The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 76: Chuck Klosterman and Jonathan Abrams

Episode Date: March 15, 2016

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons welcomes old friend Chuck Klosterman to discuss March Madness, Ben Simmons's ceiling (8:00), capricious LeBron fandom (18:30), Curry's apex (29:00), a GSW–Kevin Love trade (37:00), moving the 3-point line (44:00), and Kobe's farewell (50:00). Then, Jonathan Abrams joins to promote his new book, 'Boys Among Men: How the Prep-to-Pro Generation Redefined the NBA and Sparked a Basketball Revolution' (1:05:20). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Head to NBA.com slash The Starters for show clips, social media info, and links. I've known these guys for a long time. They know their hoops. They're good guys. They are Canadian heroes. The Starters on NBA TV. Check them out. And finally, today's podcast is brought to you by my new website,

The Ringer. Subscribe to our newsletter at theringer.com. I even wrote 600 words for this newsletter on Monday. I'm back! 600 whole words! And we're off. Yeah. Clear enough for you. 600 whole words, and we're off. It's March Madness time.

The sports atheist Chuck Klosterman is on the line. I don't know who he's rooting for in this NCAA tournament. Probably nobody, but probably everybody. Who are you rooting for? Well, let's see. You know, as often is the case, partially because it drives so many people crazy, I find myself kind of rooting for Duke again.

Oh, I like that. I think this kid, Grayson Allen, is just hilarious. It's sort of like if J.J. Riddick and Hope Solo had a kid and gave it up for adoption to Montgomery Burns. He's got that, he did everything about him. And also, you know, there's all these stories about he's like the latest in this long line of like, you know duke players that people hate but he's kind of a different kind of athlete i think um in that one game against north carolina i think it was the

second game carolina was ahead and duke was kind of coming back he had a dunk late in that game he took off from about 13 feet away on the right wing and got from the floor to the rim so fast. I was like, wow, this guy is different than the other players who have been like him. So I find him to be an intriguing individual. Tate is trembling with rage right now. Tate the producer is trembling. He can't even. Oh, my God.

We might have to get him out of here. It's like this guy was built for this role. I mean, even like his name, obviously. His name is still like, you know, it seems as though when you were a little kid, maybe in fifth grade or sixth grade, you would read those books about like sports, you know. And there'd always be like one kid who was the antagonist, he would be named Grace Mallon in one of those books. That's such a strange name. And he's got that kind of Boardwalk Empire 2009 Sean Fennessey hairdo.

It's like his look is just so... He's just made to be this kind of villainous person. It is. I didn't really think about this until you just brought it up. It is like we've created a Duke supervillain that incorporates all these different pieces from all the Duke supervillains in the past. Who weren't just super. I guess they were just villains. He's now a supervillain.

He's got a little Leitner. He's got a little Hurley. He's got a little Reddick. He's got a couple new wrinkles well some of those guys are different like hurley kind of yeah he just got lumped in there because he was good i mean it's sort of like you know latener reddick shire to a degree you know tate just groaned when you said hurley was good he was like oh hurley was annoying i mean he you know it was an era where the college basketball was so much fun and, for lack of a better word, had just become very kind of, I don't know what the right word is, flamboyant, I guess.

It was that Larry Johnson UNLV era. It was very kind of chest thumpy and dunking and a lot of posturing and all that. And Hurley just seemed like he was from like the 1950s compared to what we were seeing. And I think that's why people didn't like him. Oh, that's gotta be part of it. And also he seemed to be like almost a visual extension of Krzyzewski and

people hate him too. Yeah. It was like Krzyzewski had a kid. Yeah. Yeah. Krzyzewski and people hate him too. Yeah, it was like Krzyzewski had a kid. Yeah, yeah. He had like some sperm bank child that then came back to be his point guard or something. But I'm also, I'm kind of, I like Michigan State. I always seem to root for Michigan State in the tournament.

I know there's kind of a growing belief I've seen that some people feel that this might be the most complete and balanced Kansas team. So they're kind of the favorite across the board. I'm getting this. I'm getting this sense. You know, it's like I watched a little less college basketball this year because of the way my life is. But I've been following a lot and reading a lot of box scores. I'm kind of following college basketball the way people did in the 60s. Yeah. I like that.

Like you're just reading newspaper agate. Well, I see some of the games, but it's all with timing. You know, I miss a lot of the afternoon games. I thought I was going to really get into college hoops this year because the Celts have this top five Brooklyn pick. And so I just adopted Ben Simmons. You must be kind of off that bandwagon, though, right? No, I'm still on.

I'm riding. I'm in the front row. Everybody can fuck off. I'm all on Ben Simmons still. Okay, but tell me this, though. He probably is the best player in the draft, right? I would take him first, too. But you have to admit, the idea of building

a team around a guy who was one for three on three-pointers for the year does not seem like a modern idea. He should have had three three-point attempts just in situations when the shot clock was running down.

I mean, if he goes to somewhere like the Wolves or something, where he won't be the best player on the team, I think he could be down. I mean, if he goes to somewhere like the Wolves or something where he won't be the best player on the team, I think he could be great. I think he could be the second best player on a good team. But I can't. What's the track record of guys who face the basket and can't make jump shots?

Let me introduce you to somebody else who couldn't make three-pointers in college. A guy by the name of Kawhi Leonard. Remember him? He made three-pointers in college. A guy by the name of Kawhi Leonard. Remember him? He made three-pointers in college? No, not really. At San Diego State? No.

That was a great team. He didn't make three-pointers. He made 41 total in two years. He's 41 for 164. And the rap on him coming into the league was that he couldn't shoot. I think if you're talented and if you care and you just trap yourself in a gym, you can learn how to shoot unless your shot is just so fundamentally broken. Even Bruce Bowen taught himself how to shoot.

I watched Bruce Bowen in Celtic games for two years in the late 90s, and the guy couldn't hit the side of the backboard. So you're not worried at all about this? No, I... Even the fact of unwillingness to shoot is almost as big a part of it. Granted, that's a weird thing to criticize a guy for, being unselfish, but that team was bad. I mean, in the game against A&M in the SEC title game, they didn't score for, I think, 14 straight minutes.

How is he on the floor and they don't score? That just seems weird to me. I mean, I'm, I, I, he got taken out for part of it. I mean, he did. It was, I always thought Rick Barnes was really bad when he was coaching Durant. I was just, you know, I was, I loved Durant in college and I was just so stunned by how bad the coaching was. And I hadn't really had a lot of experience watching college and how primitive

some of the thought process is and the LSU coach I think was actually worse than Rick Barnes and I thought they played Simmons out of position for the whole year he's he's a point forward like I don't understand why you're playing him at the five just give him the ball tell it nobody else should have the ball he should have the ball in his hands all the time, or he should be posting up. Everything should run through him. Okay, two more things. But I don't care that he can't shoot yet.

He's going to learn how to shoot. The thing that worried me was just that he seemed kind of content with losing. I think it's pretty weird they're not going to the NIT, and I think that he's certainly part of this. I mean, something's going on with their program. I don't know what it is. LSU as a whole is mystifying to me. Les Miles was sort of going to lose his job,

and yet they had the number one recruiting class in the country still. Ben Simmons could go anywhere, and he went to a place that doesn't have that much of a basketball tradition. What is happening when you take a visit to that campus? Did Shaq build his own private six flags for recruits or something? How come everybody who goes to LSU decides to sign a letter of intent to go there? It's very strange to me. He had a family thing. His godfather was the head assistant coach.

And so it was kind of a done deal from the get-go. And I just felt bad for him. You could see it early on in the season that the team wasn't talented and he was way ahead of them from a hoops IQ standpoint. And the coach, just a bad coach. Like even in that Texas A&M game, I don't know if you watched it on Saturday. Yeah. They're down six with like, I don't know, 10 minutes left.

And Simmons gets his second foul. And I'm just sitting there going, if they take him out, they're going to be down double figures in like a minute. And the game's going to slip away. And Texas A&M, they're too good defensively. They're not going to be able to come back. You have to leave him in. It's not even a debate.

It's like, if you take him out now you're gonna lose the game and they took him out and by the time he came back they're down 13 it was over it's just a little stuff like that doesn't make sense but it does worry me like the oklahoma game worried me where it was about this about like a month ago five five weeks ago. And Buddy's just stepping up, right? Buddy's a beast. I love that guy. And it becomes clear. It's now a mano a mano, Buddy versus Ben,

who's going to be the alpha dog in these last five minutes. And Ben didn't shoot, and he didn't try to get the ball. And on the other side, Buddy's just making shots and making plays and coming through. And it was really weird to me, just as a longtime basketball fan, that Ben didn't get a little alpha doggy. He just kind of laid back. And I think scouts, that's what worries the scouts, is,

is this guy too passive? And I don't know how he changes that perception. Yeah, I think just from a skill perspective, they'll overlook it. I mean, I've kind of been tough on him for the last five minutes of this conversation, but I would take him number one, too. Yeah, he's 19. He's 19, and I think he could just be devastating on a good team. He almost went 20-10-5 in college.

Yeah, oh yeah. Which is crazy. And my thing is, if he goes to the Celtics or he goes to the Timberwolves and he's surrounded by other – this sounds like a cliche, but it really does apply to certain guys. The better the teammates are, the better he's going to be because he's such a good passer. And he's so – he doesn't care if he shoots 20 times you know he's that guy who's going to fit in so if he goes to with towns and wiggins or if he's on the celtics

with isaiah's the crunch time guy and brad stevens and like like it could be an awesome situation if he goes to philly as the quote-unquote number one pick slash savior i think that's dangerous yeah i mean i'm on a good team, I think he could play the floor and average 10 assists a game. I think that's possible because he's so – the passing part of his game is so – I hate to say natural because it makes it seem like it isn't something he worked at, but it sure seems that way.

I mean – Can I introduce a theory to you? What theory? You're going to love this. You're really going to love this. I hope you're sitting down. I am. The best thing that could ever happen to this guy is if he doesn't go first.

If he goes second, I think that is the thing he needs. If you love Ben Simmons, and I'm still a believer and I'm still in the front row, the best thing that will happen to him is if Brandon Ingram has like four good games in this tournament. Or if the Utah Center, who I really like, Jakob Pulte, but who's Chipotle? If one of those guys goes nuts and then it turns into this Andrew Bogut type situation where all of a sudden everybody's talking themselves into somebody that's not Chris Paul as the number one pick, and we're having the draft, and it's like, wow. So Darren Williams is going to go ahead of Chris Paul,

and so is Andrew Bogut and Marvin Williams. What's happening here? This could happen. One point about your theory, though, in what case isn't that how it is, that if the best player went second, it wouldn't be good for him from a perception perspective? Isn't it always better to go that if the best player went second, it wouldn't be good for him from a perception perspective? Isn't it always better to go later? Yeah, I guess.

Well, it was great for Durant. I think it was awesome for him. And Durant's kind of your card. That's why when you were so into Simmons, I was like, you have a good track record. But I'm seeing guys early deciding that they're transcendent and being right. But I'm wondering if I'm over emphasizing the thing with Durant because you were so

on that so quick. Here's what, here's, Durant to me, I would have bet my life on it. Simmons made two mistakes that make me nervous and I wouldn't bet my life on it, but I would bet your life. I would bet your life on it. How would bet your life I would bet your life on it how about that would you bet would you bet your left arm no not your left arm my life you'd bet my fucking life I bet your left arm I bet my baseball card collection but not my basketball card collection here are the two things that worry me one is that he went to lsu i just think that's weird i don't care if my godfather is the coach at lsu then i'm at lsu well you know it's like

why not just go to one of the best schools and play with the best players for a year you're okay this is a this is a program to teach yourself how to be a pro basketball player why are you going to be at lsu it's stupid but from australia do all the major programs in america seem the same but he was here he was in florida for three years he was he was in florida um yeah that was a weird move i mean i just didn't like it the one thing that he has done though is uh i i we probably have played this game and i was i forgot or or whatever, but, uh, I love to take the five best players from the history of any college and played them against other five, you know, another college. Oh, he, he, he spruced up their lineup.

Well, no, they were really good to begin with. They were Shaq, Maravich, Chris Jackson, um, and Bob Pettit. And now they have him. Wow. Cause typically, typically, uh, it's sort of hard to imagine Carolina losing this game. I was going to say Carolina wins because they have Jordan. They have Jordan, but UCLA has Kareem, Walton at the four, and then a lot of other good guys all over the place.

That's true. And Georgetown has a really good team because it's got like Ewing, Mourning, and Mutombo in the game with an Iverson in the backcourt with maybe, I don't know, Reggie Williams, you know? So the most underrated team that you would never suspect would be the Houston whatever they're called. The Cougars? Yeah, because you get Hakekeem elijah on and you get

clyde drexler yeah nobody would nobody would think of them but it would actually and probably a couple other guys that we can't oh they have elvin hayes too yeah they have a good team michigan state has a good team michigan has i'm sure jalen would argue michigan has a great team another team that just kind of underrated is actually the gophers. Because you have like McHale and Michael Thompson and Trent Tucker and these guys who weren't fabulous but had pro careers. And you would never think of them as one of these sort of major programs.

Duke actually is hard to get a really good five out of that. Duke has the best white five. Well, yes, probably so. And I guess they'll be playing BYU. It's a racist title, yes, probably so. And I guess they'll be playing BYU. It's a racist title, yes. Wait, the other mistake Ben Simmons made, he goes with Clutch? He goes with Clutch Sports? He goes with LeBron's agency?

That's his move? I don't even know that. I haven't even followed that. Yeah, and apparently this was a done deal for a while. That makes me nervous. Why is that a bad idea? I don't know. What's the good one?

If I decide to go pro, what agency should I sign with? I'm so confused by this LeBron thing. It seems so illegal on so many levels, and yet I don't think the NBA can do anything. He owns an agency with his buddy who runs it, but he doesn't own it, but it represents other players. But like Tristan Thompson, they represent Tristan Thompson. Yeah, I know. He makes $82 million.

Didn't they represent Mark Jackson? And there was some belief that Mark Jackson was going to get the Cavs job. I mean, that is – also, I was talking about this with somebody when it was all going on, and they're like, you know, it seems odd that LeBron would, like, want to hire Mark Jackson just to get the commission to the agency. But I was like, I don't know how much money is at stake here. I don't know. Does he kind of view a lot of these guys as interchangeable?

Do you think there is any chance that LeBron will leave Cleveland, or is that just totally something that people talk about on TV to kill time? Well, that can never be underestimated. The people talking about stuff on TV to kill time. Because there's a lot of time on TV. I think if he left Cleveland, I can't even imagine how that would play out. I mean, think how mad everyone was the last time. And then he comes back and does this whole Sports Illustrated letter and the minute-long

Nike commercial and the Becoming show on the Disney channel and does this whole Cleveland, this is my last thing, I got to win a title for Cleveland. Makes all the trades, makes all the signings, and then he's going to be like, I'm out? That would be crazy. It would be insane. But look, it's like, this all the signings, and then he's going to be like, I'm out? That would be crazy. It would be insane. But look, this is the thing I was thinking. If you're LeBron, think of what has happened. I'm from Akron.

Everyone loves me. I go to Cleveland. They love me more. I go to Miami. They now hate me. They burn my jersey. I come back. They love me again.

Maybe you start to think, do I really care what these capricious people feel? If that they hated me so much that they were burning me in effigy, and then as soon as I came back and wrote this fake letter to Sports Illustrated, they're all like, oh, you know what? We love you. You should be governor. You should be governor.

You know, I mean, maybe that makes you think this really isn't that meaningful of a thing to worry about. He does seem like kind of a rudderless guy a little bit. Where he just, even when he tries to lead the Cavs with these subtweets that he does. Like, do you think he inspires anybody as a leader? I think he's the greatest follower of any star we've ever had. Really, the best situation for him was with Wade,

where Wade could step in and help him out. LeBron's way of leading just seems odd to me. That whole team is screwed up. There's something really weird going on. But then I went to the Clippers game on Sunday, and as soon as they took a lead, they seemed great.

The first half, Kyrie and Love sat on one side of the bench. Because I was in full body language doctor mode. I was studying the timeouts. It was like the Zabruder film. And Kyrie and Love were on one side, and LeBron was on the other side, and they did not interact. So then the second half, when they started playing well, the whole team's up. LeBron comes out.

They're up like 15, and Kyrie starts torching Austin Rivers, which felt like there was a little extra, because I don't think LeBron likes Doc Rivers going back to the Celtics-Cavs series. I have no evidence at all. Just a gut feeling, because the way Kyrie was torching Austin Rivers for like a minute and a half and the way LeBron was celebrating on the bench, it was just a little weird.

So it seems like he's great when you're up 15, but when the chips are down, like we've kind of seen him kind of melt away as soon as it seems like the team has no chance. I don't know what to make of LeBron. I've got to be honest. I've been thinking about the guy for 12 years. I do not have a handle on him mentally.

I mean, he does have sort of the burden of having his legacy analyzed in real time pretty much more than any basketball player I can remember. But it is odd. It's like when Joe Johnson signed with the Heat. That was weird. LeBron was like, we should have got him. It's like he does seem a little obsessed with making things easier for himself, which when you say it like that, it seems like such a practical thing to do.

But it's unlike the way uh athletes tend to be you know it seems odd that he'd be like yeah you know i could play for and we get joe johnson here and we'd be you know incrementally better they certainly have the talent to win the title now but not really he's not like that he's always like well what if we had this extra piece and that's the thing he's always he's always looking for something a little bit better than whatever he has and if i was one of his teammates that would make me feel weird because like if i'm kevin love right now i'm thinking i'm barely i might not play in crunch time in these playoffs oh now you're gonna go out and get joe johnson well all joe johnson does is move LeBron to the four, and now I'm out.

Although LeBron was like, we play love at the five, which that would put him down in the block a lot, and I think that could actually be a good idea, but he, being love, clearly does not want that. But that's what he did in the Olympics. I actually think that's the destiny of this team is LeBron at the four and either Thompson or Love playing the five, and then you just surround everyone with shooters.

I think they kind of deep down know that, which is why they wanted Joe Johnson. I don't know. LeBron, he has these moments, right? Like last year, remember when he just wouldn't shoot, when he was trying to prove some weird point to Kyrie Irving? So he's trying to prove points. It's a strange way to lead.

But, you know, I look at like when Bird was on the Celtics in the 80s, Bird clashed with dudes all the time and Bird was furious after the 83 playoffs. And he said they played like a bunch of sissies in 1984 and he's feuding with McHale in the late 80s. I wonder if everybody's wired this way. Like, Jordan's teammates didn't like him.

Well, also, the fact that some of this happens on social media, it seems to predictably amplify very small complaints into bigger deals. So I think that there's maybe a lack of clarity over how annoyed he is with people. Because sometimes he'll say something on Twitter about love, and I guess it seems a little pointed, but not totally pointed. But then because everyone sees it and gets disgust, it becomes a bigger deal. I don't know how they communicate in person like do they ever yell at each other do you think do you think that do you think that lebron ever

yells at kairi irving like yells at him i don't know i think he's more disappointed and and guilt trips them it's it's like it's like he's just more disappointed i'm just more disappointed in your shot selection kairi i'm not mad at you guys i'm just I'm just more disappointed in your shot selection, Kyrie. I'm not mad at you guys. I'm just sad. You've made me sad. I thought it was weird. Here's the part that people miss with the Wade thing.

I don't think it was weird at all that he hung out with Wade and that he worked out with Wade. I thought it was weird that he kind of trumpeted it. Wasn't he promoting a gym or something? I don't know. I thought I read somewhere that he was promoting the facility they were working out at. And that's something that's just a – I mean, I've just come to accept this is just a generational thing. That we're the last generation of guys who are going to be like, it's weird he did that, even though there was sort of a commercial upside to doing so potentially.

I mean, that's just, nobody thinks like that anymore. And that's what I kind of thought it was. He was like, this is a business thing. Well, if you're just getting started or you're building a growing business, MailChimp makes it easy to connect with your customers and sell more stuff. It's totally free to get started. No expiring trial, no credit card required. More sophisticated mark marketers go with a MailChimp pro the only email platform with multivariate testing offer.

You can test and create eight different email campaigns. You know, who's using MailChimp right now? Me. Podcast users, man. If only people who've added MailChimp do not listen to podcasts. Five.

That's the only, that's the market they're after, I think. And it's very smart because we used MailChimp to launch our new newsletter for The Ringer. I received that letter. I received that fine letter. But it went to my spam folder. I saw that it came out on Twitter, so I had to go into my all mail in Gmail. It went to the promotions. Yeah, I think because I put an F-bomb

in what I wrote, I think that was a mistake. I think that screwed up our thing. So we're going to get no swears with the next one. Why? People swear in email all the time. It doesn't work. Listen, we're going to try different things. We don't want to end up in your promotions folder. I think it was maybe the logo. Maybe.

We've already passed 140,000 subscriptions and our first newsletter was a roaring success thanks to MailChimp. When we start sending the listeners emails about our 20% off t-shirts with Chuck's face on them, it's going to be on MailChimp. Just kidding, we're not doing that.

We could. I would license my image. It'd be cool. Thanks to MailChimp for helping me and everyone at The Ringer build our audience. Incredibly easy to use. Check them thanks to MailChimp for helping me and everyone at the ringer build our audience incredibly easy to use check them out at MailChimp.com I had to do that because you were talking about how LeBron leveraged things

the part I didn't understand about what LeBron did was it's not like the situation in Cleveland was a grand slam and just humming along and it was just great. And now he's now, if I'm on Cleveland and I know he's a free agent again this summer and I know things aren't going great and I know we're on our second coach and I know

Kevin Love's not that happy and that the Kyrie LeBron thing has never been totally smooth. And now LeBron's like, Hey, I'm over here in Miami. I would think that I would kind of take that personally a little bit. I'd be like, Hey, why are you doing that? You can work out with Wade, but why are you even making a big deal out of it?

You dick. That's, that would have been my attitude, but I'm spiteful. I think, I think the Warriors are in their head a little bit too. I think LeBron is sort of confused by the fact that, you know, I said this, a lot of people said it,

there was that period where it was like, you know, we always know LeBron's the best player. Maybe we'll give the MVP to Durant one year, you know, because he's a great player, too. But if everyone could pick, if it really came down to a schoolyard pick of all the guys, everyone's always going to take LeBron. And I don't think that's true right now. And I think that it's been probably a long time since he's felt that way.

I mean, he certainly never felt it growing up. Even when he was a rookie, even his second year in the league, I think if most gms could trade anyone for him they would have said we're doing it his upside is too great and but that's recency bias though i think i think lebron is still incredible i i to me it's still it's weird that no no i know what you're saying i just think it's weird that everybody has just moved on to curry like i went to see LeBron on Sunday. He's amazing.

He had, like, 28-8-8, and he completely dominated the game. To me, he's still in the conversation. No, I mean, he's the second-best guy. But I think he might be the best guy. Well, he could be again next year because this has got to be the apex for Curry. He can't play any better than that. I don't know. How could it?

I mean, what would that be? I'm very disappointed in his free throws. He's down to 90% free throws. I just think he's got to do better. He keeps missing these key free throws. Like, you've got to do better than 9 out of 10. A couple of fantasy leagues, and I'm just astounded by how often he gets 8 rebounds.

I mean, he's just having this incredible year and I don't think, it's not like this is going to be, he's not going to be like this for 4 years. I mean, maybe we'll look back on this podcast and I'll be like, what an idiot I was, but I can't fathom how that

could be. Well, but his age right now suggests that this will like this prime is gonna last a couple years because they like if you look at the bird prime the Jordan prime the magic prime even somebody like Kobe's prime um it's it's usually four or five years oh so he's in year two what I would say is that that his prime may keep going, but this is a weird way to phrase this, but just the sheer percentage of shots that go in, I feel like will slightly decrease. But you don't think he's mastered shooting to some degree?

Tiger Woods had that six-year stretch where every drive just went right down the fairway. I mean, I guess. When he pulls up from 40 feet away at the end of a quarter, I find myself thinking he'll probably make this. Me too. I mean, it's such a weird thing that I don't think. I hope he does.

It's good for everyone, I but i i gotta say i'm more amazed by the shooting i'm almost used to i'm more amazed by how consistently he drives to the basket and his footwork and how he's never going 100 full speed he's always going like 80 but he's so quick and he's so smart and how he can go off either foot and shoot with either hand and it just doesn't matter who's coming over to block the shot he's always gonna it's always the perfect kind of basketball play i've never seen that okay is this do you think that this is the reason maybe you've talked about this in their podcast and i've missed it but you know when someone like oscar robertson comes out and complains about him my theory on that is that maybe everyone thinks this but

when a guy like oscar robertson sees lebron or he sees durant on the perimeter at 6 11 or whatever their reaction is wow these guys are just different people than the ones we played against and no wonder they're better they're just you know they're built the way, you know, Durant would have been a center in the 1950s and 60s, you know. But when they see Curry, he looks like the guys that they played against. And, in fact, he looks slighter physically than Robertson was. And is that what drives them crazy? That they're like, they just can't believe, like,

they can understand how like the physiology has changed and made guys better but they can't accept a guy who's the same size being that good i think they don't understand it like they just fundamentally fundamentally can't understand it and the reality is if curry played in the 1960s he would have been out of the league in six years because he never would have been able to stay on the court with his ankles. And 50 years later, there was that giant piece on ESPN, the magazine. Yeah, Pablo Tuero. That's not what Oscar's thinking about.

No, I'm saying that he doesn't understand it because in his era, you were just good and things made sense and there were certain type of players and nobody shot like this right so it's got to be everyone else's fault that they're letting curry make all these shots well it seems backwards it seems like that should be the kind of guy old-timers like like i wish my dad was still alive. I think he'd love Steph Curry. But then I think, I don't know, maybe he'd be from a generation of guys who would see this phantom problem. But Oscar was, like Maravich was basically the 1960s Curry, right? Except when you look at his field goal

percentage. Well, true. But I'm saying he had the 30-foot range and you always heard about. I just think that there's something about the old guys. First of all, they always think that their era was better. Like that's just that that's a thing like that. And that's been the case for 50 years. That's why I always laugh when people get so bent out of shape because an old guy thinks their era was better. They always think their era was better. But I think just fundamentally he doesn't understand how Curry is shooting like this. So he's blaming everyone else without thinking like, yeah, actually the way science is going and the way you can study your technique and hone it in and you can work your body a certain way so that your leverage and your balance is perfect

and your sneakers are perfect and you have first-class accommodations and all these things, they all lead to us creating better basketball players. And that's the part he doesn't understand. Like, Curry should be better than the guys. I think he hasn't thought about it that much. I think that a lot of these guys talk off the cuff, but in the old days, you'd speak on the radio and say something crazy like that, and the only people who'd find out were the people in St. Louis.

True. So now it seems as though Oscar Robertson is leading a charge against Steph Curry. Well, to be fair, Oscar, and I wrote about this when I wrote about Oscar in my book, like he's the all-time NBA superstar curmudgeon that we've had in 60 years. There's nobody grumpier than Oscar. He did a lot of bad things happen to him. Yeah, like he's the all time NBA superstar curmudgeon that we've had in 60 years. There's nobody grumpier than Oscar. He had a lot of bad things happen to him.

Yeah. And that's the thing. It's totally understandable. And that's why I don't think anybody should give him shit ever, because I think he took, he went through the most stuff of anyone from that era because he went to the University of Cincinnati during, not a great time to be there if you're a black athlete. So, but I just, in general, all these guys, they all think they're as better. Like I, Magic, when I did TV with Magic, we would argue about the new guys versus the old guys.

And Magic was adamant that the guys from like the 80s Lakers would have beaten anybody in the game now. And I just didn't understand it because they didn't shoot threes back then. The teams now get an extra, what, eight to ten free points from the three-point line that Magic's era, that team didn't get. And he's like, no, we would have pounded down low. Like he genuinely felt that.

It wasn't like he was theorizing. He was like, we would have beaten them. Psychology of aging is interesting. I mean, you know, people have been often comparing the Warriors to the Bulls team because they're going after the wins record, you know. But if you remember, even when that Bulls team was winning all those games, when they asked Jordan how they would have fared against the first three-peat, he was like, the first team was way better.

Because he was like, Cartwright was an uptick from Kukoc and Paxton and Kerberkine are changeable, and there was just a better team. So even while he was doing it, he was like, the old team was better. I mean, I think that's just maybe a natural way to feel. I wrote about this in my book because I thought it was a really, really important point. And if you're going to compare teams, which is so hard to do, you really have to look at what the league was like. Because the reason the teams in the 80s were so good was because there was only 21 teams.

And somebody like McHale could be on the Celtics. And if you had a 30-team league, it would have been humanly impossible to have McHale, Bird, and Parrish on the same team. It just wouldn't happen. That's why it was so amazing that OKC, even for four years, had a chance to have Durant, Harden, and Westbrook on the same team. It's the all-time fluke of flukes. It would be the equivalent of if Minnesota won the lottery this year and got Ben Simmons and somehow Towns, Wiggins, and Ben Simmons in the same team.

Like, it might happen once a decade in a 30-team league. Is it a fluke or is it a bad move? I mean, the Oklahoma City, they gave up hard. You look at the Warriors. They seemingly have the two best shooters in the world on the same team. It seems like a fluke, except everyone in the world at one point was saying, trade Klay Thompson for Kevin Luff. Including me.

Everyone was saying that. And, yeah, I mean, and they didn't do it, right? So now it looks fluky that they have this situation, but actually they deserve credit for not making the move everyone demanded they do. Right. Well, hold on. But hold that point for a second. I think that was one of the seminal moments in the history of the NBA that summer.

The more I look at it, because it's a clear demarcation between an old way to play basketball and a new way to play basketball. Right. Kevin Love, we all thought, was one of the best seven players in the league. And of course you should trade Clay Thompson and David Lee in a number one pick for him. And of course you should trade Andrew Wiggins for him. But what you're getting was this guy who's a power forward in a league where power forwards are becoming increasingly irrelevant and you can only play really one non-perimeter guy and succeed in the way the NBA is being played now. And now, a year later,

there is no way in hell you would trade Wiggins for Kevin Love because it's so hard to find perimeter guys and wing guys. For the same reason that the Warriors looked at it and said, actually, we should keep Klay Thompson. There are less guards than big guys. It's easier to get a big guy. We can build a team around these two shooters. We're going to make nine three-pointers a game.

That's a bigger advantage. The fact that they saw that in the moment, I think is one of the great strategical, big-picture things we've ever seen in the league. I mean, if now I'm kind of giving them maybe more credit than they deserve, we don't know if maybe they wanted the deal and they just couldn't make it happen no no no no they argued about it

i know the whole story like they they had two camps and there was one camp that was like no this is a better advantage to have these two shooters like it was a real thing in that camp steve kerr um he's a smart guy i think uh i I actually think Jerry West was one of the guys who was like, don't do this. Clay, you know, blah, blah, blah. Like was just adamant that you couldn't win a title with Love and Curry as two of your defenders. Well, I mean, I wouldn't be shocked if those were the two guys who were right.

I forget. I think now everybody takes credit for keeping Clay Thompson. But at the time, I couldn't believe they didn't trade for Kevin Love. But, you know, that's it. I was talking to somebody at work yesterday about, I like this guy Ivan Robb on California. And I have no idea if he can play in the NBA, even though I know he's a good basketball player,

because he's going to be a lottery pick. He'll be in the 10 to though I know he's a good basketball player, because he's going to be a lottery pick. He'll be in the 10 to 14 range. He's a good athlete. He's a good rebounder. He plays hard. Where do I play him in the pros? I can't play him at center. So now it's like, I have to play him with another shot blocker or could he be a Draymond Green center? You're asking questions that I wasn't asking two years ago. Because you can't play two low post guys anymore. So where does he go? You know?

Good question. Like, the Celtics play, the Celtics are going to win like 50 games. And in crunch time, they play Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley, Marcus Smart, Jay Crowder, and either Jared Sullinger or Tyler Zeller. So they play Jay Crowder at power forward, even though he's not at power forward. And that's what every team does now. I don't know where Ivan Robb plays in that. It's weird.

I don't understand basketball anymore is what I'm trying to say. I mean, I assume it will switch again. Well, right now, everybody wants swing dudes. Yeah, I mean, everybody's doing the same thing, kind of. It seems like the best way. But 10 years will be that. I mean, five years even. Who knows?

Well, remember when we were growing up in the 80s? There was that run on centers. Everybody was like, you got to have a center. Houston had Samson Olajuwon. The Celtics had McHale and Parrish. run on centers. Everybody was like, you got to have a center. Houston had Sampson and Lajuan. The Celtics had McHale and Parrish. You need centers. There was that period where you needed two guys. Yeah.

Where you needed Cartwright and Ewing. And everybody was like, this is the key to have essentially two centers on the floor at the same time. Yeah, we need big guys. And that's what led to Carl Malone going after John Konkak and Joe Clyde in that draft. Also, I think I was talking about this before. I came across a pre-draft analysis of that draft.

One of the big knocks on Carl Malone was bad jumper, bad jumping ability. He had a low vertical. He went like 17th in the draft or something, didn't he? I think he went 13th and was immediately great. All right, speed round. Ready? Okay. Okay.

CBS screwing up the selection show. Did you care? No, because it doesn't really matter to me what time it comes out. I mean, I look at the bracket when I get around to it, which isn't usually during the show anyway. So the fact that it came early, who cares? Why doesn't every team imitate the Patriots with NFL free agency? Bill Belichick never spends on anyone in the first 10 to 14 days. Why don't

other teams do this considering the Patriots go 13-3 every year? I think the Patriots have the advantage that they can take guys who wouldn't succeed other places and fit into their system where the other teams are in a position where they need obvious

talent. And the way to do that is to go after guys real aggressively. But the Patriots can take a guy, you know, some running back who couldn't really have a job anywhere else and have a Monday night game where he scores three touchdowns and get cut. Would you move the NBA three-point line? Maybe. Maybe. I think I would move it back 18 inches.

18 inches? I mean, it would be interesting to see. That might be too big of a move. It might change the game too much, but it seems as though that would just, guys shoot from there anyways, it would just spread the floor more. I mean, it would get, like, you know, we kind of got off the subject,

but we were talking about the NCAA tournament. I think there's a lot of people now, because college basketball has kind of struggled these last few years, that they don't really watch the regular season and they only watch the tournament. And I think when those people watch the tournament this year and see how much the flow of the game has improved with those rule changes, there's going to be this brief college basketball renaissance where people are really going to be excited about it because the game is much better. The changes they made really

helped. And I wonder if moving the three-point line out a little bit in the NBA might have some of the same effect, maybe less guys shooting from deep but more guys going to the basket. What's been worse for you these last 10 years, 10 years of the Kardashians or 10 years of Roger Goodell? Well, the Kardashians have had no impact on my life. Roger Goodell has been a troubling commissioner, and yet the NFL now is sort of something to follow

even when there aren't games on. He's turned it into a 12-month sport. Yeah, really. And there's just always something happening. I just always, you know, it's the Kardashians. You know, I guess I know a little bit what's going on in their life because of who they're dating.

Kind of a push. I give that one a push. Okay. Every single Major League Baseball player walks into your favorite par one at a time over the course of 24 hours,

how many can you recognize? Oh, man. Under 20? Yes, under 20. It might be under 10. I think it would be under 10. I mean, okay, there's the guys from the Yankees and the Mets who I see on the covers of tabloids around here sometimes,

so I might recognize them a bit but um you know i don't know if i would there are there are whole teams where i wouldn't recognize any of the guys um although i did uh i know we're in the middle of the speed round but uh i wanted to ask you a little bit about this bryce harper stuff is that possible you want to put you want to pause the speed round for a second? Yeah. Just hit the pause button. So for people who don't know about this, it's like there was a story in ESPN, I think the magazine, where

Bryce Harper was saying things like baseball's tired, it's a tired sport because you can't express yourself. I'm reading this off the internet. You can't do what people in other sports do. I'm not saying baseball is boring or anything like that, but it's the excitement of the young guys who are coming into the game now who have flex. What do you think of all that? I first want to get your take on this. I thought what Chris Rock said when he did that great monologue on Real Sports a year ago,

I thought he made some good points about baseball is a sport that is trying to keep into place all these rules and traditions that existed 50 to 100 years ago. And maybe that's why it skews toward an older white audience. My point is, what's fun about baseball if I'm a kid? Like if, I don't know like I would I would just gravitate toward other sports unless I played baseball okay well like I watch baseball partly because I wanted to hang out with my dad and we had 10 channels you know and my dad watched the Red Sox it was like well I'm gonna watch the Red Sox and that's how I started watching the Red Sox my It was like, well, I'm going to watch the Red Sox. And that's how I started watching the Red Sox. My son is like, I'm going to go on my iPad and watch 100 John Cena videos on YouTube

and would never watch a baseball game with me. Yeah, like I don't watch baseball either. I agree with the idea that it does feel tired, but I do feel like Bryce Hyper is conflating something. He's conflating personal expression with intensity. I think baseball's problem is that it's not intense enough. I don't think the problem is that guys aren't allowed to celebrate enough. I mean, okay, we were talking about, as we so often do,

like talking about basketball from the 80s or whatever. Yeah. Robert Parrish didn't celebrate, but he was intense. Nobody ever complained about that. I mean, Ron Artish didn't celebrate, but he was intense. Nobody ever complained about that. I mean, Ron Artest didn't celebrate a lot when he played, but he was very intense. You know, I feel like what he's saying somehow, and I think there's a whole maybe a lot of people who feel this way now,

is that they seem to think being demonstrative and sort of doing something that seems, has the appearance of being edgy is somehow the same as being intense. And I don't think that's the case. I mean, the reason people get annoyed by, say, like touchdown celebrations is that they seem very orchestrated. You get the sense that the guy thought of this for a week and waited for the

opportunity to use it, and then he did. Of course people don't like that. It makes it seem like you're watching the circus or pro wrestling or something. But no one seems to care if somebody celebrates because of the actual extension of how they feel in that moment or what's going on and i think that the problem is is that there's that there's been a decrease in the intensity in sports certainly in baseball and i think also to a degree in basketball football i'm not so sure about but um even this it kind of ties back to some of that oscar roberts and stuff it's like i I wonder what they're really complaining about. It's not actually what they're seeing, but what they're feeling from the players. If they see the players who seem to be great friends both before and immediately after the game, or when you talk about Ben Simmons' passivity, and it seems as though that the

idea of getting beat by Texas A&M doesn't matter that much. Isn't that more the problem? And that's really an extension of the fact that there's so much money in these sports now that there's no reason these guys would be that personally invested. I mean, it's such a good job. Doesn't that go to like everything we've seen with Kobe's hilarious farewell tour?

All these people paying homage to him before and after the games. Like, Kobe was famously not a friend to anyone and just wanted to

destroy everyone and didn't try to help anyone. And now it's like he's having these emotional moments in court with whoever. It's a weird thing to say, but it's like he's having these emotional moments in court with whoever it's a

weird thing to say but it's kind of disappointing oh i think it's super disappointing it's it just completely contradicts the quality about him that for better or worse and very often for worse but also for better that made him uh such a sort of a unique, dynamic person. And now it just, I mean, it seems like he's already retired. He's on this, it's been like a three-year campaign to prove to everybody that he was a normal person all along. And unfortunately, I watched him play basketball from like 1996 to 2012, and he just wasn't this person that he's now portraying himself as.

I think he had a really good career. I think he's one of the 10 best players ever. But I don't think he was somebody that affected all these different people's lives in the league. I think they respected him and they, they wanted to beat him and they probably learned stuff from him. But do you think, you know, Durant and Westbrook,

like he had this profound impact on their lives? I'm so confused by all this. I guess maybe this is what happens when people retire. It's just over and over again is the same kind of recipe. As far as the impact, I'm not for sure about that. You know, maybe, I mean, you look at a guy like Durant. When Durant was 16, was Kobe what? Kobe was in the league, obviously, right?

Right. So you never know how much it matters to a 16- or a 15-year-old kid if Player X is his favorite player. Yeah, they dream about playing against whoever. Yeah, or when they're playing by themselves, you know, when it's just like a boy and a ball in the hoop and maybe you believe you are him for a second or whatever the case may be. Maybe that has some influence.

Or is it possible he had – I don't know. What I'm just saying is I'm not really looking at this. I'm looking at this from just... I had come to the conclusion that Kobe Bryant finally was sort of being honest about his nature. And now it seems like either he's went all the way through this door of reality or whatever. And now he's just a different person. He's changed or he's still

changing or or i mean i hate to say this but part of me is sort of like he wouldn't be doing this this way if he was still great like if he was still going out and really beating people i wonder if he would be so affable to them after the game but it's almost as though he recognizes that he's maybe hung on a year too long. So maybe he got humbled a little bit, and maybe that made him more of a normal person. Possibly. Because I don't think the guy from, especially the guy in the 2000s, the last decade, had no interest in any sort of interactions with anybody that weren't just like

quick you know he didn't wasn't really a great teammate I don't I don't think you know I don't think it was a bad teammate because his teams won so I don't think it was a situation like maybe what people would say about boogie cousins but I think he was pretty withering to teammates that kind of didn't meet his standards, almost to a fault. You could have said the same thing about Jordan. The thing that is interesting to me is somebody like Gasol, who a lot of times seemed like a prisoner. He was trapped in that situation

and just the life would just get sucked out of him every so often. To now see him talk so glowingly about Kobe like they were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I felt like I was there for all those games. Did you ever feel like those guys were, you know, like a buddy cop movie? I never got that sense. You know, not really, but, you know, Gasol's cop movie? I never got that sense. You know, not really, but, you know,

Gasol's a guy raised in Spain, was going to be a doctor. I assume he's a pretty intellectual guy. I assume that he could talk about the idea of Kobe as fluently as, you know, guys who make a living talking about Kobe do. Maybe he has a little more mature perspective on this maybe you know and i i i would i often think that just guys raised in other countries just have a much different view of of the sport they play than people from america

who play the same sport well the one thing we know is bullshit is when Shaq and Kobe try to pretend that they didn't hate each other's guts when they're in the Lakers. That's what makes me suspicious of all the other stuff. When Kobe, when, when they're like, no, no,

no, no, no. Now we're in a great place. Like those guys hate each other flat out. I still don't believe that they like each other. You know, that goes back.

Shaq is on TV now though. Yeah. I think they have to that they like each other. You know, that goes back. I think that Shaq is on TV now, though. Yeah, I think they have to pretend they like each other. Also, I think that maybe Shaq is of the opinion that, like, this is all kind of show. This is all a show. Us liking each other is a show. Us hating each other was a show. It's all just a show. It's like when they have a

david o russell movie released and all the actors have to pretend they're really close on the set that's kind of what sports has turned into but to go back to your question then we have to go um that the baseball that i when you look at basketball and how the guys kind of market themselves and just how fun the n NBA has become from an internet standpoint. And let's face it, like especially for people under 30, under 25, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat are a huge way of how everyone communicates in those two generations, the 18 to 25 and 9 to 18.

And the NBA fits into that. And I don't know how baseball fits into that. Especially when you don't see baseball players Instagramming from the dugout and Snapchat and watch it. It just feels like it's from another era. And I think that's their

biggest obstacle. How do you make baseball more fun for people under 25? I don't know how you do it. It's too slow. They seem to frown upon expression. But I feel like they have a pretty loyal fan base. I feel like the guys who like baseball like it more than anything else. Do they have to be as big as football and as big as the NBA to succeed? I don't think so.

I mean, why can't they sort of occupy the space and the culture that they do well why is that not enough i don't get it well i the the fundamental problem i keep saying fundamental problem for some reason is that you have all these under 25 people who are now going to eventually be the people who buy tickets and buy league pass and do all the things that baseball is going to need to stay at the level it's at and i don't know if they're developing those fans. And the other problem is you have 81 baseball games a year for the home team. And now it's so easy to get tickets and everybody has nicer TVs and all this stuff. Like 15 years ago, my dream in life was to have Red Sox season tickets. I couldn't have imagined anything better.

Like, oh my God, I go to 81 Red Sox games? I'll go to 70 of those. I would never want to go to 81 baseball games now. I don't think anyone would. It's too slow. It's too hard to park. It's your whole night. It's much more fun a lot of times just to be home.

So I don't know how they fix that. You know? Would you want to go to 81 baseball games? No, I don't know how they fix that. Would you want to go to 81 baseball games? Oh, no, I wouldn't. Do you know anyone who would want to go to 81 baseball games? Is baseball actually struggling, though? Hold on. Let's turn Tate's mic.

Tate, you can turn your mic on. Tate's 22. Did you just turn 22? Just turned 23. 23. Happy birthday, Tate. In your circle, how many people care about baseball? Small sample size.

Well, there's no team in North Carolina, so it's the Braves. Probably three out of 10, 30%. Do you feel like under 25 people, is baseball anywhere close to basketball no it's probably football basketball yeah see that and all right thanks tate i and that's the thing with baseball is it used to be the three of them together and now it feels like baseball's falling off it's definitely the third sport now i mean there's no no question about that. But I guess is the motive of any sport to be a dominant American sport? I mean, is that what – maybe it is. Well, in this case, it's America's pastime.

Maybe if you're the commissioner of baseball, maybe that's supposed to be your goal, to make baseball this central part of it. But, you know, and I've talked about this, the fact that football has expanded its magnitude so much is really central to a lot of the problems it's having. Like, it's gotten too big it's now involving casual people who are suddenly really bothered by what they are seeing and what they are experiencing because uh they just sort of thought oh everyone does this on sunday so i'm going to do this too i mean you don't you don't see nascar fans or bull riding fans or anything freaking out over the dangers of their sport because it's a niche audience and they're aware of what they're getting. They realize, like everybody who follows NASCAR knows that if you drive a car into a brick wall,

you will die and they're not shocked when that happens. Football now has got this huge audience of people who have never really thought about any of this stuff. It's just that all of a sudden they're hearing all this stuff about CTE and all these things, and it's like, oh, they're all disturbed because they got too big. I think baseball might be well served to stay at the size of that. What's interesting to me about baseball is that it's almost turned into a TV sport like football did in this way.

Like you look at it's 162 games plus all the spring training. And it has become one of the great commodities for these local cable stations. And you see these TV deals are just so gigantic. And that's why baseball players get paid so much money. It's be the TV deals are just out of control because everybody looks at it and goes, wow, that's a thousand hours of television that we can put on over the course of seven months. We don't have to worry about any other programming. This is great. And we know who we're getting.

And that's why in a weird way, baseball's as strong as it's ever been. Because you look at these TV deals and it's like, yeah, baseball's not going anywhere. I just wonder from a relevancy standpoint with the younger generation, does it just keep getting worse? Especially if like Bryce Harper, Trout, all these guys, really they're in as good shape from a talent standpoint as the NBA is with Curry and Duran and Westbrook, all those guys. Like you could argue the baseball, the under28 guys, they're just as loaded.

But you wouldn't recognize most of them if they walked into your bar. I think that's weird. It is weird. That's been for a while now, though. I feel like we've had this conversation for over 10 years. We have. And also the idea of baseball sort of losing its relationship with young people. That's an old argument, too.

I mean, that was definitely happening in the 90s. It was. No question. Once they postponed the World Series games and all of a sudden they're ending at midnight, I think that became a problem. But, you know, I think baseball's weirdly fine, you know. Between the local TV and then late September through October, I felt like baseball was as relevant as it's ever been in the postseason last year. A lot of people were talking about it.

Those games were really exciting. Well, when baseball is dramatic, it's more dramatic than the other sports. I mean, golf is kind of the same way because it's so goddamn slow that when meaningful things are happening, it's crazy. You just feel it. It's a real palpable sense of drama. So there's always the chance that that will happen

in the playoffs and in the World Series and all these things. So I don't know. My main point was just I think that if there is an issue with baseball, it's a lack of intensity. It is not a lack of guys being able to express themselves. I think that their expression at times seems like theatrics. And the pace was, I guess that's the same argument.

The pace, the intensity, it's slow. But the weird thing is you need the slow pace in order to have the high drama. They're kind of tied together. It's just that what's boring as fuck in August is great in October. Really, it should be a 145-game season, and they'll never do that because they'll never lose it but they it should it should

should move a little faster I think 162 games is a little high I don't know if we need that many uh we have to go when's your book coming out

June 7th alright and we'll follow you on Twitter during the tournament are you going to tweet during the tournament or you're too busy

we'll see I may if I have something to say. All right. A pleasure as always. Thank you. Bye-bye. We're going to call Jonathan Abrams really fast because his book is coming out today.

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Save 10%. Once again, simplysafebill.com. Okay, we're calling Abrams. All right, as promised, my dude Jonathan Abrams wrote a book. He started working on it when we were at Grantland together. He finished it. They made many pages. They put them into book-sized things with covers.

And now it's out. It's out today. It's called Boys Among Men, and it is about the high school to pro phenomenon, which actually started way back when with Bill Willoughby, who you talked to, right, Abrams? Yeah, so Bill Willoughby, he got into a fight with a couple cops in New Jersey a couple weeks ago.

Oh, no. It wasn't at your book signing. No, luckily not. So you talked to basically everybody since 1975 that came out right from high school? Yeah. Yeah, Moses was the first one who came out in 75, and then there was a big loss for two decades,

and then Kevin Garnett opened that door back up again. Yeah. I remember, a lot of that stuff's on YouTube, which I'm sure you watch. It's so funny now to hear people try to talk themselves out of Kevin Garnett before that draft. He's not ready. He's too skinny. All that stuff. And then he turned into Kevin Garnett.

Do you feel like working on that book, obviously there was a bunch of high-profile failures, but we also had Kevin Garnett and Kobe in back-to-back years. Is that almost a historical fluke? Yeah, and I think what's really interesting about it is how much the NBA shifted in that time span because back then the Bullets, who obviously became the Wizards, they wouldn't take Kevin Garnett just because he was a high school player off of principle alone. And their owner, Abe Poland, a few years later, was talked into trapping Kwame Brown, number one overall. So the NBA just shifted so much in five, six years. Right.

Well, the Celtics had the 97 when we didn't get Tim Duncan. We ended up with the third pick and the sixth pick. And they passed on Tracy McGrady twice. So even like after Kobe and KG, the draft after that, teams were still not seeing it. You know, I don't feel like people really saw it until. What was it? What was the draft that had Kwame and Chandler and Curry? That was 2001, right? Or 2002? Yeah, that was 2001.

2001. Yeah, that was when everybody was like, oh, so if we get these guys, you're basically developing them for four years, and it's great. It's a huge advantage. And then it kind of went haywire in a bad way. Well, you know, your guys worked out Kobe. You know that, right? You guys had the chance to take Kobe because he shut out all the workouts

after the Lakers were interested in him, but the Celtics were one of the few teams he worked out for. Oh, I'm aware of this whole story. Here's the thing. The Antoine pick was totally defensible. I was super-duper excited that they got him. He's the thing. The Antoine pick was totally defensible. I was super duper excited that they got him. He was only 19. He had only

been in Kentucky for a year. He almost won the Rookie of the Year and he had a good career. I'm not against it. It gets a lot less defensible when you go through the 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. The Nets were really the team that should have taken them, right?

Yeah, I mean, when you go back and look at Ali Potapenko and Todd Fuller got taken before Kobe Bryant, you just scratch your head. I know. That's the draft. These guys, I mean, Minnesota passed on Steph Curry twice. I think that's my favorite of all time now because it was insane when it happened,

and now it's become 100,000 times more insane. So what's your favorite chapter in the book? I think it was just looking through that 96 draft and kind of dissecting what every team was thinking at the time they did pass up on Kobe Bryant and talking to Bob Bass, the Hornets general manager at the time, who drafted Kobe and then traded him. So I'm going through that draft now. Iverson won, Canby two, Sharif went three.

These are all defensible at the time. Marbury four, Ray Allen five, and Antoine six. I think all these are still defensible, but here's where it gets less defensible. Lorenzen Wright to the Clippers. God, the Clippers could have had Kobe. I totally forgot that. And he worked out for them, too. Kittles to the Nets, who had a good career until he got hurt.

Samaki Walker to Dallas. Dampier to the Pacers. Todd Fuller to Golden State. Patapico to the Cavs, and then Kobe. 13. And Charlotte trades it.

They didn't just keep him. They traded it for Divac. So it was like a double whammy. What was funny was that the Hornets, they got better after that. I think Bob Bass got executive of the year for that trade because the Hornets, they got better after that. I think Bob Bass got executive of the year for that trade because the Hornets, they won like 50 games the next year.

The late 90s Hornets weren't bad. Vlade had a lot left in the tank. Then he went to Sacramento. It was a defensible trade except for the part that Kobe became one of the 10 best players of all time. So you think the TMAC thing for some reason is not as big of a deal?

Where did he go? Seventh? Eighth? Something like that? He went eighth, I think, to the Raptors. He was big because that brought about a whole big negotiation between Nike's and Adidas. It was the first time one of these high school guys had created a shoe bidding war with Sonny Vaccaro, Adidas, and Nike. Yeah. And who, I forget. Oh, Adidas won that one, right?

Yeah, they paid him $12 million. And all the veteran players were jealous they hadn't gotten a shoe contract like that. And it just set up a whole generation of these guys trying to make that jump afterward. After you finish this book, do you feel like guys should be able to come right out of high school or no? I think so. I mean, there's obviously a lot of gray in this issue, but by and large, most of these guys were successful. There's a lot more successful guys like Tracy and Kobe and LeBron

than there are these busts like Coleone Young and Leon Smith and those guys. Right. I mean, it would have been better for Ben Simmons just to come out now. I mean, to come out a year ago versus just going to LSU and having four unsatisfying months there. I don't know how that helped him in any way. And it does seem like the league is so much smarter now about protecting

younger players and putting them in a better position to think about choices they make and all that stuff it just seems like uh i don't know i i'm of i'm of the belief that it should be i've said this before but i really i think it's one of my best ideas. The rookie contract length should depend on when you came out. So if you stay in school for two years and you come out, it's a four-year rookie contract. If you come out right out of high school, it's a six-year rookie contract. If you come out after your freshman year, it's a five-year rookie contract. I really think that's the best solution because, like you know yeah now it's like if a guy comes right out all of a sudden he's not getting paid when he's 22 you know and you and you really the team really gets to keep

them under control and and try to groom them and there's no rush. And a lot of, a lot of the issues were just sometimes just guys getting money too soon. I mean, that was Antoine's biggest thing. Antoine was making, I think he signed for 71 or 81 million bucks after his third year in the NBA is 22. That's not good. You know?

Yeah. What do you think? What was the biggest reason Kwame failed? Oh, it was a big combination of i don't think he loved the game he uh declared for the nba because of family pressure to lift his family out of poverty he just came from a terrible situation and one of the quotes in the book that really stuck out to me was billy donovan just got to think that kwame didn't want to go pro in the least bit because he had originally committed to the University of Florida when Donovan was there. And also the pressure playing for Michael Jordan at that time. Michael Jordan only had one or two years left in him with the Wizards and needed Kwame to be a superstar fast.

And that just wasn't going to happen. Was there a guy that as you worked on the book, you changed your opinion? You know, it was interesting seeing Tracy McGrady's progress because I didn't know all that much of his back history, and it just seemed like he almost lucked in the basketball to begin with as well. He was a big baseball guy growing up. Yeah. He's a good example of how they changed the rules to make the rookie contracts longer.

And after, you know, his generation, you could leave after three years. And he left Toronto. He goes to Orlando. Grant Hill gets hurt. And he just, you know, wastes a good chunk of his career on teams that weren't very good. And had the contracts been longer, him and Vince Carter are together, and all of a sudden that has a chance to become something really special.

I always felt like if he'd come along five years later in the same situation, his career is different. Yeah, well, one of the other big things with the with Tracy as well is that uh he was really close to signing with the Bulls after that after that uh Toronto contract but Jordan basically nixed it because they would have to give up pay for Pippen at that time right yeah I remember that um all right well well, I'm excited for people to read this book. You've sent me an early copy. I enjoyed it.

I enjoy all basketball books, but I really enjoyed yours. Can you talk about your next project yet or no? No. I hope to have it out soon, but I'm excited. Yeah, your next project is going to be super duper exciting. Hey, you're in Charlotte now, right? I am. Have you gotten sucked in by the Hornets, by college hoops, anything?

How's your basketball life changed? I got a two-year-old who I'm trying to groom into the next Jeff Curry. That's why we got out here. Smart. Get a Davidson 30 jersey on him. Have you gone to a Hornets game yet? I've been to a couple, but I'm friends with the woman whose daughter goes to Steph High School and plays basketball there.

I've been to Steph High School gym a few times, and it's just this tiny, tiny place. I just can't imagine Steph ever playing there. I've been to Steph's high school gym a few times and it's just this tiny, tiny place. I just can't imagine Steph ever playing there. I know. It's probably where he started making 40-footers routinely. Being like, hmm, I wonder if this will work in a game. He was right. There's like two

stands, two rows of stands on each side of the court. If he had been a bigger prospect in high school, they would not have been able to play in that gym no um all right so your book's out today shea serrano did some cool bookmarks for you but those are all sold out right we got a few more left if people want to send screenshots out all right how do you do how do they do that uh preps to pro at gmail.com. All right. Beautiful. Good luck with the book. It's going to do well.

It's, it's, uh, it's really good. I liked it. Um, I'll talk to you soon. All right.

Thanks. Thanks to Abrams. Uh, go check out his book boys among men. It is on, um, Amazon. It's on all places that sell books.

Thanks to Klosterman. He does not have a new book coming out for three months, but I'm putting it on your radar anyway. Thanks to MailChimp. They make it easy to connect with your customers and sell more stuff. Feel free to get started. No expiring trial, no credit card required.

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tomorrow with a long time sports media icon. And I'm not going to tell you who. See you tomorrow. We about this bitch. Anytime y'all want to see me again, rewind this track right here. Close your eyes.

And picture me rolling