And just a big ass hand.

spk_0 They would give him hands like Charlie's uncle and always

spk_0 study and he grabs the microphone clumsily or it's like a

spk_0 Charlie Brown cartoon where all of his lines are garbled like all

spk_0 the adults in Charlie Brown.

spk_0 Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

spk_0 are you done because I think you ruined a means day by giving

spk_0 him 10 meadows.

spk_0 The meadows are just so much older man like that.

spk_0 That's just an old dude.

spk_0 You're obsessed with the age I was going for five.

spk_0 Like I think most of the ages are on point.

spk_0 But Denzel is probably way too old to be Uncle Dennis.

spk_0 You have the vibe of a 65 year old man.

spk_0 I mean, actually, I don't think Denzel is too old to play

spk_0 Uncle Dennis, but what about who plays David Samson?

spk_0 Unfortunately, I don't have David Samson casts.

spk_0 I think a helium balloon could play David Samson.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 If John Carol Lynch won't do it, can we get Kyle gas to do it?

spk_0 To play Paul.

spk_0 Yeah, that's the comedy casting.

spk_0 Okay.

spk_0 You know, David Keckner is the comedy casting for Steve Balmer.

spk_0 That's a good one too.

spk_0 I do have Dan Labatard on here.

spk_0 Who do you have?

spk_0 Horatio Sans?

spk_0 The guy from the 21 Savage Music video is Dan Labatard.

spk_0 Oh, yeah.

spk_0 We're bringing it back.

spk_0 He did such a good job.

spk_0 The 21 Savage movie that never came out.

spk_0 Or Fat Jeremy Piven is Dan Labatard.

spk_0 Oh, what about Fat Horatio Sans?

spk_0 It feels like he does a good job, right?

spk_0 Think Jeremy Piven might have the verbal dexterity

spk_0 to execute a Dan Labatard monologue.

spk_0 That's good.

spk_0 And finally, okay, this is my super serious version.

spk_0 We're getting there and sorkin to write this.

spk_0 We're getting Pablo Torre walk and talking

spk_0 through the PTFO offices,

spk_0 walking and talking around the streets of New York

spk_0 as he tirelessly comes through documents

spk_0 and harasses sources on the phone

spk_0 to get the information that he needs.

spk_0 And we're bringing David Fincher into direct.

spk_0 And we're turning this into Zodiac.

spk_0 We're gonna have Pablo Torre's character

spk_0 going through many internal struggles as he battles.

spk_0 Nattle strife.

spk_0 You're consumed with this.

spk_0 You missed your daughter's soccer recital, whatever.

spk_0 For violence.

spk_0 All of violence, extracurricular activities

spk_0 are being neglected in the pursuit of taking down Steve Balmer.

spk_0 The other option, of course, is you know,

spk_0 keep it in the metal arc family, Adam McKay.

spk_0 Of course, yeah.

spk_0 Overseas the whole operation.

spk_0 And that's more levity, the lighter tone

spk_0 that we wouldn't need for this execution.

spk_0 I don't know.

spk_0 Big short was don't look up.

spk_0 What's what I'm saying?

spk_0 He's trending towards serious topics,

spk_0 but there's always that Adam McKay snark.

spk_0 That wink in a smile.

spk_0 A little satirical take on it.

spk_0 I'd rather Adam than sorkin.

spk_0 Sorkin get out of here.

spk_0 Well, Pablo, I think might prefer something

spk_0 a little different.

spk_0 And these are his life rights after all.

spk_0 Work on your casting me.

spk_0 I'm sorry, I didn't like Tim Meadows.

spk_0 I thought you might like this one.

spk_0 Oh, man.

spk_0 Lucky San Phil, you may be happy.

spk_0 I give you a Lucky San Phil.

spk_0 I'll play two roles.

spk_0 He'll play Kawaii Leonard and Amino Hassan.

spk_0 They put on a wig and he's got like braids now.

spk_0 Lofty aspirations coming to effects in Hulu next fall.

spk_0 My assignment.

spk_0 Uncover why the association inspires

spk_0 more conspiracy theories in volume and salience

spk_0 than any other US sport.

spk_0 Are you for to be a Luminati?

spk_0 The truth is out there, but so are lies.

spk_0 Your eyes can deceive you.

spk_0 Don't trust them.

spk_0 The NBA has always been controlled by about eight people.

spk_0 Denial is the most predictable of all human responses.

spk_0 If you're only using 10% of your brain,

spk_0 you don't even know that you're using 10% of your brain.

spk_0 The NBA, Luminati.

spk_0 If coincidence is your just coincidence,

spk_0 this is why they feel so contrived.

spk_0 The Luminati.

spk_0 But you start to follow the money.

spk_0 And you don't know where the f*** is going to take you.

spk_0 It is unspoken.

spk_0 They have influence among other players.

spk_0 The NBA over what happened.

spk_0 I don't have time for your convenient ignorance.

spk_0 Maybe I'm a kid's spiritist now as well.

spk_0 That's all it took.

spk_0 Oh, you got books, we got school.

spk_0 You saw a video on you.

spk_0 You did that.

spk_0 My eyes, sir.

spk_0 You've never used them before.

spk_0 We are the master of the NBA.

spk_0 The outta the society.

spk_0 We need to get rid of them.

spk_0 The NBA.

spk_0 This is basketball, Luminati.

spk_0 I am Tom Habershrone.

spk_0 As always, we are joined by the five star

spk_0 aluminum general, Zemino Hassan,

spk_0 and producer Anthony Mays.

spk_0 Members of the illumination can support us

spk_0 on Patreon at patreon.com slash count the dings.

spk_0 You can also show your support by wearing a third eye hat

spk_0 or a basketball illuminati shirt or hoodie.

spk_0 Check out the link in the show notes

spk_0 or go to the count the dings store on Cotton Bureau

spk_0 and keep that third eye open.

spk_0 Return, guest, truth teller, true hoop teller.

spk_0 Henry Abbott joining us, the author of Ballistic.

spk_0 Got a new book out.

spk_0 We're going to talk a little injuries, but most important.

spk_0 We're going to talk David Stern stories

spk_0 and what would David Stern do?

spk_0 It's got a book coming out, Ballistic.

spk_0 And we're going to talk to him about his latest article

spk_0 about finding Steve Balmer $8 billion.

spk_0 Can't wait to find out how the audience

spk_0 receives his idea, his light years idea

spk_0 about how to pay a punishment to Steve Balmer

spk_0 while actually making him happy in the end.

spk_0 Come here right next, right next, right next.

spk_0 You all think I'm late?

spk_0 Well, I'm not late.

spk_0 And I'm going to stay right here and fight

spk_0 for this lost cause, even if this gloom gets filled

spk_0 with lies like these.

spk_0 And the tailors and all their armies

spk_0 come marching into this place.

spk_0 Somebody, I'll listen to me.

spk_0 There's no better way to overpower a trickle of doubt

spk_0 than with a flood of naked truth.

spk_0 But the complexity in the grave, I'm not in the truth.

spk_0 But what you do with the truth once you have it.

spk_0 What is true and right is true in my form.

spk_0 You and I both know that that's just not the truth.

spk_0 You can't handle the truth.

spk_0 To messy keeps the mouth nice.

spk_0 I'm here because in the end, the truth is worth the risk.

spk_0 I think a little truth when people lose their minds.

spk_0 I'm a grown man, you can tell me the truth.

spk_0 Why is it people who want the truth?

spk_0 Never believe the one they hear.

spk_0 So you know what I'm going to do?

spk_0 I'm going to do something really outrageous.

spk_0 I'm going to tell the truth.

spk_0 Henry Abbott, our boss, our friend, our,

spk_0 I guess we would all call him our North Star

spk_0 when it came to reporting and all that good stuff

spk_0 at Trujouk presents at ESPN.

spk_0 Now at Trujouk.com also has a book, Ballistic,

spk_0 and an amazing David Stern story that I want to lead with here.

spk_0 Oh, is an elevator.

spk_0 Didn't you, weren't you an elevator with David Stern at one time

spk_0 where you got into an elevator?

spk_0 It's kind of one of my favorite NBA stories.

spk_0 Yeah, so I think what you're talking about is early in the lockout

spk_0 in 20, was that 2010, I guess?

spk_0 2011.

spk_0 I asked a question about economists,

spk_0 and it started with economists say,

spk_0 and we can go into details if you want,

spk_0 but basically economists say David Stern's full shit

spk_0 is kind of the underlying point.

spk_0 And then they call the press commerce to him.

spk_0 He and he have a very stupid dumb vague answer.

spk_0 And then we all want an elevator just down to the lobby

spk_0 with this swanky New York hotel.

spk_0 This is not there anymore.

spk_0 And then I started going home.

spk_0 I was going home.

spk_0 And then everyone's spilt.

spk_0 There's like, I don't know.

spk_0 We're reporters and NBA officials and stuff.

spk_0 And I just hear from my back turned right here over the lobby.

spk_0 Like economists say, fuck you.

spk_0 And I'm like, you know, that might be for me.

spk_0 And you know, you're like someone you're like, I'm like,

spk_0 that might be, I said a cop in this day.

spk_0 Like, you know, as I turn and there's like,

spk_0 he's waddles like the penguin, you know, like a little bit to do.

spk_0 There's like David Stern coming after me.

spk_0 And then he basically is like,

spk_0 buck me back to the office.

spk_0 And then he like, I walked him back to the office.

spk_0 And I really only later on, he was the same way as my dad

spk_0 who was running marathons at that time.

spk_0 Like David Stern aged terribly.

spk_0 He was not particularly old, but he could barely walk.

spk_0 And literally up and down the curbs, I was like, helping him, you know, like you do.

spk_0 And, uh, and he just started giving me like straight gold.

spk_0 Just all this insight until it's happening in the talks and all this stuff.

spk_0 And I see it as part of his genius where he was like,

spk_0 warning me off my stupid economist tactic.

spk_0 But hey, if we're here in the good graces, we got all this insight for you.

spk_0 You caught him as safe.

spk_0 Fuck you.

spk_0 That they're talking to Ethan Strauss about the, the dock rivers of like of, of when you,

spk_0 you do that, you refer to someone by their name and compliment their question and all that.

spk_0 And all of a sudden, you feel a little affinity there that makes you,

spk_0 maybe not be as hard, uh, edged as you would be, uh,

spk_0 if you were just an adversarial, uh, relationship.

spk_0 When, when he yelled at you, did he appear angry or what, what was his,

spk_0 Oh, he has that like, like I've actually read like high test,

spk_0 testosterone, tensed people, a wolfish grin.

spk_0 This is the like kind of sadistic, like, ha ha, I got you, right?

spk_0 Like he was loving it.

spk_0 As he checked four, Tommy, this, um,

spk_0 Chad for he lived in Hawaii, right?

spk_0 Fluent, but he's a lawyer and he came to, um, actually it was the NBA lottery.

spk_0 And in, in Cacaucus and Chad just fucking stuck it to him.

spk_0 Like hard question, a hard question about like,

spk_0 we have to, why do we have it draft at all?

spk_0 And his turn was like, oh, and like as soon as it was over,

spk_0 Stern came over and he's like, Chad, it's so great to see you.

spk_0 Like, oh, blah, I'm like, and, and I'm like, Chad, what is going on here?

spk_0 And he's like, I learned a long time ago.

spk_0 He just loves to fight.

spk_0 And I was like, oh, okay, like that's, I can use that information, you know?

spk_0 But yeah, we just happy.

spk_0 He just likes that shit, you know?

spk_0 I, I, so you, you just wrote this great piece for, uh,

spk_0 Truhoop, if you're not subscribing, you should absolutely right now.

spk_0 Uh, Truhoop.com, uh, your sub stack, you have this great story about like,

spk_0 what you would do or what you're advocating for your Adam Silver to do.

spk_0 I don't know if that's the right phrasing, um, what he should do.

spk_0 But your idea was brilliant.

spk_0 And I had never considered this, um, but in the middle of that story

spk_0 and also in that David Stern, oh, bit that you wrote that also comes to mind about one of

spk_0 you, the best pieces you've written, just to capture like who David Stern was as a person.

spk_0 You had kind of linked to this report or this, this scene where to a room full of

spk_0 reporters, he had said, um, like a question was asked like about, you know,

spk_0 uh, the bodies that are buried, where the bodies are buried in the NBA.

spk_0 And he responded by saying, I know where the bodies are buried because I put

spk_0 them there.

spk_0 I can show you the map.

spk_0 And I'm like, I'm like, yo, that is such a crazy line.

spk_0 I wonder what it would have been like to be in that room.

spk_0 So I clicked on the link in your article and it went to a dead fox,

spk_0 I went to the way back machine plugged in that link.

spk_0 I fucking was in the room when that happened.

spk_0 I was like, what?

spk_0 And there was a tweet, there was like a list of like five tweets where it was like,

spk_0 David Stern just said, I know where the bodies are buried and I can show you the map.

spk_0 And it was at his like farewell press conference in 2014.

spk_0 Um, Mike Wise asked him like a joke like, hey, are you going to now finally reveal where the bodies are?

spk_0 And he looked at us and he's like, I know where the bodies are buried because I put

spk_0 them there and I have a map.

spk_0 And I tweeted that I was like, what, a couple of years in Henry, like writing a covering the NBA.

spk_0 And I was like, uh, David Stern just said this.

spk_0 And so it just completely vanished from my memory that I was there when he said that.

spk_0 I know where the bodies are buried.

spk_0 Totally forgot about him.

spk_0 Where's the map?

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0

spk_0 So, yeah.

spk_0 Um, that's, I mean, the only line, I mean, that I can point to in the press conference that Adam

spk_0 Silver had a few days ago about the co-wide Leonard story that felt Stern ish was the smoking

spk_0 gun line.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 That, that was straight out of the book of David Stern to focus on the hyper-technicality

spk_0 of an idiom or, uh, you know, or a figure of speech.

spk_0 He said, well, you know, the smoking gun itself is circumstances evidence because you didn't see

spk_0 the gunfire.

spk_0 You just saw the smoke and you, like that, like he said that and I was like, fuck, that's David right

spk_0 there.

spk_0 That David right there to sit there.

spk_0 I remember a time when he, someone used the term begs the question and apparently like

spk_0 they use it incorrectly.

spk_0 And begs the question, doesn't mean like gives rise to the question.

spk_0 It means something else.

spk_0 And David's been sat there and explained that and I was like, cares, man.

spk_0 But yeah, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it,

spk_0 it, one of the things that I, that I have said a lot during Adam's tenure has, has, has

spk_0 I've kind of done, I've been the official flag bearer for hashtag, WWDSD.

spk_0 What would David Stern do, right?

spk_0 And one of Stern's favorite tricks was to overstep the boundaries and the scope of whatever

spk_0 acceptable punishment was for two reasons.

spk_0 For one is that you know, get scaled back anyway.

spk_0 But for two is, is to send the message clear, undeniable message, this shouldn't go

spk_0 flat.

spk_0 And to put the proverbial head on the spike outside of King's Landing and let everyone

spk_0 else, you know, we got a mad King up in here.

spk_0 And he did that.

spk_0 There's no shortage of times he did that in, in his tenure.

spk_0 And I feel like Adam hasn't done that either enough or at all other than obviously Donna

spk_0 Sterling.

spk_0 But I have a feeling that you have a different theory on this.

spk_0 I do a little different.

spk_0 A different, still a different view.

spk_0 Yeah, yes.

spk_0 So I think Adam came in as kind of a nerd.

spk_0 I say as someone who looks like Adam Silver.

spk_0 All right.

spk_0 So I can say this.

spk_0 Like, you know, David didn't have the worry that he would look soft.

spk_0 But Adam did, right?

spk_0 Now Adam needed to have credibility with us, the media, with the fans, with the other

spk_0 owners.

spk_0 And so he came right in and shipped somebody, right?

spk_0 Like, like, you're out down to Sterling.

spk_0 This almost never happens in sports.

spk_0 And so it was like, hey, maybe we have a strong leader.

spk_0 This is maybe he's a wartime, because it will be our kind of thing, right?

spk_0 And because he needed that, right?

spk_0 And then they said about giving Adam what David had, which was this kind of like a bunch

spk_0 of pocket votes, right?

spk_0 Just dudes who owed him a favor, who would vote for everything, which lets you manage

spk_0 this unmanageable, we have this sort of hurting cats, like try hurting billionaires, right?

spk_0 It's like, none of them want to listen to anyone on anything.

spk_0 And somehow you have to get 17 votes to get a new CBA, right?

spk_0 And David did it a lot of ways, including with the media, which is why I'm realizing

spk_0 now I'm going to respect.

spk_0 I was at that hotel with, at the story I told you about, because it leaked where the meetings

spk_0 were, right?

spk_0 I never knew exactly how that information got to me, but I made it to all the talks, as

spk_0 they did several reporters, right?

spk_0 And now I'm going to beat the hotel.

spk_0 Was that was the secret?

spk_0 It was all the secret.

spk_0 Until fucking Chris Prisar tried to put the crew inside where they were.

spk_0 I wanted to do things.

spk_0 And then it was like a flip mob.

spk_0 But you had to kind of everybody, like, on the talking, you had to like work your,

spk_0 work your role next to figure out where they're talking, right?

spk_0 And we'd fly in New York in the car, I'm like, where am I going?

spk_0 And Adam did a whole whole run of CBA talks.

spk_0 Nobody went to a single meeting.

spk_0 Not one reporter knew where anything was.

spk_0 And like, that tells me, David Stern intentionally had us there because he thought he would

spk_0 win through us, right?

spk_0 He thought he would gain leverage from having microphones outside, right?

spk_0 Adam has never been that guy.

spk_0 He doesn't use the media.

spk_0 He doesn't take questions almost ever, right?

spk_0 He just doesn't think he needs the public on the side, which has worked okay for

spk_0 his kind of backroom style.

spk_0 But I think it's starting to fall apart right now in front of us where we need to believe

spk_0 him.

spk_0 And he hasn't been building that credibility, right?

spk_0 So yes.

spk_0 So I think Adam needed his, his 17 votes to get the CBA passed.

spk_0 And they did it like Vivek.

spk_0 Listen to Vivek talk.

spk_0 Like the Sacramento team was maybe going to leave, but they're like, Hey, like, let's get

spk_0 this guy who's going to be with, like, if you with, you get this team, Vivek, we want

spk_0 you with us on everything.

spk_0 And he was like, hell yeah.

spk_0 Listen, he's like no one's ever kissed us more than Vivek with Adam Silver.

spk_0 And the other one is bomber, right?

spk_0 Like they were out with David Stern's, like he had this weird allegiance to Sterling.

spk_0 I don't know why.

spk_0 Sterling could have been kicked out of the league every single year of his tenure for

spk_0 something.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 Son of the very beginning, right?

spk_0 84.

spk_0 They had a chance to get him out.

spk_0 And David Stern was the one that that saved the day.

spk_0 There's a story that like a fully reported story that don't even get me started, but

spk_0 like a colleague of ours included in a story at ESPN that like the big bosses cut these

spk_0 few paragraphs.

spk_0 It was literally, uh, don't necessarily getting a blow job in a business meeting.

spk_0 And like it was a distraction from the, like this kind of stuff was like, what the fuck

spk_0 right?

spk_0 What kind of business meeting are we talking about?

spk_0 Business takes on very, very lot of crypto forms.

spk_0 I think it was literally like a GM candidate going over to be interviewed at his house.

spk_0 And when he gets there, don't sterling.

spk_0 Things like and he's like, oh, do I need to leave?

spk_0 He's like, no, come in, come in.

spk_0 What the fuck?

spk_0 On the clip.

spk_0 There would be so.

spk_0 There would be so many reasons for Donaldson and kicked out of the league, right?

spk_0 All that stuff with the housing business and you know, documented racist married to a

spk_0 documented racist.

spk_0 Like, come on.

spk_0 And, but it only happened once, once, you know, so Stern never did that.

spk_0 It's Stern never policed this guy.

spk_0 And so they brought in someone who was going to be loyal to Adam.

spk_0 His name is Steve Balmer.

spk_0 And now we're in a little bit of a difficult situation because now to look credible, Adam

spk_0 has to pull you Steve Balmer, which you know, you don't have to be like on an illuminati

spk_0 podcast.

spk_0 I think maybe he doesn't want to do that, right?

spk_0 Like, well, it's okay.

spk_0 Tom.

spk_0 I just wanted to get right into it on the fine that you said you suggested the headline

spk_0 is.

spk_0 Oh, okay.

spk_0 So we do that.

spk_0 So Henry, what kind of blowjob?

spk_0 No, see.

spk_0

spk_0 So what does he look like?

spk_0 Going back to Balmer.

spk_0 Yes, he's very rich and rich at that level means powerful.

spk_0 But how much of this also is at least it appears that within those circles,

spk_0 he's a very well-liked guy.

spk_0 Meaning if it was Jim Dolan, it'd be a whole lot easier to think about a flesh, right?

spk_0 Because everyone's like, yeah, finally, right?

spk_0 Well, I think it's not, I mean, I don't think there's any chance they're going to kick

spk_0 Steve Balmer out of the league.

spk_0 But if that's like, that is the big option here, right?

spk_0 And then you'd get who?

spk_0 Like Larry Ellison?

spk_0 Like, do you know how creepy that guy is?

spk_0 Like, yeah.

spk_0 Like, yeah, Balmer.

spk_0 Yeah, I mean, they're just like, they don't have.

spk_0 What would the clip yourself for you think?

spk_0 Like, I don't know, like, eight million or something, seven million, I don't know,

spk_0 six million.

spk_0 Bill, sorry.

spk_0 Billion.

spk_0 Billion, me with my little numbers and silly guy.

spk_0 But, you know, let me say, fuck you.

spk_0

spk_0 Fuck me.

spk_0 But yeah, I don't think that that number, the people left to purchase teams are all creepy

spk_0 pretty much.

spk_0 So they see Balmer's at Jim.

spk_0 It kind of makes sense where his money comes from.

spk_0 He has his long arms, that he waggles, courtside, you know, like, who doesn't love that?

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 That's the second thing on your resume.

spk_0

spk_0 Steve Balmer's positive attributes.

spk_0 There is no stuff or anything.

spk_0 I guess it.

spk_0 He's got more money than God.

spk_0 And he's got log arms and he waves like a wacky, flailer talking about.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Mm-hmm.

spk_0 Any further questions?

spk_0 The headline was, find Steve Balmer $8 billion.

spk_0 And that's, as Koai Leonard would say, after we saw in the press conference, clickbait.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 No, I think the way you lay this out is fascinating.

spk_0 The idea of Adam Silver has a really difficult task in front of him, appeasing all the other

spk_0 owners while also appearing strong, but also a kind of a strategic chest not checker's

spk_0 move that could make Steve Balmer happy and not like run him out of the league.

spk_0 The $8 billion is not just about, hey, he should pay us $8 billion.

spk_0 There's more to it.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Henry, can you lay it out for us?

spk_0 Okay.

spk_0 So I think it will fail if they, they can't, like, we know they can kick owners out of

spk_0 the league because they did it, right?

spk_0 I guess that's a board of governors vote, that's not in the CBA, right?

spk_0 So that's one option.

spk_0 They can probably make up any punishment they want if they get the whole board of governors

spk_0 to vote for it, right?

spk_0 So maybe there's some other solution that I'm not thinking of.

spk_0 But in the CBA, their option is absolutely suck, right?

spk_0 They can take picks away from the clippers who are already a big market team with a

spk_0 brand new arena that's not good enough, and particularly we'll suck in the future because

spk_0 they don't have enough picks, right?

spk_0 So like, that's a bummer for everyone.

spk_0 They can find him seven and a half million dollars.

spk_0 And this time I'm not mispeaking.

spk_0 It's actually the pathetically small amount of money.

spk_0 What would you even do?

spk_0 What can you buy if I said I have more than five million, right?

spk_0 And everybody knows that won't hurt CBA, right?

spk_0 Or they can, they can, like, cancel his contract with Kauai, which might actually

spk_0 arguably help the clippers.

spk_0 So, I mean, all of these things just look like unsatisfying to us, the fans who want

spk_0 our pound of flesh here, right?

spk_0 Like this dude broke the rules and Adam doesn't really have a way to, you know, a middle

spk_0 ground that will work for everybody here.

spk_0 So, because we're all such sickos about the NBA, I was actually thinking about this on

spk_0 my downtime.

spk_0 Yeah, go ahead.

spk_0 You're forgetting about the perhaps the most, yeah, the racconian of punishments that

spk_0 you could inflict on Steve Baumer, because as you said, picks, we don't have any picks

spk_0 anyway.

spk_0 You can have them all.

spk_0 Money, I got more money than God.

spk_0 You can have that all.

spk_0 Suspension for up to one year, any team personnel found out willingly engaged in such

spk_0 violation.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 That is the red sandford Elizabeth, I'm coming home.

spk_0 If you say that to Steve Baumer, you got to stay away for a year, particularly depending

spk_0 on when that punishment is adjudicated, because if you do it before February, 2026, that means

spk_0 he misses the big party that he's throwing for the world.

spk_0 He's trying to show them how awesome his new house is.

spk_0 Didn't they already say they're not doing, they're not going to have the results of the

spk_0 investigation till after his big party, right?

spk_0 That was a report.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Okay.

spk_0 That's the reporting.

spk_0 I haven't said that.

spk_0 But that's, that is, I won't just wanted to include that in the bevy of punishment towards

spk_0 available, because that is actually the most damaging punishment to a Steve Baumer.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Two Steve Baumer.

spk_0 To someone watching on TV though, you don't even notice the difference, right?

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 No, actually.

spk_0 I mean, you know what you know, yeah, they're going to be like, where's my guy?

spk_0 You would never notice that his hands are constantly on the floor because he's got such long

spk_0 arms.

spk_0 You knew we could get like a mannequin like the, you know, the gang out that's outside

spk_0 of the used car dealership that's like, like, in that's Mark.

spk_0 So they need to really punish him.

spk_0 And frankly, they need to not piss him off too.

spk_0 Like it's impossible to square.

spk_0 Meanwhile, there's another problem here, which is he has 168, 58, 51, depending who you,

spk_0 how you Google it, um, billing.

spk_0 Spilling.

spk_0 Depending on one day it is.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Exactly.

spk_0 And so that's actually a problem because Adam Silver has to get some of that money, right?

spk_0 That's the fix they're both going to want here, right?

spk_0 The other owners will love that and Steve Baumer is willing to give that up by presumed.

spk_0 So when you say the other owners would love that, can you, can you explain how the other

spk_0 owners can enjoy Baumer's money?

spk_0 I mean, they do it a lot of time with revenue sharing, right?

spk_0 He plays luxury tax.

spk_0 I think about 400 million over the last four years.

spk_0 And that just essentially goes into the, the revenue sharing system, right?

spk_0 So he's one of the big, he's the headwaters, right, of, of the, the water that irrigates

spk_0 the little poor teams, right?

spk_0 And so I think there's no reasonable rational way they can just take 10 billion dollars or

spk_0 whatever would be amount that would make everybody delighted.

spk_0 But they are currently having these ongoing foot dragging about should they expand to Las

spk_0 Vegas in Seattle.

spk_0 And one of the big issues is they sort of feel like they could get a massive fee, right?

spk_0 With the Lakers being valued at 10 billion and they sold this at 6 billion, there are

spk_0 very greedy people in MBA who would like to make the expansion fee, something like that.

spk_0 But then there are others who are like, look, you're, a, who can pay that?

spk_0 Who's, you know, now we're back in the Larry Ellison conversation.

spk_0 But B, is that team just doomed when you get them, right?

spk_0 They have to get a stadium, they have to pay all this money, they have to do all these

spk_0 things.

spk_0 And, and I think that this might be like a key that fits the lock where Steve Balmer, who

spk_0 is from Seattle, has been the representative of Seattle in all sorts of talks on this

spk_0 matter, public and private.

spk_0 Liz, let's see, I'll raise this kid there.

spk_0 Love Seattle.

spk_0 Like, why don't we let him pay 8 billion dollars to become the owner of this Seattle supersonic

spk_0 a team that doesn't exist currently, but will in a few years.

spk_0 And it can look right now like Adam's being another super hard ass and he can kick his ass

spk_0 out of the league.

spk_0 We can do like the, the suspended him for a year and during the year he sells the team,

spk_0 right?

spk_0 So he's going to get, I don't know, 6, 7, 8 billion and then he's going to pay an absurdly

spk_0 high price for an expansion team in Seattle.

spk_0 So this is, this is essentially the Michael Jordan suspended for 1994 plans.

spk_0 Let's do that.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Yeah, bomb is a baseball.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 It is huge.

spk_0

spk_0 You can hit any outside pitch.

spk_0 Come on.

spk_0 So the funniest thing to me about this is that it's not locking Steve Balmer out of his

spk_0 house during the biggest party of the year.

spk_0 It's making him sell his house.

spk_0 Does he have to give up the into a donor?

spk_0 Does he still own that?

spk_0 And then the new owner would rent it from him.

spk_0 Well, let me put it a different way.

spk_0 There are going to be Seattle Super Sonics at some point.

spk_0 He wants that team, right?

spk_0 Like he's a fucking Seattle guy through and through.

spk_0 Like he doesn't want to be the clippers owner once there are super sonics.

spk_0 Like we're just going to get him there with a little bit of backroom dealing, you know?

spk_0 Can I, Henry, you wrote this in your piece that like when he came in, he was cautioned

spk_0 not to move the clippers to Seattle.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Why?

spk_0 Because he was just seen at that point he'd been in like the documentary.

spk_0 He was like a real spokesperson for like we got to get basketball in Seattle.

spk_0 And so Stern was like, why did the leaks say no?

spk_0 Why would you like caution against that?

spk_0 I mean, I don't know, but I would guess they were, I really thought they were just punishing

spk_0 Seattle because they voted not to bear fund, right?

spk_0 It's the warnings of all the cities, right?

spk_0 Like you taxpayer fund your stadium, right?

spk_0 And then they voted it down to sales.

spk_0 They're like, yeah, we got to go.

spk_0 They paid for the end of the stadium.

spk_0 Speaking of nooking, right?

spk_0 Yeah, totally.

spk_0 Totally.

spk_0 Like they knew Seattle that it came back and dropped another nook like, oh, see, bumper

spk_0 bought it.

spk_0 No, guess what?

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Second one.

spk_0 This is really interesting to me also because of the Cooper flag Mavericks now are owned

spk_0 by a casino gambling monster like family, they able since.

spk_0 And when they traded Luca, we were talking about it on this show is like, what if the end

spk_0 game is that they hold the franchise hostage with the Texas courts and if they don't get

spk_0 their gambling bills passed, then they're just going to pick up and move to Vegas.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 And people are like, why would the NBA ever allow someone to leave the Dallas market and

spk_0 move it to a tiny market in Vegas?

spk_0 And I said, uh, uh, uh, that would open up another team because they're already trying

spk_0 to expand into the Las Vegas reportedly.

spk_0 But then suddenly you've got the Dallas Mavericks are now open for business and the franchise

spk_0 fee that that would claim.

spk_0 Isn't that kind of a similar playbook that you're what you're describing is like, yes,

spk_0 if you're going to have a Seattle team anyway, let Bomber have it, let the Adelson's have

spk_0 it in Vegas.

spk_0 But then you got these new, these new franchises that are in huge markets and LA and

spk_0 Dallas that are for sale.

spk_0 That would be wild wild leave like that would be a huge payday for all the other owners.

spk_0 And this is why Adams job is so hard, right?

spk_0 Because he has to manage Miriam Adelson, who's tight with Donald Trump, right?

spk_0 Like they, he like apparently moved the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem because of her.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Right?

spk_0 Like, like, Adam's going to tell her what to do.

spk_0 Like this Las Vegas stands corporation is big and most of them are going to come from

spk_0 Macau, right?

spk_0 And like, I guess we're the playing the preseason.

spk_0 Yes, we're the playing.

spk_0 We're such, we're so focused on like, oh, there'd be one more like, she didn't give a

spk_0 fuck about all that.

spk_0 Right?

spk_0 Like, like, like, she's got bigger fish to fry than, you know, is this franchise valuation

spk_0 slightly higher here or there?

spk_0 Right?

spk_0 I think like she's going to get what she wants, right?

spk_0 Whether it's through Adam or through, you know, the, the, the friggin crazy president we

spk_0 have, etc.

spk_0 Right?

spk_0 I just think like, yeah, this is why Adam has to sort of do a lot of cajoling and people

spk_0 like Miriam Adelson, people don't have to like Adam.

spk_0 And then now and again, just like Davis turned it was a Glenn Taylor, right?

spk_0 Now and again, strategically, when you have to, you drop the hammer.

spk_0 But I don't think this game is generally about making everything fair or the rules or

spk_0 the fans, right?

spk_0 This game is about, you know, how do you make sure or see bombers?

spk_0 What, what number are we using now?

spk_0 158 billion doesn't end up with an NBA competitor, right?

spk_0 I would make sure that Maverick Carter's startup European league doesn't have 158 billion

spk_0 dollars behind it.

spk_0 And you got to kind of like, you got to keep them in the, in the sphere.

spk_0 Or you have to keep them under the blanket of the NBA, which is I think getting harder

spk_0 as the billionage get richer.

spk_0 So if we had to count who are the, the pocket votes for Adam right now,

spk_0 and we're going one franchise, one vote.

spk_0 So Steve bombers 158 billion does not count for more than the Vex, whatever he's worth.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Who would you say?

spk_0 So bomber Vivaque, who else?

spk_0 I mean, I would guess everyone has come in since Adam.

spk_0 So Mark Walter, you would say Mark Walter.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 I'm not going to get the two that you said to the two.

spk_0 I know for sure, right?

spk_0 It should be, it should be for sure.

spk_0 Yeah, it should be a, he got a pretty good deal, you know?

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Gabe Plotkin.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Charlotte.

spk_0 I would guess.

spk_0 Whoever the new guy is in Boston, the name escapes me.

spk_0 Mickey, Mickey's an Adam guy.

spk_0 Is he?

spk_0 I don't know.

spk_0 There's something going on with Genie and Adam.

spk_0 So they said they always get all like, they really like each other.

spk_0 I don't mean that like, I don't mean that like, you know, like, you know, I mean,

spk_0 Henry, have you, have you gotten any responses to this piece that make you think, oh, yeah,

spk_0 yeah, maybe that is, I mean, far fetched is one way to describe it in the sense of like,

spk_0 would they really actually do this?

spk_0 But as you kind of marinate on this story, you're like, I mean, I could see

spk_0 that Steve bomber secretly would want to be the winner of the Sonic's sweepstakes.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 And this could be an avenue to get there.

spk_0 But man,

spk_0 finding $8 billion is an amazing way to frame this because it seems like Adam would be

spk_0 coming down hard on Steve bomber if he had to pay a huge franchise fee for the

spk_0 sound X. But at the same time, he's happy and everyone else kind of feels like they

spk_0 got a pound of flesh by getting him out of the clippers.

spk_0 I think I honestly think just from not from my like, understanding of the world,

spk_0 but just some of my understanding of the NBA and his politics, I think it works, right?

spk_0 I think it gives enough to the fans and enough to the clippers and enough to the league,

spk_0 you know, enough to the billionaires and have to see at all that like everyone would be like,

spk_0 yeah, fair enough, right?

spk_0 I don't think it'll happen though because it just looks so strange when he rearrives.

spk_0 Right?

spk_0 Like, it just looks like, it just looks like another backroom deal, which is what he got in trouble

spk_0 for the first time.

spk_0 Right?

spk_0 Like, oh, did Steve bomber overpay for what he really wanted the whole time?

spk_0 Like outside of the rules, I'm worried about that.

spk_0 That said, I don't think that any of the things we've really considered, like, you know,

spk_0 if they find them, his stupid seven half million and take some picks and void

spk_0 spending for a year, like, I think it looks such a slap on the wrist, right?

spk_0 It just looks super weak.

spk_0 So to me, something like conventional is going to happen here.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 It's, you know, the funny thing is, in essence, what we're talking about is a sign in trade of franchises.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 And I was going to say, that sounds weird, but that thought about it.

spk_0 They did a three way trade in baseball, right?

spk_0 Where the owners of the X-Pose got the Marlins, the owners of the Redsaw of the,

spk_0 of the Marlins got the Redsaw or however, however it was, where John Henry ended up owning the Redsawks

spk_0 and David Samson's father in law ended up owning the, the Marlins.

spk_0 And the X-Pose moved to Washington.

spk_0 That was a trade like those, those organizations were owned by different people.

spk_0 And so the more I kind of kick it around in my head, I don't know, I don't know as much as a function of a tool of punishment.

spk_0 But I could definitely see a scenario where it's like, okay, clippers, okay, LA, you get clippers.

spk_0 And it ain't going to be these clippers though.

spk_0 So in that sense, if you're Steve Balmer, it's not just, it's not just the, you know, the owner,

spk_0 I'm not the only one who's moving.

spk_0 It's Lauren's Frank.

spk_0 It's Ty Lou.

spk_0 It's everyone else's.

spk_0 Well, the new way, we, yeah, the new owner of the clippers.

spk_0 You get the building, which is, which is huge.

spk_0 You get the brand, whatever that's worth.

spk_0 And whatever partnership deals, I don't know.

spk_0 So much of the organization has been run in a way that only makes sense if you're worth $160 billion.

spk_0 I don't know if the problem is moving the franchise is they don't get to charge an expansion fee.

spk_0 Yes, they do.

spk_0 Even if you move the whole team,

spk_0 I think you're not moving the franchise.

spk_0 You're moving the personnel.

spk_0 It's in the same way that Pelican's hornets happened.

spk_0 Right?

spk_0 It's like, no, it's a new team.

spk_0 It is an expansion team.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 It's just the, the only part you get is the name.

spk_0 And all the people, they're coming with me because this guy no longer plays for the clippers.

spk_0 He plays for the Sonic's now.

spk_0 But wait, in this scenario, they're adding two teams, right?

spk_0 And then they're getting expansion fee from Seattle, from Vegas,

spk_0 and from the new clippers team, which needs a whole new team.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 We're not from Seattle and Vegas, right?

spk_0 It would be they're relocating to Seattle and Vegas,

spk_0 but they're paying franchise fees for the new L.A. team and the new Dallas team.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 Because the franchise,

spk_0 the real cheating doesn't get you a billion.

spk_0 You sound sad?

spk_0 No, but by the way, there's a relocation fee as well.

spk_0 Okay.

spk_0

spk_0 That's not it.

spk_0 But there's a there's a relocation fee.

spk_0 But like the, now it's, we talked about my, oh, this makes sense because

spk_0 I can charge higher expansion fees for L.A. and Dallas.

spk_0 And I can Vegas in Seattle, right?

spk_0 Especially if it's L.A.

spk_0 for Seattle, obviously, if it's Seattle for Seattle for Dallas, different story.

spk_0 But we're talking L.A.

spk_0 for Seattle, bigger fee in L.A.

spk_0 than it is for Seattle.

spk_0 And then Vegas for Dallas, definitely bigger fee in Dallas than would be in Vegas.

spk_0 Everyone actually wins that way.

spk_0 Although that's why I say you have to kind of divorce it from the punishment

spk_0 of the bomber because as a, as a tool of punishing him.

spk_0 Yeah, not so much.

spk_0 It reminds me of the Joe Smith deal is like, Hey, we're, we can't put this in writing.

spk_0 But in a couple years, you will win the Seattle Super Sonic's team.

spk_0 If you just kind of go quietly on this bumper steal and it's like,

spk_0 a backroom deal for his roster, the summer.

spk_0 Yeah, you know, they're like, we got, we got you, we got you all hoover.

spk_0 Just like, like, yeah, we're used to this in the NBA, right?

spk_0 Like it happens all the time.

spk_0 Like, yeah.

spk_0 So let's get back to the means question.

spk_0 What would David Stern do?

spk_0 So in this instance, what would David Stern do if he watches Pablo's five part

spk_0 investigative series?

spk_0 What does David Stern do?

spk_0 He just beats a crap out of Pablo.

spk_0 And he had to be smile the whole time.

spk_0 But I think I mean, look, journalists who?

spk_0

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 I mean, the model is the referee gambling, right?

spk_0 Like, you know, he just kind of just beat up everyone who said that anything

spk_0 bad that happened in the game has been fixed.

spk_0 He just beat them all up.

spk_0 And eventually, like,

spk_0 but there was a scapegoat in Donnie.

spk_0 He made him public enemy number one.

spk_0 And he, he knew that guy.

spk_0 And they fully knew the full nuke is he fixed games.

spk_0 And they got FBI everyone to go along with the idea that he didn't fix games,

spk_0 which is crazy.

spk_0 But that would have been a legal exposure for the NBA.

spk_0 So they stopped just short of that, right?

spk_0 They just threaded this needle of like, he was a gambling referee who like needs to be gone

spk_0 and blamed for everything.

spk_0 But he somehow had some magical ethic or he wouldn't ever use his whistle

spk_0 to help his bets like whatever.

spk_0 Davis turn.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 But I think he would just he just believes in the ability of his own mouth to just bully

spk_0 the public and thinking that someone repulsed in charge, right?

spk_0 And I think that would be, you know, and then look,

spk_0 the worst case scenario here is that there's no villain, right?

spk_0 There's no one to blame, which they might have, you know, talk about insufficient

spk_0 oversight or mistakes were made kind of crap, right?

spk_0 Which is probably everyone's first choice over at Woktel,

spk_0 Lipton, right?

spk_0 Just to have some kind of, you know, second choice would be acceptable villains, right?

spk_0 The acceptable villains are Uncle Dennis and Joe Sanber.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Right?

spk_0 And what I'm wondering is, is there a way when I saw how Ramona, when it

spk_0 Kauai, I was like, wait, is there a way to hang this on Kauai?

spk_0 Like, is there a way that we can make it let the NBA incredibly make it look

spk_0 like Uncle Dennis and Joe Sanberg and Kauai conspired and the victim is D Balmer?

spk_0 Well, I do think that all of the thrown out punishments are very light on Kauai.

spk_0 Basically, the worst thing that could happen to him is his contract.

spk_0 It's voided and you get suspended for a year, Max and and and and 350 grand.

spk_0 Oh, no.

spk_0 It's a lot of trees planning.

spk_0 Oh, no.

spk_0 So I do think that regardless of what happens to Balmer, if Kauai is out of the league

spk_0 for, let's say a year and then is able to renegotiate a new contract on an open market,

spk_0 I don't think that's much of a loss for Kauai.

spk_0 How old does he know?

spk_0 34.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Yeah, I don't think his new contract is these are 72, but he's 34.

spk_0 I'm not going to pay him very much this next contract.

spk_0 Somebody will though, right?

spk_0 You know, I thought about this maze.

spk_0 Like if he was, if his contract was voided, what kind of market would Kauai let it have?

spk_0 And there I say he'd have a pretty robust market.

spk_0 I come up with you to make.

spk_0 I think you would get, I think you would get $40, $50 million a year.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Not long.

spk_0 But one year to year.

spk_0

spk_0 So that was one of the things that I wrote about when the story broke was like, what if they

spk_0 void his contract now?

spk_0 And then all these teams that have no cap space are like, we would like Kauai letter to join

spk_0 our title chase.

spk_0 And the warriors get him for the mini, the mini tax, the mini mid level.

spk_0 And like the warriors do it again with Kevin Durant.

spk_0 They get, they get Kauai at a sharp discount because of a weird loophole and or the thunder

spk_0 or like, yeah, we've had a, their full tax player tax bearer mid level available.

spk_0 Come on down and join our, join our team.

spk_0 Not that the thunder would do it.

spk_0 But I mean, if Kauai letter was a free agent right now, that would be Tom.

spk_0 Crazy.

spk_0 You didn't, you didn't even describe the biggest nightmare scenario of them all.

spk_0 The Lakers just go across the hallway.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 But I think I look like I got a big presentation once from a expected MBA executive,

spk_0 but like LeBron's best move is to like take minimums and just go join young teams every

spk_0 year and like have low expectations and if they win a title like his off court earnings,

spk_0 we'll more than make up the difference.

spk_0 And it's just, and he said he's like, you know, on this kind of sad older team that

spk_0 doesn't really come that close.

spk_0 And I think that what we learned from that though is LeBron enjoys his control, right?

spk_0 He doesn't want to go to some franchise with his new GM and a new coach,

spk_0 fucking yelling at him, right?

spk_0 And like, and then that quote where like the clippers were like,

spk_0 Kauai's the son and Uncle Dennis is the moon, right?

spk_0 Like, I don't think Kauai's going to go join as some teams like six man or whatever, right?

spk_0 I think he's going to he controls the clippers, right?

spk_0 With all the goodies like he's going to go somewhere where we can get that, right?

spk_0 Or I'll just sit at home and.

spk_0 Well, that's that, well, that's the one I don't know if that's still available to him.

spk_0 Yeah, because perhaps the most damning thing out of all of this has been the,

spk_0 the extent to which he is high maintenance in terms of I don't want to do anything.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Right?

spk_0 And that if you look around for all the guys that have, you know, let's take LeBron,

spk_0 for example, is that it?

spk_0 But he does all of the things that we require superstars in terms of shaking hands and kissing babies

spk_0 and being the face and all that.

spk_0 So this is someone who wants all of that compensation and does not want to do any of that part of it.

spk_0 I think this is the end at the same time.

spk_0 Also, it'd be one thing to be that way while being available on the court winning games.

spk_0 But with the injury history, it makes it completely untenable.

spk_0 I think he is in a situation where he's still can get compensated handsomely to pay basketball.

spk_0 But the idea of him controlling another franchise.

spk_0 I mean, hell, there was a report was that the Ramona and Shamsco wrote a couple of weeks ago,

spk_0 say like his tenure as a clipper in that regard is coming to a close back.

spk_0 Maybe not his tenure.

spk_0 Yeah, it's back.

spk_0 Yeah, maybe not as tenure as a clipper, right?

spk_0 A tenure as a clipper in that light as kissing is over.

spk_0 It's over.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 So, okay, they ran the money train off the rail basically.

spk_0 Yeah, yeah, yeah, too greedy.

spk_0 This is like that.

spk_0 What's like a pick is get must thing like pick is get faster.

spk_0 A slaughter or whatever.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0

spk_0 Whoopsie.

spk_0 The Joe Smith scandal.

spk_0 David's are an overstepped his bounds.

spk_0 Like Henry, you described earlier is he went over the line and Billy Hunter was pissed.

spk_0 And his agent Dan Fagan was pissed because they pulled his bird rights.

spk_0 And it went into arbitration that they couldn't do that.

spk_0 They're like, wait a minute.

spk_0 You took Joe Smith's bird rights from him.

spk_0 Where in the CBA does it say you could do that?

spk_0 And David's arm was like, oh, I'm sorry.

spk_0 We'll go see you in court in arbitration with our way.

spk_0

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 And he got his arbitration judge, his lawyer.

spk_0 I think his name was Kenneth Dam, University of Chicago professor who ruled in the NBA's favor and said,

spk_0 yeah, sorry, Joe, you're going to lose your bird rights too.

spk_0 So you can't resign with the Minnesota Timberwolves and still get your huge payment.

spk_0 Not only are you going to be a free agent and your contract is no one void.

spk_0 Also, your previous contracts are for all intents and purposes void as well.

spk_0 So you're not able to get your bird rights.

spk_0 And Dan Fagan and all the players union, they were up in arms about this that he went way beyond what was allowed in the CBA.

spk_0 And Dave, so it was like, great.

spk_0 Go for it.

spk_0 Like see, see where that gets you in the same way is Adam Silver going to be able to drop a stronger hammer than what's in the CBA now that we're like saying,

spk_0 oh, it's five picks.

spk_0 Oh, it's only seven and a half million.

spk_0 Henry, do you see that like if David's durma running this, he would have crossed that boundary and found a way to get his pound of flesh even beyond the CBA?

spk_0 I mean, I think what you like a little anecdote from part of my answer, which is I visited the city of San Antonio years ago when David Robinson just opened the car for Academy.

spk_0 And I wanted to go visit it and had like a free hour and there happened to be a cop who pulled up where I was by my mental car.

spk_0 And I'm like, hey, he told me how to get to wherever he's a goal.

spk_0 What are you doing over there?

spk_0 I'm like, I'm going to see this car.

spk_0 I'm like, hop in.

spk_0 I'll take you.

spk_0 It was very dangerous over there.

spk_0 I was like, have my doubts that super dangerous over there.

spk_0 But so this guy drove, he was the highest ranking on duty officer in San Antonio.

spk_0 He told me a dozen times and we spent a few hours driving in San Antonio.

spk_0 He's like, have you seen the Alamo when I was like, not really?

spk_0 And he's like, okay.

spk_0 So we drove the car up onto like where the tourists are inspecting the Alamo.

spk_0 And I was like, are we allowed to do this?

spk_0 And his answer was, who's going to stop us?

spk_0 And this is this was an enlightening moment for me.

spk_0 I just like how power works.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 He's literally the highest ranking on duty police officer in San Antonio.

spk_0 Like, there's literally you can't call anyone to stop him.

spk_0 It's not that he's allowed to is that there's no mechanism to stop him.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 And so that's what I think about like the league office and the billionaires, right?

spk_0 Is they can do the fuck they want, Tom?

spk_0 Like literally what's Congress going to come in?

spk_0 Like, you know what I mean?

spk_0 Like Dan Fakens and the arbitrator.

spk_0 Like they don't give a fuck, right?

spk_0 Like worst case scenario they're going to pay a little extra money, right?

spk_0 Like, like, I got, yeah, so hold it off to let Joe Smith get his bird rights.

spk_0 It gets just not that bad, right?

spk_0 So to me, like they just get to dream up whatever they want to do.

spk_0 This team there, you know, this arbitration, this fee, this, whatever.

spk_0 And then 75% likelihood they'll get what they want or 20% they get a little slap on the risk of somebody.

spk_0 But it's unclear who would even enforce anything on Adam Silver here, right?

spk_0 I think he needs to do whatever he wants.

spk_0 Well, provided that he has the backing.

spk_0 Yes, he's got to have his tribe.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 And that goes back to why I was asking how many in the pocket?

spk_0 Yeah, they were just saying.

spk_0 But it changes that dynamic.

spk_0 The thing with David was that who was going, literally who was going to stop him?

spk_0 You know, the commissioner on paper works for the owners.

spk_0 Everyone knew David was the boss, right?

spk_0 And he ran that shit.

spk_0 And so even if he had guys who didn't like him, none of them spoke up.

spk_0 I just don't know.

spk_0 This is exactly the critical problem that like the right solution has to solve.

spk_0 And this is why I'm into this $8 billion.

spk_0 I'm saying right, Adam's going to go to these owners and say, hey, guys, like,

spk_0 I know how we can keep Steve Belmer happy.

spk_0 Have like the biggest market that's not in the NBA, join the NBA.

spk_0 And every one of you gets, I forget what the math is, but hundreds of millions of dollars, right?

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 Like that's a pretty easy conversation.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 Like there might be problems elsewhere than they know it says, but not in getting other owners on board.

spk_0 Well, I mean, that's the other part of this expansion.

spk_0 The reason why expansion in and of itself has been a chore that doesn't seem to get off the,

spk_0 the agenda sheet in these board of government meetings is because they don't want to put this pie.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 They don't want the, they want a 30.

spk_0 It's not a 30 second.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 And so that's the part where I'm like,

spk_0 I even if even with all of that, I still don't think that's enough money in the long term to make,

spk_0 make up for the long term, smaller slice that they're getting, right?

spk_0 The $8 billion expansion fee.

spk_0 That's 16 because you're beginning two teams to two teams, right?

spk_0 So, but this, that second team isn't part of this.

spk_0 No, but you said the price high, right?

spk_0 Now you only got to find one creepy Larry Ellison, right?

spk_0 And so just much easier to find two.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 But it, it, it, you're still talking about what's that?

spk_0 So 16 times 30 is $480 billion.

spk_0 I'm going to be 16 to the 30.

spk_0 The divide by 30 is roughly half.

spk_0 So call it 500 million.

spk_0 500 million dollars.

spk_0 But we have a TV deal that pays out how much in,

spk_0 I'd put you in the math in the piece.

spk_0 It's a, it's a, it's about 200 million per team that they,

spk_0 or 150 million, I think that they lose over the life of this TV deal when they shrink the

spk_0 pie out of it.

spk_0 So I said, yeah.

spk_0 I guess it's, it's a lot, man.

spk_0 I think they're, like I'm not sure how, I think expansion is a thing that

spk_0 the league uses just as a tool to get things that they want.

spk_0 And the same way Dave, after you should do this with the age limit and then all these other

spk_0 things that are like, it's, they're not changing.

spk_0 None of this should just going to change.

spk_0 It's just something to use when I, oh, I really want this.

spk_0 Well, right?

spk_0 See, I don't see at all.

spk_0 I think that the NBA has a problem when there's untold billions outside the league that

spk_0 want in because if it doesn't come to them, it's going to go to someone else.

spk_0 And that's ultimately a competitive problem for them, right?

spk_0 And so they just got to get, I think right now the problem is, it's just a pricing problem.

spk_0 Like you're right, like, you know, the size of the pie up costs X.

spk_0 And so they're, they're this period, this interlude to me is merely like, no, we're serious.

spk_0 Like you really have to come up with an extraordinary number to wow us.

spk_0 The other, the other part about this and, and this is alleviated a little bit by our whole,

spk_0 the Adelson's want to move to Vegas anyway thing.

spk_0 I've, I've did the logical math a million times.

spk_0 Absent it being someone with a gaming interest in laws Vegas.

spk_0 No one is going to put a franchise in Vegas.

spk_0 It does not make any economic sense.

spk_0 You're, you, you in order to do this right, you have to have a building

spk_0 that the league has already said T-Mobile not good enough, right?

spk_0 Not, not modern enough, right?

spk_0 And even then you still be a tenant.

spk_0 So you need to own your own building, your own, your own building.

spk_0 You have to have upwards of 253,00 nights booked with playoffs at best.

spk_0 You're getting about 60 days.

spk_0 So that you got another 200 plus to fill

spk_0 which most cities do with the Taylor Swift concert and the rodeo and Disney on ice and all that

spk_0 because what? There's only one, maybe two of these buildings in town.

spk_0 But in Vegas, it is the most saturated venue, market in the nation in terms of per capita.

spk_0 All these things, you got T-Mobile, you got Thomas and Mac, you got Aledin coming in, you got

spk_0 MGM, you've got the sphere, you got all of these places.

spk_0 So now you're fighting in the most competitive market to book acts so that you can pay to keep

spk_0 the lights on the rest of the year. What owner chooses to enter that, for, by the way, not a huge

spk_0 market in terms of the number of of people there, right? It's not like the NFL. We're like every

spk_0 week. We have different people flying in from Oakland or whatever to go to these rater games.

spk_0 These are games during the week, 44 of them at the minimum.

spk_0 The more you start to dig into the economics of how this thing works,

spk_0 the more you're like, oh, it could never work. Unless I already have gaming there.

spk_0 And I know my building is attached to, so I funneled them right there like, right,

spk_0 this way, okay, we done with the game. All right. Did a slot machines or to the tables or whatever.

spk_0 The Dan Gilbert and Cleveland. The Dan Gilbert and Cleveland. That's the only way that works in

spk_0 that market, which is why the Mavericks being the only thing, or I guess, to a lesser extent,

spk_0 to open for Tito, could build an arena in downtown Las Vegas and move the rockets.

spk_0 Either one of those markets are pretty strong as is. I don't know if that would be enough of a

spk_0 of an incentive to go down that path. Hey, it's a good point. I mean, and to add to it,

spk_0 I'm pretty sure that that Oakview Group arena, which is NBA ready. I don't know when it's going

spk_0 to be done being built, but Irving Azoff is like the kingpin of book and music acts in America,

spk_0 is a partner in that arena. So if you're opening a competing arena, you're not going to get a single one

spk_0 of the bazillion top acts that he controls. Not only that, you know who he's very, very buddy,

spk_0 buddy with. I think you're going to say Steve Bummer. Nope. It was Jim Dolan, Jim Dolan, right?

spk_0 Jim Dolan is that's that's his man, 100 grand right there. So you're fighting two venues at that

spk_0 point. Right, right. But do you remember that's the it was a Jim Dolan email with a referred to

spk_0 Steve Bummer's balls, right? With Irving Azoff. You know what I'm talking about with

spk_0 DeXy. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Great moment in the media. Yep. Okay. I was looking into the

spk_0 Joe Smith articles and just kind of doing a deep dive into that and reading, you know, Mitch

spk_0 Lawrence and Chris Sheridan and Steve Ashburn or all Mark Heisler all writing about this. It

spk_0 was so much fun. Like it was so much fun to read all the press buildings from the Joe Smith deal.

spk_0 But there was a quote from Jerry Sloan. Then the Utah Jazz coach who said, I have a feeling that

spk_0 the NBA knows what's going on in terms of capture convention with Joe Smith. But who will they

spk_0 punish first? New York or Minnesota? New York or Utah? His point being he felt like they're going

spk_0 after Glen Taylor and Minnesota because it's a sacrificial lamb. It's a small market team. And of

spk_0 course, they're going to make an example out of Glen Taylor. But when James Dolan and the Nix

spk_0 are doing some of the same stuff, are they really going to come after him? And that Jerry Sloan

spk_0 comment back in 2000. It really is pointing it today because David Stern never really had a

spk_0 Steve Balmer in the NBA, right? Is it fair to say, Henry, that like in terms of wealth and how

spk_0 much money he represents to the NBA that it's not no longer James Dolan in New York. We're thinking

spk_0 about market size in that comment. But like making an example out of Steve Balmer, this is it like

spk_0 the Charlotte Hornets are getting caught. This is Steve Balmer's getting caught. And this is a

spk_0 totally different game. I definitely think Stern had like five or six teams who's asked as he

spk_0 kissed, right? And like if you wrote something mean about Prokerov, Stern was mad. And if you're

spk_0 something nice, like he Stern hugged me. I'm embarrassed about like I wrote a pretty like I went

spk_0 through all the articles and Prokerov was branding to the NBA of like his business history in

spk_0 Russia. And he wrote about how he like slept in the mine and learned about the nickel business

spk_0 and blah blah blah. You know, I just drank the Kool-Aid. Robbed a bunch of stuff. I made up for it

spk_0 later. But in real time, wrote that and and freaking then I went to a board of governors,

spk_0 meaning David Stern was like, I really thought that was like, you know, he stops with like,

spk_0 you know, like like a head of state. Right? He stops and I'm in line reports. He's like,

spk_0 because that was extraordinary piece of journalism. Like, you know, great work. I'll want it.

spk_0 Gave me the total willies because I was like, no, I know I was full of shit, right? Because like,

spk_0 I'm getting like the the blessing of the building. He even got Henry to bite. That's that's a

spk_0 thing was later. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so yeah. But he definitely kind of rode heard first

spk_0 of his people, right? In a way that I'm silver probably has to for bomber here. And in the case of

spk_0 bomber, it's probably mostly because of just the 156 billion. But it couldn't be just also because of,

spk_0 you know, his arms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's a nice guy. Yeah. He's a nice guy.

spk_0 Well, I I remember. You guys might know this better than I do. You do for sure. Horus Grant was

spk_0 signed with the magic after the bulls. And it was also Cap circumventy. And Chris,

spk_0 no, is Juwan Howard also was in a. So the Juwan Howard one was this. The reason why we have

spk_0 cap holes is because of the Juwan Howard because the heat were scheduled to go under the cap,

spk_0 right? They they we had a bunch of caps face in 96. And so they're like, Hey,

spk_0 Zo, how much is going to keep you just okay? This one. All right. Just stay quiet. They went out.

spk_0 They went under the cap, signed Juwan Howard and they came back saying, Oh, we have Zo's bird rights.

spk_0 So how does 100 million sounds though? Zo said sounds good to me. And the legal like,

spk_0 that's not how this is supposed to work. Bird rights is supposed to help you keep your own

spk_0 player because you're over the cap. Not because you went over the cap this same summer.

spk_0 After you signed someone else. And that's why they avoided Juwan Howard sent them back to

spk_0 Washington Orlando and Horus Grant. I don't remember that one. Henry, do you remember

spk_0 what happened with Horus Grant? I don't remember that there was a hubbub. But I don't remember

spk_0 the details of it. There was a Scotty Pippin one to sign and trade with Houston. Houston

spk_0 that at, not Adam, David Stern had to like, they had to redo the CBA a little bit through a tweak

spk_0 about sign and trade rules because that seemed like a circumvention of the rules.

spk_0 So I guess it raises the point is like, does, if Adam Silver lets the Clipper slide here,

spk_0 will the next team, if they aren't Steve Balmer and caught in something like this,

spk_0 they'll drop the proverbial hammer. Like, is that, is that where they won't go after Steve Balmer.

spk_0 But if the Memphis Grizzlies do something like this, yeah, we're going to come back from the dead

spk_0 and just beat up Adam Silver, right? Like that's, it would look so terrible if it was the Grizzlies.

spk_0 Oh, dude, I just looked it up. The Horus Grant thing. Okay. It's basically the Danny Manning thing,

spk_0 which is the difference with, okay, this is really fucking nerd talk.

spk_0 Contrary to so, Horus Grant signed a six-year-old year with Orlando that had a player option

spk_0 after like the first year. And the idea was he would opt out because back then,

spk_0 all you needed was one year with the team to get full bird rights. And so he would opt out of

spk_0 that first year and then sign a completely brand new deal with bird rights at a much elevated number.

spk_0 Danny Manning, which I believe happened the following offseason, what the suns did was they

spk_0 signed him to a one-year deal. And then he got the full bird rights and then they paid him all the

spk_0 money. So that was how they got around the capture commission of Horus Grant, which was,

spk_0 um, the, what do you call it? Like I said, the one six-year deal, but a player option literally after

spk_0 year one. And the league said it was capture convention. It went to court and then a judge ruled

spk_0 as the clause was illegal stating it was, in fact, circumvention. So then Grant eventually revised

spk_0 the contract and he signed by less money and had an escape clause after two years instead of one

spk_0 year. Yeah. I'm like, God, David must have had him. Well, I think it seems like, you know,

spk_0 like the agent who makes that handshake deal in the one in both of those examples he just gave,

spk_0 right? Is an agent who deals with 29 other teams every day, right? And so like everybody kind of

spk_0 knows this is happening. And so I feel like, you know, so that to the, to plenty of front offices

spk_0 that I've talked to over my career, like they feel like the NBA just makes up the rules as they go,

spk_0 right? Absolutely do. Yeah. Well, so the 1998 CBA, I never forgot. So my first job in basketball

spk_0 operations was with the next working for a guy called Frank Murphy. Frank Murphy was the first person

spk_0 ever called a capologist like on pay way, right? So the 19 he said the 1998 CBA. He told me it was

spk_0 like, this was all David's fucking revenge on all the loop holes and all the shit that he used to do.

spk_0 So David Falk was the one that was all those guys that he got coming out of college.

spk_0 They would sign these massive deals and they all had opt-outs after year two because he knew

spk_0 at that point, whatever we were worth before we can turn it up and we'll come back and be worth

spk_0 so much more. So David Falk had that going. The nicks had the balloon payment. So it's like,

spk_0 we only have this much cap space. So we'll pay Charles Oakley $2 million, $2.5 million, $15.8 million

spk_0 so they did all of everyone was like wild west of how you could structure these deals

spk_0 in order to avoid this stuff. Again, bird rights is after a year, sign a guy for a year.

spk_0 In Quink, we're going to take care of you afterward. And so, and then obviously the peace

spk_0 to let us as strong as was Kevin Garnett $126 million over however many years. And everyone was like,

spk_0 okay, this shit is out of control. And so David's revenge was, we're going to know exactly how much

spk_0 you can make. We're going to limit it. We're going to end all these loop holes are done. The raises,

spk_0 the obviously the the rookie scale, which was a response to Glenn Roberts and $68 million deal

spk_0 coming out of how they even played a single game. That was the 95 CBA that also came after a lockout.

spk_0 People forget there was a lockout 95, but that is old after like a couple of months, but they got

spk_0 the rookie scale out of that. But then 98 was like full Davis revenge. We're going to close all

spk_0 these loop holes. Everything is going to be paid by numbers in terms of what you can offer, how much

spk_0 you can offer, how much the raises can be, how much the decreases can be all of that. And it all stems

spk_0 from this from the feeling that teams are taking control or whatever are taking advantage. And

spk_0 the NBA's responses will do whatever the fuck we want basically. Yeah. Yeah. And actually I talked

spk_0 to like yesterday, I had a very interesting take where he was like the second apron is almost

spk_0 the hard cap the owners have always wanted, right? It's the hardest cap the league has ever had.

spk_0 And this instance, this moment with Balmer and Kwa is Adam's chance to make it a hard cap,

spk_0 right? To just say, look, we're serious about like you don't spend over this, right? And if he

spk_0 sends a strong message here to this owner with this team and that player, then it might really be

spk_0 a giant win for the blinners. I wish I had my glasses so I could say, well, actually.

spk_0 The hard cap they always dreamed of is the first apron when you use non-tax spare tools.

spk_0 Not tax-wear middle-level exceptions, sign and trade all that stuff triggers their heart and

spk_0 actual real life hard cap at the first apron. That was their dream right there. The second apron

spk_0 technically is not a hard I mean, you can you can go as far past second apron as you want. It's

spk_0 just the idea is like this becomes worse and worse for your health. It's almost like the

spk_0 difference team. No smoking versus smoke all you want, but like understand that cancer treatment

spk_0 is around the way. Yeah, it's like a fencing. It's like, you know, like are these livestocks

spk_0 fenced in? It's like, well, do they get out? Right? And to me, like this is where the second

spk_0 apron is like, well, not many of them are getting out anymore, right? Like we got this beer here

spk_0 in there, but like it's starting to kind of coalesce that like just mostly because of these trade

spk_0 restrictions, right? Like you get stuck with a Kevin Durant and no way you want to mean like,

spk_0 ah, you know, like that's kind of an unthinkable thing. But now they're like, oh, when they wrote

spk_0 this several years ago, they actually meant that it would be putting handcuffs on us in the way

spk_0 that we don't enjoy. It's like, yeah, man, like everybody read that years ago. I don't know why it

spk_0 took you guys so long to read it, but here we are. You mentioned cigarettes smoking and all that.

spk_0 So we're going to talk about health real quick. Ballistic your book, Henry. Don't smoke.

spk_0 Don't smoke. Also work on those hips. If you are going to smoke, make sure you're walking and

spk_0 doing some exercises to open up those hips. You got, um, you got this book here that, um,

spk_0 it's brilliant. And it will rethink the way that you know, I'm not paying Tom. You guys, he just

spk_0 talks like this about me. It's very nice of him. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's not a competition.

spk_0 You don't have to all weigh in about how great I am. No, I have, we have a, I have something in my

spk_0 drawer, just like, just like in the Joe Smith deal that, um, a background deal. Yeah, you guys don't know

spk_0 that. Uh, so we also during the media day, this week, media week, we've got all sorts of injuries

spk_0 that Jason kid is saying the reports are the bad reporting that Kyrie Irvings ahead of schedule

spk_0 whoever said that's a, you know, that's bad reporting. And it turns out it's Nico Harrison who

spk_0 said that Kyrie Irving was ahead of schedule this summer. Guys, uh, there's, there's West Edens who

spk_0 is talking about how there's a real opening at the top of the, the Eastern conference. And

spk_0 we're making it on as happy and, uh, you know, with the Achilles tears of Tyrie's Hall of

spk_0 Burton and Jason Tatum, there's a real opening at the top. Meanwhile, Damien Lillard also had that.

spk_0 And it's a reason why you had to eat that contract in order to sign Miles Turner. There's a lot of

spk_0 injury talk about players. I had a schedule behind schedule and it's really shaping the NBA.

spk_0 And the team that I do the, the broadcast for the blazer's just found out that Scoot Henderson is hurt

spk_0 toward his hamstring. He's going to be out for a while. So you have a book to promote. What have

spk_0 you learned in all your research in writing this book that informs how we view media day and all

spk_0 these teams trying to adjust expectations this for this upcoming season. And what's really happening

spk_0 behind the scenes with the player bodies? I mean, it's really driving me crazy is I've spent

spk_0 enough time with Marcus Elliott who you know, well, Tom and who's life mission is to sniff out

spk_0 injury risk before the crisis, right? What does it look like? How, how is Scoot moving on his

spk_0 workout videos that we can all watch, um, which I've watched a fair amount of because I'm a

spk_0 laser fan, um, you know, working out this summer. Is there something in that that would say,

spk_0 hey, Scoot, take these today or don't move, do this move because you had elevated risk for a hamstring

spk_0 tear, right? And that's the holy grail of this, right? And in some injuries, the models are

spk_0 pretty tight now, right? With ACL prevention, like you could, like I think if Fred Benvlite had been

spk_0 at P3 all summer, he would have an intact ACL right now, right? I believe that.

spk_0 The P3 is Marcus Elliott's, right? It is my lab in Santa Barbara where they do like super detailed

spk_0 movement assessments by the million data points assessment and then they have more than a thousand

spk_0 NBA players in database so they can actually compare how they have a two year retropec study,

spk_0 retrospective study, hundreds of NBA players and everybody at Torna ACL, they go back and look and

spk_0 say, how does that person move? And 100% of the players in that particular study had this particular

spk_0 habit of landing on the outside of their foot and rolling to the inside. And a giant percentage of

spk_0 had a femur that rotates as they squat. And so those are things you can assess every day of the year

spk_0 if you want to, right? Did FVV land on the outside of his foot? I don't know, but it seems pretty

spk_0 likely and like, can you train yourself? You're out of that? Yes, you absolutely can, right? So I

spk_0 was doing some of that training myself this morning. So like this is the kind of stuff that like

spk_0 it's not the same knowledge that most trainers have. It's not the kind of stuff that like when

spk_0 this book comes out, the trainers are like, great, I'm going to change my whole profession. Like,

spk_0 that's not really what they want to do, right? They don't want nerves with a million data points to

spk_0 be making health decisions, but it's kind of nevertheless a better peaking to how humans move.

spk_0 And so in Scoots case, these hamstring tears are coming in a very limited set of circumstances.

spk_0 When Marcus was at Harvard Medical School, the Patriots reached out because he'd done a study of like

spk_0 hamstring tears in Herdlers and in Bert Zahrens, who's like a very big deal doctor in Boston. He's

spk_0 the US Olympic team doctor and the Celtics and the Patriots at the time. And he reached out to

spk_0 Marcus and said, you know, what can we do to get the Patriots hamstring injuries down? They'd

spk_0 had 23, including Terry Glenn, their star receiver to the year before. And so they started doing this

spk_0 before they had the big movement assessments. The Marcus started taking like every available factor.

spk_0 The temperature in the arena, the position, the time of year, you know, every position in the field

spk_0 to see if there were trends in who had hamstring injuries. And the answers are totally

spk_0 were trends. So it's people who run full speed. So the special teams defensive backs, cornerbacks,

spk_0 and then there's some particular factors in how they move. So one of them is some people,

spk_0 when they sprint full speed, they'll have like good form, which is a complicated thing to say,

spk_0 just trust me for like five, 10 steps. But then when they get to like step 30, 40, their

spk_0 form gets all raggedy than the other hamstring. So like you'll notice the Olympics, 200 meter runners

spk_0 try their hamstrings, but they don't tear it out of the box. They tear it like coming around the

spk_0 curve, right? I have to get up to speed. You have to let your form go. It's shit. And so the other

spk_0 thing is this posterior pelvic tilt. And this is where we're talking about the hips. And it's

spk_0 some people have anterior pelvic tilt. Some people have a posterior pelvic tilt. It's like this

spk_0 bolsterial and you'd be spilling milk out the back or the front. If you run super fast and you're

spk_0 super strong, like scooted scooted tested MP3 data before the draft as like a very injury resistant

spk_0 tip top athlete. And if you just look at them, I mean, it dudes like he looks great. He's super

spk_0 stable looking at an NBA athlete. But in dudes like that who tear their hamstrings,

spk_0 Marcus was not commenting about scoot because that didn't happen when I was writing the book. But

spk_0 basically what they tend to do is their hips are tilted at posterior tilt, which pushes your leg

spk_0 a little further out in front of you, which means and because you're very strong, the moment that

spk_0 you're pushing off the ground, you're pushing off really hard, right? So you're going to have this

spk_0 big time landing and you have to absorb the force into this set of three stack joints,

spk_0 ankle knees hip, but your hip is already text, right? So this taxi impact moment at the moment

spk_0 that your hip is already pulling on your hamstring more than it should, right? And so you're going to

spk_0 go boom and like you land on the ground and people with this anterior tilt tend to stay with that

spk_0 film the ground longer because they have to kind of like recover it all. Whereas if your hips stay

spk_0 stable and you go like bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce. But if you have this kind of grindy,

spk_0 sloppy time on the ground, which is very taxing on the soft tissues. And so I don't know what

spk_0 happened with scoop, but I would love it if someone told me, oh, we checked his hips and he didn't

spk_0 have interior or posture, your pelvic tilt, right? But he probably did because no one's checking

spk_0 that shit, right? This is what worries me is like the things that are knowable now that are affecting

spk_0 the teams we love and the players we love. And it's a big problem for scoop in his career, I think,

spk_0 honestly. Like he was kind of iffy, right? And he's got just for playing time and he really needs

spk_0 to really improve and he's not going to be about this year most likely, right? I'm wrong, but

spk_0 anyway, it's a. That was a, hey, hello, Darren Fox is saying he's not going to might not be ready

spk_0 for your opening night. Yeah, because of a hamstring issue. And I'm feeling like

spk_0 it's good thing they got Steph Castle and Dylan Harper there, but Dylan Harper's also dealing with

spk_0 some stuff. And so I'm also now feeling bummed for the San Antonio Spurs is just like, oh,

spk_0 Darren Fox is coming out of the gates with a hamstring injury, which can't be great, Henry,

spk_0 right? Yeah. And there's another like Marcus gets very grave on some topics. And one of them is

spk_0 this hamstring thing where he's like, you can have one. By the way, everything I just told you

spk_0 was about hamstring strains like scoot has a hamstring tear, which is like that's that's the part

spk_0 to me that's that's worse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's what it's but also it's my sound

spk_0 ignorant. Isn't it a little young for that? Like, how do you, he's 21? It is unusual. Yeah,

spk_0 like hamstring, yeah, hamstring tear is like that's a crazy amount of wear and tear in order to

spk_0 get to that place where you can either even rub for it, not strain it, but straight up tear it.

spk_0 So for that to have a mic, that's that's a little odd for someone fairly young in their career.

spk_0 Well, I think there's a tip like I think there's a he might fall into the category of like these

spk_0 200 meter sprinters, these dudes who are just like so forceful that you know, the team and body

spk_0 has a hard time coping with the landing. But the thing Marcus gets great about is that you can have

spk_0 one hamstring strain and recover pretty well is like, but once you have two, like you tend to have

spk_0 a bunch. Wow. And so you want to like really take the first one super seriously. And one,

spk_0 the thing you really recommend is honestly is like, it's like people are too timid with the hamstring

spk_0 with like soft tissue work. He's like, it's super duper painful. But you know, you what happens

spk_0 is you get scar tissue in there and then the scar tissue means the hamstring can't stretch as much

spk_0 as it did when it was healthy. And we already know your biomechanically predisposed hamstring

spk_0 strain. So you have less rubber to stretch, right? And so he's though the trick is to spend the

spk_0 recovery period getting like a very mean person like shoving their elbow in there. Well, they like

spk_0 move your hamstring back and forth. And it hurts that crazy. You do a ton of it. Yeah.

spk_0 Most people don't do enough in his view. So I don't know. Ballistic, the new science of injury free

spk_0 athletic performance by Henry Abbott and also true. The hard truth since what, 2000 what?

spk_0 2005. Yeah. That's when I was working for Frank Murphy. That's when we met, right?

spk_0 That's when we met. Yeah. Yeah. That's a long time ago.

spk_0 Yelling at Henry by email. What do you think we were talking about? What was in early

spk_0 talk? Yeah, I want to know. I know what was the topic that made us kind of become like buddies.

spk_0 It was the worldwide world wide wide. But before that, I had already been emailing you.

spk_0 I probably have these emails things that you got wrong. Yeah. You don't know it. Yeah.

spk_0 Like you don't know what you're talking about. Well, there was a little bit like, like, you know,

spk_0 I have to ask yourself when you get an email from the internet. Like, am I talking to a crazy person?

spk_0 And 20 years of you.

spk_0 We're really glad. Which ways your cereal bowl spill again. What's it? It's like,

spk_0 is it crazy person who's a lot more about the CBA than me? So, you know, I was wrong about those

spk_0 things. I'm sure. Yeah. Henry, you know, the clip on Instagram that our show has gotten more views

spk_0 than anything is a mean running through the Camden connection in more wide West and Lyon Rose.

spk_0 Just channeled out our early true hoop in that. I went to a Camden game.

spk_0 And it was kind of amazing. So, when was this just years ago?

spk_0 Like, oh my gosh. Are there Barclay? Does that name mean anything to you?

spk_0 No. So, and let me get this. Oh, you were texting my memory. So, and Duwam Blair

spk_0 was like the top high school player. No. Duwam Blair? No. Duwam. Duwam Wagner.

spk_0 Duwam Wagner. Duwam Wagner. It's tough, my memory is. So, when milk Wagner's son,

spk_0 it goes way back with West. He's like his oldest friend. And he played a Louisville, I think. Great.

spk_0 And okay, so then his son is top-tipped top player. And they get him to

spk_0 Calipari in Memphis. But they send along another player as well. As a Barclay. And Arthur Barclay,

spk_0 God of Scholarship to be on the team, but he wasn't really that level of player. And then he got hurt.

spk_0 And I was doing the West investigation at that time. And I was like, and one dude said to me,

spk_0 look, this is the measure right now of what his whole operation is. If they ditch Arthur Barclay

spk_0 down their assholes, but they take care of him, then hey, you know, this is pretty good. And I

spk_0 never, I figured out, I heard a little bit about what happened to Arthur Barclay,

spk_0 but I was in back my head at this game. I went to post pandemic. Arthur Barclay was there.

spk_0 And I was like, what was he, what was he doing? He was in a suit. Yeah, he initially when he got

spk_0 hurt, they got him a job of FedEx. And he worked FedEx for a bunch of years. And then he's

spk_0 married. He has kids and he has some good job. And he has only, he's there with like the mayor of

spk_0 Camden and the coach and like, and there's head of the school board. And they all just love the

spk_0 worldwide West, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I was like, you know, this is not the worst thing that

spk_0 ever happened in the world, right? Like this is like a tip top team. And basketball has got a lot

spk_0 of problems. We were just talking about a lot of them. Like to zero in on this is being like,

spk_0 particularly the worst part. I'm like, I don't, I don't like, I could write a book about all the

spk_0 shit that went down there. And it's not all, you know, perfect. But it is a family. They have

spk_0 a family going there. And it's kind of the next family now. We're going to add this to the real,

spk_0 guys. Yeah. Arthur Barclay.

spk_0 Yeah. The Henry, the Dendom to our. I was waiting for you to tell me that like Arthur Barclay

spk_0 Jr. dropped 35 that night. It was a weird, it was a, it's a, it's a cool scene to go to those

spk_0 Camden games, but it was also, um, Dylan Wilson showed up. Uh, of course, just came to

spk_0 the front row. Um, and then you know, you know, you know what? Arthur Barclay is. Tell me.

spk_0 This is from his Wikipedia page. Arthur Barclay, born April 29, 1982 is an American former collegiate

spk_0 basketball player and democratic party politician who represents the fifth legislative district

spk_0 in the New Jersey General Assembly. I wonder he was hanging out with the mayor.

spk_0 That is not what he was doing when I was there. How long has he had that job?

spk_0 No, he doesn't have it anymore. Oh, okay. We're resigned from office June 2018 after being charged

spk_0 with assault. We're, we're relating to domestic violence. Oh, well, well, well,

spk_0 well, whole rollercoaster of emotion there. Yeah, we went through it. Thanks, man.

spk_0 Thank you, Henry. Yeah, no problem. Eight billion dollars.

spk_0 All going to Tom for talking so nice about me. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I'll make sure it's written.

spk_0 Thanks, fun, Taylor. Okay, cash it.

spk_0 20

spk_0

What Would David Stern Do

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