Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - NBA’s International Future & Western Conference Tiers

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to discuss the future of the NBA's international business before breaking down the Western Conference into tiers of title favorites, contenders, playoff teams and lottery teams. Plus, Executive Vice President, Head of Basketball Operations James Jones joins the show to discuss the responsibilities that we don’t see in his role. 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 and welcome to the Hoot Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Thursday evening, joining us from New York City,

before he heads off to Philadelphia on Friday for what apparently could be Joelle Embed's preseason debut, which is pretty good, is Tim Bontemps. Hello, everybody. Yeah, hopefully we'll see the big fella and Vijay Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes and all the non-Paul George Sixers playing on Friday. What a thing that would be. Yet you're not.

I mean, how sure are you he's going to play? Like, it could be, I don't know. I long ago stopped putting anything on anything in Philadelphia, but hopefully they all play tomorrow. There's the Embed thing where he does is warm up and then he looks down and gives him the nod. Like, yes, I shall play. Joining us from Dallas, Texas, just back from Las Vegas, where on Wednesday night he attended the shell of the Los Angeles Lakers playing against the Dallas Mavericks. Hope you came up ahead.

is band McMahon. Howdy, partners came up even, did not bet a single nickel. I did violate my normal policy. I took a 5.15 a.m. flight this morning. You want the band's sleep update? Usually you're not done throwing up by 5 a.m. Dude, I've matured. I'm acting my age. The band sleep update got like three hours in the hotel, a couple hours on the plane, took a little nap and I got home. So you know how many hours of sleep I got? No. Six, seven, six, seven. You can't say the word six and seven together around my son without. By the way, that goes, anybody under the age of like 23 across the country right now. Yeah. Yeah. Ah, we live and we learn. All right. So later on the podcast, we will have James Jones, executive vice president of the NBA and the NBA operation.

will be joining us. So stick around for that. We also have the West Tears, God. It's the last freaking Tears podcast for a long time. But first... What are the Tears of the Tears podcast, do you think? That's a good one. Now, that's a podcast that I'll participate in.

Had a story published on Thursday, one, a story that I've been working on for a couple of weeks. That was the genesis of my trip to the Middle East a couple of weeks ago, about just some stuff that's happening in the NBA right now with Middle East investment. And look, I want to be clear, you know, the NBA is about to start the season. There is a lot of excitement. A lot of teams feel like they have a shot at winning their, at least their conferences. I don't know how many teams have a legitimate shot, win the whole thing.

But certainly a bunch of teams feel like they could win their conference. And that's what the focus is going to be. But the league is very much thinking about how to expand its. footprint in global basketball. And there's other leagues out there that are looking to rise up and other leagues that are playing defense against encroaching and rising leagues. And a big part of that is coming out the Middle East, especially Abu Dhabi, which is heavily invested in basketball. While I was over there, pretty much the entire league office was there. And so while I was watching the Knicks and the Sixers play, Adam Silver, Mark.

Tateum, a whole bunch of their lieutenants, including James Jones, by the way, we're all there to have meetings with the folks in Abu Dhabi, where they have billions of dollars that they want to invest in global sport. And the Qataris are also interested investing in global sport, and Saudi Arabia is also interested in investing in global sport, including basketball. And in the case of Abu Dhabi, the NBA has chosen. really chosen a Middle East partner, and that's Muhammad Halifa al-Mubarak, who is the head of the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu Dhabi. Some call him His Excellency.

What do you call him? I call him the chairman. I thought you go out for a new basis. Yeah. Well, he prefers to be called Mohammed. That is first name basis, the chairman. No, he wants to me to, I call him Muhammad when I see him. But in talking about him to other people, I call him the chairman.

Abu Dhabi is really a growth point. in the world right now. And like with other countries in the Middle East, they have some things on their record that are a little bit unsavory, a little bit disappointing in some cases. And they have a lot on their plate that they're trying to change their perception. And one of the ways they're doing it is with sport. And they have partnerships with all kinds of American companies. The MBA is just one of them. But they have an interesting affiliation with the Knicks. And they have the NICs. And they have the NICs. Jersey sponsorship, of course. You look at the Knicks, you see on their jersey that says,

Experience Abu Dhabi. And they are building a sphere. They are partnering with Jim Dolan, the owner of the Knicks, to build a second sphere in Abu Dhabi right near the arena. And I think you will only continue to hear about Abu Dhabi's affiliation with the league, including in NBA Europe, which is getting closer and closer to fruition, where I believe that Abu Dhabi will end up owning a team. I suspect it's going to be the team that the NBA is planning on putting in Manchester, United Kingdom, where Abu Dhabi owns Man City football. Funny coincidence. Yes.

And anyway, the story, you know, the truth is that, and I've said this before, is that in the world of basketball, there are underserved fans. Those fans are primarily in Asia, in big population centers in Asia. people in China, people in the Philippines, people in India, people in other Southeast Asian countries, Singapore, they would love nothing more than to have more high-level basketball for them to consume in their time zone, in their cities. And in the Middle East, there is underserved investment capital. There is a bunch of money there that wants to be in sports, in particularly basketball. And so the NBA believes that there are underserved fans and business in Europe, too. I'm not as convinced about that.

But a big part of what's happening in global basketball right now is to try to capture those underserved fans and try to give that interested capital a place to go. Well, and as you pointed out, a tiny little sliver relatively of that capital indirectly went to the Lakers. So that's one way that you're seeing the relationship with that part. of the world. That to me is the one tangible way so far that we've seen that relationship impact a fan base. Right. So, well, I, you know, I wouldn't put it that way. I wouldn't put it that way. My question is this. The NBA is clearly going to follow the money to Abu Dhabi has started. We'll continue to do that. How, if at all, do you see that impacting the fan over here? Well, very simply, when we talked about my defining people piece a couple weeks ago, and we talked about

the Adam Silver in it, and you asked the question of why should anybody care about NBA Europe, who lives here, right? Who cares about the NBA? Right. What did Brian just say? The entire league office was in Abu Dhabi. Why? Because that is where the nexus of all the stuff the NBA is working on is from an international financial standpoint. And that is all going to come back to the NBA. Like, it's not a coincidence that NBA Europe is going to have a team in Manchester where Abu Dhabi is that's going to be owned by Abu Dhabi. And it's not a coincidence that there's going to be a team in Paris where PSG is, which is owned by the Qataris. And this is in large part, clearly a way to further integrate this giant pile of money in the Middle East into the NBA ecosystem. And that's not going to stop with NBA Europe.

It's going to continue on. Brian wrote in his story all the various ways that it's going to. And it's going to keep coming this way because as we look at how expensive these franchises are, there is a by the day smaller and smaller group of people who can afford to buy these teams. So you can draw a quick through line from this to where this is ultimately going to get to, which is where it began when the league allowed for a 5% investment by sovereign wealth. funds and teams. When you allow a 5% investment, that means you're eventually going to allow a 15%, 25%. I think it is actually 15 or 20% now. Might be more now, but the point is it's that's,

it's going to continue in that direction, just like it did in the Premier League, just like it has all all over the place. I get why it's important for the NBA. I get why it's a priority for the NBA. It's about maximizing revenue. What I'm asking is how does it impact your average fan? Well, I'll tell you right now. Well, when a sovereign wealth fund buys an NBA team, it's going to impact the fans of that team. That's what I'm eluded. What's that? Positively or negatively.

I don't think that will be a negative thing. If you look at the Premier League, now again, it's a different league. There's no salary cap, right? If you look at the Premier League, Manchester City was a completely irrelevant team. They were the Brooklyn Nets, essentially, compared to Manchester City, who was the NICS, or Manchester United, it was the Knicks, right? Manchester City now has a global collection of superstars. They have Pep Cardiola, one of the most famous managers of all time running their team.

I believe they finally won the Champions League a couple of years ago. They've won a bunch of Premier League titles. They've become a global superpower in a decade. Like, I'm not saying it's going to exactly translate like that with the NBA because there's salary caps and many other rules that are in place. but if you look at, we've talked about the Lakers, right? The Lakers went from having ownership that didn't have a ton of money to now ownership that has a ton of money. That in theory will help the franchise, just like the Clippers, just like the Warriors.

It probably won't be a negative thing. Let me just have what happened with the Lakers. The Lakers, as you know, were purchased for the valuation of $10 billion. They were actually going to be purchased for about $6 billion, the way it's all going to work out because of what the percentage that's being purchased. But there's going to be, when the buses sell, they're going to keep some of the team. And the group that's buying control of the Lakers already owns about 27%. So the way we standardize it when we talk about teams, we say what it would be if you bought

the whole 100%, but almost never is the whole 100% bought. So the valuation is 10 billion, but they're going to spend about six, six and a half billion actual currency. Three months before Mark Walter, who is buying his and his group, bought, they were agreed, to buy the Lakers. They got a $10 billion investment from Abu Dhabi. His holding company got a $10 billion investment from Abu Dhabi. So it's not directly being purchased and, you know, they got, I'm sure they raised other money. I think the Hougain guys have all sorts of money. Yeah, I think they actually I think they actually announced a $15 billion raise, but $10 billion of it came from Abu Dhabi. And then

three months later decided to spend $6 billion of that, you know, is it Abu Dhabi's money or did it pass through. I don't know, but the key is the Abu Dhabi investment enabled them to have the capital. They're involved in Team USA. They're involved with that. They're inextricably tied to the league now in a lot of ways. That's not going to change anytime soon.

And all the, again, to your point, Big Man, why does this matter to fans? That's why it matters to fans. It's not about NBA Europe. Last year, before the Olympic team played in Paris, they flew to Abu Dhabi from Vegas.

And it was such a long flight that the jumbo jet that they chartered couldn't even make it. And they had to land in the middle of the night in Iceland. So LeBron James and Steph Curry and Kevin Durant and all those guys were walking around Reykavik, Iceland, in the middle of the night getting fuel so that they could make it all the way to Abu Dhabi. They flew eight hours past Paris to get there. Why did they do that? Why did they go all the way out there at Abu Dhabi? The giant pile of money.

And not just the money that they got for those games. No, I mean the entire giant pile of money, not a pile of money. All of them. And because, you know, it's the same reason why, as I wrote in my story, that Jim Dolan and Adam Silver, two guys who have been basically in a cold war for the last couple of years. You know, Dolan, the Knicks sued the Raptors. They actually just pulled the lawsuit back, but the Knicks sued the Raptors in a breach of protocol. Jim Dolan announced he was resigning from committees.

He's constantly telling the league that he wants to see their books because he believes they're spending too much money. It's a very cantankerous relationship. And I was watching the game. You saw the two of them standing there being chummy and chatting it up. And, you know, obviously there's all sorts of investments with the Knicks there, as Brian mentioned earlier. And, you know, we haven't directly said it. But Brian's story was awesome. And if you're interested in where the league is headed on a lot of different fronts,

this story illuminates a lot of it. Yeah. So the Team USA had incredible care for their men's women's men's and women's team. They're five-on-five team and their three-on-three team. And they, if you remember, the women's team, they played their first exhibition game against the WMBA All-Stars in Phoenix. And then they got on their own Jumbo jet. You know, you talk about, you know, the WMBA teams of long wanted charters.

Well, I know they have charters now, but they chartered a Jumbo jet to fly them from Phoenix all the way to London. They met the men's team in London. And they rented out an entire luxury hotel for all everybody and the families. The whole hotel was booked up. There were NBA general managers and stuff that wanted to stay at this hotel to be near their players and they couldn't because the team USA booked the whole hotel. then in Paris they had another entire hotel they were able to bring all the families together and they were able to do that because in large part they went to Abu Dhabi to raise the money for it

right so they got a gigantic pile of money right and and so the next World Cup is in Qatar in 27 I would not be surprised if team USA visits nearby Abu Dhabi again I just they're both training camp probably being Abu Dhabi by then and you know they for a while now have been investing in that relationship with China. It got very complicated. They're renewing that relationship. Patrick Dumont just announced that the Mavericks and Rockets are actually going over there next year, which is... You're going to love going to Macau. Well, I've been, what I was getting at, I have been to Shanghai and Shenzhen, you know, that one... Shenzhen. That place, too. I went there when the Mavericks played the Sixers,

it was Lucas Rookie Year. And when I got there, it was immediately obvious to me why every guy who's got a signature shoe deal does a Chinese tour, sometimes every single summer. Like the sneaker culture there was strong in terms of like just walking the streets, like all the shoes that people were wearing. There was this huge mall right by the hotel that like the each brand, like 15, 20 different brands had their own stores that were massive. And like the fan culture there, like, dude, it was packed for layup lines and people were going crazy for dunks in layup. lines. Do you, is there that kind of fandom? No. Okay. There's not that many people there, but they believe there will be someday. And whether or not, I don't know. And, you know,

things got contentious with China for political and other reasons. I can't predict what will happen in the Middle East. There could be, you know, it's a very fragile area. And we probably talked about it for too long, but it's a huge part of where the NBA is headed. The future of global basketball runs through the Middle East and for the NBA runs through Abu Dhabi, which I just want to be clear. Abu Dhabi is in the same country as Dubai, but they're different states. Even though it's a much smaller, it's a much smaller territory. It's about an hour and a half by car between the two of them. It's the same country, different states.

Abu Dhabi is the controlling region. It is not Saudi Arabia. It is not Qatar. They are very different places. There are similar values in those situations, but people, seem to think everything over there is Saudi Arabia. And by the way, the Saudis are in the middle of a bit of a renaissance themselves. But it's different. And, you know, I think it's a little bit intimidating because it's very foreign to Americans. You know, they think that all the Middle East

is the same. It's not the same. You know, it's, it's, it's in many ways very different. And I've spent a lot of time with Muhammad al-Mabarak. I find him to be a visionary. Can I evaluate, for everything he's ever done in his life, I cannot. Can I vouch for everything he and his family and his allies might do? I cannot. But I, there is a reason why the NBA has selected Al-Mabarak and Abu Dhabi to be partners with. And I am extremely impressed with what he has done in that country, what his vision is for the future of their partnership with the NBA. And he wants it to last decades. He told me that he wants the partnership that they're forging with the NBA to outlive him. And he's probably in his early 40s. By the way, he went to school in Boston. He's a huge Laker fan.

And now he's a Dodger fan because. How's it going to be a Lakers fan going to school in Boston? I know. It's crazy. Joe Mazzola probably was going to try to schedule a pickup game against by the way, he would love to play pickup with Joe Mazzula. Joe Mizzula would crush him. 57 to 4 or so. Yeah. Here's the, all you got it, for people who haven't read Brian's story yet, and I would get encouraging to, the summation of this entire thing is the last line of a quote from Adam Silver, Adam Silver, colon, quote, they are dream investors, end quote. That sums up where the NBA is at and where this is all pointed to moving forward, and

it's why it matters to fence. All right, we're going to talk about the 2025-26 NBA season, particularly the Western conference. Jackson issued an edict before this podcast. We have to be more firm in doing our tears and yeah, because you guys kept trying to leave

teams out in the east. The JV conference was just being left with less than all the teams by the end of it. That's not true. You just did completely leave out the Bulls and you don't. We didn't. At first, we had to circle back. Whether the Rappers were lumped

in with the Bulls or not. And the role is going to be in that playing purgatory tier. Definitive answers. Okay, here we go. The super producer requested. Tier one. One team. We can, this is the Raptors?

Yeah. This is me. We can move along. Heavy favorites tier. Oklahoma City. Enough said. I mean, loaded returns every contributor from the championship team. And a lot of those guys are the vast majority of those guys.

guys are still ascending. I haven't done this research. Maybe I should. Has there ever in the modern era been a championship team that brought every player back? Well, they didn't bring everyone back. Dylan Jones got traded in a salary dump to make room for their first round pick. Okay. Yeah. Of the players, of the players who played in the finals and maybe he got in my guy. I mean, the, I mean, yeah. I mean, the 15, I want to say the 15, 16 warriors were pretty much the same team. I don't remember for sure. It's something that I'm sure we can ask old stats,

Williams, and I'm sure he's different before we just don't have it handy. But it's literally like 98. Something percent of their scoring from the playoffs. And the only Dylan Jones minutes were garbage time. Now, how much they, like, we'll see how much Nicola Topich ends up playing. You know, he was a redshirt rookie last year. Unfortunately, he's recovering from surgery to a very sensitive area now after having the ACL recovery last year.

And then their rookie, Thomas Sorber, who was going to miss this year. He's going to redshirt with his own torn ACL. So I'm not sure how much they are adding to last year's group, but it's not like that group had any holes. All right. So they're alone in Tier 1. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this.

Tier 2, Bon Temps. How many teams? Got one team. Wow. That's it. Here he is again with these. He's always got 11 teams. I had four.

I mean, I would, I thought a month ago, I would have had two teams in the second tier. But I think with Fred Van Vleet's injury, I think Denver should be by themselves. They have the best player on the planet. And I think they have demonstrated over time. They are the biggest challenger to the thunder. And I think there's a bunch of other teams that are good that have pretty massive. of questions about them in different ways. So I would have them as their own tier and then a bunch of teams in the next group behind them. McMan. Personally. I had this as the primary challengers tier

and I had four teams in it. I did have Denver first. I still have the Rockets. I, you know, they also have a ton of ascending talent led by Amin Thompson. Jabari Smith Jr. has looked great this preseason two by the way and filled the glaring. hole in their roster with a Hall of Fame player who's still producing at superstar levels and Kevin Durant. Golden State, 22 and 5 with Jimmy Butler and Steph on the floor together. You know, Steph is still a top single-digit player. I don't feel like arguing that single-digit number, but it is a single-digit number. Proven Championship Corps. And then, look, Minnesota's been in the conference finals in back-to-back years. So I'm including the Timberwolves in there.

Okay, I got three. Jackson says a year ago, the Celtics had 93% of their team back after winning the title, just as a FYI. Yeah, I said everybody. I was just saying, Jackson gave a good stat. I was just answering. Thank you, Jackson. I got three teams in it. Okay.

Denver, absolutely. Denver, under different circumstances, could have won the last three titles and certainly could have won two of the three. I, you know, I've said this before. I don't know what would have happened if they had not botched game seven against Minnesota two years ago, because they were the one team that Boston had all kinds of trouble with. They went to game seven last year against Oklahoma City.

Now, I will note real quick, they might not get out of the first round without Russell Westbrook for all the crazy stuff. Well, that's why I got the Los Angeles Clippers in this tier tier two. Interesting. I considered that. I am opening myself up to

having egg on my face, but I think the clippers look spectacular. I thought they looked spectacular down the stretch last year. And I know that they made some changes to their roster. And I know that they're older and they're going to have injuries. Yep. And look, James Hardin is, you know, is actually not even in that greatest shape.

That's one of the things that the scouts have said is that, you know, Hardin has been in better shape at this point. But Kauai looks fabulous. Their binge looks fabulous. They got a ton of good players. They're deep. I mean, I would have. them in the third tier just because they're so old and the warriors are so old and have a lot of

injury questions. But I think Golden State's ceiling is as high as anybody this side of OKC. And the Clippers, I'm still not 100% sure about their playoff ceiling, but I think they're going to be an awesome regular season. I agree with that. Wendy, so you said Denver, you said the Clippers. Who's the third team you got here? Houston. Houston. So I think the consensus is Denver and Houston. And then I had Minnesota here. I had Minnesota and Golden State. You had the Clippers. Yeah.

So I think the consensus is there's two teams here. And then I think those three teams that also got votes are in the next year. Yeah, I thought those four teams, Houston and those three teams were my tier three. Like, I think they're the six best teams. However, you want to slice it. I think those are the top six teams in the West. Well, and I, so I had the Lakers and Clippers. in the potential challengers tier.

How much consideration do you guys give the Lakers as far as, you know, if we wanted to say it's just one big group of these two tiers? Do you- If LeBron, sorry, I thought you were done that. Yeah, if we're counting this is just one pack of challengers. I don't think the Lakers should be in that mix. We have no idea what LeBron's status is going to be. They don't have, they have hardly any perimeter athleticism.

And I do not like the interior defensive combination of DeAndre Aten and Jackson Hayes. They don't have a ton of shooting around Luca Dachachian on this team. Luke is amazing, obviously. Looks like he's in great shape. Like I'm sure he's going to be good. Austin Reeves is playing for a contract. They also have a ton of guys on this team, all playing for money. I've been around teams like that before.

The 2019 Celtics immediately come to mind. That team was loaded with talent and they had a lot of guys playing for contracts. and that thing couldn't have gone worse. And it could not, it was not handled well. I'm not saying it's going to go exactly like that. But I just think the Lakers have way too many questions right now to put them in that tier for me. Now, if LeBron comes back healthy, could they wind up in the top six? Sure.

They definitely could. I know Shams said either yesterday or today that LeBron's targeting a mid-November return. And if he comes back and plays 65 games and looks pretty good or 60 games and Luca plays 75 at an MVP level, like, yeah, they could finish in the top six. But I think when you look at the clippers and the wolves who handled them last year in the first round of the playoffs, but more or less the same team, and what Golden State's ceiling is, I just think all those teams are pretty clearly ahead of what the Lakers are. Wendy? Personally. Yeah, I think Reeves and Donchich can do a lot of damage.

And the Lakers are much healthier than they were a year ago, which is, I know it's a loaded statement because LeBron is out. But Ruehachamur was messed up last year. Vincent was messed up last year. Jared Vanderbilt was messed up last year. Those guys are all healthy. Luca was an out of shape shell of himself. Who? Luca was an out of shape shell of himself.

Well, he wasn't there yet. He wasn't there at the start of the season. I'm talking about the end of the season. No, I know. I know. But I'm saying, you know, the Lakers finished third last year and they were really injured. And now their overall teams a lot healthier. I do think that it is an, you know, it is an interesting situation that they're in,

which is that literally nobody on this team is truly, locked in other than the Luca. Yeah, yeah. You know, Hachamura is under contract, Vanderbilt's under contract. But like, those aren't guys that if the Lakers couldn't move off if they tried to, you know, they're not core players. And, you know, I suspect Austin Reeves strongly is going to get re-signed. But they're in this, they're in this sort of nether region.

We have a story running on Friday and about a lot of extension guys across league veteran extension guys. And one of the people we talked about in the story is Austin Reeves and how like the last three years, the guy has made a combined $39 million and he's going to walk into FreeZee as a 28-year-old who just averaged 25 and 5 and shot 37 percent from three. The list of guys last year who had 20 and five and shot 37 percent from three was like Steph, Dame, Jalen Brunson, LeBron, they were all stars, Yokic. You know, so Austin Rees is. is going to walk into next summer saying, I should get 30 or 35 or 40 a year. And there's going to be teams that have money to spend.

And he's in his prime. He'll be unrestricted. All handler who's an unrestricted free agent. So like, you know, he could get paid a lot of money. Yeah, I think the Lakers were prioritized keeping him. But I'm just saying that Luca is long term committed, but it's hard to see what the, I have no idea who's going to be on the Lakers roster in two years other than Luca. I wouldn't say anybody on this team.

I would say for sure is on the team. I think the simplest, I think the simplest reason to not have the Lakers in the tier with these other teams is I think you very, if you start to go down the Lakers roster, once you get past two or three guys, you very quickly run out of players who would be playing for any of these other teams. And those other teams also have high-end players. Like, it's not like the Lakers are the only ones with a top five or ten player on the team. I thought it was interesting.

JJ Redick, so if you've watched NBA today at all this week. Also, it's been on various digital channels of the ESPN. Tim Legler went to the every year the coaches, all the NBA coaches get together for a big meeting. I believe it's in Chicago. And Legler went there and he sat with all these coaches and did film breakdown. And they've been running those. And he sat with JJ Redick, the one with JJ Redick ran a couple of days ago. and they were looking at a defensive possession.

And JJ was like, you know, they were looking at last year, you know. And JJ was like, well, you know, we don't have any defensive stoppers. And we don't have any defensive stoppers this year either. So we have to play team defense. He wasn't trying to take a shot at his team. He was trying to talk about his philosophy. No, but it's also, it's not a shot at his team. It's also just reality.

They don't have a guide of. Marcus Marck probably still considers himself a defensive. of stopper. We can argue about whether that's reality at this point, but go on. Marcus, I thought it was interesting. If Marcus Smart from three or four years ago shows up this year with the Lakers, I will grant him that.

I'm going to need to see that based off how the last couple of years have gone. Well, DeAndre Aden has looked pretty good in the preseason. He's been a, he's in good shape. He's put, he's been a defensive, you know, he's put a bunch of defensive stats up there. We'll have to wait and see, you know, whether that translates in. to good team defense, but he's put up, he's made plays defensively. The thing about Aiton is sometimes it's what doesn't show up in the box score, because he's put up offensive counting stats since he was,

since day one. It's the rebounds he doesn't get. It's the rotations he doesn't get. I mean, there's a reason why all of his teams end up barking at him in the huddle because they tend to, he tends to drive him crazy. It's the screens he doesn't set.

It's the roles when he doesn't go hard. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I, all, those first 16. we talked about, I think we all agree they definitely can win a first round series and maybe win two. I, it's hard right now for me to look at the Lakers, particularly when we don't have any idea what's happening with the Bronx back and say that you have any confidence. Well, I know, but it's, we're ranking them right now. Like they should be, to me, they should be in their own tier by themselves itself because they're better than Dallas. Again, this guy wants to put 10 teams. That's the whole point. It's the whole point of

tiering it. So here's my idea. They're better than Dallas. They're better than San Antonio. They're better than the teams behind them. But they're, I think they're clearly not as good as the Warriors or the Clippers or the wolves or the rockets. True.

But they, but Luca could win the MVP this year. That's my thing. LeBron could be all the NBA. I have no idea how he's going to feel. Like, by the way, the thing about sciatica is it's not so much that, you know, his recovery. Yes, his recovery is a process. It's also that you got to stay on top of it. You got to really be careful not to over extend and he's got to really work to keep himself loose.

Yeah, that's my, that would be my whole, that would be my argument. If LeBron was fully healthy and they walked into the season and you had locked in Luca, healthy, fit, ready to go, and a healthy LeBron James, yeah, I would say you can make an argument, even though I think they'd still be lesser than those teams, that the Lakers could go into any series and feel like they have a shot with those two guys against anybody short of OKC. The problem is we're walking into the season with the oldest player in the league with a back issue and we have really no idea how it's going to go. So I think we have to treat it like there's a good chance he's going to miss more time with the back

and that's going to create a lot of other cascading problems that they then have to deal with. Right. But if you're looking at the spectrum of the results that they could have, you can acknowledge the fact that he could end up being healthy and that Reeves could have an all-star level season and that LeBron could have an all-MBA season because he had one last year and Luca could have an MVP. Yes, in the spectrum of, in the range of simulations, there are simulations where that happens. I think the much more likely scenario is that the Lakers are okay, but they're not as good

as those teams. Because again, like you said, like no disrespect to Jared Van Gogh. Vanderbilt and Gabe Vincent and Rui Hachamura. If you say to the Lakers, hold on. Gabe Benzson had 18 points in four minutes, nine seconds against the Maverick starters. Okay. Don't you be bad enough to the wake of that? Gabe Vincent's a nice player.

If you'd said before last season, would you rather have those three guys healthier or LeBron James? The Lakers would have said LeBron James. Of course you're right. Of course you're right. I'm just saying they finished third last year despite those challenges. There was a whole bunch of teams were. in the same spot and I would say that most of the other teams around them got better and I would say

the Lakers are either the same or worse. We're talking about their second best player, their second best players got a sciatic problem. Potential challengers. Lugo will have a revenge type of season. I think we all would wager on that. Their potential is going to be determined by LeBron's health and DeAndreighton's head. But Wendy, they're in this, they're in this tier. All right. So, okay. I mean, I just enjoy how we do these things so then we just disregard all logic. We vote. No, we didn't. We just just trust all logic and then we voted.

Okay. Sure. So we have Thunder in the first tier, rockets and Nuggets in the second tier, and the third tier we have what, McMahon, I've lost track. Golden State, Minnesota, and the two L.A. teams. Yes? That gets the seven through.

Yeah. I have the Clippers far ahead, but. Well, and then the Bucters and I did. So, yeah. Well, listen, assuming I think makes sure the clippers is you would be a loser if you assumed with the clippers. So I just have to accept that. And then the next tier I have is the play in probabilities. Now, by the math, one of these teams won't cut it if we go with my numbers, but probably three of these four teams will end up in the playing.

I've got naths, grizzlies, spurs, and those kangs with the infusion of Russell Westbrook, number 18 in your program. Is that what he's wearing number 18? Great team. It's 18th season. Yeah. Oh, is that right? Okay. Well, by the way, but not the greatest news was DeBada Sabonis, hurting his hamster.

Yeah. Yeah, I would not have the Kings in this group. The Kings have not looked great. The Kings have a lot of issues up and down the roster. I actually think if you're going to add another team, I think the best of the rest of those teams is Portland. I don't really think Portland necessarily can keep up with these. teams, but I think if you look at those bottom five or six, like Portland's got maybe too many

guys almost, but they have like 10 or 11 solid players and they should have a good defensive team. And, you know, the Spurs have, the Dallas certainly has injury questions. The Spurs have some injury questions already. Memphis jaws out, you know, they always have injury. What the Grizes injury report, obviously has already struck multiple times in the preseason. Although Jaron Jackson Jr. played the other night, which is obviously good news. No, which is great. Right. Jaron looks like Jaron's on track to be ready for opening night, which is great.

But we don't really have any sense of when Jaws going to be back. So I would say those three teams plus Portland is a group just because Sacramento, the subonest thing is just the latest thing. But they look like a very big mess. And I don't see how they're really going to stop anybody either. I'm not going to die on the hill of including Sacramento in this tier. So you can talk about that one pretty quick. Well, so Portland last year started the season 13 and 28.

There was rumblings. Rumblings of Chauncey Billups' job security. And then they went on a streak where they won 10 out of 11 games in January and it turned their season around. They ended up, I think, four or five games over 500 from January on. And then there's a stat. They had the number one defense in the league for the last half of the season. And then they fired their defense coordinator, Roy Rogers. but hey. Yeah, they went 23 and 18 over the second half of the year. And they had a top five or so defense.

Yeah. Which again, I, which again, I, you know, I think there's a lot of questions to be asked about downstretched stats in the NBA. But if you just go through their rotation, you know, again, that I love the addition of Drew Holiday from a long, taken on that money long term, not really, but like if you add him to, and he's still a solid defensive player at this point of his career, and you add him to to Monty Kamara and Deniaavia and Donovan Kling. is a monster inside. Like they, you know, Jeremy Grant is a long wing. Like they've just, they've just got a lot of size and defensive ability all over the place. And like they're at least going to be good at that end. That gives you at least a baseline to be okay.

And I will say, Shaden Sharp has looked spectacular during the preseason. Yeah, he's looked really good. It's going to be interesting to see if he gets extended. Yeah, I don't think any big questions whether he is talented. Yeah. Yeah. I heard pessimism on the Shaden Sharp extension front, but I don't buy it. Well, the Clutch has Shaden Sharp, and last year Clutch had Jalen Johnson, who was, I'd say, a very similar kind of player in terms of a young, very high upside guy who hadn't played a lot.

Well, they're very different players, but you're talking about the class of players. Well, yes, very high upside young players who have, for injury reasons, and, you know, Shadens, you know, Shadens missed a decent amount of time. I think Jayland had missed more. But again, you watch Shaden Sharp play. He's a 6-7 toolbox wing who, I mean, I watched the first game they played against Golden State. He had, I think, 18 in the first half. He was cooking every guy, the Warriors put on him. Like, he could really pop.

Yeah, he could really pop. So that would be my tier of those four teams from 18. Scoot Henderson is going to miss, he tore his hamstring right before camp, I think they announced. He suffered a hamstring injuries out for a while. that's a thing like they're they're two or three deep at just about every position so it you know it's they can withstand injury more than a lot of other i wouldn't have portland or sack in this group yeah i mean i i'm fine i'm fine leaving portland out too i just think that portland i think has a high enough floor even though i don't love their ceiling long term and i think that dallas san antonio and

Memphis all have real floor concerns for me because of the pretty obvious injury questions they all come into the season with and could have as it goes along. The Mavs have fit questions, including whether Cooper Flats as an 18-year-old is ready to run point guard for the first time in his entire life while learning the ropes of the NBA. The stats of him not turning the ball over are pretty. He had five turnovers in the Charlotte game when he didn't even start a point guard. Right. But then he hasn't turned the ball over at all.

Well, yeah, but he's, there's been pretty clear growing Vince. And honestly, like, that's their best defensive lineup. But he was guarding Gabe Vincent on that ridiculous scoring floor that I mentioned. He's he's six, nine and 18 years old. He's not been the defender on the ball hand or picking rolls a whole lot in his life. That's a pretty steep learning curve to do in your first weeks in the NBA. Yeah, I mean, this is why I'm down on Dallas overall this year. But like, long term, I think all this stuff is awesome.

We talked about a couple weeks ago. Like he should be playing a point guard for them. They should be having him run picking rolls. They should have me guarding picking rolls, doing all this stuff. Like, yeah, maybe Kyrie Irvin can come back late in the year and these guys can maybe be frisky. But this is not a year. This year should not be about Dallas trying to win a title. It should be about getting Cooper Flag as much and as many, as much experience,

as many different kinds of experiences they can get for a guy who's got a chance to be one of the players in the league as a rookie and have him. and have him learn on the job as much as possible. It's a, you know, while playing with Anthony Davis and, you know, a bunch of good players around him. Like, I, you know, I was excited to see him start at point the other day. I hope that's how they start the regular season. They should have them out there doing that. Jake, I haven't heard you guys talk about the Pelicans yet. Hold on.

Not yet. One last little point on flag. Actually, two quick ones. Very quick. Jay Kids, not ready to commit to that super-size lineup to start the season, but I would put my money down on him going out. way. Two, you speak of learning on the job. 18 seconds left in the first quarter. They get a possession. He jacked up a off-dribble kind of fade away with like 10 seconds left. That's a pretty glaring mistake that J-Kidd pointed out, Cooper Flagg pointed out, Anthony Davis pointed out

all post game. I bet you that's a mistake he doesn't make again. But again, yeah, playing point guard the first time in his life, having to think time and score and, you know, who's touched the ball and all those kind of things, there'll be a learning experience for him this season. By the way, speaking of the Mavericks, Jason Kidd got his contract extended earlier this week. I thought our former colleague at ESPN, he's now at SNY in New York, Ian Begley, covers the Knicks. I thought he had a world-class line when he said that the Knicks coaching search this year was a stimulus package for the coaching. Because Billy Donovan, I mean, I don't know, maybe he'd have gotten extended anyway, but Billy Donovan got extended by the

Bulls when the Knicks came calling. I think he made Doca was probably going to get extended anyway, but he got extended when the Knicks showed interest. And now Jason Kidd, although it was a few months later, I don't know when they actually agreed to this, McMahon. I think it finally got done this week, but it was clear it needed to happen when the Mavericks didn't let him interview with the Knicks, which was basically them not let him take the job of the Knicks.

By the way, the last time Jake got an extension was when the Lakers job came open and they were interested in them. Okay. So I think we've agreed that we'll just. just go three teams, which makes the numbers right for the playing improbables tier, Dallas, Memphis, San Antonio. I've named the next year the purgatory tier. I'm comfortable putting the Kings there, the Trailblazers, the Suns.

The Kings know what purgatory is like. It's an old friend. Yes, the Sons and New Orleans. That's my purgatory tier. Any disagreement? I would have New Orleans with Utah. New Orleans is going to stay. I love this.

I can't do that. I can't do that. I love it. Because I had the last tier. Why? looking at the lotto. So I can't put New Orleans in that. I mean, New Orleans is going to be looking at the loto.

They're just going to be looking at the lotto and sending the pick by FedEx delivery to Atlanta. Looking at the lot of saying, they're going to be looking at the lotto. Damn. That's what they're going to be doing. Let me look at the lot of going, you know, could have had Darren Peterson or Native Men or AJ DeVanza or any one of these guys and what's a loaded draft. And instead, we're going to do our own stimulus package and send it off to the Atlanta Oaks. Listen, I've seen multiple highlights of Zion dunking on breakaways, so I think all is well in New Orleans.

How many points did Jeremiah Fears have the other night? Oh, this reminds me, though, actually. He had 20, but a large chunk of those were fourth quarter points in the preseason, so reading it out what you will. This does remind me, a fella who goes by the handle Retro Pels was offended by us bad mouth and kingcakes. on a recent podcast and the Pelicans and just felt like it was overboard. So he reached out to me and said, if the Pels make the playoffs, you all need to eat King Cake on the pod. I said I would do it.

Will you guys join me in that commitment? If the Pelicans make the playoffs. You don't have to threaten me to eat cake. I'll eat cake. Okay. Fontaine? I'm just saying it's the concept of there being a hard plastic thing inside a cake is it's a remarkable.

You're not have Lopez-Sendis cakes. They're not, I'm also not eating any cake because they ain't making the plows. That part of what I think we all agree on. But there's the commitment. If they make the playoffs, we all have a one-third king-kex twice. And by the way, Jeremiah Fears is an interesting young prospect. He's also 18 or 19 years old and he's a point guard and he's going to struggle.

And they're just not going to be very good. And that's before they potentially trade some of these guys because they probably should do that too. So like, well, look, if Zion gets hurt again, then okay. I agree. I'm not sure it's going to matter. All right. Do you, would you have Trey Murphy on your team? I like Trey Murphy a lot.

Yes. Okay. He's a good player. Would you have Herb Jones on your team? Herb Jones is also a good player. Would you have Jeremiah Fears on your team? I mean, Jeremy Fears is a good long-term prospect who for winning games in 2025, 26 is probably going to be a disaster because he's a very young rookie guard.

They tend to be disasters. That's not anything to do with his long-term potential. I think he could be a really good player. Would you have Zion Williamson on your team? I would continue to explore the trade market there. Ask about Jordan Poole. I don't want to. Okay.

I think you know the answer. Well, I mean, I would say DeJonté Murray too, but he's obviously hard. Unfortunately, he's not going to play it for a while. Zion Williamson has been in the NBA for six seasons and has played a combined 214 games. Would you have Jose Alvarado on your team? Yeah, but he's a nice, he's a fine backup guard. Just saying, like, they got some talent.

Yeah, they're not, they're not a good team. They play in the Western Conference and they don't have a ton of talent. The Utah Jazz have Walker Kessler and Lowry Markin in at the four and the five. Like, they're both very good players. Their team is not going to be very good. I'm not arguing that they're headed for the, they're headed for the conference finals. I'm just saying that like there is a world in which they could make the play in.

Okay. I'll eat Kingcake if they make the play in. You don't even, you're extending the bet from playoffs to the play. I'll eat king cake and wash it down with a beat of amber. Be it a beat of beer. Our buddy Joe Goodman, a Jin, she used to do a beat a beer many years ago. It's good. But yeah, I just, they're just not a good team.

And by the way, they also have all these guys have injury questions led by Zion, who has, you. played an average of 35 games the season. So no, I don't believe Zion's now going to play 75 games. If he does magically play 75 games and play 32 minutes a game, yeah, maybe they'll make the playing because Zion is a very talented player. But I'm going to take the under because unfortunately, Zion gets hurt all the time. Zion played 70 games two years ago.

Yes. That's a third of the games he's played in his entire career. Okay. I'm not guaranteeing anything. I'm just saying like, you know. You did it one time. The league has decided that it was the worst trade in NBA history and they will have egg all over their face. Well, there is a pathway that that is.

The league has decided that the worst trade since early February. It's very, it's very, yeah, the process of, and they're, you know what, those two trades are also very linked. Because the process of trading Luca Donchich was awful. And the process that the Pelicans went through to make that trade was awful. The process was bad. The result is a different thing. Like if the Mavericks, if Kyrie hadn't gotten hurt and the Mavericks had made the conference finals last year, some people, I'm sure Nico Harrison, chief among them, would have argued that that was a good trade. It was not a good trade, no matter what the outcome is.

But ironically, the process was terrible. Ironically, if that happened, they'd be in a lot worse shape right now. Correct. They wouldn't have Cooper Flagg. But Jackson points out as an omen for their season, Kavana Luni, who basically. never missed games ever for the warriors. He signs with the Pelicans and they went down to Australia and he sprained his knee like instantaneously.

Yeah, they're just, they're just not, they're not even as good as the king. Like, they're not as good as Portland. By the way, speaking of, speaking of that sort of voodoo, the poor sons. I mean, listen, they've contributed a lot to their own demise. Jalen Green never missed a game playing. Yeah, he's got the, he's, He's got like the third longest streak in the league of consecutive games. And now he's got a hammy that's going to sideline him to start a season.

I'm not saying that that's going to determine whether the sons make the playoffs or not because I don't think any of us believe that they will. I'm just saying it's like, man, tough for them to catch a break. Do you think the sons will finish ahead of the pelicans? Probably. But like I'm looking at like 12th through 14th somewhere in now. There. So the Sons has the Pelicans in the same tier as the Jazz.

Devin Booker, Devin Booker will be good this year. And the sons are going to be motivated to play out the string and play hard. And they're going to win, I'm not saying they're going to win 45 games. They're not. But they're going to be around where they were last year. Like at some point this season, the Pelicans are going to be out of the mix. What's that? That's Damiener.

praise. Well, but I'm saying, like, look, let's say the Pelicans are just not very good and they're on their way to finishing with 32 wins, right, like with everybody around, which is probably a reasonable expectation for what their season's going to be. If that's the case on like February 1st, I know I was just making jokes about them sending the pick to Atlanta, but there's zero reason for them to do anything, but play Jeremiah Fier's 33 minutes a game and play Derek Quinn. 33 minutes a game and let those guys get experience and play and play through mistakes. So like unless they're like firmly in the mix to make the play in, I think there's a pretty good chance that down the stretch of the season, they're going to be playing young guys a lot

and a team that's already not very good is probably going to be worse than. So yeah, I do think they'll be better than Phoenix will be better than them. Here's the thing about Phoenix. So we all talk about how. the Sons don't control their draft. But their pick swap this year is with Washington. No. No, it's not.

It's not? Washington. Memphis is very likely to end up with the Sons pick via the Desmond Bain train. Yeah, yeah. But who's the pick swap with? Is it not with Washington? The pick is swapped. The draft pick itself is swapped around, but the Sons don't have the pick.

It's one of those things where Memphis is going to end up with the best of whatever. I see. They traded the downside. The Washington Pigs protected one through eight. That's right. That's right. Okay. All right.

Yes. Yes. It was in Orlando as a result of some other transactions. I don't remember which. And as McBan said, in the Desmond Bain trade, they went to Memphis. I can't keep track of which picks are swapped and trade it. Actually, now I want to see how that. I wonder, Bobby's got that in a sheet, I think.

I'm curious what the... I just know when the Grizzies made that trade, they consider it to be the most valuable asset in the trade going their way, in their way. That was definitely the juiciest trade asset. Yeah, because it's that in a package of magic picks and then the players that were in there. All right.

So you have, in the bottom tier, Bontemps, you have... New Orleans and Utah. I give the Pelicans purgatory status. I'm being friendly. My mentions were... You know how I feel. My mentions were, I think everybody who sits in the lower bowl in those games was in my mentions after the recent podcast.

So there was like at least 47 people going after me. Well, there is a small but vocal Pelicans. Does Jake, you better get boo when it goes back there, by the way? Because he had that little, little. Look, I have a lot of sympathy for Pelicans fans because they have, you know, they've been through the ring around a few fronts. but it doesn't change the fact that the team is not very good, and it's just not a great situation.

A friendly to SWB. The Jazz are hoping that Ace Bailey has a good year this year, and that's what you're watching. And he showed some signs in preseason. Yeah, he had a couple of moments. And, hey, he's moved on from the advisor, who was very concerning, to put it mildly. some incredible gifts gifs out there my understanding is he is very coachable there's no

like he has star potential there's no question that he's there's upside there but you know he's a teenager he's not going to drive winning this year with a very flawed roster around him and unfortunately he's dealing with sword as in both knees right now i'm not sure if that's going to be something that lingers hopefully not you know hopefully not Look, last year, Will Hardy was coaching with both hands tied behind his back, and the jazz are doing a lot of, you know, roster shenanigans. I think it's fair to say to try to give themselves the best chance of getting Cooper Flag or Dylan Harper in the draft.

They obviously did not continue their streak of never jumping up in the lottery. And, you know, Austin Ains came in and said, we're not going to manipulate the roster this year and subsequently traded all the veteran players who were involved in that last year to make sure that that will not be the case. And they're not going to do that. And it's going to be, I think it will be a fun, I think for jazz fans, I think it will be a fun year to watch because you're going to be seeing, well, no, I'm not saying they're going to win 50 games, but you're going to be watching Walter Clayton. And again, assuming the knee thing isn't an issue, Ace Bailey and hopefully Taylor Hendrish gets back from that leg injury last year. They're going to be watching these young drafted players and Larry Marketing and Walker Kessler play.

and it won't be what it was last year, which was a pretty depressing experience watching them get guys out of games and stuff like that. By the way, I want to bring something up about a former jazz man, Colin Sexton, who was traded to the Hornets.

One of the guys who was moved out to create room for the young players to play. Yeah. So there's been some adjusted heights that have happened across the league this year. And we talked the other day about on with Vinny Goodwill and Slater about how Victor has been readjusted to 7-5, which I believe is still low. I'm just going with seven foot several for for Victor. Colin Sexton was listed with the jazz last year at 6-3.

Oh. And he's been reassessed by the Hornets and listed on their official roster as 6'3. foot. Okay, I was going to say, well, it's an understanding. He was never 6-3. No, I understand. With the hair, I know. They measured the hair. That's clear that I'm just saying to you that, you know, we see, you know, con canipple went from 6-5 to 6-4. Ryan Colkbrenner went from 7-1 to 7 foot. You know, this happens at time to time. You see guys, you know, go up and down an inch. Three inches is tough. Three inches is, that's an impressive decrease for sure. Also, he was measured at 6-1 in shoes at the combine.

Well, then you take the shoes off. It would be tough. It would actually be tough if he really did get three inches smaller. I don't think he did. No, I don't think it actually was all that. He's been in league for seven years. He's been in league for seven years. I think the league has a pretty good idea of his skill set.

I'm just saying that, you know, that's a, I have not seen a three-inch correction. That's, you know, maybe Jackson will have to get on to that. one. This is where we're at in Tearspot. We're dissecting the, we're dissecting the height adjustments for confidence. I just think I should point out, I, you know, it just made me think of Colin Sexton. I mean, I'm not sick. I couldn't pass for six-foot-three ever. What are you listed at, Wendy? Five-11. Is that accurate? Five-11 in shoes. I'll be on. So five-11, so most five-11 guys say six foot. So I'll give you credit. No, I'm not six foot.

I will say this week, you know, Boban, Marinovich was in the studio with us. Marianovic. I don't know what. I don't know what you just said. That's not it either. Marianovic is his name. Marianovic.

Boban. Boban. Just say Boban. Yeah, everybody says it was Boban. So, Perk, by the way, speaking of correcting Kite, Perk admitted he was like six, nine. Yeah. When we do the live shows, you know, we do these photos.

You know, we have people coming up with a meet and greet and we do these photos. And you two bastards are like six four or six five. I mean, I already am embarrassed for that. And then... Six five in the program. Yeah, what are you without shoes? Three and a half. All right.

Thank you for going through the tears. We'll be right back with James Jones. More Hoop Collective Podcast. After this. Okay, now joining us, as promised, the executive vice president. Excuse me, I don't want to call you just vice president. Executive of basketball operations of the NBA, brand new to the job, but not brand new to any of us. James Jones.

What's up, James? Thanks for joining us. I really appreciate it. It's great to see you and be on with you today. I've covered James as a player, as an executive, and now I'm, I'm very. set to grill him as a member of the NBA executive office team. Can I ask you, why did you want this job? This does not sound like the most fun job on the basketball landscape, replacing Joe Dumars,

is the czar. Yeah, there's like czar of discipline, a czar of operations, but really czar of getting bitched at from my experience. I would say to you, why did you want this job where you get bitched at a, about 350 days a year. Well, it's funny. I mean, I've known Joe for a long time and had a really great opportunity

to get to know him while he was in this role. And- Yeah, because you were bitching at him. No, not me, you know me. I mean, that's never been my mode of operation. But like my experience as a player, as a member of the Players Association Executive Committee as a front office executive,

I felt like there was a part of this like NBA ecosystem, I just didn't have visibility to. So being a player, being exact, the last part was working for the league. And so initially, it wasn't something I thought about. But after my interactions with Joe and talking to him about what the job actually is and what you can accomplish, I felt like it'd be a kind of a great progression. And I would be remiss if I didn't say my experience working with Mark and Byron and Adam over the years, being on the competition committee, I saw more to this job than just like discipline. Well, and to your point, James, the thing that people associate with this job is discipline.

We're sitting here right now while you were talking. I got an email from the league office that you find Jonathan Cominga, $35,000 for his ejection the other night. That's the thing that with this job, everybody associates with it. What is the punishment that's coming down from you and your office for different disciplinary things that happened? But as we, as you just alluded to, and as we know, there's a lot of other things that go into the job. when you talk about the other things you do beyond just talking to the least GMs, what goes into this job? What are the things that you touch on a daily basis that impact the way that fans are watching

the game and that teams are operating and the different parts of it that you're involved in? Well, I say my biggest is being able to take the feedback that I'm getting from GMs, from operations, folks, from fans, and see whether or not we do need to progress and change some things, right? and whether or not these things are creating issues for players or coaches or staffers that prevent them from focusing on their main thing, which is playing the game of basketball. And so on the floor, it's easy. Everyone sees the cameras are there, like an act on the floor, it's replayed a thousand times.

But simple things when you go in and guys are like, hey, man, by the way, I know I was talking about something else, but the lighting in here is really, really bad for shooters. Well, if that's impacting performance, you know, I can appreciate that. And so for someone, that might not be a big deal. But for me, right away, my bells go off. And I say, okay, where do I need to go? Who do I need to talk to to make sure that this issue that may distract our performers from performing is eliminated. So they can go out there and they can, you know, make memorable experience for our fans.

And more importantly, feel confident that, like, the league is responsive to the things that impact their performance. So you mentioned you were in the union leadership for years. So a lot of the folks who've had the job that you're in right now, Rod Thorne was legendary in this job. Rod Thorne was a player, executive, and then worked in this job. Kiki Van Dewey, same thing. Player executive worked in this job. Joe Dumas, obviously, Hall of Famer,

incredibly successful executive and worked in this job. You have worked in this job, or you have, I think, how did you go to eight finals, James? Eight final. Seven is a player and one is an exact. Right. So eight finals, seven finals in a row, right, at one point? Yeah. With the calves and heat. You built a Western Conference championship team in Phoenix.

But the one thing that you've done that I don't think other people have done is you've also worked in that union leadership and been through CBA negotiations and wondered what people sitting in this job were thinking. This is a little bit different. I guess it's not unheard of to work for the union and the league office, but you have kind of a unique, a unique resume here. And there will, it probably already has been, but there's going to be times where you go head to head with Andrea Guadala at the union, with Ron Klepner and Kirk Berger, their other leaders. That gives a bit of a different profile.

So because a lot of times the league office is, you know, adversarial with the, with the union, especially when it comes to, you know, finding and taking players money. Yeah, well, you know, I've always said, like, the biggest thing is, like, having clarity, right? And understanding why we're doing what we're doing and why we're holding the lines that we're holding and why we're trying to keep, you know, I would say boundaries. I said, like, if you think about the rules of the game, right, a player's responsibility or primary job is to push the boundaries, because you're trying to compete. you're trying to compete against your opponent.

So you're trying to win. You're trying to get every edge you can and stay within the lines. The league's job is to make sure that those lines and those boundaries are very, very clear. And once that's established, yeah, you'll have a back and forth. You'll have some tension. One's pushing one way. The other's pushing the other way. But at the end of the day, everyone's trying to play the game.

Right? You're trying to play the game fair. You're trying to win. So my perspective from the union allowed me to know, like, selfishly, the union, we wanted our things, right? selfishly the league wanted their things. But when you peel that away, we all wanted what was best for the game. And so I'm already in that space where I can see it through both lenses where, okay, I understand, you know, like no one wants to find a guy.

Like, we don't want to take anyone's money as hard earned. But we also have to make sure that we keep things in balance and we keep things fair and we hold a standard. And both sides get that. Brian alluded to it earlier, but a lot of this job, and you did too, is interfacing with the different teams and interfacing with the GMs of the different teams. You obviously were in that job for the past several years in Phoenix. What was your sort of impression of what this job was from that side of it?

And as there been anything, I know you've only been in it for a couple of months, but has there been anything early on that surprised you about it compared to what you expected it would be before you got into it? It's giving me an opportunity to see every GM and every league executive in a different light. When you're on the team side and you're one of the 30 guys competing, you see the competitive side. You know, you just see I always say like the, it's the individual side of, of that kind of community. Here, I'm able to see people in a different view and I'm actually able to help. The GM community is tight, right? You understand the pressures that we're all working under, but you don't share too much information.

You don't want to give up in a competitive advantage. Right. On this side, like, guys are talking to me and telling me what challenges they face, how I can help them, what they think the lead can do better, what they think. the league can do better, what they think they can do better as GMs. And it's great because, you know, I sit in the seat where now my sole job is to push the game forward and they know that. And so our interactions are different. They're more, I want to say, they're layered. They're deeper than the superficial like, hey, how you doing? Good luck this season. And now it's more of like, hey, what are some of the things that we can do from a league perspective that will help all 30 teams

versus just my team? You may be a maybe I'll appreciate this. I've, as I've been, working in the league for a couple decades. One of the things I noticed is the different way, different people see their perspective on the game. So for example, you talk to a player, a player may be like, that player over there doesn't like me, won't pass the ball, or that ref doesn't like me, or that coach doesn't like me. A coach might say, that player doesn't like me, that ref doesn't like me. And then my boss, the GM, doesn't like me. I'm getting screwed by my boss or I'm getting, you know, screwed by this guy over here. when you talk to the executive level,

the league is screwing me. The league, you know, we're getting screwed by the league. And so, like, you know, you very rarely hear a player complain about the league, but I know where that call goes. It goes to your office. Can you take us through it?

I know you've only been doing it since the game's been going on for a few weeks here in the preseason. Can you take us through what a typical day is like for you as after a night of games? And I know you have a staff that also shares the load. But what a typical, you know, you know, work day is like, especially after you, maybe there's been six or seven or eight games the night before.

Well, I'll say because of the nature of our business, there are no typical days. Okay. But I will say, like, a lot of it comes down to monitoring all of these games and everything that's happening in these games and everything that happens leading up to the game. So if you have, you know, like in game, you have player issues. Before the game, you have logistic issues. Post game, you have, you know, player coach media issues. Like all of these things that you're looking at to just make sure that once again, on game nights, the operation is frictionless. And so there's sometimes proactive calls to GMs just to check in team execs.

A lot of times it's fielding reactive calls where people make, someone may call and say, hey, you know, last night, my guy got a technical file. And I really want to understand more what he said because I really couldn't get it from him. I really couldn't get it in real time. I want some context because I want to take this back to my team to make it a teaching moment so they understand like how we can move forward without having anything that costs us a point or costs us a game. So for the most part, it's just, I always said it's a dynamic interactive job where every day I'm talking to someone in some front office or some team or some player that wants to get clarification on something. And I love it because it allows me, like I said, to push the game forward and give back in a way that helps, I always say, I perform. help our performers perform. We were talking about this before the call a little bit, but you were just in Abu Dhabi.

I believe you're also in Macau for both of the preseason games over there. There's been a lot of talk about potential expansion overseas, different things like that. How much of your job involves any kind of discussions around that kind of stuff? And just in general, as somebody who's been on the player side, the executive side, now the league side, And what has sort of been your take on the way the league, obviously it's always been a global sport, but the way the league as a whole over the past 15 or 20 years has really made such a push to be a global league and has games now annually in Europe and in Mexico and preseason games back in China now and in the Middle East and sort of spanning the globe throughout the 12 months of the year?

I mean, sometimes I have to pinch myself and actually, like, it's really cool to see how the game is gone. And I give Mark and Adam kudos. Like they've done a tremendous job of expanding our game. I went back. I was in the global games, I think, in Shanghai back in maybe 2012 or 2010 or so long ago. I couldn't remember the exact years. But being over in China and watching the game then and looking at how it's expanded now in Macau last week, unbelievable to see the fans and just see the excitement of. about our game. And so we talk about European expansion. We talk about being a truly global sport.

And I've had a perspective as a player and as an executive. And I can appreciate how heavy of a lift that is to not just run the league here, but also talk about expanding the game internationally. And so my voice, it carries some weight. I'm available whenever they ask from my perspective. but I'm just one of hundreds of people who are experts in this field that are really genuinely excited about the growth of our game. I mean, I think our game is unlike any other game. It ports anywhere you go. You give us a basketball court. You give us a basketball, hoops, net, give us, you know, 10 players, a referee. All you need is one coach. And you have a game. And that's the beauty of our sport. You can play at any time, anywhere, almost on any surface.

And so when you go over there and you see thousands of fans, many of whom have never seen a game live, to see how they respond and react to it, you know you're on the right path. You know that you're on the coolest sport in the world. All right, James, we could talk to you for hours on all the teams. We didn't even touch on the heatles that you were a part of. Yeah, that would be for another. You had a key role in the Harlem Shake video, I felt. I think out of everything you're accomplished in your career, the Harlem Shake video that was sort of, you know,

three championships. Don't bring those memories back. I try to suppress those memories, man. No, I mean, but that speaks to that team was special in the sense that, like, you had all of these great accomplished professionals who had been doing this at a very, very high level. But we never took ourselves so seriously where we couldn't sit back and have fun together and make fun of ourselves.

So you need that when you're playing in this high pressure. by it. Plus, you were on some great sons teams that could have won if things didn't happen. I mean, you had a remarkable career. At a later time when you're not all locked down by all this NBA, you know, everything's got to be lined up. But I'll read your book when you write it. All right. Thank you so much, James Jones, executive vice president of league operations. I look forward to reading many press releases with your name in it this season. Thanks, guys. I really appreciate the time, man. All right, thank you very much to James Jones.

Thank you to Jackson for putting it all together. Thank you to Bontems. Thank you to McMahon. Thank you for getting through the off-season with us here at the Hoop Collective. Next week, we shift to the real thing, although we still got a podcast before the season starts. But anyway, no more tiers. I promise you this is the last tiered podcast.

But we'll talk to you next week. Adios amigos.