Green Light with Chris Long - Mark Cuban on the Protests, NBA Restart, and HGH in Basketball.

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

0:29 - Welcome and Feelings about this Week. 11:59 - Mark Cuban on Social Justice, Restart of the NBA Season, and HGH as a Recovery Tool. 32:39 - Quick Hitters with Mark Cuban. Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. 🌍🏀🏈SUBSCRIBE NOW ⚾🏒⛰️ http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're buying an NFL team, which team is it? And why is it the Steelers? Why is it the Steelers? Right. So first up, today, big day for us. We're going to announce a sponsorship deal with Allbirds and start running a couple ads during this podcast. And that is awesome.

Whenever I listen to podcasts and I hear those ads, I'm like, those dudes made it. Sponsorships, ads. It's a good sign. It's a good report card on what we're doing. It's all thanks to you guys. So appreciate you. And there's a reason we wanted to be involved. involved with a company like Allbirds.

They did not waste a lot of time in showing us the decision we made was the right one. Let me read you a statement from Allbirds. Normally, this sponsored read would focus on what Allbirds does as a business and talk about one of our newest products, but there's something much more important happening in our country and around the world right now. Acknowledging injustice is not the kind thing to do. It's the right thing to do. As a business, Allbirds has always stood for the planet.

And standing for the planet also means standing for its people. We believe that everyone should be able to enjoy all the Earth has to offer without fearing for their lives because of the color of their skin. And while we admit that we're not entirely sure what the right thing to do is at a time like this, we know that just stating our support isn't enough. We need to take action. As a first step, Allbirds has contributed to organizations like the National Movement for Black Lives and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to support their efforts. We encourage you to demand change and make your voices heard. Black Lives Matter.

I don't think I'm going to add much more to that other than like when we first signed up for this deal. I was excited. You know, there's money. I like their products. But right off the bat, I like working with these guys. Welcome to Greenlight Pod. I'm your host, Chris Long.

It is, if you're listening to this, it's Wednesday. Wednesday, either Wednesday in the morning, Wednesday, midday. The way these pods go is I record them the night before. So if I confuse you talking about it being Tuesday night, I apologize. But yeah, this is Tuesday night. I earlier got a chance to have a great guest on in Mark Cuban. Don't know how we landed him. Shout out to my team.

We're getting some big time guests now. The momentum is picking up. And a lot of that has to do with you guys. So thanks for listening. Building that listenership is really important. The more people listen, the more we'll get some legit guests on here. And Mark is great. I mean, Mark was a lot of fun to talk to.

I think you'll enjoy the interview. He's a guy that like as soon as he appeared on my Zoom call and we never met before, we have a mutual friend or two, but we never met before. It was like I knew him. He's just got that kind of go-getter attitude about him. And we got right into it. No sooner than he logged on to Zoom, did we kick the thing off? And I really enjoyed the conversation.

but that was earlier today on Tuesday. And it's amazing what a few hours can do. I am totally fucking exhausted. I can only imagine how everybody else is doing. I'm just sitting at home and reading, watching videos, arguing with people online, looking at bullshit. This is one of the longest weeks in American history. I would definitely put it up there. And we've had some things to contend with, at least in my generation.

You know, obviously 9-11 was brutal. But this is something that I'm not sure where the end is. And, you know, some nights I want to get on here and have something profound to say. I just don't. I just really don't tonight. Earlier today, when I talked to Mark Cuban, I had a lot more energy. And I probably, had I recorded the open and the closed this pod, it'd be a lot better. But suffice to say, I am just fucking.

spent and we'll try again tomorrow you know wake up tomorrow and and and I'll have a go-getter attitude about me and dive right back into this thing but it's it's it's been exhausting that's that's that's really all I have on that I wish I had something better okay I'll give you some NFL news no joint practices hooray that's the news Adam Schaefter broke it today if there's a football season and there's not some big second surge that kills 100,000 more people. There are no joint practices, which might not mean much to you guys, but for former players, it's kind of cool. You don't have to practice against other full teams,

which always almost always result in big fights. You know, I've seen a number of them real quick, actually, now that I'm kind of smiling, thinking about it. It's funny that training camp fights put a smile on my face. but Rams, Cowboys, circa 2014, we went to Oxnard,

scrimmaging and joint practicing against the Cowboys, and we got in a fucking brawl. I mean, it was like Braveheart with no swords, people running everywhere, people getting punched in the face like three or four times,

people getting punched in the face, getting up, getting punched in the face again, people getting blindsided. We're on a chain link fence. People are throwing uppercuts. there's fans, there's L.A. Rams fans. And this was one of the St. Louis Rams, and I think the L.A. fans could feel that we were coming back,

but I never made the trip. Anyways, it was like a three-dimensional fight. And that's the only thing I'm going to miss seeing about joint practices. I know that's not probably something PC to say, but I really, you know, what do people expect when you get over 70 dudes together from each team who are fighting for their professional lives in the in the August heat and their second practice the day or whatever it is well not anymore don't do two a days anymore and uh and they practice hard against each other and somebody's got to get that last shove somebody's got to get

it and it always erupts into violence and uh i can remember uh i can remember we uh we kind of beat up the Cowboys and we celebrated at the hotel. That was a fun day. I know that some people might look at those fights and say that it's classless. It's beneath a professional football player to engage in that type of activity, but you've just never been on a field with a bunch of strangers who are fighting for the same roster spots or standings that you are. And it's for nothing, which makes it infinitely more annoying. So good news, no joint practices. I know football players are They're like, shit, thank you. Because by the third week in camp, you're kind of like, I'm over this thing.

Let's brother-in-law a little bit. You can feel the preseason games getting closer. You know, I've got an understanding with maybe the third tackle that I'm going against every day in practice. There's no understanding when the dude fighting for a roster spot on the Miami Dolphins comes to town and you've got to practice against them for four or five days. So good news for football players. That means teams will be staying put for camp, which is also great.

I've been on teams where you traveled to some dorm room to some college, and you bunk up with another 6 foot 5, 275 pound man. And you're in like tiny bunk beds. And it's like the whole place is furnished by IKEA. And there's no air conditioning and you got to share a bathroom. room and it's stupid. I mean, like, why do that to your players? Let's, like, come on. You're trying to get them prepared to be their best and you got them in a dorm room.

Like, please, they don't get to see their families. It's just dumb. So I wouldn't be mad if football players never had to go to a college dorm again to practice. I don't care how cool fans think it is to see players riding fucking bicycles to practice and all that shit, like, whatever. I'm glad that's not happening. Hooray. If there's even a season, because I bet you the NFL might think, hey, is it better to just cancel the season so we don't have any political protests this fall?

Have you thought about that? Maybe it's a positive for the NFL if it doesn't happen because I think players are going to have a lot to say this fall. And they should. Gosh, I almost wish I was still playing so I could raise some hell. time to step up owners in every sport anyways what was i talking about training camp so important sports so important did anybody see dabbo sweeney's statement today i mean that was the most mind-numbing seven minutes i've ever heard how to talk for seven minutes and say absolutely nothing my man needs a podcast i mean maybe he's he's a great football coach maybe he's an even better podcaster in all

seriousness. It goes back to what I was saying. If you don't have anything of substance to say, just don't fucking say anything. I had a Clemson fan of my mention. It was like, if you don't see the dabos the most consistent Y, X, Y, Z type of guy in the world, then I don't know what you're looking at. And I said, he's definitely consistent. Definitely consistent. In seven minutes, he did not find a way to mention the word police, the word brutality, the word murder. I'm not even sure if you used racism, which I think even the All Lives Matter folks are doing

with regularity these days. That was, of course, before they got mad at people boosting sneakers who have nothing to do with the movement. So that was cool. I remember last week when for a day everybody agreed that police brutality was bad. Am I negative enough for you today?

I'm a moody motherfucker too, just like you guys out there listening. I really am. Sometimes I just don't feel like it. What else? What else should I talk about before we let this Mark Cuban interview roll, which was a much bubblier me early this afternoon. It's now 9.14 p.m. And I just don't give a fuck. What else should I talk about? T me up, producers. What should I talk about? Just pick a topic. Oh, I got one. And I almost tweeted it today. Almond milk is thirst quenching. I don't know if that's a hot take.

I don't know if that's the time to slip that that take out into the Twitter sphere because people are busy ratioing things that actually should be ratioed. This might be the perfect time in the midst of a pandemic and a revolution to slide that take out there and just see what kind of traction it gets. almond milk is delicious and thirst quenching. I haven't had a glass of milk in years. I mean, what else? Ben and Jerry's did pretty good.

I love Cherry Garcia. It's good to know that I'll be keeping on buying it. What else do you guys want to talk about? Oh, Wendy's. Wendy's has been skating by with cute commercials for a few years now, and the food is absolutely dog shit. I don't know that I would feed Wendy's to the raccoon that lives in the dumpster outside my house.

And I hate that fucking thing. I wouldn't feed Wendy's to my worst enemy. I don't have much for you. Mark Cuban, awesome interview. Okay, this is fun. Last week we had Steve Kerr on, one of the biggest voices in sports, especially among white coaches and white athletes,

and we have an owner who has stepped to the forefront with everything going on in our country today, and that's Mark Cuban. Mark, how you doing, ma'am? Yeah, man, how are you doing? Where are you from, Chris? I'm from Virginia. Virginia, okay, I thought I'd detect a little Pittsburgh in that accent.

No, there's no, there's no Pittsburgh. Well, I was going to save this for the end, but if you're buying an NFL team, which team is it, and why is it the Steelers? Why is it the Steelers, right? Well, I'm not looking to buy another team, but I grew up on the Steelers, man. Are you still a Steelers die hard? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Are you kidding me, my whole family?

Wait, where's my, I got my jersey over there ready to go. It's just like, yeah, absolutely. I was having this debate with Dave Damashek last week. I don't know if you know Dave at all, but he thinks that sticks. should no longer be played at the stadium, and they should replace that with Iron Maiden. It'd be more appropriate. Do you like hearing sticks at Three Rivers?

You know, it is what it is, man. You get used to things, man. Traditions are important, but Iron Maiden wouldn't be bad either. You know, it depends with song. No, it would not. And the outlook for them in 2020 is pretty good, huh? Yeah, it looks good, but, I mean, we've got to know what the outlook is, period, right?

Yeah, so let's take a picture. And we'll get to that for sure. but I think, you know, with that defense, if Ben was healthy last year, oh my gosh. It's so tough, man. I mean, Ben, I mean, he's still getting up there. I love Ben, man. But if his body's rested and he's ready to go. Maybe there's a Cam Newton in your future in Pittsburgh.

I like Cam, man. I like them. And, you know, some of the guys that we've had is our backup quarterbacks. They're not big, strong-armed guys, man, they're mobile. And, you know, they can make things happen with their feet. And so, camp, it really help us. What's an owner's job right now in the NBA? in any sport because this is obviously, and I come from a league that's predominantly black,

obviously the NBA is predominantly black and considered to be more of a players league. What do you look for, first off, what do you look in the mirror in the morning during a situation like this and say, I need to do this as an owner? And what do you look from your other owners for? Right. I mean, I don't look for anything from my other owners. You've got to do their own thing. But for me, you know, the message I got to my players is that you have to do it, be true.

yourselves. You know, whatever you have to say, I'll back you up. Whatever you have to do, I'll back you up. Whatever you feel, I'll back you up. If you need me to do something, if I can, I will. Period. End of story. You know, I got a chance to talk to a bunch of them and, you know, go to a vigil with a couple of them. You know, everybody has different circumstances and everybody has had different experiences and all of this has impacted them personally in different ways. And so I just have to be transparent and respect them. Now, that respect, I mean, a lot of it, I think people are looking for people to speak out and you spoke out loudly. You were specific.

You know, I think one of the biggest things when you're looking for a statement from a corporation or an owner or a coach, and you have experience in the business world, like a lot of owners, but, you know, you're also a brand yourself and you have players that you speak for and that sort of thing. How important is it, you know, moving away from ownership to be specific if you're a corporation right now? What's going on behind closed doors when a corporation is like, all right, we're going to put out. We're going to put out a statement, but, you know, we don't want to be too vanilla. Like, what's really going on behind closed doors with these strategies? A lot of people are trying to figure out that it's hard. I mean, because this is different. I mean, this is the culmination of a lot.

You know, this isn't a one-off. This is just so many things that have added up. And add to that to pandemic, add to that so many, you know, tens of millions of people have lost their job. And the stress levels for everybody have gone up. Add to that to the stress levels. where African-Americans gone up even more with what's happened. And so it's really difficult to try to figure out the best thing to do from a business perspective.

But it's important to recognize that today, businesses are not just their products or their services. They need to have a conscience, you know, and consumers want to know that the companies they do business with have a conscience. And so, you know, you as a CEO in a company, no matter what the size, you've got to talk to your employees. You've got to see where their heads are. You've got to be transparent and you've got to be honest. And it's really difficult now, not just because of the protest and riots, but again, because there's so many layoffs and people are so afraid of their jobs that you also have to be cognizant. Are they, are my employees?

And this is one of my, one of the folks that works for me said this to me, said, Mark, you've got to be careful when you're asking questions because people are so concerned about their jobs that they may just say yes to anything. Right. So you've got to be, you know, you've really got to dig deep and you've really got to be open and transparent. yourself and hopefully that leads to you making the right choices and having in showing your conscience that's a great point you know being cognizant of the power you wield as somebody who employs people i mean you never know uh how what truth somebody feels comfortable speaking you know how uncomfortable am i am i comfortable getting back to work you know that sort of thing how hard has it been you know you're intensely uh involved in the lives of your players i mean you're you're you're a guy

who's in there every day you're not one of these owners that's somewhere else i admire that. How hard is it right now with the pandemic, with a number of your players being, God knows where? I mean, players don't just, I think some people think pro athletes just squat in the cities they play in. And Dallas is a wonderful place, I know, but you've got guys all over the country. What is the distance done to this situation? The guys outside the country don't want to come back. Right. You know, and it'll depend. But, you know, on the pandemic side, it all comes down to safety. And we've had ongoing conversations with them. They talk to our medical staff. They talk to our team psychologist, you know, trying to get a hold on what's

bets for them, not only physically, but mentally as well, because the stress levels, again, doesn't matter if, you know, you're a bookkeeper, you're a janitor, or you're an NBA player. The stress levels are super, super high. And so you've got to let everybody vent. You've got to talk to everybody. And you've got to communicate. So we talked to them about the science and the medical side of it and how that might impact the rest of the season. That stuff seems to be getting better. We still don't have all the answers, but it seems to be taking steps in the right direction. Now with the protests and the riots, everybody has different experiences, right? And so, you know, you've got to listen. And some guys have just really had it rough, you know,

and it's not necessarily some one big dramatic event. And that's really what I've learned a lot. You know, I think what's really been more of an eye, and I knew it intellectually, right, but it didn't hit me as hard until all this is that, you know, as this stuff adds up for some of the African-American males that not just on the team, but elsewhere within the organizations, just the stress levels that they're dealing with and the uncertainty is just when they leave their house. You know, it's just, it's gotten to the point now where we've got to find ways to evolve and to make it, make it just better. And, you know, change your probably wasn't the right word, but just to all of us to become a little bit smarter and a little bit more compassionate and empathetic.

Are there substantive ways that you, and obviously you've been protesting, you know, you were down in the thick of it, you know, experiencing and walking with your players, putting that sweat equity in and listening, as you said, but have there been any strategies that have come to the forefront for you as a business leader or somebody who's very progressive and the way you think, how do we substantively move the ball forward? There's a couple of questions there. So at the bottom, you know, supporting local businesses. So, you know, there was one of the few black-owned businesses in this part of town in Dallas called the West End, a burger joint.

And so I went down there, spent three hours, just yucking it up with everybody eating a lot of their food, you know, dancing and chilling and letting people know that I'm there, that the Mabs are there to support them. And we'll do that with other businesses as well, not just black-owned businesses, but, you know, there's been a lot of small businesses that have been torn up. And so we want to try to help them. We want to support the protesters, but where, you know, a small business has really been. taking advantage of, you'll see the MAVs start to do things like buying from them or helping them or investing them, wherever we can help and we'll support the players where they want to participate as well. And then in terms of the bigger macro, you know, just societal issues, you know, how do you make it so that, you know, I'm just listening to some of my friends

where, you know, and listen to them talk about having to tell their sons, you know, to be careful if, you know, strategies to take it. You get pulled over by the. police. You know, how do we, how do we start to change that so they don't have to do that? I mean, I, yeah. My mind with my son, you know, 10 year old. You wish that it wasn't a situation where we have to tell black people how to better prepare themselves for run-ins with the law. And you're actually placing the onus on officers who enforce the law to serve and protect.

Yeah, I mean, that's the way white people look at it, right? I mean, 99% of the time, maybe let's say 95% of the time, you know, I'm raising my kids just, you know, police are good, right? They're there to serve and protect. You know, some of my friends have to say, well, you've got to be careful. You know, and it's not just with police officers. Look, I try to support the police officers as much as I can. You know, I've given money, you know, paid for overtime, pay for funerals and everything I could to help them.

And, you know, like any profession, there's going to be some bad. And, you know, I think they have to get to zero tolerance so that when those bad guys, those knucklehead show their strikes, you just get rid of them immediately. that's kind of a different issue but you know it's not just dealing with the police it's you know a guy goes running in the neighborhood or is a afraid by himself

because he's afraid someone to call the cops no or take them for you know it's just those are the little nuanced things that you know a lot of us a lot of white people are like again it's not I'm not saying people are racist right that white people are always racist this isn't about racism these are about the little things that little thought

processes we go through you know just how just that have been institutionalized. If, you know, if I'm with 10 white buddies, right, and somebody we've never seen before walks up, it's like, hey, you know, who do you know? You know, if there's a black guy walks up, you know, and he doesn't know anybody, it's like, hey, who do you know? You know, just the little subtle differences where, you know, we catch ourselves,

but how do we get to the point where it's natural not to have to catch yourself? Right. I don't have an answer for it yet, but by having the conversations, maybe we start going in the right direction. Well, it just, it sounds like, and I think some people, fail to grasp this this whole privilege concept like checking your privilege checking the subconscious ways of like you know the other day is a beautiful day out i just get back into town i was out at my farm uh you know an hour outside of town getting away with my family and i get home and i'm

playing out back and it's a gorgeous day and i'm just thinking to myself how lucky am i that my kids live in this dream world and i just know that like even the millions of dollars of some of my teammates have made don't ensure that they live in the same dream world. Carefree dream world. The thing you're talking about, the American dream that, you know, this is the greatest country on earth. Like, sure, for some people it might be, but I don't think it can exhaustively claim that unless the entire population feels that way. Yeah. And look, there's opportunities for everybody in this country. It's just that some people have to fight through things and deal with stresses that you and I don't. Yeah. And how do you minimize those

stresses so they can be better, be better at what they do. It's just going to be the little thing. I don't think there's like one major thing. There's not a switch we can turn, right, or, you know, or something, you know, key we can turn to change everything. But I think if we can get people just do the little things, like, you know, and I'm as guilty as anybody where you go through this process and you say, okay, I'm going to make sure I don't do this, right? I want to treat people equally. But the fact that I have, that I think I need to go through that process is reflective of the problem in and of itself. Yeah, yeah.

Right? I might get to where I'm trying to be fair and honest and, you know, and not be, you know, prejudicial at all. You know, I'll get to where it's a good spot. But the fact that I have to go through a process to get there. You know, the good news is I think like Gen Z, you know, even the younger millennials, they don't really feel that way. Like my daughter's 16.

I don't see that from them at all, right? I think a lot of the images that things. that I grew up with, you know, that even older millennium, you know, if you're 35, 40 years old, it's just a little bit different. Yeah. You know, and so I think younger kids aren't necessarily having this problem, and that's a good thing. And that's why you're seeing a lot more of those kids walking with the protests.

Of all colors and creeds. And I think that's a positive. And I think, you know, this is the headline here. Mark Cuban believes in Gen Z. This is great. All right. Well, that's some good news. More good news is we transition out of the tough stuff.

And certainly the two issues are intertwined. sports fans cannot wait to see sports again. We want to see it selfishly. Even me as an athlete who knows there are challenges, and some of them are totally unknown at this point because we can't project certain things when it comes to the pandemic. The first thing, and this is a segue from what we were talking about,

is how do you, when you get back to work, not make the thing that we've been starving for bury what we're talking about right now? I think that's where our players are really good. You know, what's different from our guys versus the NFL and baseball in particular is almost all of them are brands. You know, they almost all have social media followings. You know, what does Tom Brady have, you know, a couple million Instagram followers, you know, a million whatever Twitter followers? And LeBron James has got close to 50 million.

You know, Steph Curry, who knows how many. But, you know, it's just I think NBA players have much more of a platform. They're just more visible, more recognizable where you guys play with helmets. Yeah. It's just, you know, so you see. That's where we get it. That's where we get all our complexes. Like we need more attention because nobody pays attention to us on the field. Like, yeah, it's true.

It's a players league, first off. It does seem that way. And then on top of that, I mean, there's the visibility. There's less players. So, you know, you're- Best players, more than you know, you look at 2K, right? If anybody, you know, you get a lot of hardcore basketball fans, NBA fans that play 2K so they know every player because they're playing every team,

which is harder to do on Madden, you know. And so just little things like that all add up. And so I really, you know, I really respect our guys because they will, they will use their platform and they will take a position. They go there. I love that. And I think the NFL ownership and I think NFL players could learn a lot from the way the NBA goes about things. You know, no league is perfect. The NBA's had their missteps.

But, I mean, as far as what we're talking about, I think they are the benchmark in American sports. I mean, look, you know, NFL players, you guys, you know better than I do. Talk about the shield, right? It's all about the shield. It's all about the NFL and the logo. Whereas with us, it's all about the players. You know, our game doesn't happen without our players in terms of their brand. They bring people to us. Look at the young kids coming in today. If you go on Instagram, there's just so many, you know, or Snapchat, right? You got Dunkademics. You got Ball's Life. You've got all these places that are just profiling. Young, I mean, I'm talking 13, 15, 16, 17 year old players that have a hundred people. 200, 300,000 or more Instagram or Snapchat.

We're now TikTok followers. So they're building brands coming in. And so we just keep on replenishing with, you know, players that our fans understand who they are. And that's a real bonus for us. Well, you talk about the Shield. I mean, it's not a coincidence the way it's played out as far as y'all's league being a player's league that you have a player on the

shield. And, you know, it's Jerry West. As a sidebar, and I hadn't even thought about this. if you're replacing Jerry West at some point, not that you're endorsing and replacing Jerry West, who goes on that NBA shield? MJ. Actually, if it was up to me, it would be Wilk Chamberlain.

Yeah. But most likely MJ. You might be too tall for the shield. Yeah, right? But you know, that MJ iconic Nike type thing. The problem was MJ is probably going to say no because he wants it with a Jordan brand, right? He wants a cut. He wants a cut.

Very smart guy. I wish we could talk about the last dance. I mean, I've been talking out of ad nauseum. It pulled me through this whole thing. thing as a sports fan. But the NBA coming back, okay, the latest, we've kind of heard what you've talked about. There's a little bit of a runway going into some sort of an abbreviated playoff or the same type of playoff. What's going on with that? And you're talking about 10 teams. Is that the Zion move that you're, you won Zion in the playoffs? I know they're three games back.

This is a good way to get them in. I see you. Yeah, right. You know, it's all about that, you know, it's all about the mask, put aside all the rest of the guys. You guys are in right now. You guys got a comfy lead. Yeah, we got a lead, so we should be good. But, um, there's so many different elements to consider. We haven't made any decisions at all. We'll be talking more this week and next. But do we just go straight 16 teams and play it out normally? Do we have a play in and have 22 teams?

Do we have 30 teams? There's plus and minuses to both. Because if you play with less than 30 teams on one hand, the players for the teams that are out of it are like, okay, you know, why are we here? But from a fan's perspective and that continuity trying to, you know, keep the fans of those teams who are out of it connected for next season, going into next season, because you know what happens, you know, if there's a team that's out of the playoff, even in the NFL, fans kind of like, whatever, right?

Well, in the NFL, we got to protect, we got to protect ourselves. That's the differences. And I've been on teams, Mark, I was on the St. Louis Rams for the prime of my career for eight years. We were perpetually out of it. So I played for nothing other than the money, and that was great. But I'm putting, so I get it. Like, you know, Dame Lillard says, maybe I don't want to.

play if we're not in? How do you incentivize if you're an owner to get, I'm not asking you speak for No, I mean, look, the proposal I made was that, you know, the top basically 28 of the 30 teams. So if you would take top 10, if you made it from 8 to 10 in each conference, played at least five games, that would mean every team in the Eastern Conference would have a chance to make it

and all but the T-wolves and the Warriors would have to make it, have a chance to make it in the West. And then you combine the two after you get the top 10 and the top 20 have a play in, then everybody pretty much has a chance and has something to play for. You know, that it's a long shot now that that gets approved, but there's still that chance. And so, you know, there's a lot of different ways to look at it, Chris. There's no one right answer. And there's just, you know, there's the business side, there's the player side, there's the health side.

We're still trying to figure everything out. And then there's the, this is why I think you guys are in a relatively decent position. Obviously, I think you follow hockey really closely. I'm a blues fan, so I was thinking for a second we would have, you know, reigning champion technicality year where we were off and we could claim two-time reigning champs, but evidently they're going to get back to it. The Mavs won't see the trophy back there? When Mavs won, we had a lockout afterwards and I was praying that lockout was not in.

Yeah, well, I mean, so I'm looking at hockey and I'm thinking to myself, this is a challenge. It's a very physical sport, as you know, skating is different than practicing basketball. These guys, I talked to Steve Kerr last week. He was on the pod. You know, he didn't make a big deal about how tough it is to keep guys in shape because guys, You know, a lot of them have gyms. You can go down to high school. When I played football for 11 years, you know, in the office season, I trained by myself.

I could go to a high school field. I could be in Big Fork, Montana. The grass could be shitty. It could be any hill in the world. I could run up it. But hockey players need a rink. And it's a physical playoff run. And then they're talking about rolling into a full 20, 21 season, which is crazy.

So you guys have a nice ability to move things a little bit is the way I understand that. You're still going to have free agency in an off season. Yeah. I mean, look, you know, I've always been a proponent of starting on Christmas Day. That's when we start on ABC, right? The NFL season is, you know, you have teams that are out of it. You know, it's winding down some. And so I was always a proponent there.

So if you work backwards from Christmas Day, we've got plenty of time. But we don't have to rush into decisions. We just have to keep everybody safe. I want to hit you with some grab bag stuff. I'm wondering, you know, bigger picture, just like in the NFL right now, there's going to be an exodus of these quarterbacks, this class of 04. this fabled class vote for that Philip Rivers is hanging on. He went to Indy.

You got Tom. He went to Tampa Bay. And certainly there's a lot of movement. But Drew, Philip, those guys have not left the league yet. At some point, LeBron retires, you've had as a league through the David Stern golden era where you had stars and stars on top of stars. And in the 80s, even before that, great teams. How important is it to see ahead and look to these young stars and you have one in your organization? How do you make that transition and transfer the market?

marketability of some of these great players to a Luca or to a job or to a That's a great. That's a great question. You know, a couple things. One, the fans will do that for you, right? They're already speaking. Luca gets all those votes for All-Star. You look at a social media presence. You look at, you know, I get to see when I travel with the team, how many fans are waiting there when we arrive, even if it's two o'clock in the morning or what happens, you know, when the arena opens up and everybody's waiting and screaming when Luca walks in the door. And, you know, not quite as much, but the same. with Christophe's Porzingis. We see what happens with Zion. So, you know, we've got, we, I think our future is in good hands. And, you know, there'll be more guys coming in. There's always going to be another star.

And, you know, we thought we were going to have the same problem after Michael Jordan. Yeah. And he came back, you know, it was 98. Then he came back for a couple years with the Wizards and he still drew a crowd. But then LeBron came along and it took two years. Kobe was Kobe. Shack was Shack. You know, there's typically.

three or four guys that never play to an MTC. And so I think between Steph and KD and Luca and Zion and, you know, whoever else happens to be a great team, we'll be able to have something that transitions us into the future. You mentioned the Warriors, okay? It's no secret that they're the biggest kind of like dynasty right now in the NBA. And last year was tough. I mean, it's so many.

I mean, it's horrible. Crush to watch. And you're a rival. I mean, it's tough. And I was hurting for Katie and all that stuff. How important is it to keep teams together so you have that bad guy, you know, that villain? We saw that when we beat the heat, right? That just made everything twice as big.

I mean, after we beat the heat that the heatles, I would walk into places in New York and L.A. and all over the place. And people just stand up and give me a standing ovation. I had hit a game winning shot, you know? Yeah. So when you have a bad guy, but the problem is the Warriors weren't really bad guy. You know, good team, Clay and Steph, they're all going to be good guys all the time. Maybe Draymond a little bit, but, you know, he loves that, but, you know, he's not the dominant player.

And so I like having a bad guy, you know, bad guy team. Loved it with the heat. But I don't think the Warriors really fall into that. So they're the good guys as far as NBA history when dynasties are concerned. Who are the bad guys to you? I mean, the heat, definitely. I mean, I always hated to Spurs, but that's a whole other thing. Probably the bad boys, the pistons, you know, the rockets when they won 93, 94.

So I would say, though, the heat, man, when they first got put together, you know, and they were not one, not two, not true. That kind of just set the tone. Did you ever come close to landing LeBron? I know you guys were discussed as outsiders. No, no. No, I tried. And I tried. One time I called him, he was at a barbecue. And I called his friend that I knew

would be there. And I'm like, well, Ron, you know, he hadn't made his decision yet. And it was like, no chance. Well, at least that clears it up. What do you think about podcast valuations? You saw the Joe Rogan thing. Hey, good for Joe, man. Yeah. Yeah. It's good for all of us, the little guys. Yep. Hey, there's haves and have knots with any content, right? So if you can get to the top of the heap, then the door's wide open to get paid. The challenge is the long tail is so long, right? It's hard to get to the top of that hockey stick. And so you keep on going.

Because you see it like, you saw it with like Ninja and Tifu and all the game streamers, right? That they made a lot of money when there were new platforms that tried to keep up with Twitch. Yes. So, you know, I think the same thing that Joe might kick it off. So it's the same thing that happened with those guys moving to mixers and other platforms you might see happening with podcasts as well.

Do you think eventually that you'll ask me for money to be on my podcast because I'll make $100 million on a deal with Spotify or something? Like I'm just saying hypothetically, whether it's somebody else in your chair. If you settle for $100 million, I'm going to smack you across the head. Hey, if I make $100 million, I'll give you a plane ticket to come smack the shit out of me, not that you fly commercial. People are like, you're stock this, you're stocked that. I'm like, bring it, you know, I say, me, whatever it takes.

Yeah, a couple quick ones before you roll, man. Again, I appreciate it. Number one, Manhattan Beach. I've heard all types of legends of you carving things in bar booths. What was the best bar in Manhattan Beach? Showbacks is the best, but Hercules, so the day we sold Broadcast.com, the company I sold to Yahoo, I just went and just got torched with some friends, right? And there was a booth that was there up until like three years ago at Hercules, right?

And we sold the company for $5.7 billion in stock. And so I took one of the knives. You know, the burgers are just incredible, right? And I took one of the knives, and I carved in 5.7B into one of the tables. And that was there for. I saw it. I think I saw it. Mark, I trained in Manhattan Beach.

I trained there in the offseason, like, for two years. I loved it, except for when you leave the beach. And then you're just caught in a massive humanity. But I used to get tore up at that same bar. And somebody was like, that's where Mark Cuban. the story was distorted. They said when he made his first million, he carved his name. But that's good.

There's some truth to that stuff. I carved it in there. But my spot is shellbacks with Rico. That's a popular one. Okay, so Pat McAfee was hammering you on the president thing. Okay. I'm not going to hammer you on the president thing, but I will ask you,

if there's somebody in the private sector or an athlete that you think you would like to see on a ticket eventually, and I'm not trying to minimize what it takes to run. Great question. I had thought about that. Who would be a good politician, Greg Popovich? He would be good. I got another spur for you, and I know I'm a little bit through some charitable stuff.

David Robinson to me. Yeah, D. Rob would be great, man. He's got a good heart, man. He's got his head on straight. He can talk to anybody. I think he'd be great. Last thing. You've talked about HGH.

This is fascinating to me. I could talk about this for a while. I never, it's so cloudy in the NFL. I don't know who's using it, who's not. I don't know how prevalent it is. But you know, you do wonder that if it's better for your health, what's the difference? Where does the line get drawn between performance enhancing and like taking a protein shake

or putting the right things in your body? They're doing LASIC, right? Yeah. James Winston, he might, the LASIC might fix everything. So, so number one, are you on the juice right now? No, I never have been. Number two. Do you think that's far off or is it realistic?

So two different things here, right? Just being on the juice. when you're calling it juice, it means it's not steroids. I'm fucking. No, no, but when you're calling it juice or whatever, or HGH, it means it's not doctor administered. And that's the first thing, right? It's got to be doctor prescribed and administer.

If it's doctor and prescribed administer, then it's not going to be for performance enhancement. It's going to be for repair of some sort, right? It's going to be for you to recover. And so I paid for the study, and it took too long. It took like four years to get it done. And effectively, what it came up with was that we took

non-professional athletes that and we took X number that actually got HGH to help them in their recovery and others that got a placebo. And the recovery was 29% faster and the ligaments were much stronger on the HGH. And so why would you not allow that if it's doctor-administer? I see no problem. And the biggest issue is WADA, the World Anti-Doping Association, they've always, they just demonized it, right? There aren't even really studies that say it's a performance-enhancing drug. They just jumped to that conclusion because of some anecdotal evidence.

And so there's no studies with anything really related to HGH. Is it harmful? Is it helpful? Whatever other than the one I paid for. And so hopefully I'm going to be able to platform that and undertake other studies that will focus not on performance enhancement, but on recovery because, you know, it costs next to nothing. And if you inject a couple milligrams, whatever it is, and it all of a sudden,

you're going to be, you know, you're going to be up to speed fast. and back to your job faster. You get the best product. Healthyer. Why wouldn't you do it? Yeah. In the NFL, I mean, I remember I'd be, I just start feeling good on Saturday before a Sunday game.

And if you leveled the playing field and everybody got that quote unquote performance enhancement, it's not performance. Yeah, it's not enhancing, right? It's all the same. But you got to study it to make sure there's no, no problems with it, right? And so you don't want to be in a situation where it causes diabetes or heart problems or this and that. But we really don't know.

There's never been a long term large enough study. to determine one way or the other. For all we know, it can make everybody great. For all we know, it could just screw everybody up. But when you do, like we saw with my study, when you do it in a controlled environment for a specific purpose, in this particular case, it helps. And if we can continue to do that, look, whether it's ACL,

whether it's MCL, whether it's Achilles, whatever it may be, if we can get you back on the field or the court healthier with less drop off, I mean, why wouldn't you do it? Yeah, fans will see the best product quicker and in the best way. And I just do want to say this. If you ever get on HGH, I rescind my offer to let you slap the shit out of me when I make $100 million. Because I don't want to see new genics. I don't want to see new genics, Mark Cuban, you know, just rolling up on me with.

Yeah, me of Frank Thomas. So, hey, Mark, I really appreciate the time, man. I admire and appreciate your voice as an athlete. I wish more owners will like you and keep up good work, man. And good luck. Yeah, man. Thanks for the interview. It was a lot of fun.