Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Latest Kawhi Situation Reaction & Major NBA Board of Governors Headlines

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to react to some major headlines from the NBA Board of Governors meeting including All-Star Game changes, the cost of watching the games on NBA fans, Silver's highlight quote and much more. Plus, the guys talk the latest on the Kawhi situation with the Clippers before reacting to Giddey’s deal with the Bulls. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Hello, welcome to the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Thursday afternoon, joining me from New York City, where he attended the Board of Governors meeting this week

and certainly was interesting. Tim Bonteps. Hello, everybody. And joining us from Dallas, Texas, where he is recovering from playing a pickup game against a 6-6-25-year-old band McMahon. What the hell are you doing to yourself? Howdy, partners? Zane, a long-time listener of the podcast, and he's like third or fourth time I play of these guys,

but he invites me out, and he's like 34, he doesn't tell me like he's got these ringers. It's like a, it's a whole thing. So I don't know if I can keep playing in these games because I definitely tweak my back. Plus, I believe I was the worst player on the floor. I was definitely the oldest by a long shot. This reminds me of the story that Mark Schlereth, our former colleague, ESPN. He played like 15 years with the Broncos and he had like 17 knee surgeries. Anyway, he was at training camp and he was what they were watching film and he was like, oh my God,

who is that awful offensive lineman? Oh my God, it's me. And he retired the next day when he looked at the video. That's you, McMahon. Pull the plug. Listen, the goal is to still play decent pickup basketball into my 50s. I ain't too far away, unfortunately. All right. Well, that's definitely attainable, but not against these dudes. All right. Let's get into the B-O-G. Every year it's interesting. Sometimes when there's B-O-G meetings, Bont-Temps and I will huddle and say, boy, what is the agenda that we're going to start with the commissioner? Yesterday, we had stuff that nobody could even get to, Bontem. So there were three or four topics that I knew I would, it would not be asked and I would not have a chance to ask. And I asked about two separate

ones during the press. Yes. Okay. So the floor is yours. Tell us. what your feelings were coming out of that discussion. We'll start with the Kauai thing, right? And I thought the single most important thing that was said yesterday was that the burden of proof is on the NBA to determine whether the clipper has committed salary cap circumvention or not. There's been a lot of discussion over the past week since Pablo Tori's first podcast. I'm sure we'll talk about his second podcast about whether circumstantial evidence

will be enough to really nail the clippers to the clippers to the, the wall and get them a Joe Smith-type punishment. My read coming out of that presser yesterday is that that is not the preference of the commissioner and not what I think the league will be looking to do. I'm not sure where this is going to go. We'll see where the totality of the investigation goes on this. As we've talked about before, the league has hired the law firm that did the Robert Sarver investigation, I believe. They will dig into all this stuff. We'll see where it all lands. But I thought the way Adam Silver came out and said definitively, we're going to let the investigation play out, and then we're going to see where it lands. And I thought, you know, very

conclusively stating that it's not on the clippers to show they're innocent. It's on us to show they are guilty. I think took some of the air out of the balloon in terms of just the tenor, not the, not the heat on the clippers, but the tenor of the discussion about how this is going to play out and what needs to happen. Now we have a very clear roadmap, at least in my opinion, of how this is going to go from a investigative standpoint and from a punishment standpoint. And the question now is, what is going to come out in that investigation in subsequent reporting by Pablo Tori, by us, by others, what else will be uncovered, and where will this ultimately land? But I think the general expectation, I think, was that Adam Silver was going to go into that presser yesterday, Wednesday. This will run

Friday and say, well, we're investigating. We'll talk to you about it later. And I think by handling things the way he did, I think it at least cleared up some questions and some confusion about sort of what the contours of this overall picture are going to look like. Now it's a matter waiting to see what all this stuff ultimately uncovers. If there was any air taken out of the balloon yesterday, that thing was pumped back up with helium. To be clear, what I meant about that, what I meant about that was not about the interest in the story. What I meant was for the last week there's been back and forth discussion about is it on the clippers to show that it's up to them, that they didn't do anything wrong?

Is it up to the lead to show that they did something like that they actually found it? All that kind of stuff. And I think Adam, my only point was that Adam definitively said, this is what this thing, this is what the expectations are. We're going to do an investigation. We are going to figure out what we think happened. and then we are going to decide what to do about it. That was what I meant.

I'm just saying at this point, it's not like this is creative dot connecting. The lines to connect dots are straight and not very long. Pablo's latest podcast with the revelation that, hey, this company going into bankruptcy, boy, they've got to overdue $1.75 million payment. All right. Yeah, before you let you go,

Let me just real quick summarize what Pablo. I'm sure a lot of our listeners know, but I'll summarize it real quick. Pablo came out with another revealing podcast on Thursday. In that podcast, he has documentation that I assume comes from employees who are no longer at the company. I don't know that, but he's got bank records. This is stuff that, you know, maybe the Justice Department has because of their investigation, but that the NBA wouldn't normally have.

The NBA can't subpoena a company's bank records. records. They can say to the clippers, give us your cell phones, give us your emails. They can't get this. So the NBA, of course, is learning about this the same time everybody else says because they have no other way. They could certainly ask to interview employees or former employees, but those employees are under no obligation to do that. But that's near here nor there. This bank record showed that the alternate governor, the 1% owner, the only other co-owner besides Steve Ballmer, Dennis Wong, put $2 million from a fund that he controls into this company about a week and a half before Kauai got a $1.7 million payment that he was overdue to receive. And that is the core of the

report. It also revealed that his daughter, Dennis Wong's daughter, was working for the company. To me, that's relevant, but we'll get to that in a minute. I just want to say, if you listen to our podcast a couple of days ago when this came out. I believed that the Clippers had plausible deniability. You may have disregarded that and thought that they were guilty. I felt they had plausible deniability and I was willing to wait to let the investigation play out. This particular set of circumstances has, in my view, vastly less plausible deniability. I am still not going to convict them. It is still just a snapshot of the company's operations. but the plausible deniability that I think Steve Balmer felt that he had when he went to

talk to Ramona Shelburne on this one, I don't think is there with this. And go ahead, McMahon. Well, and the other thing, like the Clippers, you know, they're leaning on, hey, you know, this company conned, you know, Balmer said it to Ramona. This company con me, you know, the Clippers, this company was a house car. Okay, sure. This company, you know, people are in jail. They're their top executives are in jail for committing fraud. People who commit fraud steal money. They don't give it away. And just the fact that Balmer gave them $50 million, Kauai's deal in issue is $28 million plus $20 million in stock options. That's awfully suspicious. Now you've got an overdue payment of $1.75 million. Hey, here's the, here's the, I would caution. I would caution this the summation that one plus one

equals two with that stuff because we're only seeing a sliver of their transactions. I will say this. In this particular instance, even though it's counterintuitive, a $2 million investment is less justifiable than a $50 million. Especially the timing of the investment. When it is clear, this company is a complete mess. This is not, you're not investing $2 million as the ship sinks. You're donating it. That's a donate. That's not an investment. And that's my whole thing. It's like, okay, if you want to give Balmer the benefit of the doubt despite, you know,

the previous transgressions with DeAndre Jordan, despite the fact that you know that Kauai had asked at least other franchises for stuff that's not allowed, okay, sure. It's getting more and more difficult to do. And I'm just like, provide me a reasonable explanation for how this is, This makes sense any other way. Well, and I think that, that right there, that question, that's why it was incredibly important to me how Adam described how this is going to go yesterday. Because there have been people arguing for the last week, and I'm not saying, like,

incorrectly, the CBA is vague, right? It says circumstantial evidence can be used. The commissioner obviously has very broad latitude to levy punishment. by Adam saying it's not on the clippers to prove their innocence in this story. I'm not, again, as I said last week, as we talked about it, I am not saying the clippers are innocent, but the guy who's going to decide whether the clippers are guilty said it's on us to prove it. So that is what is going to define how this investigation plays out, where the investigation goes, and where it lands. I would agree with how Brian summarized

this though, in that I wouldn't say that what Pablo reported last week is easily explainable, but I think there are more ways to explain it in some way that's beyond cap circumvention than this later reporting is, where if you look at this, as you guys laid out, the timing of it, the amount paid, how it all played out, it doesn't look, it looks worse than the stuff last week and the stuff last week didn't look good. So we'll see where it goes from here. But this is not, it's all not looking great as of today for the, uh, the clippers. I've become pals with a, uh, high power lawyer around these parts. And he actually literally just teched. Good idea. And I, I don't need them to defend me, but at least not at this point. But, uh, he says,

the really bad stuff comes from digging. This has gotten bad very quickly. like most things in life, the right answer usually is, is if it stinks, it's beep. All right, well, that's not relevant. But I will say this. Not a legal opinion, but it's a lawyer's view. I have no idea what was going on in the inner workings of this company aspiration. Okay.

And I have no idea. I read what Pablo said was the title of Dennis Wong's daughter. I do know this. What was the title just so our listeners know, in case they weren't? It was, I'm not trying to put you on the spot if you don't remember. It was not like finance department. It was, you know, she was in like a project role. Sure.

I'm saying I don't know her. I don't know the job. I'm just saying this broadly. I can see a situation where you are defrauded because an investment a lot of times is impersonal. Yeah. Even an investment of that nature is impersonal. impersonal, you know, like, you know, you laid it out last week, what $50 million means to Steve Bollman

for people, for the first part, we talked about. When your family members are working for the company, and I am not purporting anything about what her knowledge is, I have no idea what she discussed with her father or what her father may have discussed with Steve Bollner. That's personal. Well, and again, I get that there was extremely shady, basically con jobs being committed by the top dudes in this company. Con artists don't give $28 million away. So that part makes no sense.

The only thing I'll say to that, and I'm not, again, I am not saying that the clippers are innocent. I want to be clear. But like, I live in New York City. Bernie Madoff had one of the biggest fraud schemes in the history of finance, right? And it was built on taking money from one person and giving it to another. That was the whole thing. So I don't think that alone.

says like is proof that this happened. I'm only saying that if you're frauding people, you can fraud people in a lot of different ways. Also, don't, because it's listed as fraud, doesn't mean that that was, that they were just stealing money. Very clearly, it was a horribly run company. Yes. Now, one thing I do think that should be pointed out, when Kauai Leonard signed with the Clippers in 2019, the Clippers jersey sponsor was a company called Honey, some sort of shopping coupon company. Yeah. I believe Honey also had the sponsorship of the Clippers practice facility at the time.

The Clippers are no longer in that practice facility. They now have a facility in Intuit Dome. When Kawhi Leonard came to the Clippers, he did an endorsement deal with Honey. How do you know that? How do I know it? Yeah. Because he did commercials for it. Oh, what a unique thing to do for an endorsement deal.

Yes. So, you know, the Clippers, you know, did have Kauai Leonard do an endorsement deal with one of their primary sponsors. It did happen initially. Completely fine. Completely legal, completely acceptable. Cooper Flag has an endorsement deal with Chime. Yeah, all sorts of guys do, as we talked about last week.

What I don't know is how much he was paid, but I can surmise it was not $28 million. And look, this is not like, I don't know that Adam Silver can consider. this ultimately after he sifted through the investigation, all the evidence and all that. But the simple fact of the matter is, Kauai Leonard and his uncle Dennis decided long ago that all the NBA's rules and regulations do not apply to them. Okay? The salary cap rules, they don't apply to him. The injury report rules? Sure as hell don't apply to him. Any kind of load management rules? Those don't apply to him. Tampering? Nah. Kawhi does whatever. Kauai and Uncle Dennis feel like he wants to do.

I do not dispute that assessment. You know, they just, I mean, they left the San Antonio Spurs in Shambled. But the rap has benefited greatly. You know, they won a championship in his one year, but then, you know, I mean. But that statement doesn't implicate the clippers. No, no. It may take you on the path to implicating the clippers. It doesn't.

But if you get into business, if you decide to get into business with, people who are consistently shady, you know, I don't know how much you deserve the benefit of the doubt when things come up that look really shady. That's all I'm saying. I will say this. I was talking with a longtime executive today about this stuff. And he said to me, you know what? He goes, for me, you know, he goes, I haven't met with our owner yet since he got back from the B OG. But at some point, we're going to have a meeting and we're going to discuss this. And for us, you know, from our organization, what is our takeaway from this? And certainly there's, you know, you may want to take a look at your stars, endorsements

and all this, but what is our takeaway from this? And he says, I know what I'm going to say. I'm going to say the path towards building a team is growing your own talent, drafting and growing your own talent, because free agency and certainly Kauai Leonard's free agency was one of the more unique ones in history. I think it's worth pointing out just to put a pin right there. Just really quick. Just really quick.

Kauai Leonard is like the one player. Like if you were going to pick a player in the league, maybe in the history of the league, who is going to be involved in something like this, to McBan's point, it's Kauai Laird. Well, I don't know about that. I mean,

I will give you this. It is extremely rare for the MVP of the finals to be an unrestricted free agent. There's not another player that's had, there's not another player that's had the laundry list of things. connected to them or surmised about them or talked about with them in this manner like Kauai. That's all it was going to say. Well, let me just ask you this.

Sure. In the modern era of free agency, how many times has a free agent switched teams and it led to a title? LeBron with the Lakers. LeBron did it three times. Durant. I'm sorry, KD, with the, and you know, there's factors there obviously join a 73 win team. But he counts though. Then he wanted to.

So LeBron did it three times when he went to the. heat when we went back to Cleveland and we went to the Lakers. Right. Kauai did it. I'm sorry, KD did it. There's an asterisk there because the team he joined. But I am long been on the record is saying they don't win in 2017.

But they won. Isaiah Hartnstein with the Oakland City Thunder. Let me write that down. It's not a pathway. And this Kauai situation, who you probably would have put on that list. You know, I certainly believe that the clippers

were headed for it. But like the free agency pathway is very fraught. Very, very, very. And by the way, free agency is semi-dead anyway because of the rules. But the free agent, this free agency was a freaking disaster.

Absolutely. It's getting worse by the year. Because it was also a free agency plus a drastically expensive trade that was more expensive because the trade was to seal the deal for the free agency signing. Now, having said that and forgetting,

like, let's just pretend it was all, above board or even assume, whatever. I think every team would have pounced on the opportunity to do a Kauai, Paul George, package deal when they did it. In hindsight, it's easy to rip it, but they opened a window, weren't able to cash in. It's been a complete disaster. No question about it. But I think that that was the chance to compete for a championship to open that window.

I think every team would have pounced on that. It's just his age extraordinarily poorly. And it did lead to a championship in Oklahoma City. A couple of years ago I wrote a piece about the Clippers about how they just were sticking to the Paul George Kauai duo and just kept investing in it and kept investing in it. And they obviously broke that apart. But I compared it to poker playing poker.

When you've put so much money into the pot, your pot committed. You've got so much in there, even if you've got a bad hand, you have to keep putting into the pot. And I talked about how Steve Balmer was a poker player, especially when he was in college. And he pulled me aside after the story. And he goes, hey, I was more of a chess player than a poker player. But the Clippers, I felt like, have acted pot committed from Kauai. Outwardly, outwardly, the moves that they've made have been pot committed where they've continued to throw in chips chasing a pot

they're out of control on. And because I saw those moves, it does make me wonder what they're willing to do off the court. Well, Balmer can't be a poker player because there's no way that guy's got a poker face. Just no possible way. Well, I said to him, I said, Steve,

I read a story about you playing poker in college and he goes, yeah, that story's been out there. He goes, it's not really true. I should have, I should have disavowed it long ago. Well, you know, you should have asked his college roommate, Dennis Wong. I'll get right on the phone. More Hoop Collective podcast after this.

All right, Bon Tempts. A couple other things from the BOG. Adam addressed the All-Star changes. I'm really low to bring up the All-Star changes, but it does touch a nerve. I've sort of let the ship sail on the All-Star, but Adam talked about going across the world and people always bringing this up to him because it matters.

You could detail what he said about that. I mean, I will simply say this. I am on record as well with my opinions on the All-Star game and how much the league should spend energy caring about it. I will just read this sentence. I think in the case of the NBA, this is what I'm trying to convey, particularly to our younger players, is that All-Star is a big deal. I think this inherently has been the entire problem with the quote-unquote All-Star problem, is that the NBA long ago should have just a admitted, it is what it is. We're going to have it be as fun of a weekend as we can. We're going to celebrate the game. Kids like it. We're going to lean into that, whatever. And instead,

it's turned into this annual, let's dump on the players and dump on the product. And I'm not sitting here trying to say that, like, it's great that the game stinks. The game is stinks. It's not fun to watch, at least for me. But like, this has become a masochistic, uh, ritual pound of flesh. The league is taken out of itself. and over and over and over again with Adam Silver every year standing at the podium multiple times saying this is a thing that's going to fix the All-Star game. It was we're going to do the Elam ending. We're going to do picking teams. Now we're going to do now we're going to do this. It's like guys, just admit defeat and move on. Guys, feelings are getting hurt. I mean,

all of it. Just admit defeat and say, look, we're going to make this as fun as we can. guys are at All-Star for a million things. It's a celebration of the sport. We have a gazillion fans come to the fan fest every year, blah, blah, blah, and just say that and stop opening yourself up to getting murdered. Because every time you sit there and say, we have the solution, what happens? We see the exact same product in some different form. And then everybody goes, man, the All-Star game sucks.

This is miserable. Adam Silver's family. And it's like, dude, you're talking about being pot committed. The NBA is beyond pot committed. the All-Star game. And they just, they can't let it go. They've already lost the hand. Yes. And they're still throwing chips in the middle. I understand people don't like the game. They're trying to make it a new card game. It's poker. Now it's Blackjack and it's Gourey, whatever. Yes. Look, here's a thing. That's my thing on it. What he should say is, look, if you don't want to watch the All-Star game, don't watch it. Just scroll on Instagram. You'll see some highlights. It's a highlight game.

We'll get to that in a second. So anyway, I think that's something. We've already talked about the, the U.S. versus the world thing, whatever. Like that, Shoms has reported it that. I just want to say one thing. Sure, go for it. I got to stop this Rider Cup format. Yeah, I didn't even bring that. As a golf fan.

Oh, gracious sake. Who is, who's one of my favorite events every two years is the Rider Cup. It's coming up later this month. It's about to be down the street in New York. Beth Page. Going to be, going to be fun. At Adam said it yesterday. it is absolutely not Rider Cup format

writer cup format would be if they play two on two or one on one and add it up a bunch of points they should do one on one they'd be more fun I agree let's do the Riter Cup format my god stop saying Riter Cup format with all due respect it makes you look like a fool I'm sorry just stop what else we're talking about NBA an All-Star this is that's what's been going out

with the NBA for years don't say that like so I know that keep the Riders Cup away from the NBA All-Star game. My God. I'm vaguely familiar with the Ryder Cup. I know it's a thing. I know it's like some kind of like

U.S. versus the world type of thing. Europe. It's first Great Britain and, well, it's first Europe. But it used to be versus Great Britain and Ireland and now it's all of Europe. All right. Well, that's about all I know.

I know nothing about the format. But there's one-on-one thing you bring up, I think, is interesting. I think the NBA should do that. Listen, now you'd have my attention. But don't say it's one and not the other. Okay. Yeah, maybe that'll be next year's change.

So we'll go to one on one game. There will be a change next year, I'm sure. I agree with you. We'll be right back here. We'll be telling us about that at the B.O.G. Yes. Okay. I do, I have. Just, I felt, I don't think it will. Well, we should mention that from the Kauai thing. I assume people know this, but the NBA, it was made pretty clear yesterday. I would not expect a immediate resolution on this Kauai Leonard thing. It was repeatedly said to me, there's, not going to be a, there's no timeline on it, but I don't expect this to be wrapped up in a week or two weeks. Certainly not by the time that the All-Star game goes to Steve Ballmer's

into a dome for right. I mean, I don't know. I wouldn't say that. I have no idea how long it's going to take, honestly. I'm not, I just, either way, I just don't think it's going to be, I would guess it's not going to be before the season starts. I don't know if it's going to be when the season is. I'll tell you one thing. The investigation just got longer today. Yeah, right. It'll be more weeks. Yes. That's not. Yes. That's, yes, that's more what I was trying to get to. More document review for first year associates at Wachtel. I was going to put it that way.

All right. Yes. I felt that Adam got high marks from me yesterday on him being candid throughout that session. And everything I felt from that standpoint was going fine until Bontemps. Oh boy. Yes. He was asked about the rising cause. of what it is to be an NBA fan because there is now a new partner with well Amazon

and NBC but with Peacock and and Amazon Prime that will require a separate subscription yes he said what well he said a couple of things he said dozy well right so I I'm going to premise preface this and I'm not saying this as a defense Yes, you are. I was reminded by these comments of when Adam was talking about reporters in the locker room in that Adam at times in the past has gotten himself in hot water in these press conferences when he starts to riff on a subject.

And if you go to this answer he gave to Tony Ganguly from the Times, our friend of the pod's question about the rising cost of watching games as a fan, he began his answer by talking about the fact that there's way more games on broadcast TV now than in the past, which there are. Now it's on the games are on NBC instead of Turner. Like that's a reasonable answer. You don't expect the commissioner to stand there and say it's a bad thing. We just got all this extra money, right? He was going to have some answer.

But then as he starts going through the answer, he starts sort of riffing on it. I'd say in addition to that, and this is an ongoing issue for the league, there's a huge amount of our. content that people essentially consume for free. I think an ongoing issue for the league is an interesting closet in there that's been lost in this. This is very much a highlights-based sport. So Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, you name it, any service, the New York Times for that matter, to the extent that your content is not behind a paid firewall, there's an enormous

amount of content out there. YouTube, another example, that is advertising based on, or based, that is advertising based that consumers can consume. But it's just it's a tone-deaf and counterproductive statement. Hey, correct. You don't want to pay for the games, tough, scroll on your phone and watch highlights. Who cares about the actual games?

Come on, man. And like this, it is a serious thing. Like, to get kids to watch basketball, I've got hoopers in the house. And they don't watch full games that much. They're watching those other ways. But the games matter, especially when there's this perception that nobody gives the crap about the regular season. Then you say, just scroll through the highlights.

Catch us come playoff time. Once you get through, what is Amazon, have games through the first round, I think. Once you get through there, you're going to. Yes, first or second round. I mean, come on, man. And honestly, to me, as much as the Amazon thing, now you've got to get this streaming service of Amazon Prime, you've got to get Peacock if you want all the games. Okay, that's fine.

The fact that it's so hard for so many fans to watch their local team play. Now we hit on this. Bigger problem. Okay, hold up. Hold up. I actually think that the league has a tremendous answer to this question. And Adam was prepared on it and kind of was halfway there, which is that here in 2025, and even he said, I never would have believed this.

decade ago, there is more games on free TV than there's been in a generation. Not only do you have game, you know, that if you put up Rabbit Ears, you can get on ABC. You've had those. Now NBC, you know, opening night. You weren't able to watch opening night on broadcast television for decades. You can watch the Thunder on opening night on NBC on Rabbit Ears for free. And many NBA teams, at least a big chance. chunk of their local games are now available on broadcast for free. There is more free basketball

on now than there's been in a long time. And while Amazon Prime is a new partner, more people have Amazon Prime in this country than have cable or streaming packages. Amazon Prime is a almost ubiquitous entity. I think it's over 100 million. Yes. So you could, you know, Adam could have even leaned into saying the partner we chose was a very, very highly distributed partner. Yes, there are going to be NBA fans who are going to have to, if they want all of the games, subscribe to Amazon. And you are correct, McMahon, the streaming problem, the high cost isn't for the national games. Yeah. It's for the local games. Because in the failure of these RSNs, $39, 49, 49 bucks a month to get in some of these cities to get local games.

That's where the problem is. And honestly, it drives me absolutely crazy that you can be a hardcore NBA fan willing to pay your, you know, however much it is, 250, whatever, however much the league passes now. Maybe I'm off on the number. Willing to pay three figures. It's less than that. Okay, less than that. pay your three figures.

I think it's $100 a year. I think. Okay. Will to pay that money, eager to pay that money because you love basketball, you love the NBA, you want to watch hoops every night. You can do all that and be blacked out from your local team, your favorite team still.

Or if you live in some weird place like Omaha, you can be blacked out from your five favorite teams. Yes. Yes. The RSN situation across the league is a huge problem. It's something to have to resolve. And like I said, I was not saying the, this is an ongoing issue for the league thing as even an excuse for Silver because he clearly stepped at it on this. But I think one of the more

interesting things that was said yesterday that completely got glossed over and is related is Jake Fisher asked a question about the CBA from a couple of years ago and its impact on the league. And in particular on how it's made for agency born. And I thought this answer, was very interesting, and in particular, these few sentences about it. I wanted to get your guys' thoughts on it. This is so we're talking about the boring free agency. I get it, particularly from a media standpoint, that we'd like to create more excitement for all of you in the offseason

in terms of a hot free agent market. That's not my highest priority. Honestly, I've learned this the hard way. I think I've said before, and this relates to All-Star as well, earlier in my career, I was at NBA Entertainment. I understand the entertainment side of this. But I've learned, in some cases the hard way, the most important thing is the competition on the floor. I think now we've had seven different champions in seven years.

We had a fantastic playoffs of finals last year. I get it that if you tighten the system for certain individual players, that means we'll cut down on the number of opportunities that we may have in other cities. That's what happens in a cap system. But I think on balance, it's been very effective. I don't remember Adam ever saying something like that before. essentially that we leaned a lot into off-court stuff for a while, and it wasn't a great idea. And we have to get to focus back on games. Now, obviously, he goes back later and says the highlights thing as part of, hey, it's a problem that there is some stuff out there for Fruity.

And it is, we do have all this stuff on social media. And the league has cut down on some of these, I think it's not a related, it's a different issue. but the league has cut down on some of these accounts that use clips and highlights from the league using the API data, it's called, to, like, run clips of stuff on social media. Yeah, but the league also has its own very active. And every team has the wrong very active. No, I agree. I agree.

I just thought that clause in the middle of that answer about boring free agency was a very interesting answer because I don't think we've ever really heard him talk like that before. And as people who like to talk about the games, and we talk about. the games on this podcast, I would agree. I think that the most important thing is the games on the floor. And for a long time, that has not been the NBA's approach. And I will be curious to see how that manifests itself moving forward. Because one thing that also was not talked about because it was sort of a PR thing is that the three television networks, including our employers, were meeting with the Board of Governors at this meeting. And what they were talking about was ways they can work together

to promote the product on the floor and get more people watch into games. So I think all that is an interesting thing going forward. Agree. 109, 110 bucks for NBA League Pass. By the way, starting this year, you have to buy it from Amazon.

I agree. Starting this year, what? It used to be. Starting this year, you have to buy it from Amazon. Do you? Yeah, I mean, I've been a league, you know, I'm not sure. I'm not to get like a tech review on this whole thing. I've been a, yeah, you're going to need more than a better than everybody.

I've been a YouTube TV buyer for League Pass for years, but that is no longer, no longer available. I don't know what that, we should say, because we both have YouTube TV and we've talked about this, I don't know if that will apply to if you have a cable package. But I know for at least YouTube TV users, you can't buy it on there. I don't have to figure all this out. You're still going to be able to get it. on the NBA app, though, right? It's a good question. I don't know.

I don't know. If not, I'm... I would imagine you could get it on the NBA app, but... I'm seriously. In fact, I'm going to look right now. I'm going to see if I can buy a week pass on here while we're seeing. Jackson says the first full game night is going to be a disaster for McMahon. No, I'll figure things out in advance, but it's going to...

There is no question about that. When it comes to games on television, McMahon... is elite. Once I figure out how to get them. Yeah, but you know, I'll be honest with you. I can get a man who, who has three teams. I can get League pass on the app. I just went and checked.

I figured you could, but you can't. McMahon has three TVs in his laptop going regularly, and he has grand aspirations in his, you know, man cave that is under consideration or design of how many TVs do you want? The goal is at least five. But honestly, that's, it's not specific to the NBA. that's very, it's a very college football type of playing. Do you think that there's, like right now,

don't you think that there's not five college football games really worth watching right now in this part of the season? I'm not happy with the schedule of college football. Yeah, once it gets into it, it is. And I'll be honest, I splurged. I got a little discount and splurge for the Sunday ticket again for the first time and a while. I've been a red zone and, you know, broadcast only.

So now I got, you know, I mean, It's a tough investment, though, because as you know, we don't spend a lot of Sundays at home once the season gets going. That's true. That's true. Enjoy your September. All right, before we move on, actually, we're going to move on before we leave you. There was a contract, a significant contract in the NBA. We're not talking about the heat. I would say. I'm sorry, McMahon. I want to issue a formal apology. McMahon made a request. Well, wait. Well, before that, I think there's, before we get to McMahon's topic from B.O.G, I do think there are two other things to briefly touch on. Oh, one is I asked Adam Silver about whether there's any limitations on Malik Beasley's availability to sign with a team. And he completely sidestepped the question. Oh. And said, we have what we're doing an investigation. Well, hold on.

I don't think he did sides up the question because he said, we're doing an investigation, which was reported by David Purdam from ESPN. Right. And then he said, if I'm not mistaken, McMahon, I mean, out of Bantams. and I believe he's still under federal investigation as well. He said those words. Well, I said, I asked him, are there any limitations on his availability or his ability to sign with a team? And his answer was, quote, I'll only say there's an investigation ongoing. As I understand it, there's still a federal investigation that's ongoing of Bleak-Beasley as well.

Okay. You'll address, stop. Okay. Is that not different than what his agents have said? I believe it is. His agents have said he's, so he, now he said not only is there our investigation, There's still an investigation. He's still, okay, go ahead.

All I was going to say was, by completely sidestepping the question, he answered it, I would say, in that I don't expect Willie Beasley to sign with the team anytime soon while this is going on. That was what I was going to say. And the other thing is, we've talked a lot about NBA Europe. It has been a hot topic of discussion. Adam talked about it a lot yesterday. He obviously had the press conference with Andreas Zaglis from FIBA, the Secretary General, back in the spring. not one word about domestic expansion yesterday during the presser.

So I asked, it seems like there is a push within the league to focus on international and specifically European expansion over domestic expansion. Do you agree with that? Why is that the case? And I think for people that are interested in domestic expansion, particularly in the Pacific Northwest and probably in Vegas, he pretty strongly shot down the idea that there is a order on that and that both things are progressing in different tracks and that naturally actions over words well hold on and that naturally it would require more work to create a new league than to add teams to an existing one i am not i am only i agree with you on actions over words i do think on the record stating they're on parallel tracks and are not related to one another i do think if i'm a fan in seattle or

Vegas or someone hoping for 32 NBA teams, I think that is a heartening message because I don't think it necessarily means that they're going to get all the way to the finish line in NBA Europe and then come around and do expansion. That's all. Because you could have ducked that question. You could have said, okay, that's fair. But I would also say that 18 months ago, a year, 12, 18 months ago, we thought there was a good chance that there would be full into the expansion process. And that they have done no material advancement. Well, I wouldn't quite say that. I mean, they started committee work on it, and it came up this week.

There was not new news on it, but it had that has made some steps on. He did say that they talked about it in the B.O.G. Yes. So that's all. I just think for people who are interested in that, it's worth pointing it out. Now, McBan wants to talk about the other thing that came up. Maybe Kauai will be playing for the Siberian team in that league. More Hoop Collective Podcast.

after this. No, the heaves. Oh my gosh. They fixed this great problem. All these guys are going to figure out when the buzzer goes off and be able to get their shots off before or from the back court now.

Because if they miss, it doesn't dent their field goal percentage anymore. Which, look, I'm glad that we're not going to see the BS. Oops, there's an extra extra little split second. Let it fly type crap. It happened with Luca at the Slovenia.

a game yesterday. He hit a half-court shot that was just after the buzzer. You know, it's funny, Luca used to be an elite heave, let him fly kind of guy. 14 is rookie year, nine the next year. He only took two last year. He's been NBA-I'sed, which is a bad thing. But he's not alone. He's not alone. He still ranks among the heave leaders in the league. But look, man, this is a, okay, I'm glad the guys are going to take those shots finally. And in a way, it's like, okay, you're doing something to make the games better and honestly, like, adds some integrity to the games. It's shameful that it's necessary. And I think it's a missed opportunity. I think they should have gotten a sponsor, some company that, like, you know, really wants to lean into the integrity

company. Like a green bank. Yeah. And, and guys who make them, there should have been like a hundred thousand dollar bonus right and and guys who do the little BS thing there's like a shame reel that goes out and put it on Instagram or hey we can make I'm volunteer we that's where you get the highlights could put it on the hoop collective we could have we could have like gone over these thing put you on a shame reel if you do the BS pass it up thing so I did I made a I want to give props to the guys who were on the good side of this I wrote a whole story during the playoffs about Joker's Heat The man took 30 of them this year. 22 during a regular season, eight more in the playoffs.

Made one of them? He made two. In his career regular season, he's two of 50 now. He made two. But 22 is the most anybody's taken since basketball references track the stat, which is like 30 years. Macau Bridges. Oh, by the way, Joker, if this rule is in effect last year, instead of shooting 41.7% from three, it would have been 44.4. McCall Bridges 0 of 12 last year. He let him fly. Props to him. And the ant man, he's a competitor.

O of 10. Halliburton, second time in his career, he went 0 of 9. Steph has taken 110 heaves in his career. Next most I could find was Joker at 50. 110. 6 of 110. He's shaved a half percentage point off his career 3 point percentage. That's crazy. But from all those heaves, but he's made six of them. And like I said, Luke was one of 45. Now, those are the heaves. That's the heaves honor roll. This is the heaves dishonor roll.

There's some friends of the pod on here, boys. Some friends of the pod. Fellow podcaster where I'm going to start, Jalen Brunson, you think he ever had the ball in the back court with the buzzer about to sound? Has he had that much in his career? The man's taken one here. He's very crafty. He pretends like he's not always maneuvering, but he always is.

He's taking one heave in 487 career games. Wow. James Harden. He's taken one heave since he got traded to Brooklyn. None of his last two stops. I mean, Zach Levine. Hey, Zach Levine's second and three point percentage this year, no heaves for the fourth straight season. Katie.

What's going to be interesting is to see how many of these are attempted now. Oh, yeah. I'm sure there'll be more, to your point. I'm not going to be a difference is. It's going to be a fight. They're going to, there's going to be, there's going to be boxing each other out to get the inbound. I know the honor rolls, dishonor rolls continuing.

Go for it. Well, KD is going to have to fight Fred Van Fleet, who's on the honorable, honorable mention list because VanVleet lets him fly. But KD, zero regular season heaves since he won his second championship. None in his last year of Golden State. None in a Nets uniform, asterisk, took one in a playoff game. None with a season. sons. Well, KD's being allergic to heaves might be contagious because Devin Booker,

16 in his career, none the last three seasons, played the most minutes in the league without a single heave last year. That is... You didn't. Who told you that stat? Is that a stats, Williams stat? Basketball reference.com. I got time on my hand. It's September. That is a heck of a stat. Good job, McMahon. Yeah. One other thing that was announced from our bosses saying, you should turn this into a story. Yeah.

I did the joke in each story. One other thing that was announced in that same announcement out of the competition committee, just again, more of a pace of play thing, is that approximate foul replays and out-of-bounds replays will now be handled by the replay center rather than the officials at the games, which hopefully will cause them to be significant. significantly faster. That is why you do that. So hopefully reviews will be shorter. That would be good because we have a lot of reviews still. Love a good review. All right. Before we go. Beautiful job, McMahon. Hey. Josh Giddy signed a four-year, $100 million contract extension. Actually, not an extension. It's a new contract. Josh Kitty, who famously made a heave to help beat the, oh, no, that wasn't technically a heave because it was a game winning buzzer better. Go on. That was a big shot, though.

Yeah. I was in an LA sports party when it, was it when he hit it. I've cracked it off. I bought that one over the well. All right. So we've talked about the restricted free agency. The ice breaks and giddy gets a deal. We talked about him earlier this year, and he had pretty good stats after the All-Star break last year.

Very good stats. The thing I've always wondered is, after they traded Alex Caruso for him, I was like, Chicago, do you think he's your franchise point card? because they didn't negotiate with him last fall when he extended. Then the season started and they were like keeping his minutes down. They only really started giving him real minutes when there were injuries elsewhere, including to Lonzo Ball.

Then they traded Lonzo Ball. Not that Lonzo Ball is a pure point guard really anymore after his injuries. And so finally they make a move and give him $100 million and say he's our franchise point guard. He's a limited player, we know, because defensively he can be attacked. And three point wise, he is not consistent. But he puts up gigantic numbers. He is very young. He is like 23 years old.

And he's six foot eight. And it's hard to find players like that. And the Bulls paid him. And he got the deal. And if you believe he's your franchise point guard, I know this is going to set Bontemps off because Bontem's has a certain feel about getting. If you believe he's your franchise point card, if that's what your evaluation is, $25 million a year is a good number for your franchise point guard.

highest point out, assuming that's what you believe. Well, and instead of saying 25 million, let's say 14% of the cap, because that's it. Bobby Mark's tweeted it's between the deal will be between 13.8 and like 14.5, I think it was. So I thought this was a decent compromise. I don't think this is like some kind of awful deal for the Bulls or not paying him to be, you know, the man. They're paying. him quality starter money. Yeah, I mean, look, I think this deal is fine. I think after the trade, it was obvious the Bulls were likely to get something done with Josh Giddy. I don't think it's completely out of bounds. I think it's more than I would have paid. And I think if the Bulls had

held a line, they probably could have got it done for less than $100 million. But I also think that, you know, this was a likely outcome. And I think if you're the Warriors, who is the other team we're really looking at here in terms of the impact of this, I think the fact that there was no player option or any other bells and whistles in this deal means that nothing really is impacted to me on the Jonathan Kaminka front by this deal getting done. I think if this had come out with, you know, player option or trade kicker or some other, I guess you should say, I'm not sure as a trade kicker in it. But if there'd been some, if either this deal had been 35 a year or if there'd been some more inducement on the Giddy side, I think that could have potentially, you know,

push things more in Jonathan Gaminges's favor or if the deal had come in at, you know, four for 72 or something, it might have pushed a little bit more in Golden States favor. To me, this doesn't change a lot in terms of the overall landscape of the other situation. And look, like, is there a world where Josh Giddy becomes a, you know, this is kind of a weird comp, but a DeMarter Rosen type player. And he's a guy who sort of, you play a certain way if he's on your team and he has some success, but there are flaws in his game and his overall talent that sort of limit what your team can be. Like, yeah, I think if you're a Josh Giddy optimist, I think that's a world that could happen.

But, and certainly he shot the ball a lot better last year. If that continues, that would open up his game a little bit. But I do have reservations about making him a cornerstone player of your team, if you really are trying to be a top four team in the West. But as we've talked about before, for the Bulls who are perpetually fighting for a spot in the play-in, Josh Giddy at $25 million a year would seemingly fall right in line with that. And he'll probably be a productive player for them this year. And he'll probably have them right back in the mix fighting for the 10th seed in the east.

Well, the Bulls really could have screwed this up. If they had made the trade, they didn't get great value because they didn't get any picks when Caruso was in high, high demand. and then if they would have immediately extended Gide at the number he wanted. So if you'd have made the trade, not gotten enough in the trade, and then overpaid, then you got a problem. At this point, as our buddy, the machine, Kevin Belton pointed out, they can have Giddy on this deal, white on a cap hold. Kobe White, yeah.

Yeah, Kobe on a cap hold. And obviously, Bezell is their lottery pick last year that they like. and, you know, be in the market for potentially, you know, clearing out max cap space. And, you know, so again, it ain't franchise player money. It's like you'll be a piece of this moving forward money. Yeah. For $100 million, you can probably buy about a two-bedroom condo in Melbourne. You think I'm joking and you think your real estate prices are high?

Head on to Zillow and go take a look at Australia. just fun fact to end the pod with. All right. I'm going to look that up on the interwebs right now while you're doing your job. Sydney is worse than Josh is from Melbourne. That's why I said Melbourne. Sydney, if you think Los Angeles or New York City or San Francisco,

real estate prices are high, now I will say that the American dollar goes farther than an Australian dollar. As of a year ago, as of a year ago, a two-bedroom condo cost $600,000 in Melbourne. So I think, Josh could probably afford. Why are you looking up Melbourne real estate?

Are you going to cover the MDL? I know you're a free agent. Ogan, watch out, buddy. Somebody's coming for your job. Yeah, well, why do I think that you're not being genuine when you looked up that condo? I literally typed in average price of a two-bedroom combo in Melbourne. Well, Wendy's got a... I make sure I said Melbourne, Florida.

Look up the luxury condos. Yeah, it might be Melbourne, Florida. I'll type in Melbourne, Australia, just to make sure. Yeah, $600,000. of dollars as of late 2024. Oh, he's quite. Australia's got some of the craziest real estate prices

in the world. All right, forget about that. Thank you to Jackson for putting this all together. If you know, you know what happened on this podcast. Thank you to McMahon. Thank you to Bontemps. Thank you for watching and listening to the Hoop Collective. We'll talk to you next week. Adios amigos.