The Bill Simmons Podcast - Notes From My Lazy Vacation. Plus Jackie MacMullan on Why She’s Retiring (and Lots More)

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons shares some stuff he wishes he’d been able to talk about while he was on vacation, including: the Red Sox’s stumbles, ‘SummerSlam’ in Las Vegas, the Olympics, HBO��s ‘The White Lotus,’ ‘Jeopardy!,’ and more (4:30). Then Bill is joined by Hall of Fame journalist Jackie MacMullan to discuss her retirement from ESPN, the recent Bleacher Report interview with Kevin Durant and Draymond Green, stories from 40 years of covering sports, maintaining journalistic integrity in a changing media landscape, and more (33:00). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Jackie MacMullan Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We launched the Ringer Wrestling Show. It was actually the old masked man show, Shoemaker's Feed. Well, we blew it out. We announced this big deal last week with the WWE. We're creating a podcast network for them that's going to be exclusive on Spotify, although the Ringer Wrestling Show will be wide. We added a bunch of shows. Evan Mack joined us. The Mack Mania show launched. We were at SummerSlam last week. I was there as well. Did a whole bunch of shows on location.

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because fantasy's coming and you know you know how it goes it's all going to be that labor day weekend and the monday tuesday wednesday right before the game start but we will be there uh we have the new york new york podcast with john jastrzemski as well. He's got all the Jets, Giants stuff. We have the Ringer NFL show. We have the Ryan Rosillo podcast. We have another new podcast that's coming that might be devoted to another big city. Not quite as big as New York, but pretty close. We're going to be announcing that one soon.

And there'll be a lot of coverage of a certain young star that might be emerging in September. That's all I'm going to tell you. I'm just tipping it off. You never know with The Ringer. And also, we had the Jeopardy story that Claire McNeer did, which basically turned that show upside down. I'll be talking about that in one second, but go read that story if you haven't read it yet at theringer.com. I've been gone for two weeks. It's the longest I've ever taken from this podcast since we relaunched it in 2015. I'm going to be talking about that next. And then what I did on my vacation, then Jackie McMullen, the Hall of Famer is coming on talking about why she retired from sports writing and she's

going to continue to do stuff here, but just what all that's been like. And then we're going to talk about summer league and NBA stuff and really big picture about where the media coverage with to do stuff here, but just what all that's been like. And then we're going to talk about Summer League and NBA stuff and really big picture about where the media coverage with basketball is going as we head into the 2020s. I'm really excited to be back with this pod. I miss talking to everybody and spouting out theories and talking to people and all that stuff.

So it's good to be back. We will be very, very lively here in this feed over the next few weeks. Also, the Rewatchables is coming tomorrow night. If you missed it, we did episode 200 with Superbad. Episode 201 was Argo. Episode 202 is tomorrow. It's going to be Rain Man, an incredibly successful movie.

It's on Netflix right now, too, if you want to watch it for free. So that's coming tomorrow night. I'm very excited to just talk to human beings. Let's do it. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Jackie's coming up in a second. I'm taping this. It is late afternoon, Sunday, August 22nd. I took two weeks off from this podcast. I really tried to unwind a little bit.

Seemed like the perfect time. Basketball was dying. All the free agent stuff had happened. So we were finally hitting a low with basketball. Football hadn't quite got going yet and everything else we could catch up on. So I wrote down some things that I would have loved to have talked about over those two weeks, but couldn't because I was not doing my podcast. I did tweet a tiny bit more, but I'm really like, you know, I don't tweet that much.

So number one, this is no particular order, by the way. The Red Sox died. The Red Sox died in August. This team that I loved watching for four straight months, this feel-good underdog story that reminded me of a cross

between the 2013 team and honestly, like the 1988 team. It was just this weird amalgam of, I don't know how they're doing this. We keep pulling games out of our asses and then we have some good bats and it didn't really seem to add up or make sense. Unfortunately for us, I think the Red Sox front office felt the same way. They kind of sat out the trade deadline. I'm mad about it, but at the same time, I don't really blame them because I think they knew there was some smoke and mirrors stuff going on with this team. The touch point was Anthony Rizzo, who the Yankees ended up getting, who's a very good first baseman. You

saw last week, the game-ending play was a great play by the shortstop. And then Rizzo did the lean forward scoop thing and just got out Ploiecki to end the game. And it was just yet another good play he made at first base. He's had some big homers for them. The difference of the Red Sox not getting him versus getting him was probably a five-game swing between the Yankees and the Red Sox because the Red Sox, Dahlbeck's been playing first base.

God bless Bobby D. He's probably a quadruple A hitter, unfortunately. He's too good for triple A. He might not be good enough for the majors. Anybody else they put in there is either a defensive downgrade or an offensive downgrade. And Rizzo really would help the Red Sox. So he becomes kind of the touch point for the Red Sox fans looking at this thing. But at the same time, it does feel like this was like a three-year rehaul for them and we're in year two of it. And I think the team, they probably felt the team overachieved and they just didn't want to go all in. Now, all of this makes sense on paper, but the one thing I think I've realized this year as a Boston fan and as somebody who's, you know, I'm officially a middle-aged dude, man. I turned 50 in 2019 and you really start looking at things more black and white than you ever did as you get older. They've won four titles this century. The Yankees have won one. And watching that relationship flip over the last 17 years was the most joyous thing for

me as a baseball fan. Because look, I heard Mad Dog Russo talking about this on John Jastrzemski's podcast a week and a half ago, how the Giants weren't quite the same for him anymore after they got over the hump and they won a couple titles. It's not a bad thing. It's just, it's really hard for it to be life or death after you get over the hump and you won a couple of titles. It's not a bad thing. It's just, it's really hard for it to be life or death after you get over the hump and you win when you climb the mountain. It's just never going to be totally the same. But what is the same for me is my hatred of the

despicable Yankees and their despicable fans. And I say despicable in a lovingly way because I, we have a love hate relationship with the New York fans. It's mostly hate, but we love kind of being in the, the, the punchy bag relationship with each other. I hate when the Yankees are doing well. I hate them. I hate their fans. Sports hate, not real hate.

I don't actually hate them, but I, I, I sports hate the hell out of their entire existence. And the first four months watching them freak out about their team, wanting to fire Aaron Boone, um, fire Brian Cashman, go after the loser Steinbrenner brother. I, I enjoyed that more than the Red Sox season going well.

I actually enjoyed the Yankees pain more than the joy with the Red Sox. And I was talking about it with a couple of friends of mine because I was like, am I just a bad person that I actually wallow in the Yankees despair more than the joy of our own baseball team? And it turns out I'm not. There are other Red Sox fans feel this way too. And that's when I realized because we've won the four titles, it's actually more fun for me to watch the Yankees fail than it is to watch the Red Sox succeed. Now, I'm not saying it's an either or thing. I love watching the Red Sox succeed. I'm just saying, if you told me for the next 10 years, the Red Sox wouldn't win a title, but the Yankees wouldn't win a title either. I don't know if I take that or not, but I would definitely go out to dinner

and have a couple of drinks and think about it because that's how much I want the Yankees to keep losing. They've won one title this century. They won in 2009. They're fans who were always so condescending to us and just always looked down at us and made shitty comments to us. And we're just the superiority complex was off the charts. And I wrote about it a lot. You can go back, you can read the Red Sox book I wrote a million years ago. Some of it's probably incredibly dated, but the hatred for the Yankees is in there fully formed and it is organic and it lives on forever and ever. Um, I just will never, ever, ever at any point in my life, not fully enjoy the Yankees losing. I even, I was in Hawaii. I was in Hawaii and there was a Yankee game on and I was listening to John Sterling and Susan Waldman. They were upset about something in the seventh inning and the sun was out and the water was blue and I'm driving and the wind's blowing. And I'm like, this is great. This is better than the radio listening to two sad Yankee announcers. Now, of course they ended up winning the game and they've been really good. Um, really all month they've been rejuvenated. They had all

these injuries. All these random dudes came up guys like Tyler Wade, who, if you're in an AL keeper league, everybody in the AL keeper league has probably had Tyler Wade for a week and wave them. Cause he literally can't hit. Um, now all of a sudden he comes in, he he's chipping in all these dudes are chipping in these pictures coming out of nowhere. Where the hell did Luis Gil come from? Um, and now the Yankees had this feel good aura to them, which to me is worse than the Red Sox season falling apart. So I tell you this because, um, I really didn't want you to forget how much I hate the Yankees. And, um, now we're in now in a world where the Red Sox, this Red Sox

team can't possibly compete. Nothing. They just don't have it. The bullpen, Whitlock, who was a godsend the first four months. He was probably the best pitcher on the team and in the running for one of the best three guys on the team for the amount of shit that he pulled off for the Red Sox first four months. I've watched a lot of this season. And then finally, the workload caught up to him. Same thing for Matt Barnes. The bullpen is not going to be able to rally in time.

So even if the Red Sox made it, I just think with their pitching staff, it's pretty grim. This is not a World Series team. I'm just being honest. We might be better off with Toronto, with Toronto passing them in Toronto, getting into the playoffs because Toronto's bats are so fucking frightening. We played them twice in two weekends, like two out of three weekends. All of a sudden, we were playing the Blue Jays all the time and their lineup is terrifying. Vlad Guerrero is

terrifying. So part of me wonders, are the Red Sox just better off going to fourth place, letting the Blue Jays pass us because we can't let the Yankees make the world series. Um, on the other hand, I can't root against the Red Sox, but my point is, as you can tell, I'm a mess from this. And this was the single worst thing that happened to me over the last two weeks was the Yankees, um, suddenly becoming this underdog and their fans are so excited and just talking about how great Rizzo is. All of you can fuck off. So we'll start there.

I went to Vegas twice. I was there for Sal's 50th birthday party, which was at the end of July. And then I went back this weekend actually for SummerSlam with my son. And the COVID situation is just getting super duper weird. I know a bunch of people in my life who are vaccinated who have gotten it. There seems to be no rhyme or reason now for who gets it, who doesn't have it. People are talking about third booster shots. People are wearing masks again. We went from mid-June, late June being like, wow, this is going to be an amazing summer. We're back to now that same kind of fear creeping back in.

It's such a bummer for so many different reasons, obviously. But being in Vegas, this is I think the third and fourth times I was in Vegas because the first two times I was there for soccer. And the mass thing, it's just not Vegas to me. I was in Vegas four times this year. It did not gamble once. I did not play one hand of blackjack. Blackjack is probably my single favorite thing. Um, my, my single favorite zone out thing to do to me, it's like my version of golf. I just put me at a table for five hours. I'm happy. Um, and I just wouldn't do it. And you want, you see Vegas and it's like, Vegas always has this free, anything can go. Everyone's there. Everybody's so fired up. People are drinking for 48 straight hours. People are doing gambling binges. You can go to the

sports book, like great meals, everything's possible in Vegas. And then it's like Vegas just has this giant condom on it. And, uh, the energy is really, really strange and weird. At SummerSlam, they had mandatory masks. My son and I still had an awesome time. The highlight was, well, there were a couple highlights. We had the Seth Rollins edge match was great. They just did a really good job. They actually built it old school,

built the momentum of it, started slow, built into it, bunch of kickouts. Edge was great. And that match was really good. I enjoyed that. I love the Goldberg wrestle that Bobby Lashley and Goldberg's matches are always terrible and really short. And my son, who's now 13, who still likes wrestling, even though now he's the size of AJ Styles. We actually walked by AJ Styles backstage and I saw this gleam in my son's eye like, oh my God, I think I could take AJ Styles. My son just gets such delight out of how bad the Goldberg matches are.

So he was like, there's no way this will last more than two minutes. It ends up going four and a half. They botch at least four spots. Goldberg comes up with a fake knee injury. And then his 15-year-old, he ends up quitting. And then his 15-year-old son does a run-in and gets annihilated by Bobby Lashley. And all of it was so bad and so dumb, but yet so enjoyable. And then I was watching with my son and it was the first time I really saw my son starting to think about, this is now turning into parent corner. But it was the first time I really saw my son starting to think about this is now turning into parent corner. But it's the first time I saw my son really starting to think about like,

could I do this? Could I do this for a living? Um, so anyway, I think I'm going to send him to the performance center for in lieu of going to high school and just might as well get it going. Like what, what other chances you have to get a job? Um, I'm kidding, but was He was kind of I did see the light bulb go off And I don't know 10% chance He ends up being a wrestler I don't know

We'll see what happens But that match was from a comedy Unintentional comedy standpoint Was great And then the The Reigns Cena match Was really good Reigns

His comeback His way He has rebuilt his character and his career since he came back from another issue with leukemia and then comes back as a bad guy. And now all of a sudden he's the best promo guy they have. He is the biggest star they have. He has command of the room in a way very few guys can get to. And when you go to these events in person, it's really about the command of the room. That's what separates the super duper stars from the superstars and the stars. And Reigns, this was always the thing with Lesnar. This is why Brock Lesnar can come in for four matches a year, but really matters because when he comes out to an audience,

you feel like you're in a Roman Coliseum. It's awesome. He comes out and it seems like nobody on the planet could beat this guy and the aura of him and everything about him. It's just, you can't take your eyes off him. And Cena has, you know, even as polarizing as he's been over the years, Cena was always like that. He always had the crowd in the palm of his hand. And Reigns, I think, has gotten to that point as well. So that match was really good. They executed well, and then they had the big

surprise at the end with Lesnar. And then the other big surprise, which wasn't one of the top three moments, was Becky Lynch ended up coming back. But they really botched that. They ended up making it a short match when, uh, you know, Bianca Belair, who, uh, they had really established as a star and that just should have been a way better match than it was. Um, but it was, it was a really cool night and it was fun to be around a bunch of people, but we all had masks on. And that part was weird. It's just, I will never get used to being in a crowd

and having a mask on. And I really hope there's light at the end of the tunnel with this, but end of the tunnel of this, but it's starting to seem like there's not a lot of light these days. So we'll see when things get normal again. But I really thought by now things would be 100% normal. Now we're just kind of used to it,

which is in a lot of ways worse. The other cool thing that happened, which wasn't WWE related was, uh, CM Punk came back on Friday night and, um, on AEW. And it was the first time he'd been in a ring in seven years. They did it in Chicago. So it was a call out to 10 years ago when he did, uh, I think it was money in the bank or SummerSlam. One of those, when it looked like his contract was going to expire and he ended up coming out and the crowd lost their fucking shit. And it was so cool that I actually wrote an article for Graylin. It's in the archives. You can go probably find it about my favorite wrestling entrances ever, because this was up there. And they basically reenacted it on Friday night. And it was really a moment.

At one point, they cut to the crowd. There was a guy crying in the crowd. It was emotional. They just nailed it. Now, I heard they paid a lot of money for CM Punk. I guess my question is, was that the peak of the CM Punk experience for them? And if it was, money well spent

because Friday night, AEW mattered more than they have, um, really since they launched, that was a genuine, you had to see it moment with CM Punk who, you know, wasn't on the scene or rock level, but as, as somebody who could connect with crowds and who really ascended in the last 15 years up there with just about anybody, um, was really cool to see him back in the ring. And it was just a genuine moment. I have a lot of doubts that he's going to actually be good in the ring. I think you think like he's in his forties now. I thought he was slipping even the last two years there with WWE. So there's a chance that that was the peak of the AW thing,

but it was still a moment. And I think like, it was just a good weekend for wrestling in general. They have the, I haven't seen it yet cause it's tonight, but there's NXT tonight as well. So that was good. There was boxing. So in a lot of ways, things feel like it's coming back, but not totally. I went to, um, Hawaii for eight days with my family and And Hawaii is a national treasure. But it was funny being there because we were there for the season finale of White Lotus

in Hawaii, which was like a major crossing the beams moment. And that became such a water cooler show and such a well-written, awesome show about white privilege and fucked up families and all these things that hit that, you know, they really built into that last episode.

I thought they did a great job. But, uh, the two things I noticed, one is with podcasts now, whatever your favorite podcast, and I listen to more podcasts as usual because we have the old podcast network, but, um, it's funny that they just travel wherever you go. They're like your buddies that come on the trip with you. And you go, I was like doing a lot of hiking and walking around and stuff. And it's like, oh, I'll listen to my ringer NFL friends. Or, you know, I'll listen to the sports cards guys today or whatever it was.

Oh, I want to hear how summer league went. I'll listen to my ringer NBA guys. I mostly listen to our ringer stuff because, um, for reasons you can guess, but also cause we hired everybody for a reason. We think they're good, but it was really fun to bring those people along on a vacation. The thing though, that really jumped out at me and it does that every time I go there is the sports being on six hours earlier. There was a Red Sox game that was on at 7 a.m. Red Sox Yankees. It was actually the day we were leaving. It was on at 7 a.m. It was a seven inning game. It was done by like, I don't know, 9.20, 9.25, something like that. But I've had it all different ways. And one of the reasons

I love moving on the West Coast is because the sports comes on earlier. When I go back to the East Coast, it's so weird to wait until 7.30 at night for games to come on. It's so weird for football to come on at one o'clock, stuff like that. The football coming on at seven in the morning, I really feel like I can end up living there down the road. I think it's going to happen. I love the sports cycle. I love the stuff coming on earlier.

I love waking up and half the day is already gone in the East Coast. And I just think that you're just like a level removed from everything in a good way. Everything's on your terms. And the vibe there is just different. And I never got to go there when we lived on the East Coast for the first 30 plus years of my life because it was so far away from Massachusetts, but, um, but it's, it's really cool to, you feel like you're a million miles away, but society is happening in the way it's going to happen anyway, just way earlier than usual. And you get used to it pretty quickly. And from a sports standpoint, it's just wonderful.

It really is fantastic. The sports are basically done. All the early games are done by, I don't know, four o'clock, 4.30. I've never been there when NBA was going on, but I can't imagine how cool that would be. But I can understand why people like Chris Berman were just like, I'm out, I'm going to Hawaii.

Hawaii, congratulations. You continue to kill it. Want to talk about the Olympics really quickly. So this ended while I was on vacation. And usually I really care about the Summer Olympics. I cared less this year than I ever did. I think no crowds. NBC made it impossible to find what was on what network,

what channel, something was on Peacocks, USA. Like it just, they couldn't have made it more difficult. We already litigated this on a previous episode. But in general, I just wonder sometimes, sometimes things just don't matter as much as they used to, you know?

And I do wonder the Olympics, which for me in 1976 was the first one I can remember. The 1980 Winter Olympics, 1984. I wrote a column for Grant Land once laying out like the first 40 years of the Olympics through like all the touch points of my life. And it really did feel like it intersected in all these ways. And it was just so important when it was on.

And it just doesn't feel as important anymore. And I think sometimes that's just how it goes. I just think we have more options, more choices. I think for younger people, when they're gravitating toward TikTok and Instagram and Snapchat and shows on demand and things like that, it's just, it's harder for the Olympics to stand out. And I was thinking about that in context of Jeopardy

because Claire McNair wrote this incredibly reported piece for us that she worked on for a while. And it was a true triumph behind the scenes of our editorial team, worked worked on for a while. And it was a true triumph behind the scenes of our editorial team worked on it for a while. And it's a good example, like, you know, journalism school, and they tell you like, here's how you get ahead. And one of the ways you get ahead is really work your ass off on a story, like get like cover every angle instead of calling three people call 10. Um, instead of trying to cut corners on a certain thing, don't cut any corners. Like Claire found this podcast that this guy,

Mike Richards did when he was the producer of the price is right. She found it and she listened to every episode and took notes on it because she figured there was a chance this guy might pull him down, grab the sound bites we needed. And then of course he pulled it down once we asked about it. But I thought from a reporting standpoint, it was just great. And we've been, Grantland started 2011, that went four years. The Ringer, we launched the website in 2016.

So it's been like five plus years. And we've had some really good reported pieces over those years. This was way up there as an editorial triumph. So I was really proud of everybody on that front. But tying it into the Olympics, I was thinking about how Jeopardy is this institution. But the things with institutions sometimes is they kind of have a shelf life. And one of the things I'm interested in with Jeopardy, regardless of how this whole situation plays out and the way it played out, couldn't have been worse. You know, they lose Trebek, who thing. Johnny Carson and tonight show. It was just, the host was so synonymous with the show that losing

that, you know, that's going to be dangerous. But, um, in general, the concept of a daily game show as an institution that's on television, when people under 25, people under 30, a lot of them just don't have cable or satellite or any of the other stuff, you know? And it's, it's just, I wonder how much Jeopardy is going to mean in 10 years anyway. So it was at this weird checkpoint to begin with a lot like the Olympics. I know, I think Jeopardy is going to have a longer shelf life because the audience is older. Um, it's part of a routine for people. But I was thinking like, what are the institutions now in 2021 compared to when I was growing up? Because, you know, when I was growing up, I made a list. It was like the Tonight Show with Carson, Cronkite, 60 Minutes, Bob Barker, The Price is Right, the Sunday NFL games, Monday Night Football,

Wide World of Sports, Saturday Night Live on Saturdays. These are these things you grew up, you're growing up, you just think these things will be on my entire life. You don't realize that some things have a shelf life. Wide World of Sports was the single most important sports show we had. And then by the late 80s was petering out and nobody would have expected that, but that cable came in and that was it. So now you think, what are the institutions now? Because SportsCenter certainly doesn't seem like nearly the same institution it was.

PTI, I think out of all the daily shows, I think is an institution in some ways, but once Kornheiser and Wilbon, whenever they retire, that's over because it's their show. It's always going to be their show. The Daily Show is not the same. Tonight Show, no.

Price is Right. I know it's morphed into a different world, but not really. It's certainly not what it meant in the 80s when we would just watch game shows during the day all day. Ellen kind of was there as an institution. And then that fell apart the last couple of years, 60 minutes is still there. SNL is still there, but those are

weekly. And then I guess Wheel of Fortune maybe, but what happens when Sajak and Vanna leave at some point? Like that's another one where it kind of feels like the familiarity of the host is a big part of it. So I wonder with, um, with Jeopardy, part of why everybody was so fascinated by this is because the institution itself felt so fragile. Because if you pick the wrong host and the vibe changes and the show doesn't feel the same combined with all the other forces

that are conspiring against it with streaming and everything else, it's a show that could just go in a different direction and not come back. And I think that's one of the many reasons why people felt such ownership over it. And we're so worried about it. And then this guy wins. And, you know, it was interesting watching the reporting of this, of the reporting of Claire's reporting and the stuff that came out.

And a lot of it concentrated on the stupid stuff he said in old podcasts. The thing that amazed me was how just blatantly he rigged the hosting process, which was really the heart of what Claire's story was about. He really rigged it. He wanted to be the host. It was clear.

And a lot of the decisions he made, it's just crazy to me that he was in charge of the guest host process while he was also one of the host. It was clear. And a lot of the decisions he made, it's just crazy to me that he was in charge of the guest host process while he was also one of the candidates. I was joking with Jeff Chow, who was my president at The Ringer and is my right-hand man now at The Ringer, that if I just left The Ringer and Jeff's like, I'm here to lead the search for Bill's next podcast. And then three months later, he's like, I am now the host. People would be like, what are you doing? So I just can't believe it unfolded that way. And that that's how it played out.

And that he was, I just always thought Ken Jennings was going to be the one who was going to get it. But it was cool to see just great reporting. And I just thought it was cool that we had, you know, a really great, um, start to finish reporting experience by Claire that led to, um, that led to a real story that had to have ramifications. Cause as soon as you read that story, you're like, well, that guy can't be the host. So we'll see what happens. My money would be on Ken Jennings. A couple other things. Preseason football.

I care more than I've cared about in years. And I was trying to figure out why. And I just think it's the five rookie quarterbacks. I think this is such a unique year where we normally, when we have five rookie quarterbacks, two of them suck. And you can tell right away in this case, all five might be good. Like Fields looks good. Mack Jones looks good. Lawrence, who has no offensive line, doesn't seem like, but is still making throws. And I tried to watch all five of them. I'm trying to think, did I see everybody?

Yeah, I saw everybody. I even saw Zach Wilson. All those guys look good. We might have gone five for five with this class. And it really does feel like all of them are going to be starting within the first six or seven weeks. So I thought that was cool. Um, I'm really looking forward to football. We'll be doing a lot of football over the next couple of weeks here. Um, and then, you know, I was thinking about September just in general, cause we're getting close. We, we have football, I think September,

it's the second Thursday in September and then we're're off. And it's a 17-game season this year, and we're going to be covering future bets and all different things. We do million-dollar picks every week with Peter Schrager. And I was thinking Ryder Cup is going to be in September. We have basketball's coming back pretty early in October this year, like six weeks earlier than it came back last year. So all of a sudden, the NBA will be back. Baseball playoffs. I think it's going to be a really good baseball playoffs.

I was really looking forward to September. Plus personally, like, you know, my daughter's in her junior in high school and my son's in eighth grade. And it says last year at the school he's going to, they're trying to win banners and flag football and basketball. And so I have all these youth sports to be going to. So I was like, man, I can't wait till we get to September. It's gonna be so great. And now we're in this COVID treadmill again. So really weird times. I don't know what direction this podcast is going to go into. I hope it's sports completely, but there's going to be moments where we have people like Derek Thompson and those types on and talk about what's going on in the real world.

Because more and more, it just feels like it just feels really hard to separate sports in the real world these days. So that's it. That's that's those are all my notes coming off of vacation. I have a lot of thoughts on White Lotus and Outer Banks as well because I watched two seasons of Outer Banks. So might be doing that at some point later this week. But that's it. When we come back, the great Jackie McMullen.

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your child is making the right decision when choosing a university? The smart approach is to look at the facts, like the fact that York U graduates have a 90% employer satisfaction rate. That's because across its three GTA campuses, York U's programs are strategically designed to prepare students for a meaningful career and long-term success. Join us in creating positive change at yorku.ca slash write the future. All right, Jackie McMullen is here. She retired from sports writing at ESPN earlier this month. And if you went on social media, you would have thought it was almost like a funeral. It was bizarre. It was like, what a career past tense. I'm like, she's right here. She's got the rigor. You still get to hear from her. But it was just a couple of days of tributes. I think people were surprised. And you talked about it a little bit on the ESPN platforms, but just explain what happened.

How'd you get to that decision? I think I've been thinking about this for a while, Bill. I signed a three-year extension with ESPN last fall and was pretty ambivalent about it almost immediately after I did it. And as it's very little to do with ESPN, just, it has to do with where I am in my career. And I don't know, you get to a point where you say, well, I just think there's other things I might, maybe you should be doing, you know? Uh, I have two elderly parents that my sister and I moved up here from Florida and it was just a really crappy feeling. I was too busy to see them. You know, that wasn't the point, you know, and I, you know, I'm sure the pandemic played a role in it. You had, we all had a lot of time to sit back and get people to tell you things when you can't sit down with them, you know?

And, and maybe that, you know, that was going to open up again, I'm sure. But I think I just got, I got to the point where I was like, I've had a really good run, um, with ESPN. I've, you know, they gave me a lot of different platforms to express myself on, which I'm, I'm grateful for. But, um, you have to be really all in on this job. And you know this better than anyone because you've been doing it for a while. If you're going to do it properly, you've got to be all in. And I was having a hard time doing that. I was a hard time

generating the enthusiasm and the commitment I needed to do the job that I have to do for them. That includes the writing, which is so torturous, but so rewarding and still very, very important to me. And let's be honest, less and less important to anybody else, I think, in our industry. We're going away from that. We're going away from long form. People care about TV. And I mean, Around the Horn has been like my family for 18 something years. But how many more times do I need to be on Around the Horn? We've got all these great young women, new voices many more times do I need to be on around the horn? You know, we've got all these great young women,

new voices on that show. I was the only woman for a really long time for way too long, in my opinion. And now we've got all these great young female voices, you know, I'll leave them out, but Mina Kimes, Monica McNutt,

you know, Sarah Spain, my girl, Ramona, who breaks news all over, you know, I'm going to leave people out. Oh,

Emily Kaplan, who's just a star, but people should know more about her. But she's a hockey writer. All these great women that have so many things to say. Elle Duncan is another one. And it's just their turn. I don't know. It's their turn. So I'm kind of excited about it.

I'm a little excited. I'm nervous. It's weird. But I really think I've spent a lot of time carving out a completely different life for myself other than Jackie McMullin. I have a very private life, um, that I really can't wait to get to, to be honest, you know? So you must add a million people reach out. Were people surprised? What was the reaction? A lot of people were, but the people closest to me in this industry, I mean, I don't think you were surprised.

I was not. No. And the people that know me well and have sort of listened to me ruminate over this for the last couple of years and how the business has changed. And one of the things is I've never been on social media. There's like two people that pretend to be me, I think. I've never been on social media. And every year, ESPN with their social media team, look, it's a big part of our industry. I'm not denying that. It's very, very important. I get it. And they'd come to me

and they'd say, Hey, we really think you should be on social media. And I would say, yep. Yeah. You're probably right. And they're like, so, okay, let's do this. Like, we're going to sit down with you. You don't have to say a lot, but just let's have, let's have you have a presence. You know, we want to grow your brand. And I'm like, yeah, but I kind of want to shrink my brand, you know, because again, that's just where I am in my life. And I, you know, every year I'd say, oh, okay, all right, I'll do it. And then, you know, but it would never happen because they got busy and I didn't really want to do it anyway. And so I've somehow managed to escape social media. So that's something I'm kind of proud of. I don't, I think Tom Verducci isn't on who I have great respect for. I used to work with Tom at Sports Illustrated.

I don't think he's on social media. I don't know how many others aren't. But that wasn't for me. And so, but it needs to be for me if I'm going to be an effective journalist in today's world. And so that's just another sign for me, like, you know what? Maybe it's just time for you to move on. Maybe it's time for you to step away. I'm not, you know, I'm not leaving altogether, but ESPN has been obviously a huge part of my identity and a huge part of my time. And I just felt like I, you know, I had a really good run there. I did some things there I was really proud of, probably most of all that mental health series, which I spent a lot of time and energy on.

I'm like, okay, I'm good here. I don't know if I can really think of anything else that I'm just dying to do. I thought the timing was really interesting because it had tied into a lot of stuff I was thinking about, about basketball reporting and basketball journalism in 2021. And some of the trends that in my opinion are shifting now too far into a certain direction. And I hate using the word old school, but the way you approach your job was, you know, your experience from how you learned how to do your job in the eighties, where it was FaceTime. It was relationships. It was showing up early, always being around people. Yeah. Yeah. And scouts, the players, getting to know people

and relying on those relationships. And if you're going to do a feature with somebody really trying to actually get to know them. And, you know, the generation I came out of was obviously, I can't get in the locker room. How am I going to make sports more fun to listen about, talk about? And we all made, you know, we had some advantages. We all made our mistakes in my generation. Your generation was like the last generation of, yeah, I am here. I'm here to find out stuff. I'm going to interpret my interactions into these bigger pieces. And I think in the way the NBA is in 2021, I think it's really hard to do that. It's, it's become a lot like what Hollywood journalism started to become in the eighties and nineties, where it's like, I want time with movie star X. Well, you can have him

for an hour, but you have to talk about his movie and there's going to be two PR people here. And it is the access that we're losing. And now it's shifting into almost players talking to other players, players reaching out directly to fans. How do we cover players and teams and front offices properly in 2021 without some sort of trade-off without, all right, if you give me this, then I will do this. Well, I think it can still be done. I see people still doing it. But a lot of it has to do with decades of credibility,

developing decades of credibility. So I just hung up with Mike Wilbon just before we came on here, Bill. Mike Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser, I got a wonderful text, phone calls, messages, but those two, man, those really hit home to me because I literally grew up with them in this business. I mean, Tony was a little older than me and was great to me when I was a young writer. And of course we were in competition with them. You know, they were at the Washington Post. We were at the Boston Globe. They thought they were the best. We thought we were the best. But in the, in the spirit of that competition, I never enjoyed myself more than when I was with Will Bond and Kornheiser, watching them do their craft, watching them interview

people, watching them challenge some of the biggest names in sports. And that was going on in our locker room, I mean, in our newsroom with Will McDonough and Bob Ryan and Lee Montville and Shaughnessy and everybody else. And so there was a kinship there. And Wilbon and I were just talking about this, like, you know, institutional memory and institutional credibility. How do young writers build that today? I think it's a really tall order, but I think it can be done. I think Wilbon's probably got every NBA player on speed dial because he's been there. He put in the time. He's taken a stand, negative or positive. He has opinions. He's earned the right for that. And so that's why players respect him so much.

He got there through institutional credibility. So can our industry still do that? I'm an optimist. I say yes. There are still really excellent young reporters out there who are doing things the right way. Are there agents involved? Yes, there are now. I hardly ever talked to agents when I first started out. That's part of the deal. And by the way, there are some excellent people who are agents in our business, excellent people who care about the game, who love

the game. This is off the top of my head, but Omar Wilkes represents Trey Young. That guy is a rock star. He's wonderful. His dad is Jamal Wilkes of the Lakers. Again, for those of you who don't have institutional memory, who was, you know, one of the great Lakers teams, he's a joy to deal with. Jason Gluchin, who represents Jalen Brown.

The man just is, I mean, again, I'm going to leave someone out, so I'm not going to go down the line of all the NBA agents. But there are people with integrity who care about this game. And it doesn't always have to be quid pro quo. I did a story with Trey Young earlier this year. They didn't ask for anything from me. We just did it. You know, so it can be done.

It can be done. But here's the thing. What I hear a lot from the young writers is I can't challenge the star in my market because then he'll cut me off. I won't have any access. And I always tell them that's false. If you are from coming from a position of strength, coming from a position of reporting, if you approach them in the proper way and explain why you are going to challenge them, yeah, they might get mad, but you know what? They're going to respect you. They will respect you and they will come back. They will come back.

I'll tell you a little story about Malika Andrews, who everybody knows now she's become a star on ESPN. She's a really wonderful person and she's very talented. And a few years ago, right after the Bucs got eliminated in the playoffs, she had been working on a story that if the Bucs couldn't contend for the championship, then Giannis would have no choice but to think about looking elsewhere. It was a real story. It was very well reported and sourced. And what happened was the minute the Bucs lost, the story was ready and ESPN posted it. Now we can debate whether they should have done that or not. It put Malika in a very tenuous position, as you can imagine, because by the time Giannis got to the podium, someone had showed him the story. And that's not something when you've just lost a game that you really want to see, right? It's a little shocking. He was a little upset. He didn't yell at Malika or anything, but I remember talking to Malika

after and she was like, wow, what's happened here? I said, Malika, is all your stuff correct? Information's all good, right? Giannis will respect you for this. You and Giannis will have a conversation about this and you and Giannis will be someone that will trust you down the line because you had the courage to write what everyone else knows is true. And that's exactly what's happened with Malika and Giannis. They have a good relationship today. So that's just an example of how a young reporter can make this work. If they do their homework and they do it properly. I feel like I don't want to be preaching everybody out there. Good God. And I know that's what I sound like, and I don't want to sound that way.

Well, you know, I was thinking about, uh, you know, the last dance, which everybody loved and, oh my God, Jordan. Oh, and everybody got kicked out of it. And then you'd think like when Sam Smith wrote the Jordan rules, right. And it hit like a shit ton of bricks and Jordan was so mad and he wouldn't talk to anybody. And, and it was the first case of like, somebody took us under the hood with a superstar player that we just were like, Whoa, he did this.

He said this, he felt this way. And the player didn't like it. And it became a big thing. But now you go back, if you go back and read that book now, and Brian Curtis did a great piece on it for the ringer a couple of years ago.

Everything in that book is accurate. All the stuff in the book is what's in The Last Dance. Right, yeah. And they were so mad about it at the time. And it's just like, I think that's kind of the way it is now where if you're a truth teller about any of these guys, these guys are their own brands. They're all superstars.

And it's going to be the same thing, except in this case, they have the social media where they can come at you, you know, where it's like in 91, what could Jordan do? He could just say, I'm not talking to Sam Smith anymore and, and pout about it. But he didn't have like an army of fans that could also follow him with torches and be like, Oh, you've wronged my guy. Right. And I do wonder if that's going to affect how people get written about and discussed over the next 10 years. It could be, but you know, Sam, I don't know if you got, you know, this, he was like a former news investigative reporter. Like Sam was, Sam's the real deal. Like he was an excellent reporter out of sports before he did that. And, and, um, I mean

that, that reporting was meticulous and it wasn't easy. Imagine trying to take that on. And, but Sam had the, the skin, you have to have the thick skin, you know,. Imagine trying to take that on. And, but Sam had the, the skin, you have to have the thick skin, you know, to be able to take that on. And he had, he had no problem doing it. I think also Feinstein's book with Bobby Knight, I think that was another one where, you know, whoa, the hood. And, and, and for Feinstein, that was really tough because he really liked Bobby Knight. He really didn't. And I think Sam really likes Michael Jordan, but that's beside the point. It's never, you know, that's the thing. It's if you write something that's critical or looking at something with a different eye, it doesn't mean you hate the guy. It just means you're doing

your job. Your job is to look at things critically. And I don't mean by critically, like always negatively. I just mean looking at it with an objective eye. And that's why when these young reporters say to me, I can't go at the guy in my market when he's not playing hard enough or he's not doing this, or I know he did that and I can't write about that because I'll lose him. I'm always like, by kissing his posterior, I think you lose him anyway. Now I might be wrong, but man, I'd much rather lose him telling the truth than trying to kiss up to some 23-year- old multimillionaire. I don't know. What was the thing that happened with bird after he came back from the Achilles, when somebody wrote the piece about how the team wasn't getting along.

Yeah. Yeah. Get along with Jim Paxson. I was Vessi. Yeah. And bird was furious about it. He was, but there was, so that, that story was really interesting because he, he wrote,

Vessi wrote a story about how, and Bird was struggling. Look, when Bird was hurt, he was not fun to be around. He'd be the first to tell you that he was difficult to be around. And, and Paxton and McHale had gotten really tight on that team. They'd become very, very close friends and Bird never liked Paxton anyway. He thought he was a clubhouse lawyer, you know, was suspect about him anyway. And then he and McHale, you know, Paxton McHale sort of got together and there was a clubhouse lawyer, you know, was suspect about him anyway. And then he and McHale, you know, Paxson McHale sort of got together and there was a little bit of discontent during that time.

Yeah. Remember Jimmy Rogers was the coach and Bird was having trouble with that. He loved Jimmy as an assistant, but as a head coach, it wasn't, you know, he wasn't, Bird wasn't feeling it. So they had some issues and he had that, I don't know if you remember this game, they were playing in Detroit and he only took six shots. He called himself the point forward and everything. I was there and I was like, what the hell is this? And I remember going to Chris Ford, who I just love Chris Ford. I think he's such a standup guy. And I said, what the hell is this about? He goes, you're asking the wrong, fuck it. And he never swore. You know, he was like, he was, they were mad because Bird showed up the coaching staff that night. He did. He, I'm just a point forward, you know, he's like he was they were mad because Bird showed up the coaching staff that night. He did.

I'm just a point forward, you know, because they were asking him what they were trying to say was, look, you are Larry Bird. You're the greatest. But you need some help now. You're you're you know, you can't move the same like they they were right. You know, for any superstar to have to look in the mirror and to see their own mortality. It's really hard to do. It's really hard to do. And I think Larry was struggling with it. So there was a little bit of discontent in that locker room and Vessi jumped on it and he wrote it. And then Shaughnessy came back and wrote this column about

talking to Bird and Bird said, you know, I can understand about the one guy because there were two guys, right? And everybody just, it was a den you know bird in his mind had identified him as mikhail and his packs that's how he saw it and so he said well the one of the guys has been through the wars he played with me so i'll give him you know he is right but the other guy's got a yellow streak down his back remember that's what he said yeah and he never said paxton's name but that's who he was referring to so then chauncey puts in the paper he's talking about Jim Paxson. Now I show up the next day, I'm the beat writer. I show up the next day and Paxson comes flying at me

and I'm like, he goes, you know, I demand a retraction. They're making jokes about him on the Tonight Show and I'm like, I didn't write it. I'm not writing a retraction. I didn't write it. You know, he said, well, you worked for your paper and he's like in my face and McHale came over and grabbed me and he goes, you got to understand he's become a pariah overnight.

This is upsetting. You know, Paxton's like, it wasn't even me. I don't know what you're talking about. And then of course, later on, we find out that Dennis Johnson might've been one of the people that was talking that way about, you know, so this is all the people think that this stuff never happened back in the day. Oh yes, it did. Yes. Oh my God. And with magic and the Lakers too, over and over again. Yeah. It happened with everybody. Right. And so I remember that so clearly. Cause I was like, I was a little shaken, you know, cause Paxson was, Paxson went right at me, you know, and I understand it now, but I just walked in there. I know I, you know, I understand now what he really was under a lot of pressure and a lot of fire. But from what I understand

afterwards, Robert Parrish told me afterwards in the locker room, Parrish went after him. He said, don't you do that to her again. Parrish did. That's how I finally found out Robert Parrish actively liked me. It's like, wow, that's not how we do it. Yeah, that was pretty cool. So I found that out after the fact. So anyway, my point is that all that happens today, it would be all over social media. It would be a complete shit show. I mean, stuff then, they just did a better job of keeping it in-house.

Well, there was also less, there were less platforms. A great example is the Adrian Dantley getting traded from the Pistons. Oh, my God. He leaked the stuff against Isaiah, and then all of a sudden he gets traded. Imagine what a soap opera that would have been with all the stuff that we have in 2021. But you watch this stuff evolve and I want to talk about what happened with the Warriors and

the KD and Draymond in that interview. We can talk about that after the break. But I was thinking one of the last times I can remember the old school version of this, where somebody wrote a piece that took you under the hood and you were like, oh my God, I did was remember Michael Hawley wrote that piece about the first year of Patino. Yeah. That was what a shit show that was. And he was a young guy at the time covering the team. So he knew all the young guys and they just gave, they were like, fuck Patino. They gave him everything.

And it was like one of the all time. Yeah. Haw Holly's great. He's a talented guy. He's a really talented, good friend of mine too. Really, really talented guy. But that just wouldn't happen anymore. Now that stuff would be kind of leaked out in tweets or insinuated in podcasts. And it would, we would kind of gradually get there. It wouldn't be the, oh my God, did you read that? I don't think that happens anymore. It's hard. It's hard to make that happen. It was funny. I remember asking Paul Pierce about Patino once years later. And I said, what was that all about? And he said, all I know, Jackie, was the first meeting we had, he said to me, you know, I'm a very famous person. I love that story.

From that point on. I thought that was so funny. I want to tie this into the Warriors, but let's take a quick break. Okay, so what we're talking about with how journalism and stuff is changing, to me, you leaving ESPN the same week when this KD-Dramon thing happened, I thought- That was a coincidence. That was a coincidence.

Complete coincidence, but weirdly related because you have this situation and I thought that was a coincidence that was a coincidence complete coincidence but weirdly related because you have this situation where these guys just do an interview with each other they shoot the shit and they give us the behind the scenes story

of what happened with them with the fight on the bench and afterwards and basically their version of the story is this was all the Warriors fault and this was botched by Steve Kerr and Bob Myers. And then over the next 24 hours, people kind of ran with it like,

whoa, I didn't realize that's how. And I'm thinking like we're in a really dangerous time if the principles of stories are now going to give their version of it. And that's just going to become the fact when pretty much too many people have the actual information for what happened over the course of that week with that team, what led to that fight, all of these different,

um, kind of, kind of tensions that led to Draymond flipping out in the first place in that game. And then how hard it was for the team to handle it because, you know, like, I think KD was the one who mentioned about, I watched the last dance and how they handled Bill Cartwright.

Well, in the Warriors version of this, like, they almost got another thing in the locker room after the game and then they had to, like, clear out the locker room. So there was no chance to even have a Bill Cartwright thing. But it was just so weird to watch them kind of recreate their version of what was happening. And then nobody challenges it because nobody challenges anything in 2021. The player story is going to win every time. And I look, I don't

really care. I just think it's a weird time when the principles of stories can now determine what the facts are publicly, if that makes sense. Like we don't have somebody who is objectively trying to discern what actually happened here and talks to a bunch of different people and gets the actual story. If we're just going to trust the version of those two, we're going to be in a bad place long-term with how we cover basketball. Well, I'd like to hope that someone's working on that story right now. Me too. You know, and I'd like to think that's happening. on that story right now. Me too. And I'd like to think that's happening.

I will say this. I watched it twice. I was riveted. Me too. I found it completely riveting because I can't think of another time when I saw two premier athletes sit down like that and regurgitate something so recent. You see it years later, like the famous magic and Isaiah kiss and makeup interview. That was something,

you know, you see those. That was ridiculous. Oh, of course it was, but, but Shaq and Penny was Shaq and Kobe was even worse. Yeah.

Well, yeah, but there, well, we could talk about that in a minute. Cause I think there's some truth to what you saw between those two, but we could talk about that in a minute. But here's what I would know, Draymond's biggest weakness is when he's out of control and never measured, which is what he was what led to this incident in the first place. He was agitated and he's transparent to a fault. And we can argue it may have cost the Golden State another championship based on his actions that got him suspended all the way back in the finals when they're playing LeBron.

But I was riveted by his questions, by his demeanor. And the most riveting part was a player who plays for the Golden State Warriors, tearing down his own franchise like that. And I'm not sure he even realized what he, by saying what he was saying, how damaging that was to the Warriors, to this guy he plays for, Steve Kerr, who everybody knows they go at it all the time. That's their relationship.

It's volatile, but it's worked. At times it hasn't, and they've had to take a step back. But I don't think he understood, or maybe he does, because he's a smart guy. So if he does understand it, what was the purpose of that? I think probably it was because a lot of people blame him for Kevin Durant leaving Golden State. That is such nonsense. That is not why Kevin Durant left Golden State. I don't see how anyone could say that, including Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant was thinking about leaving Golden State long. In fact, didn't he?

Not reported by me, but I believe others reported. I was there that night, by the way, that I was in L.A. Yeah, I was as well. And people reported later having Kevin Durant saying this kind of bleep is why I'm out of here. So to even suggest that that was the final straw that sent him away, I reject that notion. I reject it. It was almost like professional wrestling, because I agree. I think Draymond is great at this stuff. I can't wait until he retires. They're too smart. They're both really smart, introspective guys. Both of them are. Kevin is so intelligent and introspective, I think. I really

do. And I loved watching them talk. And I didn't think it was fair to drop it all at Steve Kerr and Bob Myers. I mean, that to me doesn't seem fair at all. Could they have done better? Yes. But could have those two guys done better? Yes. But here's what always happens with those kind of beefs. And you know this from our history, our history out in the NBA, but also just if you ever played on a team, you would know this. You get mad at your teammate, you lose a big game, you get hot, you say things you don't mean, you're mad and you're mad for a while. Sometimes you can be mad for a whole season even, but over time you move on and they, and the other guy moves on. In this case, you literally moved on to another franchise.

And then you look back and you say, yeah, we had beef, but we're okay now. And the thing is, that's the brotherhood of teammates. That no coach or GM, it's not fair, but that's just how it is. Coaches and GMs are part of it, but then there's this whole nother level of teammates. I just think it's different. And I think that's why they can come back and have this conversation and say, yeah, those two guys blew this up. They effed it up because that's just too simplistic for, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe they're right about this. If the two of you put the two of them in a room and let them hash it out on their own time, they probably could have come to, and they probably should have done that. And for all I know they did, I don't know. Do you,

I don't know. Did the Golden State Warriors try to get them to sit down and talk? I don't know. So there's a couple issues with it. One is that they did. Um, and that was, I think, left out of the interview. I think they tried to put a lot of time into getting those two together and taking them out to dinner. But did it happen? But did it happen? I think it did. And I think because I don't know that for a fact, but you might. I didn't.

I didn't know that. Well, the smoking gun with this whole thing, Kerr was on the 94 Pippin team. Right. So he was literally the number one person on the planet to understand the significance of what was happening in the moment. Right. So he got it. I think the whole Warriors thing got it. I think the part that I'm with you,

I think Draymond is going to be an incredible talent. I thought though his interview was really fun to watch. And Durant is one of the most introspective athletes we've had in any sport in the last 20 years. I think my issue with it though, it almost felt like pro wrestling to me where the elephant in the room never really discussed was everything that led up to why those guys got into a fight during Clipper game, which was ignored.

And the reason was everyone in that Warriors team, everyone in the organization knew that Durant was leaving after the season. Right. They did. I believe that too. He had one and five-sixths of a foot out the door. Everyone knew he was probably going to New York. They thought it was the Knicks.

It turned out to be the Nets. Right. But I think they knew even when he signed there that it was probably like Golden State was his best option in 16. The other option was basically Boston or going back to OKC to play with Westbrook again, which he didn't want to do. And he looked at Golden State and he's like, I could go there for three years. I'll try to win three titles and then I'll go start my team somewhere else. And then when we got to year three

and those guys had been through a lot of shit together as a team and as a franchise. That's hard. It's hard to win again. They felt like Durant was detached. So when it all blew up, that's what Draymond was yelling at him. Like, you're fucking out of here anyway. You're a little bitch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what led to it. It was so raw because those guys were so mad about how he was handling the season. So for them not to talk about that in the interview, it seems crazy to me. That's the number one thing they should have talked about. Yeah. It's interesting too, because I did a story pre-season the first year, Katie was hurt with the Nets. I went down there and DeAndre Jordan's telling me about them all, him and Kyrie and Katie sitting on the yacht for Team

USA talking about, come on, let's drink to playing together someday. Now, look, a lot of guys do that. Yes. You know, Mello and CP and LeBron did it. And it never happened. You know, although it's not there. Sort of. Sort of.

But, you know, and I think so just the fact that that that was something they really wanted to do is relevant. But the whole Katie thing with the Warriors, I've never understood why people were so upset by that. First of all, I never understood why they were so upset he went there. He was a free agent. He could go anywhere he wanted. He chose a place that he thought he would love with a coach that he thought he would really enjoy and with a team that thought could win it. It's not a crime to go someplace to want to win a championship. Number one, number one. He gets there.

Don't tell me this narrative that we won without KD before we could do it again. No, no, no, no, no. You couldn't win without KD during those two championships he won with you. I'm sorry. He was the best player you had. And I know Steph Curry is gold there and he should be.

Steph Curry is the face of Golden State, will be, always will be, has earned that. He's one of my favorite people. He's everybody's favorite person. And that was the biggest problem for Kevin Durant. Even though he won championships, won league, he was never going to be Steph Curry. And guess what?

Also not mentioned in that interview. Steph was like not mentioned, I don't think really at all. When he was the other elephant in the room. But I mean, just like between KD and Dre. But he wasn't there that night. No, but it's the whole, the shadow of Steph and that team. Right.

KD being the best player in the team, but never getting the credit for being the best player. Right. I think it was a real thing. Yeah, I do too. But Steph Curry wasn't in LA that night. He wasn't. He wasn't in that. And so a lot of people have said to me, you know, if he was there that night, maybe he would have,

who knows again, who knows what would he have done after the game? If he tried to do something, get everybody together in the moment. Again, I don't know the answer. It's a hypothetical question, but I don't understand why people have so much beef with Kevin Durant over his time at the Warriors. I'm sorry. I don't get that. That guy won them championships and put his body on the line and tore his Achilles for them when he already knew he was leaving. Why do you have beef with him? I don't get that. I'm sorry. I don't. Kevin Durant left the Warriors as a free agent. He had every right to do so. And he held up his end of the bargain with Golden State. I don't get the beef. I don't get that part. Well, that's how I ended up. That's how I ended up having him on my HBO show that summer because. I didn't like the LeBron thing. I hated the

decision. I hated where it ended up. And I never the Miami thing. I just didn't like it. If it had happened five years later, maybe I would have felt a little different, but I just felt like he had better options and I just didn't like what he did. Yeah. Well, nobody, nobody did, including by the way.

Yeah. Except for Pat Riley. No, he didn't like it. He didn't like it either. Do you know that Pat Riley, he cleared out cap space for, for a year.

No, no, no. I'm talking about the, I'm talking about the decision, the way the decision was. Oh, I got you.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, Pat Riley wanted LeBron James, but I think all that, like that pomp and circumstance, not one, not two, not three. They flashed to Pat Riley in the stands, and I remember looking at him, and I'm thinking,

this can't be what he wants. This can't be who he is. And I don't think it was. Katie's options were a lot more limited that summer than I think people realized. And I actually think he made the right decision because the other option would have been either go to Boston or go to a KC and like, why wouldn't you go play with Golden State? You're basically upgrading from Harrison Barnes to KD, but you were, you and I were both there that night.

That was, that was one of the uglier things I'd seen. The ugliest thing I saw on a court was Robert Horry throwing the towel at Danny H. But this is probably from a teammate-teammate thing. This started because Draymond didn't pass KD the ball at the end of a breakaway right before the end of regulation. And KD embarrassed him. He walked over and he slapped his hands. And that's what led Draymond to be like, are you fucking kidding me? You don't even want to be in this team anymore. And that's what, so for them not to talk about it in that way, but, you know, going back to what we're talking about with you and the whole journalism era, like I do feel like we're entering this new era of kind of player generated content, player generated narratives

versus the objective person who's supposedly the journalist who, you know, in defense of the person who's against this argument, they'll argue, well, sometimes journalists aren't even handed either. Sometimes people who are on a podcast or a TV show, sometimes they're slanted too, and you're 100% right. Yeah, they are right. But I do think there's a place for the old school. Hey, what really happened here? Right, right. Hey, I talked to 10 people and I hope that doesn't go away. Well, and I haven't seen Steve Kerr comment, has he? I haven't reached out to Steve. This is the weirdly brilliant thing about that interview. So they can say whatever they want about Steve Kerr and Bob Myers. What are they going to do? Is Steve Kerr going to come back

and call these guys liars? No, no, no, no. I'm sure not. Of course not. So he just, they, they have to sit there and take it. And I think it's unfair. It's unfair to them, I think, um, to put this all in, but, but I, but I, I also think I just want to, I go back to what I said before. One thing that dream, like James dream on said, you're all going to fuck this up, right? That's what he said. You know, when he said, when you suspend me, if you just let me and Kay deal with this, that part, that kernel of truth is correct. But the problem is it can't be on their own time because they have a team to run and 24 hours, seven media, all watching this, all expecting answers, all expecting a response to what we all saw. And so that's the part that the players don't understand, you know? But I do go back to players over the years, time passes, they forget, although Larry Bird never forget about Jim Pax

ever, but some people do. And, um, and that, you know, I think those two, what you saw between the two of them was very authentic. I do. I don't think Draymond and KD were pretending to like each other in that interview. I think they have respect for one another and it went off the rails for all the reasons you just discussed. But that doesn't mean as players, they can't get put back on the rails.

But to then lay it at the feet of Steve and Bob, and that's just, that's just unfair. Well, the fascinating wrinkle coming out of this is how does this affect a team that I think has a chance to win the title potentially if Clay can come back and the young guys they have on their bench can be a little better than maybe we thought. Because who knows? Like I look around at the West and I don't, the Lakers are probably the favorite, but I don't know what Westbrook is going to be like for four straight playoff rounds. You know, who knows? It's certainly feels like it's open and to go into a season now where this is going to become the dominant thing they talk about in training camp. Steve, what were your, what was your reaction to Draymond and KD's interview? And it just becomes a thing, not to mention that if he twisted the facts in some way to make those guys look bad, which only he knows how much he twisted it, and you're those guys, this is supposed to be the leader of your team.

It's just kind of an unprecedented story for a basketball team that has a chance to win a title. I don't remember anything quite like this. But I do feel like Draymond is so volatile all the time. I mean, that's his, one of his greatest strengths and his biggest weakness, right? Yeah. Volatility and that. And he, he's always sort of said what he thought and it's gotten him in trouble a lot. And he and Steve Kerr, I think, I think they have a relationships where they can go back and forth and demand transparency. And I think Steve's like, I think Steve can handle this. I just do. I think it's not like he feels like we got to get this guy out of here. Now, does Draymond want to leave? I don't know. I didn't get, he didn't say that. I

didn't get that impression. I don't really, I don't, I don't know. I just, I think of Jimmy Butler and like Jimmy Butler used to say stuff like this, right? Jimmy Butler would challenge his own teammates and would cause commotion like this. It ended up having teams having to ship him out. But he never won titles with those teams. I think that's the big difference. Draymond has three rings with these guys. No, no, I know.

But I think Steph manages Draymond. Steph and Draymond have a really, really good relationship. Kevin Durant's irrelevant to the Golden State Warriors now. Whatever he says is irrelevant. He's not part of their team. So then it comes down to Draymond, Streff, and Klay. Can they keep this going? Can they make it work?

Can they say whatever they have to say about this? Is Steph going to be asked this? I don't know. I don't know. Steph will shrug it off. You know what the irony of this is, though? And I don't know if anyone else made this point. The biggest winner of this interview was Kevin Durant,

because this is one of the three or four teams they're going to have to beat next summer, right? Yeah. So basically, he's just sitting there as Draymond's putting bullets into this Warriors infrastructure. And he's just kind of like, yeah, whatever, Draymond, go ahead.'s just kind of like, yeah, whatever,

Jay, go ahead. Knock yourself out. Oh yeah. You want me to pile on, on Steve Kerr and Bob Myers, two guys I don't work with anymore. Great. I'm happy to do that. So, you know, he's probably looking for competitors. It's Milwaukee, it's Los Angeles, um, maybe Miami, maybe the clips of Kawhi can come back in time, but there's not a lot of teams that can challenge them. Golden state was one of the teams and they're weaker after that interview. They just are. Yeah. We'll see.

I don't know. I, from a chemistry wise, they are maybe, maybe, I don't know. I just think that these guys know Draymond a lot better than you and I do. And there's probably,

they've probably heard a lot of this before. You know what I mean? He's, you don't think he hasn't said this to somebody else besides Kevin Durant on a television in front of the world? I'm sure they've heard this already and I'm sure they're all like, all right, there's Draymond again, man.

I hate it when he goes off like this. Let's play. Like, I don't know. I don't think this... I might be wrong. I don't think this is as big a deal as you, I guess. So you liked... I think it's a big deal with the Warriors.

Because Draymond's supposedly... Draymond and Curry are the leaders of this team that now is a pretty weird team. It's got veterans. It's got young guys. They're a title contender, but they're also playing for the next 8 to 10 years. And there's just a lot of things happening.

And I think they were in a good place. And now it's weird. Well, I don't know. If I'm Steve Kiers or Bob Murr, if I'm Steve Kerr or Bob Myers and anyone asked me, I would say, look, that was like two, three years ago, man. Yeah, we don't care.

I'm worried about today. I don't really give a crap what happened all those years ago, who said what, or everybody can have their own truth. That's true of every, whenever there's an incident or a moment, like Jim Paxton, I'm sure remembers what happened very differently than I do. Or that's, that's the thing about it. If you put 10 people in a room and, and there's an explosion in the room and someone detonated the bomb, everybody would have

a different idea of what went down. That's just how it is. So if I'm, if I'm Steve or Bob, I'm like, Hey, look, man, that was, that was then I, I, Kevin Durant doesn't play for us. I'm not going to speak to that. I'm speaking about Wiseman and, and, you know, all my young guys. Yeah. Like I, I got other things to talk about other things to concentrate on. I think, you know, I, I'm just not going to even deal with this. Sorry, man. I got other stuff I got to deal with. That's how I will handle it. Well, it's funny as the years pass, you think like, think how unhappy Pat Riley's last Lakers year was. And it was chronicled in the Jeff Perlman book and then some other books. There's been some good Laker books over the years, but all of them had the same thing. Heisler wrote a good one too. Yeah. Scott Osler, I think wrote one at some point, but in all of those same thing,

like they just kind of were done with Pat Riley. They, he had used every motivational trick he could ever use. And sure. By there, by the time his last year there, they were like, fuck this guy. But now as the years pass, it's like Pat Riley, the master showtime and magic, you know, he'll, he'll talk about Pat Riley reverentially. but if you go back and you actually remember what happened, it's like those guys are all- But that's in the moment. That's in the moment. That's sort of my point.

Now, with hindsight, Magic Johnson realizes Pat Riley's one of the best things that ever happened to him. Yeah. And Jareem Abdul-Dabar. Pat Riley's one of the best things that ever happened to him. And so sometimes you just need a little perspective. That's all. The Shaq-Kobe thing was,

and I'm sure when they did that interview, and you could see from some of the stuff Shaq said after Kobe died, like they reached kind of this weird, as the years passed, like understanding slash somewhat of a friendship, but at least like they were in a decent place. But after the trade, they were not. Well, no, they wanted to kill each other several times. I mean, I forget which book

I, oh, I guess it was Shaq's book. I'm like, which book? The book I did with Shaq. You know, he talks about Phil Jackson calling them in and saying, you guys, you two have to stop arguing in the press. We're not doing this. All right. We're not doing this anymore. You stop doing this. And then Kobe went out and did an interview with Jim Gray and, you know, ripped on Shaq and Shaq was going to kill him. Yeah. And Brian Shaw like had to go over and make sure Kobe was out of sight because Shaq could physically kill Kobe Bryant.

But again, that's in the moment. I think those two guys over time, they, they had to go, you know, they couldn't be together anymore. The Lakers had to choose between Kobe and his prime and Shaq on the, you know, on the other side, Shaq got his revenge, you know, right away by winning a title in Miami. They both turned out, it worked, it worked out pretty well for both of them really, ultimately. And, but I think when I, when I saw that interview and I know it, you know, I know it wasn't, they like to say, oh, it was all show. Well, obviously that's not true. But I will tell you this, they both never stopped caring what the other one thought. I knew Kobe well, I know Shaq well. They never stopped caring

what the other guy thought. When they were in the middle of some of those feuds, I would say, well, Kobe says, well, he said that, why? They cared what the other guy thought. When they were in the middle of some of those feuds, I would say, well, Kobe says, well, he said that, why? You know, like they cared what the other guy thought. And if you don't care and you just think the guy's a piece of whatever and you don't care, then there's no authenticity to it. These guys actually cared about each other.

They cared about what the other one thought. There were times they hated each other, but I believe their connection was real. I do. And I just do. Through the years, over time, just the fact that Kobe was driven by winning one more than Shaq. Why do you care so much? Why do you care so much? Because remember when they won the championship and they jumped at each other's arms? That was real. Yeah, that was real. Like to, to, to break it down to one simple thing. That's just not true in any relationship with superstars anymore than go back and look at McHale and bird jumping in each other's arms in 84. And you know, so by the time

they were at the end of the careers, were they kind of two old biddies kind of getting on each other's nerves? Yeah, they were. But when they see each other now, what do you think it's like? It's awesome. Because it's perspective. And I think it's too bad that Kobe and Shaq will never have that because Kobe's gone, you know? Yeah. I don't think it's possible

to win a title with somebody when you were two of the main principals for the title and not have some sort of connection after that. I don't think there's any documented story in the history of the league where two guys won a title and then never talked again. Right, right, right. But I mean, I think those two were

so, they won. I mean, Kobe was so obsessive in the way he went about it. And Shaq was so the opposite in the way he went about it. And Shaq's whole philosophy was, I want to win championships, but man, this is a big world out here. I want to enjoy life. This is not going to be all I do. And I would say that he made some pretty good decisions along the way. That dude is doing pretty well right now. But Kobe was just this manic, obsessive, all he could see, much like Jordan. And we've talked about that a thousand times. Those guys are few and far between. We're going to take a break. I want to talk a little more journalism stuff. One more break. I was thinking about, I was trying to figure out how people would be covered over the next 10 to 12 years in basketball, because I think basketball is completely wholly unique compared to the other sports now. These guys are so famous.

They have so much money. Yeah. They have, they make incredible amounts of money. They're incredibly important to their teams. It's a league where only 15 guys matter every year, if that. And if you have one of those guys, you have to cater to them. And basically you're beholden to them. They always have the option of leaving. Even when you're a younger guy, like a Zion or a Trey Young, you still have power over your franchise in a way that you've never had before. You have the aforementioned power that you talked about earlier about just like local beat writers and people covering the team. And as if, if they cross you in some way, you can cut them off. And that's sometimes can be really bad for those people. And then you talk about the national writers. Um, let's be honest And then you talk about the national writers.

Let's be honest. All the national writers, they all have their people, right? They have their four to six kind of go-to people that they know that they have the best relationships with the other people know. And that's been happening in the last 20, 25 years. How much honesty are we going to have in a league where there's so much favor trading now

and there's so little access and so many ramifications for if you're critical of somebody? What do the next 10 years look like? Have you thought about it? Well, yeah. Maybe that's part of why I'm retiring, Bill. I figured. I mean, I think the access is the biggest problem for young people starting out today. Again, I was fortunate because, you know, by the time I got to ESPN, I've been doing it for so long. And I had, again, some of that institutional credibility that we talk about. So that if I wanted to do a story, some people could look back and say, okay, you know, it might

not be a whitewash, but she'll be fair. She'll talk to everybody. She'll get both sides, you know, that kind of thing. And and so I was able to, you know, bypass some of the difficulties for these young people coming in today. We're trying to start to make a name for themselves and are trying to establish themselves. And I worry for those people because of access. So what I'm watching very closely is obviously access completely disappeared during the pandemic. We were not in the locker room. We were on Zoom phone calls.

We were nowhere. You know, I always like the locker room is one thing. Showing up at 430 for a 730 game when opposing teams are working out their players, some who play and some who don't, some who are coming back from an injury. Some of the best players are out there early because they want to do it before all the fans get there. That's where I did all my work, was talking to those guys on the sidelines, watching them warm up, sitting with assistant coaches,

sitting with visiting GMs whose teams were coming in the next night and playing. So there's so many places you can do your job. But that was taken away. And I wonder if that's gone forever. Because if that's gone forever, it gets really difficult. So you think post-pandemic, some of the habits we gain during the pandemic, it'll just be a new reality in certain ways? Yeah. Because the pregame locker room is already gone. They have to open the locker, but there's nobody in there. I mean, back in the day, not even back in the day, as recently as six,

seven years ago, you go in the locker before the game, if you got there early enough, you could sit down and talk with someone and have a real meaningful conversation with them. That's just no longer the case. So there's access to sorts of roads. And again, before they had private charters, you used to travel on the same planes with them. So if their flight was delayed, so was yours because you were on their flight. And you'd sit in the lobby of the Midwest Express in Milwaukee, and there's no place to hide. And the fans are coming up to those players, and you're watching it. I mean, those were some of the best conversations I had at breakfast in the morning in the team hotel, all those things. So they have to be more creative. Now, maybe you have to go to

Steph Curry's golf tournament to show up there and talk to him there. Maybe that's what has to happen. And if that has to happen, then do it. Do whatever you have to have. There's a flip side to this though. And we've talked about a little bit with people like Logan Murdoch, Nora's talked about it, Marcus Thompson. I have brought this up on the pod with some of the younger people who DMs, texts. There's ways to stay in touch with athletes. It's different though. It's not the face-to-face time. You can't read their faces, but you can be in their life more often.

I don't know how many people Dame Lillard is connected with so that when there's some story that turns out to be bogus that he asked for a trade, I'm sure there's a bunch of media people in his life that texted him and be like, hey, is this true? And he's reaching back to them individually and being like, it's not true. I am not demanding a trade, which is different than what it would have been like in 1987 to just walk up to Kevin McHale. But in a weird way, you still have access. It's just different. I don't know if it's better or worse. But you mentioned Marcus Thompson. There's another example of institutional credibility. That guy worked that market for a million years. He's

written really great stuff. I love Marcus Thompson. I think he does an unbelievable job. And sometimes he's had to be critical and it hasn't stopped them from talking to him. This is what I'm saying. Logan, well, you know how I feel about Logan. I think he's had to be critical and it hasn't stopped them from talking to him. This is what I'm saying. You know, Logan, well, you know how much, you know how I feel about Logan. I think he's fantastic. He's on his way. But he's probably from that young generation that's like, how far can I go when I know something that they're not going to like? And I always, I always, I think I told this to Logan when he asked me, I'm like, you know,

sometimes I had to write stories that I knew they weren't going to like. And I would say, hey, here's what I'm writing tomorrow. Talk me out of it. And give me, you know, and then, and they try and sometimes you go, yeah, all right, you're right. I see this a little differently and I'll tweak it just enough to make them not like pissed at me forever to never speak to me again, but that I still have to get my truth out. You know, the truth of what I had reported. Sometimes you go, Hey man, I I'm glad we had this conversation, but you haven't convinced me not to run this story. Like everything you said, nothing has changed my mind about the facts that I have here. And here's what I have.

And so I think a lot of times players just don't want to be blindsided, you know, Hey, this story's coming out and here's what I'm going to say. Talk me out of it. Who is the maddest over your whole career as of it. Who is the maddest over your whole career as a writer? Who is the maddest that you, and why? I don't know. Um, I think Carl Anthony Towns was pretty mad at me. Um, I did a story a couple of years ago, maybe. And, um, it was about him and Jimmy Butler. And, um, I was doing a story on Jamal Murray actually. And I, I called Cal Calipari to talk to me about Jamal Murray. And he gave me some great stuff, you know, cause Jamal played for him. And then somehow we got onto the topic of Carl Anthony

Towns and Jimmy Butler. And Cal was like, well, Jimmy Butler is a bully. He was trying to bully, you know, he went after Jimmy on Carl's behalf. And, um, so I'm like, oh, okay, this is interesting. And then I went to talk to Carl. Carl's not like that. He's not a confident. Carl's a great player and God bless him. Everything he's been through, my heart goes out to him and his family. But anyway, they were playing each other. Jimmy was there. I went up to Jimmy and I said, hey, Cal calls, he thinks you're a bully. Well, he went right at Calipari. I'm going to go get, that's how Jimmy is. So anyway, all this was put into a story. And I think it caused, I don't think I realized the damage it caused for Carl Anthony Towns. People looked at him as soft. That's not what I was trying to do. I was just reporting the facts. I was using these

people and what they were saying. The impression I got was that was a story that Carl Anthony Towns felt was damaging to him. Interesting. And I remember I saw him the next year and I asked him a question and he kind of snapped at me and I'm like, all right, he's mad. And guess what? He has every right to be mad. Carl Anthony Towns doesn't have to be nice to me. He has no obligation to be nice to me or to ever talk to me. And he wasn't like, he didn't swear at me and stomp off.

He was professional. He just didn't want to answer my question. Perfectly allowable. That's, you better be able to handle that if you're going to write stories that are going to raise questions that make people uncomfortable. Can we go way backwards? So what was your first year covering basketball? 1982. But I wasn't covering the pros yet. What was the females in the locker room situation at that point in the early 80s? Oh, it was bad. I mean, you know, Red was, when I started going around the Celtics he was like

I don't want you in here I said I I don't want to go in there but I have to it's my job he's like why is it you I'll bring someone out who do you want I'll bring them out I go Red if you were a GM and you wanted to draft a player and everybody else got to go in there and watch that player interact with all his teammates except for you I would bring the player out to you to talk to him, but you didn't get to see. I said, how fair would that be? He's like, ah, shit. I said, I'm just telling you, that's not fair. It's not fair. So he didn't like it, but what they did was they bought bathrobes. He bought the whole team bathrobes. And by the way, when I used to go into the Celtics locker room or any locker room, there's a 10 minute cooling off period.

Most of them are showered and dressed. Yeah. I could count the amount of naked NBA players I've seen like on one hand. I'm not even kidding. Now, hockey was different. Hockey was very different. That was a whole different kind of loose ship. And the NFL very different. That was a whole different kind of loose ship and the NFL was different. So I just, you get good at turning away and giving people respect and privacy to

the best of your ability in that environment. Right? So for me, this is why I was always such a fan of David Stern. I only had trouble a couple of times, uh, in NBA locker rooms and he heard about it and he was on the phone with me the next day. And he's like, I'm going to fix this. You know, like he just wouldn't stand for it. He just wouldn't. And look, David Stern came out and meet plenty of times. We had plenty of battles, but when it came to fairness and protecting my right to do my job, David Stern was incredible. Incredible. My biggest problems were in the colleges. Cause when I first started at the globe, I was covering colleges and the NCAA had no specific, you know, the NBA was very clear. The NFL was clear. Major League

Baseball, this is a Title IX issue. You cannot have sexual discrimination in your place of work. That's how they viewed it. The NCAA was all over the lot, you know. Jack McNell, I was covering BC and Jack McNell was like, oh, he's the greatest guy, you know, the best guy in the world. I don't want you in there. I'm like, I don't want to be in there, Jack, but it has to be fair. I have to. And so what he did was close the locker room to everybody and only brought the players out. So everybody hated me because it was my fault. Right.

But I couldn't worry about that. You know, my first weekend at the Globe, I covered a UMass football game. There was a security guard at the locker room. We showed our passes. He would not let me in. I'm like, I have a pass. He's like, you're not coming in. He like physically prevented me from going in the locker room.

I am 21 years old and I am just starting work there. And I'm like, what the heck? What am I going to do? Oh my God. So I waited until he went around and I tried to go in again and he stopped me again. And the other writers didn't know me. I mean, I was 20. No, I never heard of me. You know, whatever. What was this girl? What is she doing? Those writers, they were all Western mass reporters. They went in, they got the coach. His name was Bob Pickett. I'll never forget. And he came out and he wrote down that guy's name and his badge. And he put his arm around me and said, come on in. And I started to cry because it was such like, I was so like, it was just such an

emotional moment. I mean, I can't believe I did. I go, oh my God, he goes, it's okay. You're going to be okay. I'll never forget that guy. And I'll never forget those Western mass writers. Most of whose names I didn't even know who just said, this isn't right. I'll never forget that guy. And I'll never forget those Western mass writers, most of whom's names I didn't even know, who just said, this isn't right, you know? And that was going on from 76 to 83. That was happening all over the country. Look, it was happening everywhere. I was in the Red Sox clubhouse

and they made my life tough. And Bruce Hurst, who I grew to really like, and we ended up having a great relationship. He was a Mormon and he just didn't want me in there. He was not comfortable with it. He didn't like it, but he was respectful about it, but some of those other guys weren't. I mean, the Patriots locker room we know

was a minefield. That was our worst case scenario for this whole topic. Yeah, until the Kraft family bought the team. What happened to Lisa Olsen is a disgrace, an absolute disgrace. She was an excellent journalist who was doing her job and somebody decided to be a bunch of idiots, a bunch of childish idiots. disgrace, an absolute disgrace. She was an excellent journalist who was doing her job, and somebody decided to be a bunch of idiots, a bunch of childish idiots. And then that story got reported. It never should have been reported. She didn't want it reported. I look back on that,

and this was before social media. What happened to her? It's frightening. It should be frightening to everybody. She had to move out of the country. It makes me sick to my stomach every time I think about it because she is very good at what she does. Yeah, I agree. The Globe was actually, at the time, interested in hiring her. Then, of course, that all blew up because now all of a sudden it's like, oh, why are they trying to do that? The Globe's the one that reported the story. That story- Well, that also turned into a Globe versus Herald. They tried to use it to piss on each other and it became bigger than her in a bad way, not a good way. In a terrible way.

Remember, Victor Cayenne, it's a fly speck in the ocean. That was his. And now Will McDonough, who there was no, Will McDonough was my godfather. Okay. There was nobody that treated me better than Will McDonough. I loved that man. That was the only time we got into an argument. He didn't speak to me for a little while. We got into an argument over that because I kept saying to him, you aren't seeing this. What if it was me? I'm your girl. What if it was me? It was such an emotional issue for me. And he was, I forget, I think his friend represented one of the players that was in trouble. I can't remember exactly why, but Will was, you know, he was here on a different side, right? We were on different sides of that. And I was so sad for a while about that. It was the only argument I ever had with

Will. And we got past it. We got way, way past it. And I was a pallbearer at Will's funeral. He's just one of the greatest men I ever knew. I just love him to death. I love his family. But that's how volatile that environment was in Boston back then. There's probably people who don't know what we're talking about. Some of the younger people. This was a Boston Herald football reporter who basically got leered at. And there's at least two Patriots who were completely inappropriate in the locker room with her. And then everybody turned on her somehow. And it was like, how dare, how dare you cause problems in the Patriots locker room? And she ended up having to leave the beat and leave the country.

And it's, you go back and read the story and it's crazy. Yeah. It's awful. It's awful. And it was just this big NFL machine. And where was the commissioner? Where was the owner? Well, we know where the owner was. He was an idiot, Victor Kime. He was an idiot. And they didn't have the strength in that organization that they have now. Because I really believe

that would never have happened if Robert Kraft was... That almost led to the Patriots leaving. I mean, that was one of the final death blows to them moving to St. Louis and the whole thing. Everybody was so appalled by it. It was. that was one of the final death blows to them moving to St. Louis and the whole thing. It was so, everybody was so appalled by it.

It was, it was awful. Yeah, it's, the stuff, I remember we did a nine for nine. We did a documentary

about like that first wave of, of female journalists, but it seems like a million years ago and it also wasn't. It wasn't that. No, it really wasn't.

Was that, who was like your biggest mentor when you were there the first couple of years for just dealing with that stuff? Yeah. No. Like was there another female journalist that was in the city or outside the city that was like a sounding board or not really? So one of my best friends in the business, and I hardly ever see her, but she lives a few towns away from me. Karen Garigian was working at the Herald at the same time. And we were really parallel lives because she was doing hockey and I was doing college basketball mostly. But I have such great respect for Karen.

She's one of the best reporters in the Boston market ever, ever. Think about the story she's broken in hockey, in baseball. Tom Brady actually said on the conference call, the first conference call he did back with the New England media, Karen asked a question. He goes, I really miss you, Karen. That's how much respect she has in our industry. She's not on television, so people don't know her as well. But we used to compare notes because we were going through the same thing to some degree, but we just did it in private. So we, I didn't, so we weren't mentors because we were the same age, you know, but she was a person I leaned on a lot.

When I was first starting out in the NBA, Jeanette Howard was a hundred percent my go-to because she was covering the Pistons and she was such a no-nonsense reporter. And, you know, Liam Beer and those guys, she would just say, shut up. I'm not doing that. You know, she was awesome. And she, she became an incredible feature writer. She was at the National and all these different places. She was awesome. By the way, this

Billie Jean King book, All In, do you think Billie Jean King wrote it? Oh, no, man. Jeanette Howard wrote it. And she's awesome. So she was someone that I could bounce stuff off. I mean, Christine Brennan, of course, she's terrific. And she's just always the model of decorum and professionalism. And Sally Jenkins, I just thought was the baddest ass that ever

walked the earth. By the way, still is. Oh, she's the best columnist in America. Who did she demolish? She demolished Daniel Snyder, what, like six weeks ago? That was amazing. It was like an old school newspaper column. And she is an old school new pace perfect. Like she, she, I'm sure she had television opportunities. She just is true to her roots. That was not what she wanted to do. So those are the people that I really admired and liked so much and just enjoyed them tremendously and learned from them. I learned from all of them. I watched them, how they handled themselves. What else was weird about you in Boston? Because we didn't have that whole TV infrastructure back then. The first, what, four, five, six years you were doing it, everybody who was reading you probably thought you were a

guy, right? Because your name was Jackie. They just assumed it was like Jackie Bradley Jr. or something. Yeah. They thought I was an Irish Catholic guy from Southie and I was actually an Episcopalian from Long Island, you know? They thought you like played Holy cross hockey. Yeah. Well, I would get letters. Yeah. They get letters,

you know, cause back then you didn't even have the internet or anything. And people would write letters if they liked something or hated something. And, you know, almost all the time. They're like, you're,

you know, where'd you play your, but you know, they, most people thought I was a guy. I remember one of the first interviews I ever did was with Eddie Anelman. And,

you know, people called in, they're like, Holy shit, you're a girl. I remember one of the first interviews I ever did was with Eddie Antleman. And, you know, people called in. They're like, holy shit, you're a girl. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I am. How about that? You know, so that was the best thing that ever happened to me in many ways, because if my name was Linda McMullen, you know, there's enough people, provincial people in our city that would have said, well, screw that.

I'm not reading her. So they had, you know, I had a chance to kind of fail or succeed on my own merits a little bit. Well, you also, the other piece to your career that people don't realize is you were kind of pseudo replacing Bob Ryan, who was, I was not trying to do that. No, but I did. But I mean, he stopped writing, covering basketball and you kind of took the torch from him and he was the greatest basketball writer of all time. So that wasn't easy. And one of the greatest mentors I've also had of all time. Bob Ryan is like my big brother.

And, you know, Bob Ryan did the exact opposite of what anyone, like if you thought there was anything for a minute, like, oh, she can't do this. He went out of his way to make sure I could do it. I would walk into the arena and I'd be walking in and, you know, Joey Crawford would be there and he'd be like, oh, she can't do this. He went out of his way to make sure I could do it. I would walk into the arena and I'd be walking in and Joey Crawford would be there and he'd be like, hey, Joey, this is Jackie. I remember in 87, we were at the finals in LA, Lakers Celtics. And I was the advanced person for the teams that the Celtics were going to play next. So I'd go to Milwaukee and do that series and whatever. But I got through the finals and stuff. And, you know, by then I'm really immersed in this team and these guys. And I remember we used to all go to the LAX with the

chainsaw, uh, the Texas chainsaw gang. I used to call him, it was Randy Galloway and Fran Blindberry and all those guys would all be sitting in the hot tub. And they used to call me sweet pay and they'd be sitting in there drinking beers. And we, you know, and Ryan, I'll never forget it. He pulled me aside and he said, you've done a really, you've done a really good job. Like you're going to make it, you're going to do this. And I was like, wow, it was the greatest thing of my life. Bob Ryan was telling me, Bob Ryan was validating me. And yes, it was in private near a hot tub with a bunch of drunk Texas sports writers, but I, it was like the greatest thing. And I just, I can't tell you how much Bob has done for me. Um, personally, personally and professionally, I consider him a great friend. He and Elaine, I love them so much. And, um, it was a light, you know, Monfield's the

other one. Those like, those were the big three for me. My big three was Ryan, uh, Will McDonough at Montfield. They just took such great care of me and my, my friend Ian Thompson, who we both started together and he was my best friend there. And we were, we were trying to kick the crap out of each other and get to the top of the ladder together. And, but he was still my best friend, you know? And those guys just, they challenged us, but they really looked out for us too. You know, like I would watch Montville in that newsroom and he would write a column and he's like, yeah, I don't really love it. I'm like, I'm reading it going, this is the best thing I've ever read. And he's like, I got another call out. So, so I'd go home, I'd leave. It's like seven o'clock and I pick up the paper

next day. You know, he's written a completely different column because he got somebody better. And then I go, well, then you can use this column the next time he goes oh no no that one's done and i'm just like who does that you know i was surrounded by just brilliant people at the globe just brilliant people god so lucky so lucky so this is almost 40 years yeah for writing 82 yeah i guess i guess i should have gone one more year. It's your 40th year. No, you did. You put in 40, I guess, technically, this was your 40th year. Give or take. I mean, I was an intern at the Globe in the summer of 1982. Ian was too. I was on the news side and Ian was on the sports side. And I used to just hang around the sports department when my shift

was up because I was technically graduating, but you weren't allowed to be a graduate to do that internship at the Globe. So I deferred my graduation. That was Andy Merton, my professor at UNH. That was his brilliant idea. So I was actually graduating, but they didn't know it. So I just hung around there all day. And then I'm like, I got to think up a story to write. So I wrote a story about my high school basketball coach, Kathy Delaney Smith, and I gave it to Vince Doria, who's the one that ended up hiring me. And he's like, yeah, I think we'll run this. And they ran it on like page 84 or whatever, but he ran it, you know? So, I mean, I was very, very fortunate. I took, Ray Fitzgerald passed away that summer and that's the spot I took. Obviously not Ray Fitzgerald's job. He was a

columnist, a legendary columnist, but that was the spot that opened up for me. So tell me how lucky I was. You gotta be kidding me. Gotta be kidding me. Well, thank, to bring this full circle and only cause I'm an only child, I'm going to bring myself into this. Ray Fristrailed was my first favorite sports columnist. So you took his, you took his spot and now, now we're doing podcasts together. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, he was, he was amazing. Oh, he was incredible. And you know, Monfield, he and Monfield were really close. And I think Monfield aspired to be him. And I would like to say Lee Monfield got there and then some.

In fact, I would advise everybody to read his new book. It's terrific. It's about him being a young writer covering that 68, 69 Celsius. It is so good. So good. It's really terrific. Yeah. You had him and you had Frank DeFord covering them first.

I know, right? Think about it like that. Oh my God. DeFord was a legend. I only met him a couple of times. I never got to know him. He was just too untouchable for me. I was like too afraid to go near him.

Halberstam was the other one. I got to meet Halberstam a few times at Fenway. And talk about gracious again. I'm like stammering. I have a picture of him somewhere in my office with his arm around me at Fenway Park. And I just said, I've read Breaks of the Game three times. That's all I could come up with.

And he said, well, I just read you last week. And again, another moment that you just go, oh man, you know, so. And you got to cover the legend. I did. Many legends. The guy. No, you cover the legend. I did. Many legends. The guy. No, you covered the legend.

You were there for the big 84, 85, 86 stretch. Yeah, but you know what? I actually covered the other legend, Tom Brady. I mean, I covered almost all of them. Yeah, you're right. I was there when Tom Brady won his first. I was 10 feet away from Tom Brady when that famous picture with his hands on his head. I was there.

Tom Brady was another guy. Talk about treating me like gold. Just fantastic. I mean, those Patriots teams, those dynasties, that was equally as fun for me to cover, to be honest with you, as the Celtics, because I loved like Seymour, all the defensive guys. You had to earn your keep with them, but like Bruschi and Vrabel and Seymour. I loved Rodney Harrison. Roman Pfeiffer was amazing. Those guys were incredible. Asante Samuel, he was spicy, but I liked him. I had so much fun. I think I did one of the first stories ever on Julian Edelman. My boss is like, why are we doing this? Yeah, he's like, why are we doing a story on him? I go, this guy's unbelievable. He's going to be

really good. Go back and look. It's in the Globe. was a globe byline you know so i have similar affinity for those that dynasty that i did honestly for the celtics dynasty because i got to know those guys really really well and i was so much older and so much more confident covering them you know i was a kid when i was covering i was in my 20s but those patriots you know by then i was a parent i was i kind of found myself a little bit So I had an absolute blast covering them. And I covered the World Series, the Red Sox. I covered all those. I covered 2013 was a last one of those.

So, I mean, I had a charmed life. So are your fingers going to just stop working like mine stopped working? Or do you think you'll crank out like maybe two, three, four pieces a year? At this exact moment, I'm so tired. I'm tired. I just need a break. They asked me at ESPN very graciously, would you like to write a final thing? I'm like, I'm just tired. I think I just need a break. I think I need a break from that. But we're doing some fun stuff here and I'll be with you guys till we finish. We have this project we're doing, we're working on that I'm excited about and I'm going to do that. And I'd like to think I'm going to want to write again. I'd like

to think that's true, but I think I'm just a little burnt out and I just need a break. And we'll do some pods. We're going to do a pod with Doris. We're going to do another pod with Bob Ryan. That sounds like fun. Yeah, we'll do, we'll have some fun stuff going. I think this is going to be a lights out basketball season. So that will be, I think there's going to be plenty of stuff

to talk about. Lots of storylines and all kinds of other stuff too. I will tell you, the only twins I've had so far was, I interviewed Shea Gilgis Alexander for the, one of the stories I, oh, for on Chris, story on chris paul that i did you know and i really liked talking to him i thought he was

a really cool kid and i think he's a terrific player and i remember when um the clippers drafted him doc told me this guy's he's gonna be and you know doc wouldn't have traded him for anyone except for paul george you can see that right and doc really loved him and you know sam presti those guys they they love him and um and when i was talking with those pr guys because they were they were very gracious in helping me get in for this chris paul story we talked for a little bit and they're like hey we'd love you to sit down with shay that would be a great piece and i was like yeah that i would like to do that you know and so when i heard you know i heard from some of those guys from okc sam

sam was very gracious sent me a lovely text. I was thinking, oh, man, that might be one that I would have liked to have done. Yeah, maybe a couple months from now. We'll see. If you look down at your fingers, maybe they'll start twitching a little bit. You'll be better off. Well, you're doing good stuff with us and we're working on, we have one project we're working on. That's a secret project that I think is going to blow people away. Yeah, we got to get that done. So you'll still be able to get your creative juices going.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think I just, um, but it's good to step. I needed to step back a little bit and just, uh, enjoy my family a little more. Give my parents, my kids, my husband, God bless me. So patient, you know, like let's just, let's, we've got, we've got a new house. We're moving. Like, I just want to enjoy it. You know, I want to be just, let's, we've got, we've got a new house. We're moving. Like, I just want to enjoy it. You know, I want to be like a normal person. Like when's the last time you were a normal person? Oh, probably never. Yeah. I'm hoping I'm, I'm hoping I can get in the witness protection program, be one of those normal people that only watch us sports because they feel like it. Not because, you know, it's my job depends on it, you know? Right. So, all right. Well, congratulations on everything. And it's, you know, it's my job depends on it, you know? Right. So, all right.

Well, congratulations on everything. And it's been, uh, it's been great to work with you a little more closely the last year or so, but, uh, to know you for a while. And I'm really proud of, uh, everything you accomplished and even to be just to watch it from afar has been really fun. So congrats. Thanks. I appreciate it. It's been, it's been weird. It's been a little overwhelming. It's a little embarrassing. It's, um, it's a little uncomfortable in some ways, you know? Well, it was an important career. Yeah. But a lot of great people retire. A lot of great people do great work and, and, and, you know, like for instance, I'm just going to bring this up cause it's been bothering me. Um, Claire Smith left ESPN about a year ago. She wanted one more year.

They didn't give it to her. They should have. Claire Smith, for those of you who don't know, you should know. She's a Hall of Fame baseball writer. And talk about a mentor, one of the people I admire most in this world for the way she always handled herself and still continues to handle herself. And she deserved a lot of this. I didn't see it. So that kind of stuff bothers me. Christmas a legend. So there's a lot of people that walk away and don't get with all the fanfare. So that's why I get a little uncomfortable with that's all. Well, one thing they're going to need both of us for is I know they have some 75 for 75 stuff planned. Yeah, I'm sure.

And there's some lists coming. And as you know, I care about this stuff way too much. So I really want to make sure we don't have any sort of tragedies on par with Dominique Wilkins not making the 50 at 50 list and things like that. It's a tough list, though.

It's a tough list because a lot's happened since that 50 list. A lot's happened since that 50 list. A lot of great players. And, you know, I am voting on that. And, you know, I've got, I am voting on that and I'm,

I'm already worried about it because there's players now who you can see like Giannis is on it, right? Oh my God. He, to me, I have, as you know,

I like to make my list over and over again. I have him like with the, in the Malone Barkley section of the list now. Okay. Right. So it's like he won a title and he's, he won two MVPs. Like he has to be there. All right. So let me ask you this two years ago, you feel the same way, right? If we were voting two years ago on Giannis, would you feel to see how quickly it changes? That's my point. Okay. But that's my point.

That's why this is such a dangerous list because two years from now, there's going to be someone we didn't have on there and everybody's going to be like, what the hell was wrong with you? Just saying. So I tried to account when I did my book, like I remember I had LeBron 20th and this was 2009. And I was just like, I know he's going to get there unless he like gets hit by a car or something like that's going to happen. So I feel the same way with Luca, right? Like, cause I was trying to figure out, I did like a tentative list and I was like, I'm putting Luke in the top 75. Like, unless something completely horrible happens, he will be one of the best 75 players ever. But he's the easy one. So how about Zion Williamson? Let's just throw that out.

He can't be in. He can't be in, right? But three years from now, he could embarrass the hell out of you. I'm just saying. Well, remember this happened with Shaq with the 50-50 thing, right? Where they put Shaq in and people are like, what? I was seeing. But it was like, they knew where it was going. Come on. Yeah.

Well, I'm just saying it's not as easy as people think. Well, what'll be interesting is if we're making the list and then Zion comes out and averages like 37 a game in the first six weeks of the season, we're like, oh God, now it happens. I'm so excited for it and dreading it all at the same time. I can't wait. I've been preparing my whole life for this. I know you have.

I can't wait. Well, you know, my husband, my husband is the one that used to say to me, are you going to read this whole Bill Simmons book? And I'm like, yeah, but I'm going to take my time. And Mike's like, he'd read me, like I'd be asleep. He'd go, all right right here, page 242.

And my husband didn't even care about basketball. Like you kind of transformed my husband a little bit. That's good. I'll take some credit for that. Yeah. It's so funny. Like you look at that 50 at 50 list now and there's guys from that list who I don't think should be on the 75 list because we've had more than 25 good players in the last 25 years.

But that's my point. And that's, that's going to be hard. Sorry, Dave Bing, you're not going to be on the 75 list because we've had more than 25 good players in the last 25 years. but that's my point. And that's going to be hard. Dave Bing, you're not going to be on the 75. You're just not. But the thing I was worried about... Earl Monroe might not be on it. But the thing I was worried about,

like, the thing that people should never forget, never, ever, ever, ever, is that in 75 years, some of the greatest players who ever lived

were there at the beginning. They're indisputable. Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, Will Chamberlain, Bob Cousy, they're indisputable. And yet people forget them. And I don't get it. I don't get it. It bothers me. That's why I wrote my book, because I couldn't believe Havlicek was completely forgotten like 20 years after he retired. And when my childhood, he was such an important player. And then it was just kind of comes and goes. I think Moses was like that too, where some of the guys who don't have the TV shelf life after they retire, I think it's harder for them to. And if you played for a bunch

of teams, that seems to bother people. But the one I think, I mean, he'll never get left off to 75 because he's one of the top 10, but the one that people don't talk enough about either. And I'm sometimes guilty of this is Kareem. I mean, Kareem was just otherworldly and, and we should never forget that. And I was going back, uh, just doing a little research for our project, actually looking back at some things and I'm like, Oh my God, he's unbelievable. I've forgotten how unbelievable it was. He was not media friendly. He disappeared for a while after he left. He didn't seem to be part of the quote unquote club in terms of camaraderie with the other players and the other coaches. People weren't reaching out to make him a GM or a coach or anything like that. And I think those are the things sometimes that make you

overshadowed, which is ridiculous when you think about it. Ridiculous. Well, the weirdest thing about him is he reinvented himself as a really good essayist. Oh, my. I like his essays about culture and all this stuff. I think he's really good. He's obviously a cerebral guy and intelligent guy.

Everybody knew that. He was just someone that didn't want to be in the public eye, that was uncomfortable with the attention that a guy of his stature, physical stature,

and, you know, talent, he just it didn't fit his skin the way it felt, you know, fit Irvin Magic Johnson, who was born, who was just born to do all of it and had the game to go along with it. You know, Charles Barkley, born to do it. Shaq, born to do it. And those guys are bigger than life and have earned the right to be bigger in life. And so sometimes their personality even outsizes their abilities, you know? Right. Well, I look forward to arguing about this some more down the road. Jackie, congrats on everything.

Thanks for coming on on a Sunday. It was good to see you. All right. Thanks. That's it for the podcast. It was produced by Kyle Creighton. We'll be back on Tuesday and on Thursday with two more pods this week. And then on top of that, a new rewatchable is doing Rain Man tomorrow night.

Me, Sean Fantasy, and Chris Ryan. Be ready for that one. Don't forget to go to TheRinger.com. If you missed Claire McNeer's Jeopardy piece, go check that out. Go check out The Ringer Fantasy Football Draft Guide. And I will see you on this feed on Tuesday.