Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Reaction: Wemby Leads Competition In NBA All-Star Game + Adam Silver On Tanking & Much More

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Vince Goodwill and Bobby Marks to react to what became a great NBA All-Star Game including why it worked so well this year. Plus, Kawhi’s sensational performance and what the Clippers are doing going forward. Finally, we discuss NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s extremely consequential press conference with major updates on a variety of topics like tanking and what the league may be looking into to fix it and much more. 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 WhoC collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Sunday evening just after the All-Star game. Joining us from Naples, Florida, where he's finally gone home after weeks on end in L.A. is Bobby Marks.

Gentlemen, I am home. I am home. A two-week journey out to Los Angeles on a double red eye getting home today. And I am home. A double red eye. Well, you know, leave at midnight, connect in Houston, then connect to go to Fort Mott. So, you know, something else. Yeah. You didn't go to Ryan Smith's All-Star Party. You know what? I had somebody tell me that I am the new mayor of Salt Lake City.

So no, I am not. But I, you know, I was at a breakfast Saturday morning, and I had a gentleman come up to me and asked me if I traveled with security on when I'm on the road. And I said, is it really at that stage of what's going on right now? Oh, my gosh. Bobby had a little back and forth with the Utah Jazz. Well, he really had a back and forth.

I didn't, I didn't, I had a back and forth with somebody else, not with him. I just let him, let him speak his mind. Well, maybe this was really well known, but I didn't know it until today when I was actually watching the end of the, the Pebble Beach, the AT&T Pebble Beach event. Is it Ryan Smith has a beautiful home right on the 18th Green, right on the 18th Fairway or whatever at Pebble Beach. So he probably was there. You know, I would have been there. Anyway, I like Ryan, but, you know, everybody has to do what they have to do when they're... What I've learned, there are certain words that touch a nerve.

That's right. Just because they're yelling at you doesn't mean that you're wrong. Joining us from Los Angeles, where he somehow got out of Intuit Dome in the wake of that game and made his way to his hotel before joining us is Vince Goodwell. I've been getting bagged on by your YouTube people for not having like a hello friends sort of greeting or whatever. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. That's what Jim Hans.

The Tims have a have a saying or whatever. And I'm like, I'm just a black guy that this comes on and says hello. You asked you should be the new thing. That's what Jim Nance does on. Hello, friends. Hello, hello friends. Welcome to Augusta National. I'm going to let you guys know.

I'm getting sick. I have a preposterously tightly scheduled week with a lot of appearances, some of which are one-offs, like a speech I have Thursday in Akron, Ohio, and a charity event that I have Wednesday night. And this is, there's never a good time to get sick. But, you know, you can hear in my voice. It's going to, I feel like when I listen back to this podcast, like on Tuesday or Wednesday, I'm going to be like, oh, man, that was back when my voice was good

because I think it's going to be gone. So we'll enjoy it while it's here. Anyway. You're giving us the best of what you got. That's what you're going. We're limping through. Vince, I feel like this All-Star situation was like stumbling around in the desert for years and stumbling on into Miami.

all of a sudden, oh my gosh. You know, Miami is an imperfect paradise, but it is in many ways of paradise. This game was imperfect, but being delivered from the horrible hellscape that the last several All-Star games have been. And so therefore, it must be declared a success. That's my viewpoint.

I don't know how you felt about it being there. I thought it was a massive success, I think. You know, speaking of being yelled at by Twitter, I've been yelled at by Twitter over the past couple of days because I said the quality of the All-Star game has gotten progressively worse over the past five or six years as if that's some type of newsflash. And what I did say on first take with my good friend Stephen A. Smith was that all it takes is one maniac, just one crazy person to up the tempo to up the like the care factor. And that person was Victor Wimbunyama. You want to know why? that man basically threatened to embarrass everybody tonight by blocking their shots by doing all this other stuff.

And it shamed Anthony Edwards and some of those other guys into playing a lot harder. And I, for one, got to give him a round of applause. Because yesterday, I don't know if you saw it is Wendy. You might have been. I sure did. And I thought it was kind of indicative. He said, basically he said it is what it is, right? Is that what he said at this point, basically it is what it is?

Yep, he said it is what he basically said is not going to change. Right. And then Victor Wimonyama goes out there and starts blocking a couple of shots. Maybe one was a go-tint. And it starts getting everybody's competitive juices going. Like you saw, you saw guys breaking a sweat. And I think, Bobby, you can agree with me on this one. Nobody wants anybody to get hurt.

Nobody wants anyone acting as this is game seven of the NBA finals or a high-level playoff game or a high-level regular season game. Just want guys to try. and they actually tried and they actually cared and I don't care that the last game was a blot that the old guys got blown out by the young guys thought it was kind of fitting. You got three good games out of four.

You had 36 competitive minutes, round of applause for the NBA. Bravo. You know what? When Jackson, our producer, asked me to come on, I thought, oh boy, we're going to be talking. We're going to be griping.

We're going to be talking. And then I sit in my chair in the first minute of the first game and here comes Victor, block a shot, have a dung. And I said, I think we might have something here a little bit. And as you said, that set the tone. It's unfortunate. I know we're not putting asterisk next to teams in this little mini tournament here. It's unfortunate that the international team basically ran out of bodies here. When you look at Luca and then you look at Yokic as far as where they where but what Victor did and I give credit to all the All-Stars did was it made us watch

for two or two and a half hours. I went out and got something to eat and you know what I did? I put on the game while I was eating. I wouldn't have done that in the past here. And yes, when we got to the last game, guys ran out of gas. I mean, that is the reality of. I think that team, the bronze team had played. Was that their third game in a row they had played? Yeah, they played three in a row. But I saw guys, I had never seen, they had showed, someone had posted a highlight of,

I think Jason Tatum set the record of like 55 points in a prior All-Star. Someone was putting highlights on, I think Drew Hanlon and his trainer put it on there. And Drew's a terrific person. And I was watching this was from three years ago. And like the, like the deep, like, I was like, oh my, like,

I was like, that's why we were so up in arms about what was going on. And then I watched defense. I watched guys compete. I watched, I saw LeBron run back and try to block. shots like it was like 2016 again. That's all we wanted. That's it. Yeah, I'm going to be honest with you. I wasn't planning on watching it. And then with Victor kind of threw the gauntlet down

relatively. I mean, he didn't, you know, he didn't get up a megaphone, but he said he was planning on trying. And I knew that he was, you know, the world team was the first team up. And so I said, yeah, let me give it a chance. That's what I did. I don't know what the ratings will be. You know, the whole All-Star weekend was early. I know people were, people were, I saw people, you know, saying, good job, MBA, having, you know, the done contest at 5 o'clock or whatever, the three-point contest at 5 o'clock. It was not the NBA's decision.

That was NBC. They had Winter Olympics are going on right now. That's, you know, the Winter Olympics had never been a thing because on the same network. And so they, the NBC, you know, gets, you know, great ratings. they pay enormous amount of money for the Olympics. And so they're going to put that in prime time. That's why it happened. It wasn't the NBA's call, but they're here nor there.

But I don't know how many people would have given it a chance. We'll see what the ratings say. But I gave it a chance, and I watched the game be instantaneously competitive, and I stayed with it. And I was totally prepared to do this podcast tonight and not talk about the All-Star game. I was totally prepared to. Well, I heard, listen, when I was driving, I was driving back from the airport today.

I listened to your most recent podcast. And you laid out the gauntlet of things you will not talk about. And one of them, I believe, was the All-Star, along with Jonathan Comingia and Tanking also. So I was wondering what we were going to be talking about here. Yeah, well, we were not going to be talking about the All-Star game. But then, you know, I thought Victor's quote after this game tonight, which I, I, I, I just, you know, Victor is refreshing in so many ways. But he said, I think being honest with ourselves is good.

It's a game we love. It's a game I personally cherish. So being competitive is the least I can do. I mean, no notes on that comment. Yeah. No notes. And, you know, he, the thing about Victor is, you know, he was furious that his team lost. They lost an overtime in the first game.

It feels weird to say first game. I kept thinking to myself first quarter. But they lost in the first game in overtime with Ant having a huge overtime. And then the second game that they played, they lost to Kauai, which I think is, we'll talk about that for a second here. But I will say that, you know, obviously no Shaggildos Alexander, no Janus. Luca Donchich and Nikola Yokic played, but they only played five minutes and then they were done. Luca hadn't even played his last four, I think, games with the Lakers. And Joker is still protecting that knee.

So I appreciate that they went out there and played. But I'm also going to halt on anybody on Monday trying to say, well, I knew the world team wasn't good enough. The guys who were able went. I said the same thing. I have a suggestion or maybe a conspiracy theory for you guys, Wendy. Do we think that there is some secret NBA American players chat like text message thread that's going on between Ant and Kevin Durant and LeBron James? Because they've said something.

I'm not talking about secret Kevin Durant. That's an excellent. Excellent. Go do your own research. We'll say go to comment on that Twitter right now. No, no, we're not doing that. We're not doing that. I went down the rabbit hole earlier today. Man, that's a whole, that's never ending. That's what I'm saying. It's never ending. But K.D., back to Kevin Durant's point of what he said when I think the Rockets played on Wednesday or whatever, and he said, you know, you guys don't talk about Yokic and Luca, right? Stick that point there. Then LeBron, in his media session earlier today, because he has to do his own media session on All-Star Sunday, he says, you know, I like East and West.

you know, I don't know about all this other stuff. And he kind of said it with a little bit of like a wink, right? And then in the post game, and it wasn't in the postgame session with us. It was the postgame session. I think he's on NBA TV with our colleague Chris Haynes. And he said something along the lines of, you know, Luca and Yokic weren't out there bringing it. So, you know, we had an easier time.

I wonder if the American NBA players maybe look at this whole, the public desire to have them humbled by international players as something that they took personally or that there's a perception that the American players need to be humbled by the international guys. And I think they're asking why. Maybe that's a greater sociological question that's not necessarily fit for this podcast. But I do think there's, I don't think these guys are saying things coincidentally. Okay. I respect that.

I would say, let's just for the sake of discussions say that that's true. I can't prove it, but it's reasonable. You say it's reasonable? Let's say two things. One, the international players have been dominating the awards, the big award, right? The MVP. So that's number one. So right out of that, the international players are coming at the NBA, the Americans, who the best players are.

Okay. That's number one. Number two, isn't that classic, that's like, like what KD said was classic, what aboutism, right? Like when you get in a corner in anything, I don't care if you're in second grade or if you're playing in the NBA, you get accused of something, you know, you're, you know, you're in the corner, you're going to point go, what about them? What about those guys? You know, you know, that's one thing I didn't like. Like, Durant was correct that, you know, Luca and Yokic were guilty as guilty as anybody else of given BS effort in the last few All-Star games. I did not like that sentiment because it's like, you know, don't play must for not caring.

They don't care either. Like that is not a defense. There's not an acceptable defense. And I will say that, you know, Ann Edwards, after he won the MVP, the Kobe Bryant Trophy, which, by the way, a lot of times I feel like Kobe can. help everybody out here by just being invoked. And let me just say this. If Kobe Bryant was at that press conference,

that Katie said that, what would he have said? What would he have said? He would have called out Katie. He would have called out Katie. Katie is great at creating straw man. That's what I will say about Kevin. He is great. He has learned from LeBron at the school of creating the narrative

that you can then shoot down with a very broad bullet. But Katie said, I watched all these All-Star games from decades before. He said the 60s. He said, I went back to the 60s. He ain't watched all-star games from the 60s. Let's just take him at his word. Let's just take him at his word that he did. And even if he did, right?

And he says, this Game 7 defense that you guys were talking about that wasn't being played. Kevin, nobody ever said that All-Star defense was at an NBA finals level. Nobody, at least tell me if I'm wrong. nobody has ever said that. My colleague David Dennis, who I was on first take with, they created this sort of sentiment that you guys are saying that the game was played at such a high level back then. Nobody has ever said that.

All we said was, hey, just provide a little resistance. That's all. What would Kobe say? W.W.K.S. That's all I'm going to say about that. But I will say this. this game, this performance tonight, uh, does not clean up.

But first off, you guys know I cover international basketball, dragged my ass all over the planet. And it's been extraordinarily rewarding. I've loved it. And what I say is, is that the U.S. remains the basketball power, but the U.S. margin for air is now almost no. You know, you got a, you got to go around square corner,

and jump through around hoops. You know, you've got to run out the ground bowl, you know, however you want to say it. And this way this went down tonight, you know, I'm not going to allow that because Janus didn't play, SGA didn't play, and Yokic and Luca were not 100%. And they just sort of came out and waved their cap.

But even still, because of the other international stud, Wemby, you know, Ant said, you know, Wembe made him do it. Wembe got him going, you know. So good job. Let's see it again. I don't even know where All-Star is next year. Phoenix.

Phoenix. Phoenix. The Wilbon All-Star game. Oh, my God. The Wilbon All-Star Weekend. You know what? I tried not to go to All-Star Weekend, but when you put it that way, Wilbonds set up in Phoenix. The compound. Aspirational. Wait, we can't use that word. Oh, man. It is aspirational, though. It's inspirational, aspirational. You can plant trees. You can plant trees. You can plant trees. Yeah. So I got to say, I said this one when the reserves came out that there have been Supreme Court decisions that have leaked before being published more recently than there's been leaking of the voting from the coach's All-Star vote. The coaches vote for the All-Star Reserves. I've never guide my hands or even I've never seen anybody get their hands on it. I've never seen anybody even close. claim like, oh, you know what? Source told me that, you know, player X got three more votes than player Y. I've never seen this is the most, this is the most lock in key thing that, you know, that pretty much in the NBA.

I mean, one year I got the, Bobby, one year I got the NBA's books leaked to me. I could see how much to every NBA team spent and made on everything. and I still have never even sniffed or anybody's even sniffed the coaches vote for All-Star. Well, no, I mean, because it leads to like, Deeran Fox comes in as a replacement, right? And then you're thinking, well, where was he on the pecking order of votes?

He must have been right there. Where was, you know, where was Michael Porter Jr.? Where was Dylan Brooks? Where are like some of these other names that we've heard? And I've never been around for a long time. I've never seen the coach's votes. what it is never you know there's no penalty for them going oh yeah i don't you know if if i played dylan brooks for the next month i'd be like yep i voted for dillan i don't know my other peers i guess

they didn't vote for him yep i voted for michael porter yep i voted for brandon ingrow i can't believe these people that didn't vote like i voted for bill bell check right sure we'll yeah we're can't prove it yeah i can't prove it more hoop collective podcast after this Okay, having said that, Kauai was not voted as an All-Star, and I was stunned. Actually, I wasn't stunned. I was big-time high role because Kauai is having probably the best regular season of his career. Now, this is a man who's Ben do. 2017, 2017 was really, really good. Ben's take a look at the numbers, man. I know, I know, I know. He's averaging 28 points and he's toe in the line for 50, 40, 90. He's not quite there, but he's close. All right.

Let's step away from it's the best. It's close to the best, if not the best. Over the last month especially, he's been top three player in the NBA, top five. I was taking a step further. If the Clippers had not gotten off to. such a horrific start to the season. Let's just say they played 500 basketball before, or even a step below 500 basketball, before getting to this point, whatever, what, 21 out 27 or whatever it is.

We would be talking about Kauai Lundon as MVP. I agree. And he's, he's been the best player in basketball since he started actually playing. So I feel like he's missed 13 games. So, so he's sort of borderline. whether he'll make the requisite 65. But there's a whole bunch of guys who are out already. And he's not, he's not one of them.

Because he did have that knee thing that bothered him for a little bit. But he is, and I'll just point out, Bobby, that he finished last season as well as he's finished any season as a clipper. He, they, you know, Aaron Gordon tipped in a shot with one tenth of a second left. Otherwise, I don't know. Now, what, so Kauai has 31 points in 12 minutes of this game tonight. including a dagger three over the top of Carl Towns, which I rewounded to watch Carl's face

when he turned around and saw that go in. So what was that, Bobby, what was that game in Dallas? I think he had a 40-point elimination game in Dallas in the playoffs. I think that game and this game and this night, the two best moments for him for him as a Clipper. Because it's in the Clippers Arena, all this storm around the clippers and he delivers that performance. Oh, I agree.

I mean, I think that was as good of a stretch that we've seen, certainly from Kauai in a 12-minute stretch that I probably have ever seen here. You know, it's interesting. You could have, you know, the most interesting part about it, too, is, you know, the ball on his hands to win the game, and you're thinking like, you know, the best thing for Team Europe is for this thing to go to overtime, you know, like, because of all the different rule or two. Yeah, they needed to win by three.

Yeah, and everything. But, you're right, a guy that did not make, was not selected by the coaches, has to be a replacement vote in by, you know, the commissioner. But, yeah, I mean, you were kind of mesmerized. And you knew, like, when we got to the last game, all these guys had nothing left in the tank. Like, there was just, like, nothing there. but I give him credit, man.

It seems like nothing distract bothers him, right? As you said, there's all this stuff swirling and we hear it, and when is it going to be resolved, and is it coming soon? And was it him being left off a result of what was going? How could it not be? Everything. How could it not be? Yeah, everything that's being talked about.

But my goodness gracious, I felt like I was watching like, like Toronto. I was feeling like I was watching a little bit of San Antonio in him, all in that one, you know, stretch of minutes there. It was incredible. Like,

you get to see, and I've said this before, maybe I feel like I've said this on this podcast or another one. But he looks like a cyborg of second three Pete, Michael Jordan, economy of moves, just stronger than everybody. the remaining athleticism he uses to his

sort of just his advantage just to, you know, just to get up enough space. Like with all of the noise around him, you forget he's an incredible basketball player. Like he's going to go to the Hall of Fame. And we don't think of him that way. We don't, oh yeah, we think about him as two-time finals MVP and everything else.

Oh, and he's quiet. But I think one thing that we have not said, And maybe this is a fault of ours as a media as a whole. You have to be incredibly resilient to come back from the repeated, devastating injuries that he's had. Like, you have to legit be able to attack the rehab to come back from the injury that he had with the spurs. That ankle, that nagging thing. And then he was dragging the leg around in Toronto. Then he had another surgery.

Then he tore the ACL. Then he's had another surgery. Like I count like at least three or four lower leg. procedures that he's had over the course of his career. And that's to the fact, Wendy, he comes back and he looks like the version of himself that everybody has been wanting to see six years ago. Like, it's amazing that he has come back repeatedly to be some version of this type of player.

And I don't think anybody expected him, Wendy. Maybe you did when you were on Clippers Island earlier in the preseason. And I made fun of him for being on Clippers Island. It's been a tough place to be. No, look, the stock that you have purchased, you held on to, and Wendy, I bow down to you. Like, if they hadn't started the season like this, Wendy, we would look at them as a championship contending team or at least a party crasher that's going to get to the second round and give somebody a real scare. Because they had that horrendous start, we don't think of them, period. But he's been amazing.

The long go to short to say, he's been amazing and he's been amazingly resilient. And on a human level, to some degree, like, good for him to have this moment. I was this close to voting him for MVP of the All-Star game. I voted Ant because his team won and they blew him out in the last game. But Kauai hit that type of display tonight. Yeah, I mean, Ant was the correct winner. I mean, they rolled in the championship game. It's very hard to know.

By the way, speaking of stock, my Clippers Island stock is down about as much as Microsoft stock. You know, Microsoft stocks done the last six months. It's down 23%. No, he's lost a lot of money. I know Bombers lost a lot of money and still has a lot of money left. 40. I was 40 billion. That's insane.

And he was happy tonight. He was still happy. He was thrilled. He lost $40 billion, which is only $23. That's the other part of that. Hey, I got good news and bad news. What is the bad news? Oh, you lost $40 billion.

$40 billion. my God. What the heck could be the good news? Five expansion teams. It's only 23% of your whole. Oh. Oh, okay. Good. Yes, he was thrilled tonight showing off his arena. And I remember, were you in there, Vince, when he was yelling to the crowd on the mic? And he reminded everybody, this is a place where the 2028 Olympics are going to be,

which had a friend of mine from Fiba who was in town over the week to take. a look at the venue. It's the first time to be at the venue. They're getting ready for the, getting ready for the, you know, thinking about the Olympics. But anyway, the crazy thing about this, Bobby, said this before, but the clippers have waited all these years, seven years for Kauai to be this player. He was showing major, you know, and here's the thing, like, you know, you knock on wood, but you have no idea whether he can remain healthy. But, you know, after waiting all this time, and they had a major hint that he was coming this direction last year, the way, the way he finished last year.

You know, he had the most recent surgery was two years ago. And so he, he, you know, was out at the beginning of the last year and then started playing last year. And then by the end of last season was looking great, you know, continued to do workouts through the summer into June to, like,

prepare his body of what it would be like to have gone through a full playoffs, a full playoffs, comes into this year. It's one of the reasons why I was so high on them. And so it's not like he came out of nowhere. He's been building towards this for the last. last, you know, 16 months or so. And now is when they pull the plug. Now, there's a chicken and egg thing here because James Harden obviously applied pressure to them to make a decision,

like whether they were going to pay him or not. And whatever answer that the Clippers gave, obviously was not satisfactory to James because he went through with the trade thing. So I'm not, I'm not for sure saying that it was all like an organizational decision, but they traded him for a player who was indefinitely injured. And then they traded Zubots as well. So, you know, I wonder if they were held in, if they could be 100% honest about how would they feel about that decision right now. Maybe it will end up being a good decision.

Maybe those draft picks end up being really valuable. But that was a Clipper fan and I know several big time Clipper fans, season ticket level Clipper fans who, this one guy I talked to who's a very wealthy Clipper fan who's been a supporter for many years, he said that this is perverse. Seeing Kauai be this good knowing the team can't, you know, probably is not going anywhere. I know Vince said could they scare somebody. Yeah, they could still scare somebody. But it's a tough hand right now. We know, there's a lot of unknowns about the Clippers. Maybe the Clippers have a better. handle on the unknowns and they're willing to admit, I don't know. Maybe they don't, but either way, it's a tough reality. You know, the writing is kind of on the wall where, you know, and he quai has been very upfront about it where he says, hey, we were the oldest team in the NBA, you know, change, part of the business, a 26-year-old in Garland, two future picks that could turn out to be pretty good. him on an expiring contract will be one of the most fascinating storylines this off-seater,

along with a lot of others. But he's kind of the guy that's been there since 2019. And as you said, kind of has hit his stride on the court and health-wise, both kind of go hand-in-hand. And now all of a sudden we're kind of turning the wheel on this clipper team that's been built by veterans to now the youth movement. and how does he fit in long term? Because although you could say, you know, a 33 or 34-year-old, you know, when you get to a certain age, I feel like he's getting better right now. And I think what's happened is it's almost like when you put that pretty car in the garage for a long time,

you don't put many miles on those legs, some guys hit their strides at a different age. That's true. We'll have to, I don't know, we'll have to see how, you know, it's just, it's hard to say. even necessarily second-guessing them because they have more information than I do about a lot of things. But it's tough, Vince. Talking to Clipper fans that I know, it's a tough reality. It's an ultimate, you know, bittersweet situation. It's funny. I just looked it up. And I don't have the historical numbers of context, but Kawhi Lunders only played 25,000 minutes in his career or right up against it, right? That feels like an insanely low number.

for somebody who's been in the league since 2011. So Bobby's point of having low mileage. Now, there's atrophy on the body, but it's low mileage on the body too. And with that, Wendy, the question is not Kauai as an expiring contract. The question to me is, what do the clippers decide to do

if even they keep Kauai next year? Like, they have been wanting and openly saying, 2027 is going to be the year that we figure stuff out, hit the reset button, whatever it is, right? Lawrence Frank got an extension. Taitloo is still there. Like, whatever is going to be will be. The rubber will meet the road when they decide, whatever they decide on Kauai Leonard at age 35. And you can only, I think, was it, Bobby, you can only get two-year extensions going into age 36. Yeah, the over 38 rule. Like Curry, Curry's in that boat. There's a bunch of them. So I'm very fascinated by what the clippers, if they keep Kauai and Kauai still looks like this,

do they say let's re-up for more Kauai Leonard business? Or does Kauai Leonard into the marketplace as a free agent that can play with the Lakers or play somewhere else as a very marketable third piece or second piece or whatever? Championship style piece some 10 years after the last time he was a last piece to a last piece to a championship. That is fascinating to me. I feel like in this situation, you got to raise or fold, Bobby,

which is, you know, you either extend them or you trade them. Yeah, yep, I agree. You know, I think that's the case with a lot of, you know, that's like, that's what happened with like, Trey Young, for example, the hawks folded, not to, you know, not to imply they like, you know, that was bad.

Like, they made a decision, we're not going to extend them, so we're going to trade them, you know. That's what's what happened with John Morant, you know, no extension, no trade them. With all due respect, I know Janus gave an interview to Malika, and Janus said more words about wanting to be a buck with more qualifiers on him. And pretty fast going to put Janus on the list of things I'm not going to talk about for us with you. Because at least I'm not going to talk about qualified Janus responses, you know, where he says, you know, where he says a powerful statement and then says, for now or whatever he said. But Janus doesn't extend, you know, that's sort of on his.

It's razor-fold on his side, too. you know, Yonis, seriously, like, if you are happy to Milwaukee, God bless you,

it would be amazing if you played your whole career there. Sign the extension. I don't really, you know what? I mean, sign the extension.

I promise you sign the extension. Or even announce your signing the extension. No one will say a word. They'll be gone. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. All right. So, Adam Silver had a very meaty,

that's a word probably um one of the most consequential uh media where press conferences he's had where like there were so many different topics and every single topic was a strong question Vince you had a question which one was yours I can't remember it was about expansion and relocation right and I was asking do you have to add two teams if you're going to add you know add and if not adding two teams, could you add one and relocate another? And I did double back because he only really answered the two-team question. And he said relocation is not on the table. So that perk some ears up.

Stop. What he said while toasting Janus was relocation is not on the table right now, which I don't mean it's not on the table. But, you know, he said right now. It's one of those Janus things. I'm not looking to talk about it more. I'm just sort of tying it back to Janus. You know, a good lawyer like Adam Silver never leaves himself in a corner. Anyway, he's asked about tanking, which we'll talk about in a second.

I won't talk about it. Talked about expansion and relocation, which he shot down. I talked about the WMBA negotiations, which are not resolved. Talked about the Clippers investigation, which he said, I haven't come to any decisions about because it's not resolved because they're not running the investigation. was asked about Janice being involved with a prediction market and answered it like it was a sports book when prediction markets and sports books are different things.

But we're not going to focus on that here. He was asked one direct question and he answered another, which, you know, again, that's what a lawyer does. He was asked about NBA Europe, several questions about NBA Europe, which looks like it's going to be happen. It's going to happen. What else he asked about? I think that's about it.

Anyway, every single one was relevant. Okay, so Vince, you were there. What was some of your big takeaways from what he said? I think, like you said, when the Adam Silver is a lawyer and he can fill a buster with the best of them. You know what I mean? Like a lot of times you feel like short of the all-star press conference we had in 2020 in Cleveland, which got really, really contentious between Adam in the media. And that's the only time I can recall Adam really sparring with us.

But like you said, expansion relocation, the prediction markets, all that type of stuff, you know, Janice's investment in it, talking about, you know, the clippers and where they go and his broad powers as commissioner. He said he was not going to overstep as far as a potential penalty on the clippers. If something were to come from this, you know, aspirations, investigation, whatever that looks like. You know, who knows when something could come down. But for me, yeah, the biggest stuff was the tanking, Bobby, and the thought of maybe I'll take away, you know, maybe any, everything's on the table. Maybe I'll take away draft picks.

Like, I thought that was, he almost sounded exasperated and frustrated that teams or franchises are not looking out for the better business of the league. it's almost like he lives in an idealistic world sometimes when talking to owners and teams and franchises. It's like he's disappointed that they're not, that they're looking out for themselves as opposed to looking out for the business, the ethics of the league.

I think that's what to me came across was like disappointment and frustration as opposed to, hey dude, you have the power to really change things. And I've been talking to some people since that press conference. They've thrown on about a lot of different suggestions to curb tanking.

Some things are a little more radical, but Wendy, they've got some issues that they really have to address. And I think they're going to have to take stronger stances than what they've been taken. Bobby, I would say the rarity of getting two questions on tanking at the same press conference. He got it the first to lead off and then kind of came back. back in the middle somewhere. My takeaways from that are that he does not want to be in a position

to be Big Brother, overlooking everything, and being in a position to watch, have somebody watch every game and scrutinize why players are being taken out at certain points of the game, why players are not playing in the fourth quarter, and he does not,

they don't want to do that. He said it's not healthy, for the league for that. And listen, it's a slippery slope. It is a slippery slope when you start finding teams and taking away draft picks. Like, it's, there's a lot to interpret there. It's not, it's not like investigating a fight on the court and finding why Isaiah Stewart elected to run off the bench. That's, that's not it. The ability to remove draft picks, interesting. I was thinking the league has dual authority to dock teams already when we have

whether it be salary cap circumvention or tamp-free agent tampering when you tamper with a player. We've seen that happen with second round picks. But I got a feeling, I got the feeling after listening to that, that they have open ears from the, they'll have open ears from the competition committee about doing something and instituting something. I don't know what it will be, but like you,

Vince, I've gotten, I've gotten texts, multiple texts from teams on, hey, and really just like, hey, what do you think? This is what I'm,

this is what I was, I'm thinking, we're thinking about. Yeah, it sounds like, oh, this is a little radical. You know, like, this is a little radical here. Um,

but I do think, um, you know, I do think it's, I think they're open to more about how, how to change. He made that comment. He said, you know, I think he had an economist was, you know, with talking and they said like, you guys are doing things backwards, right? You're incentivizing teams, you know, right? Yeah, if you, if you picked a management consultant, you know,

would actually be an interesting, you know, someone who didn't know anything about basketball and was brought in to study the league. They would say to a team, you should lose as much as possible to get a the best possible single player. And if you're advising the league, a consultant would say, why do you have your teams have an incentive to lose? I mean, this is the paradox that it exists in. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. Please jump into anything I'm wrong.

The NBA, you know, basketball in general, is a sport that is disproportionately driven by superstars. So, you know, compared to other sports, one great player is much more valuable in basketball than other team sports because not only is there only five guys on the court, but you play both offense and defense. Quarterback is amazing, but only plays half the game, right? Pitcher is amazing, you know, pitches once every five days, right?

Batter can be, you know, Shohay Otani. He can pitch and he can bat, but only bats four or five times a game and only pitches once every five days, right? Still nowhere near the, uh, a player like Michael Jordan can affect a game, right? So the NBA, you know, basketball, and therefore the NBA is disproportionately driven by superstars, okay? The 30 NBA teams operate voluntarily, maybe not wholeheartedly, but voluntarily, they all agree.

They all play in a socialist system, right? The weaker teams benefit from the sharing of the richer teams, the teams, the teams that are very good win, help subsidize the teams that lose by the rules. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The decisions that are made by the teams over the last 25 years and particularly over the last five to 10 years have largely become data-driven, strategic strategy and data-driven. I mean, Bobby, 20 years ago, was there a strategy department in any? None. People say analytics, but it's not just analytics. It's strategy. They have strategists. right, you know, and the decisions en masse, the grand, the big level tree top decisions almost always are driven with revenue first.

So this is the data set that we have. We have disproportionate to stars, socialism, revenue generation is more important than anything, volume is more important than quality, you know, which is another way of saying revenue guides everything. and the teams themselves have sort of become AI operations more than feel operations. So what I would just say to you is, how do you solve tanking in that kind of environment? I don't think you can't. I don't think it can be done. I think it can be, you know, you can take the edge off it a little bit. But if you have 30 teams in a socialistic system, I don't think you can do it. And by the way, just in case you think the NBA is really super crazy worried about it, they're going to add two more teams.

I think. Okay. They can't, they can not get their arms around tanking. Adam Silver even said, I didn't know this. I would have lost a bet on this, Bobby. Adam Silver said they've tweaked the lottery system five times. Yeah, I didn't know that either. So they installed the lottery system and then they tweaked it five times. Okay. And they can't get their arms around the 30 teams competing with a set of circumstances that I just outlined. There's probably a other pillar or two that you could add to that that I've missed. Feel free to do so on your own. I don't see how you get around 30 and they're thinking about putting it to 32. So just in case, you know, so like I said, you know, I think, you know, because Adam basically said I'm mad about it, but said I don't know what to do about it. Don't you think, too, guys, like we're kind of hit like a little bit of a perfect storm, though, with A, how much this draft is. being talked about, be the two teams, teams having protections on picks that they do not want to convey,

right? Whether it be Utah that would go to Oklahoma City outside top eight, the Wizards, the same thing outside the top eight here. And then the other thing is, is that we've seen it more, you know, more come to life in late January, early February here. Like, I said it on, I set it on, on the, on NBA today on Friday and you know we can we can talk about Utah and it's not Utah it's not it's not Utah it was Toronto last year and it was other teams before that and it was all these teams and I said listen I am part of the I raised my hand on TV like I was under oath I said I am part of the problem I was on the show a week ago or two weeks ago when we're talking about Janus and why the best in the best interests of Milwaukee they should get a lottery pick and him not playing the rest of the season here

Because that's the best interest of them. Isn't that the pick protection and what you're talking about were the best thing for Milwaukee to do? Yeah. Wouldn't you file that under a strategy? Yes. Now, what I had it, and this wasn't just me talking, this wasn't just a Bobby Mark saying last Tuesday, the issue that teams have had or had was the ability to kind of, I guess, manipulate the game, right? whether it be pulling guys, starting guys, resting guys, end of game and stuff like that.

That was the crux of some of the things that we're saying. But it's as we, as people have pointed out, listen, Toronto did it last year. We didn't hear boo from them. We didn't hear boo from the league at all from that. There have been situations before here. And now all of a sudden, here comes Utah, what happened in Orlando. And then they went in Miami and Ryan Smith saying, wait a minute, we won that. So I'm going to pay a $500,000 fine for a game I won.

What in the what world does that make sense? Right. The league, the league rejected that. That premise. The league also completely ignored Jaron Jackson being put down for the season with knee surgery because they cited Jaron Jackson not playing in fourth quarters as, as a reason for finding them. The fact that, you know, three or four hours or four hours.

earlier, they put out the Jaron Jackson press release on the knee surgery, did not slow the league down. So whether they won or lost the game, like, that's a very good defense. You know, we won the game you're accusing us of tanking in. But the league already is ignoring the fact that they're shutting a guy down with surgery. So they don't care whether you won or lost the game. They're more focused on the overall process. You can't handle the truth, Wendy. That's apparently what they're, you know, did you order the code red? You damn right, I did. Yes, they did. Or it's cold red.

And you know what? You're damn right and is worth it if I'm going to get AJ DeBancer, Darren Peterson or one of these young guards there. And we're going to be, instead of the worst team in the NBA next year, we're going to be competing in the top six. It'll be dead. And listen, and I said that, and that's, I think that where Ryan got mad at me was that I said. And this wasn't just, this was I was talking a couple of teams about it.

He said, listen, teams will write blank check to do when you're a billion. there, you will write a blank check for the ability to keep to draft in the top three or draft four because those players are transformational and everything. Like I had a team text me and Perk went crazy on me, not on me, but on a team and I said, listen, I'd write, I got, hey, what is it, seven million, eight million? How much are it going to cost, you know, for us to, we'll pay the fine. Now, listen, when you come out and say, we're going to start taking draft picks and we're going to start taking resources away.

Now that's, then the strategy, that becomes something else. Well, yeah, Adam Silver was rattling the saber. Yeah. Throughout that. He didn't have a solution, but he did have a saber to rattle, which was the whole point of the fine. Wendy, when I'm president, you know what I'm going to do, Wendy? When I am president, no, Jackson, we're not going to do an end-of-season tournament with all the lottery teams. We're not doing that.

That was one thing that Shams reported the other day that. That's been thrown about in competition committee meetings. get in trouble with the leak here. Uh-oh. Don't get in trouble. Hear my suggestion and then you tell, and then you decide. Go ahead and think about it. Think about it.

I'll give you some time. I'll do an Adam Silver filibuster here. When I'm president, the lottery will be set. The lottery order, Bobby Marks, will be set at mid-season. That doesn't stop tanking. It won't. It will stop tanking on the back end of seasons. And if you say, Vinny, what happens if, you know, the clippers, they start off six and

30 and then they have a great turnaround and they make the playoffs. Well, guess what? They're out of the lottery. And the next best team or next worst team replaces them in the odds of whatever the ping pong ball needs to be. So you can't play yourself into better position. Somebody else can play you into better position, but you can't. And secondarily, you can't get a top four pick two years in a row. That's one of the better things I've seen. I haven't had like eight things different teams. That's one of the better things I've heard. I didn't get that from a team. That is, those are my suggestions. When I'm the next black president, those are the two things that I'm going to attack. Campaign stump. That's my stumping speech,

Wendy. So go ahead and get yourself in trouble with the league. I'm just, you know, I just going to say the league has only added games in the last decade. Their schedule adjustment in the last decade has only added games. They've added them. So Shams, you know, talking about a concept where the lottery teams would play off. Like, I'm sure they like that. What the hell would you do? My thing is, when the hell would you do that? Like, you already, your television inventory is already stretched out.

The season is already stretched out. So you're going to have lottery teams playing against each other while the big boys are actually playing in real life playoff games. That's what you're going to do? I'm not getting a call. I'm not going to get the call. Okay. All right. I don't want to get you in trouble. Not going to do it.

That's interesting. I would just say that I'll go back to the thing, is that it's a strategy-driven socialistic league. So wherever the team is incentivized to lose, teams will lose. And if that means losing in October, November, instead of March and April, then they'll just lose in October and November. Now, you may create the,

you may say, well, you're better off losing October and November. It's less damaging to your product than it is in March and April. Listen, that might be a tradeoff they're willing to do. But as long as you incentivize losing, teams will lose. And if you add two more teams to it, there'll be even more of a basket of non-contenders who will find that incentive. I thought you was going to say something else, Wendy. When you said basket, I thought you were going to say something else.

Yeah. Well, I'm not going to do that. I may be a little loopy. I'm not on cold medication yet. It'll be soon. All right. This ended up being a sort of a rich topic from the weekend. I really thought this was going to be a zero weekend.

And I'd like to applaud the NBA for it. We didn't talk about Saturday night. No need to. If Vince, if you ever competed in an All-Star Saturday Night event, would you come onto the court showing off your six-pack? Would that be the first? If I had a six-pack, for one. If I had a six-pack. It was impressive.

If I had a six-pack, you would never see me with a shirt on ever. So All-Star Saturday night would not be any different than a random Tuesday, all right? It's an impressive physique. I'll give you that. Also, I hope Jace Richardson is okay. Yeah, he showed the dunk that he was trying to do. Like he showed it on Instagram or Twitter or something like that. And it would have brought the house.

That's a new thing. Like, Mac McLung provided all the dunce he would have done. Yeah. Like, I think that's where we're headed. Well, just, just AI the dunks. Just, you know, just AI. Don't say that. Oh, that's the other thing that Adam talked about was AI.

Like, Adam, are you trying to kill us all? Do you want press conferences to be nothing but robots? Do you want to, I mean, we can have a commissioner, an AI commissioner. Like, do you want to, what are we doing here? Yeah, I mean, there's no, it's, it's, it's no less for you to say we could have an AI commissioner when he said that we're going to have AI broadcasters. I mean, like, why stop at the broadcasters? Why not have an AI commissioner? Why not have AI referees?

Why not have AI coaches? I don't get, I don't get the whole thing. just be one giant simulation. Why not? I think it's stupid. Like, this is when people say that Adam is kind of, you know, too loopy with his ideas, sometimes I think he loses sight of what basketball is at its height. Like, when this is a shared experience between players and fans and where all invested, whether it's media or fans, whatever reason you're invested, it's a community. when you siphon these things off, you lose the sense of community.

You lose the sense of what makes this thing special. If we're watching one broadcast and someone's watching another broadcast, how can we communicate? How can we create a community if everybody is in their own silo? That does not help your game. That's all.

You're making a fine point. I honestly think he had just been to the Tech Summit, which the NBA does every year. Yeah, yeah. Am I getting upset for no reason? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I wouldn't get upset. Sorry. So anyway, I would say the All-Star Weekend,

I came in with very low expectations, and those were massively exceeded. So now the expectations will rise next year, and we'll see whether they can do that. So I have to make it, I have to declare it a success. All right. Thank you, Bobby. Thank you, Vince,

running over to the hotel after getting out of the into it. Thank you for your coverage this weekend. So me and the Tims didn't have to do it. Thank you, Bobby. I hope the academy went well this last week. You know what? The sports business classroom was a tremendous success. And here is the power of social media, Brian. We had an expansion draft. Okay? At the end, that was their project.

We broke up teams. We had an expansion draft. They had to brand their team. They had to put their logo. They did all this great stuff and pick a team. And so I figured, you know what, let me show their work on social media. So on Friday, when they were presenting, I was taking pictures and I was putting it on social media. And two million views later, you know what? Trending on Twitter, an expansion draft. And I think half, I would say, the majority of those people actually probably thought it was real, that that was probably coming from the NBA here. And as I told my students,

here's your lesson about social media. Don't read the comments. Enjoy what you put out there. Don't read the comments. That's for you, Vince. Don't read the comments. I have Jackson read them for me. I try to stay away, but sometimes...

Sometimes they pull me back in. Listen, listen, I went down the rabbit hole a little bit on Saturday. I'm getting online getting it. And I said, I want to, let me just take a little peek about my friends in Salt Lake City what they're saying about me here. Ooh, let's, you know, pull the curtain back. Oh, boy. It's all in good fun.

All right. Thank you to Mark Jackson and Devon, our producers. Thank you to Vince and Bobby. Thank you for listening and watching the Hoop Collective. I have no idea whether I'll have a voice on Wednesday. Come back and find out.