The Bill Simmons Podcast - RIP, Elgin Baylor. Plus: Giannis Stories and Alexis Ohanian | With Mirin Fader

Episode Date: March 24, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons remembers the late Elgin Baylor (2:50) before talking with The Ringer’s Mirin Fader about her upcoming book ‘Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA MVP’ (19:30). Finally Bill talks with Seven Seven Six founder and Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian to discuss the golden age of pro boxing; technology and sports; the evolving internet; sports trading cards; his wife, Serena Williams; financial literacy; and more (58:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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as soon as we can get that up on Thursday. Stay tuned for that. Coming up, a few thoughts about Elgin Baylor, Miriam Fader talking about Giannis and former Reddit founder, now 776 founder, Alexis Ohanian is going to be talking about the internet reddit serena williams sports cards it goes in a whole bunch of directions this is a really good pot first pro tip All right.

So Elgin Daler passed away this week. He's 86 years old. He's one of the 20 best NBA players of all time. And he's more than that. I wrote a column about him after he got bounced from the Clippers in 2008. And then I blew that column out for the piece about Elgin in my book. That is one of my favorite things that I've written because I thought he was the most underappreciated NBA superstar we've ever had. I still feel that way all these years later. I wanted to read that chapter that I wrote in my

book, which I tweaked a tiny bit just because I pulled a couple of Elgin stories from different pieces of the book to throw them in here. But this is what I wrote about Elgin. This is from the 2010 paperback. And I thought he had a really special career and just wanted to tell you about him. So here we go. Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Bill Russell, Jim Brown, Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson, Muhammad Ali. Elgin doesn't belong on the list. That's what

you're thinking. Not the guy who wore goofy sweaters to the lottery every year. Not the unofficial caretaker for the worst franchise in professional sports. You might accept him on the worst GM list or even the celebs who look most like Nipsey Russell list, but not the list above. Not with Jesse and Jackie and Russell and Brown and Oscar and Ali. That's a stretch. That's what you're thinking. So come back with me to 1958, the year Elgin graduated from the University of Seattle and joined the Lakers. If you don't think the city is teeming with black people now, you should have seen Minneapolis in 1958. America hadn't started changing yet.

Blacks were referred to as Negroes and coloreds. They drank from different water fountains, stood in their own lines for movies, were discriminated against in nearly every walk of life. When Elgin entered the NBA, the unwritten rule was that every team could only employ two black players. And nobody really challenged it except for the Celtics. Elgin strolled in a league where nobody played above the rim except Russell. Nobody dunked. Everyone played the same way. Rebound, run the floor, get a quick shot. That's it. Quantity over quality. That's what worked. Or so they thought. Because Elgin Baylor changed everything. He did things nobody had ever seen. He defied gravity.

Elgin would drive from the left side, take off with the basketball, elevate, hang in the air, hang in the air, then release the ball after everyone else was already back on the ground. You could call him the godfather of hang time. You could call him the godfather of the wow play. You could point to his entrance into the league as the precise moment when basketball changed

for the better. Along with Bill Russell, Elgin turned a horizontal game into a vertical one. He averaged a 25 and 15 and carried the Lakers to the NBA finals as a rookie. He scored 71 points in New York in his second season. He averaged 34.8 points and 19.8 rebounds in his third season as a six foot five forward, no less, and topped himself the following year by somehow averaging an incredible 38 and 19 with five assists on military leave. Here's the story on that. A United States Army reservist at the time, Elgin worked in the state of Washington during the week, living in an army barracks and leaving

only when they gave him a weekend pass. Even with that pass, he had to fly coach on flights with multiple connections to meet the Lakers wherever they were playing. He had to throw on a uniform and battle the best NBA players in the league, then make the same complicated trip back to Washington in time to be there early Monday morning. That was his life for 48 games over six months. I would argue that Elgin's 38-19 that season was more implausible than Wilt's 50 a game or Oscar's first triple-double. The guy didn't practice. He was moonlighting as an NBA player on weekends. Wilt's 50 and 25 makes sense considering the feeble competition

and his gratuitous ball hogging. Oscar's triple-double, that made sense considering the style of play at the time. There were a ton of shots. Elgin's 38 and 19 made no sense. And when he carried the 62 Lakers to the cusp of a championship, he came within an

errant Frank Selvey 10-footer of winning game seven in Boston. It would have been his first title. It would have been his only title. He never came closer to a ring. He wrecked his knee during the 1964 season. It was never the same, although he still made 10 first-team All-NBAs and played in seven finals. During the first two weeks of the 1972 season, Elgin believed he was holding back a potential champion, and he retired after nine games. What happened? The Lakers quickly rolled off a 33-game streak,

still a record, and they cruised to the title that season. Well, how many stars have the dignity to walk away when it's time? How many would have walked away from a guaranteed ring? Because it would have been a guaranteed ring that year. When has that ever happened? Well, Elgin lived through some things that we like to forget happen now. Lord knows how many racial slurs bounced off him, how many N-bombs were lobbed from the stands, how much daily prejudice he endured as the league's signature black forward. Russell, he bottled everything up. He used it as fuel for the next game.

He wouldn't suffer, but his opponents would suffer. Oscar morphed into the angriest dude in the league, a great player playing with an even greater chip on his shoulder. Well, Elgin didn't have the same mean streak. He loved to joke with his teammates. He never stopped talking. He loved life. He loved playing basketball.

He couldn't hide it. And so his body soaked up every ugly slight like a sponge. Only a few of those stories live on, like the time Elgin's teammate Hot Rod Hundley convinced the Lakers to play an exhibition game in West Virginia, where Hundley was from. Elgin and two black teammates weren't allowed to check into their hotel or eat anywhere in town except for the Greyhound bus station. That made Elgin decide to skip the game. Hundley remembers Elgin staying in the locker room and then telling him, what they did to you isn't right, Elgin. I understand that. But we're friends and this is my hometown. Play this one for me. And Elgin said, Rod, you're right. You are my friend.

But Rod, I'm a human being too. All I want to do is be treated like a human being. And he wouldn't play. Here's how Elijah remembered it years later. Two years later, I was invited to an all-star game there, he said. We stayed at the same hotel that refused to service. We were able to eat anywhere we wanted. They were beginning to integrate the schools. Some black leaders told me that they were able to use what happened to me and the other

black players to bring pressure on the city to make changes. And that made me feel very good. But the indignity of a hotel clerk acting as if you weren't there. Or people who won't sell you a sandwich because you're black. Those are the things you never forget. End quote. And if you read about black stars from the 50s and 60s, everything comes back to the same point. The respect they earned from peers and fans was disproportionate to the way they were treated in their everyday lives.

When Russell bought a house in a white Massachusetts suburb, his neighbors broke in, trashed the house, defecated on his bed. When Eldridge was serving our country in 1961 and potentially sacrificing his livelihood, there were dozens of towns and cities strewn across America who wouldn't serve him a meal. Black stars felt like two people at once, revered in one circle, discriminated against in the other. Just because America changed over the last four decades doesn't mean those guys stop remembering the way it used to be. Throw in today's nine-figure contracts and the babying, deifying, celebritizing of today's basketball stars, and you can see why some of them might be bitter. Do modern players realize that someone like Elgin paved the way for their eight-car garages with the boycott before the 1964 All-Star Game in Boston? How the mood in

the locker room turned defiant only when Lakers owner Bob Short tried to order Elgin and teammate Jerry West around like two busboys. How that night basically created the players' union. The story never developed legs historically, although we hear about Kurt Flood and Marvin Miller all the time, and that just goes with the territory with Elgin Baylor. Only diehard fans realize that by any calculation, Elgin was the third best forward ever. From a historical standpoint, it definitely hinders him that he never won a title or that there just isn't enough, I can't believe how good he was, videotape of him. And I've seen some of

the early tapes. I can't emphasize this strongly enough. Watching Elgin dismantle his peers is like watching the Back to the Future scene when Marty McFly cranks his electric guitar solo as everyone else stares at him in disbelief. Imagine a 2009 player dunking routinely from the three-point line. That was Elgin Baylor in 1961. But he lacked that signature thing to carry him through eternity. Nothing with the legs of Oscar's triple-double or Russell's 11 rings. You rarely hear Elgin mentioned with the big boys anymore, unless you're talking to an NBA fan over the age of 50. And then they defend Elgin. They berate you for not realizing how unbelievable he was. My theory, everything that happened after Elgin's playing career ended up obscuring the career itself. The Clippers hired Elgin to run them in 1986, and really has been something of a punchline ever since. After purchasing Clippers tickets in

2004, here's what I wrote about him. Quote, blessed with a kind face and a happy smile, almost like the grandfather in a UPN sitcom. He's the hall of famer who sits with the other embarrassed GMs during the lottery every spring. I've made many jokes about Elgin over the years. He's an easy target. This is a man once described by TNT's Reggie Theus as, quote, a veteran of the lottery process, unquote. And he meant it as a compliment. I wrote after last June's draft, quote, having Elgin run your team must be like

getting in the car with my mom at night when she's careening off curbs and saying things like, I can't believe how bad my eyes have gotten and we shouldn't have ordered that bottle of wine. Just constant fear, end quote. Well, El we shouldn't have ordered that bottle of wine. Just constant fear. End quote. Well, Elgin wasn't too happy about that one. Much to my surprise, he reads more Clippers-related articles and columns than one would think. And when he found out I was coming for lunch that summer with some Clippers employees, he wasn't pleased. Coincidentally, he ended up in the Staples cafeteria at the same time as me. One of my lunch partners asked Elgin at the salad bar

if he wanted to join us. Elgin glanced over at our table, noticed me. One of my lunch partners asked Elgin at the salad bar if he wanted to join us. Elgin glanced over at our table, noticed me sitting there and growled, that guy's a bleep. Only he used a seven-letter expletive, placing most of his emphasis on the first three letters. For instance, let's pretend the word was bass bowl. Elgin would have said it, that guy's a bass bowl. Well, people love that story. Of everything I ever wrote for ESPN.com, it's easily one of the most popular anecdotes I ever passed along.

You bass bowl. I heard that 10 times a year at Clippers games. It took me two years to win Elgin over, but by his final season, we're actually getting along pretty well. By the time I filmed an ESPN piece about shooting a half court shot at a Clippers game in 2008,

their organization had been splintered into various camps. I knew there was a festering power struggle when Coach Mike Dunleavy and I had a good-natured shooting contest for $100, and I ended up winning it. We were on camera, and I forgot to collect. Dunleavy disappeared. Elgin quickly limped over, looking like he'd just seen an old lady get mugged. He never paid you, did he? Elgin whispered. I shook my head, and Elgin made limped over, looking like he'd just seen an old lady get mugged. He never paid you, did he? Elgin whispered.

I shook my head and Elgin made a face. That's typical, he hissed. When Elgin gets mad, he stammers a little, so the next few words came out like this. And you know what else? He went first, but after you made your shot, he made it seem like he had that last shot. Did he catch that? I caught it, I said. I thought it was funny that he cheated.

Elgin made another face. I'm glad you caught that, he said. I didn't think he caught it. We ended up rapping for the next 25 minutes while the camera guys picked up their stuff. And every time I ever questioned my choice in life for a profession, I always come back to moments like this. Talking hoops with someone like Elgin,

someone who will live on long after we're both gone. The Dunleavy thing just killed him. You could see it. Even though Elgin was the most beloved figure in the Clippers office, and that's an understatement, Dunleavy knew how to play the political game. Elgin was too freaking old to bother. Times were changing with the Clippers. Elgin could see the writing on the wall and I could see it in his face that day. I could see it for the rest of the season. Worried that the 2009 campaign would be his last. I called a mutual friend to schedule lunch with Elgin in August. Selfishly, I wanted to write a column about him. At 74 years old, he was the oldest high-ranking NBA employee by far. The last link to the days of Russell and Cousy, when black players ate at a Greyhound bus station because nobody else would serve them.

When you wrecked your knee and you were never the same. When you played 27 exhibition games in 20 days because your owner made you. One time I asked Elgin how he felt about charter planes and he flew off the handle. Shit, he said. When I played, we flew coach and carried our own bags. We landed two, three, four times. You ever hear about the time we crashed in a cornfield? Oh, I heard. It's the closest that American professional sports team

ever came to perishing in a plane crash. And for Elgin Baylor, it was just another thing that happened to him. That's why I thought it would make for a great column. Just lunch with Elgin, him ranting, raving about stuff like that. And to make sure Elgin would show up, I mentioned to our mutual friend, quote, make sure you tell him that he should have tipped in the selfie shot. I saw the tape. By the way, on the tape, it kind of does seem like he could have tipped at him, but he got shoved in the back. A few hours later, my phone rang. Elgin's going nuts, our friend said. He says, you don't know what you're talking about. He said, Sam Jones pushed him. That's why I didn't tip it in. He said, Sam even admitted to him afterwards. I don't know,

I said, laughing. That's not what the tape shows. Well, my friend said, you picked the right button to push. He'll be there for lunch. Just be ready to hear about this for an hour. We scheduled a date and planned to see each other then. A week later, they postponed. We planned on rescheduling and then fate intervened. The power struggle escalated. The Clippers kept yanking Elgin around. Finally, they canned him. They handed his GM responsibilities to Dunleavy. The team's employees were told that Elgin resigned. Only the terse PR release that followed never mentioned anything about a resignation, nor Elgin's 50-year association with the NBA and all the hits he took along the way. We elected our first black president six weeks later, something that wouldn't have happened without the strength of people like Elgin Baylor

once upon a time. You're probably younger than 40, so when you think of him, you probably remember Elgin wearing one of those Bill Cosby sweaters and wincing because the Clippers lottery number came too soon. And that's the wrong memory. Think about him creating hang time from scratch. Think of him putting up a 38 and 19 per game in his spare time. Think of him dropping 71 on the Knicks. Think of his eyes narrowing as they passed along his owner's condescending message to him during that snowy night in Boston. Think of him retiring with dignity because he didn't want to hang on for a ring. Think of him telling his teammate Rod Hundley that he couldn't play that exhibition game in West Virginia, not because he was trying to prove the point, but because it would have made him feel

like less of a human being. Elgin Baylor left the Clippers on the same day that Barack Obama took part in his second presidential debate. The two events were not related at all, or so it seemed. On his final night in the NBA, his Clipper friends called and emailed to say goodbye. None of them heard back. Elgin Baylor was gone. He didn't want to be found. 50 years, gone in a flash. For the most underappreciated superstar in NBA history, it couldn't have ended any other way. Rest in peace, Elgin Baylor. We'll be back after this.

All right, joining us now is the point guard on the Ringers basketball team that hasn't practiced yet because nobody is allowed to be with anybody, Mirafator. If we did have a team, I feel like not only would be, what kind of offense would we run? What would we be doing? Spread it out. You'd like John Morant. You just need to clear out shooters in the corners. What kind of offense do you want? Everybody clear out. I'm going ISO. Um, no, I hear we got some good shooters and we're going to, we're going to play up tempo. When we launched the ringer, they were trying to get me to play. And I'm like, I hear we got some good shooters and we're going to, we're going to play up tempo.

When we launched the ringer, they were trying to get me to play. And I'm like, I'm done. I'm retired. I retired in 2014. I hung it up. I play in the backyard with my son and my daughter. And that's it. Um, you're writing a book about, you're writing a book about Giannis that you've pretty much completed. How many interviews you ended up doing? 220. Wow. Did at some point where you're like, should I go for 250? Are there 30 people who have tangentially met him that I could just drag into this or 220 is a good number. I know I felt really competitive about it. I was like, can I hit 300? And then it was like, actually, you know what? You can't just find the bucks person. That's a fan and talk to them for two minutes. It doesn't count. So I kept it at 220. So I want to talk about Giannis in the context of he should probably win the MVP again if he's on the pace he's on now. And we're just looking at

this without any sort of bias, any sort of what happened the last two years. He's the best two way player in the league. He's having 97% of the same offensive season he had the last two years. He's on a team that's a contender. Um, unlike everybody else, he hasn't been shelved by some major injury, except for somebody like Yoko at your Dame. And yet nobody, everybody's tired of Giannis. We've now done the full arc of, isn't this adorable? Whoa, the guy from Greece. Oh, he actually might be good. Whoa, Giannis is a star. Oh, the freak.

Oh, he's an MVP candidate. And now we're at the, not the backlash stage, but the, all right, we get the whole Giannis thing stage. Do you think he feels this? I mean, I think that I've been seeing that so much, right? Everyone was afraid to say out loud, he might be better than last year or like he might be level.

It's almost like, why is this a bad thing to say? Like, why can't we appreciate this? I think he personally does not care what people think. And I know it's become cliche these days, right? Athletes say that all the time, like, oh, I don't care, I don't listen. But genuinely, he does not read what people say or listen so i don't think it matters to him but i definitely i mean it's incredible and i think

people are finally like kind of irritated about it yeah well i think at some point the lebron the lebron media mafia obviously gets involved and they do the whole, he's only won four MVPs. So if it ever got to the precipice of Giannis being a three time in a row MVP, which is like Larry Bird did that in the mid eighties, I think Bill Russell or Will Chamberlain, one of those guys did it, but it's, it's just about the rarest thing you can do as a, as a player. And I think there would be a backlash to that more of the case of no, no, no, it can't be him. He's never made the finals and it'll turn into that whole thing, but it would obscure that he's, I agree with you. I think he's, especially in the last month, there's been an extra level to him, especially at the end of games. There's a kind of competitive anger to him maybe from the losing from the last

couple of years. Right. Do you see that? Yeah, because that wasn't him. He wasn't that like Mamba mentality, like I'm going to kill you and destroy you. Like he's very much like, let the game come to you. You know, I'm gonna obviously recognize that I am the first option, obviously, but there wasn't that like extra level of dominance that I'm seeing right now.

I don't know. He's just completely like, no, I can do this. This is my time. And I think that's just a different thing that we haven't seen before with him. Yeah. The first month of the season, it almost seemed like he had stagnated where it was like, all right, maybe this is just who he is. They're trying to turn him into a perimeter guy. He's never really developed the low post stuff and he's just never kind of figured out that blend to go up that extra level. But then I thought the Philly game was really interesting the other day, especially he kind of took over down the stretch, but then when he sat on the floor, there was a performance aspect to it that I kind of

liked where there was a little edge to it, you know? And I think sometimes this stuff comes, it's almost has to come from pain where you need a couple tough losses. You know? And I think sometimes this stuff comes, it's almost has to come from pain where you need a couple tough losses. You need to get kicked in the crotch a couple of times and then something kind of hardens in you and then it starts coming out. And it does feel like it's a, it's a little reminiscent of LeBron in the 2012, his second heat season when he was just a punching bag for nine months. And then he came back with like a different level of something. Not that Giannis has had the kind of shit LeBron went through there for a couple of years, but there's something right.

No, it's true. And it's, and it's also just because he is aware like everybody in Milwaukee is aware that like the time is now, like you don't want to squander this guy's prime. Like they have to move. And like, there has been that pressure, I think even before this time, but particularly right now, like you don't want to squander this guy's best years. Um, especially with, you know, concerns of injury and things like that. So I just think there is so much pain and there's also just, it's like, it's like always looking at the clock,

you know, with Giannis. Um, and it's been like that his whole career, right? Like, you know, he came when they almost like didn't have a franchise, right. And it's been like that his whole career, right? Like, you know, he came when they almost like didn't have a franchise, right? And then he builds them up to be this contender. He saves the freaking franchise from leaving Milwaukee. But it's just not good enough anymore. It's not good enough just to be there. It's not good enough just to contend or to get 60 wins. And I think he's like playing with almost like that level of anger that it's like we literally have to move past these boundaries yeah do you think so you you said earlier like he's just different right which i think we've all seen from the get-go and a lot of that has to do with background how you grew up but also like the compare and contrast to like every experience that he had that formed

him versus how the typical american basketball superstars formed, right. Where they become famous 10, 11, 12, and like these little AU circles, they get to all know each other. They have people coming at them, you know, by age 15, 16, they're on social media and they're becoming a thing by the time they're a sophomore in high school. I mean, IMDB TV is running this documentary about LeBron's son's high school team, Sierra Canyon, that's out here where we live.

And it's just like, it's the complete opposite of whatever experience Giannis had trying to grow up. So I do feel like, to me, it's almost like there's the American superstar and then there's the overseas guy, the Jokic, Luka, Giannis, people like that, that they just seem to think differently. But yet when we look at their motives, we always assume they have the motives of the American player where it's like, oh, he's going to want to leave. He's going to want to win a title. It's time for him to go. And like, do you think he's just wired differently like that? He's never going to want to leave. What do you think? Yeah, I do think he is wired differently because of his upbringing. I do think that, you know, leaving was just, it just wouldn't make sense to him. That's not how he thinks. That's not how he grew up.

What I find interesting is the masculine culture that a lot of these kids, these Sierra Canyon kids grow up with, they're used to being very showy. They put their highlights on, you know, their Twitter, their Instagrams. Giannis literally, I found one of the most interesting parts of recording the book is he used to be so emotional because in Greece, like boys weren't socialized the way they are in America. So he would cry after the game. Like if he felt like he wasn't performing up to standard, like it's so wounded him that he was not playing amazing every time or he was too rebound shy that he would visibly cry.

And his teammates acted like, no, it's not a big deal. His coach was like, yep, that's just Giannis, he cries. And he comes to America and his strength coach at the Bucs, his rookie year is like, Giannis, you can't do that. We don't do that in the NBA, we don't cry. And so I just think like even something like that just shows you like they approach things differently internationally. You know, they're

not they're not supposed to think that they're the best. They're supposed to think I have to work my hardest just to get a tiny, tiny, you know, slice of the pie or a fraction of a chance. And if I somehow don't measure up, it's my fault. That's completely different. Well, and then the other piece that he has that's so great. And it's a little different than Embiid. You know, Embiid is, I think even though he's international, he's, he, he seems like an American player. Like the, even from the moment he came in the league, he's a little, little more showy. He embraces it. He loves it. But he's also somebody that from the moment he started playing basketball, he's one of the favorites, right? He's the tall guy. He's the overpowering dude. I think what's so interesting about Giannis is

the late bloomer piece with, you know, and then Luca who's at this league when he's 18, he's another one who has to like, you know, he has to prove he can belong. He's being thrown into the fire in a crazy way. And he actually like was able to turn around Giannis. Like, and we talked about it cause I, you interviewed me for your book. I made you interview me. Now you asked me,

I don't know how we arrived at it, but when I, I did that draft that year and he was the six, nine kid and nobody had any idea. Right. He got, he went like what? 15,

16. We had no idea if it was a good pick. It seemed like decent value. But you also could have told me he was going to be out of the league in two years. I would have believed it. But that's why I also think like, how miraculous is this extensive network of scouting?

Like they didn't, all these people flew to Athens to see him, not to discover something. He was identified as talent. The question was, how good is he? Right? Like you looked at his film, it was super grainy. It was awful. It looked like some JV game with people with, you know,

stubble and pot bellies. And you had no idea, right? You didn't even know how tall his teammates were in relation. But that just goes to show you like these scouts, like they do their homework and they know people have intangible things. And so even though the top two powerhouse teams in Greece, Panathinaikos and Olympiakos, they're these storied EuroLeague powerhouses, they didn't want him. But NBA scouts weren't coming to Athens to go visit those players. They were coming to visit Giannis because his game fit in America, because he had the athleticism, the length, all those things. And one of the things I enjoyed talking with you about my book is the revisionist things. And like, one of the things I enjoyed talking with

you about my book is the revisionist history. And sure, if we knew he would, you know, sprout, you know, two more inches, he would not have fallen to 15. But yeah, it just goes to show you, it's like, um, these people do their homework and they know. Right. In the draft, he was six, nine. He was super athletic and he was fluid. And that was the one thing you could see from the clips, even though you couldn't tell from the guys he was six, nine. He was super athletic and he was fluid. And that was the one thing you could see from the clips, even though you couldn't tell from the guys he was going against, but there's a fluidity to him that definitely felt NBA ish. You know,

but if you told me he's going to, if you told me he's going to become seven feet tall, we're doing that draft completely differently because now it's like, all right, his compass and Paul George, it's some human being that doesn't currently exist in the league. And he's probably a top three pick. I mean, doesn't it show you though, that there's so many factors. It's, it's not just the height though. It's the

work ethic. Like Giannis stayed in this league because he works extremely hard. And I think work ethic just gets thrown around these days, but genuinely like he built his body into something and he had this natural God-given, you know, height and athleticism. But, you know, it's funny to watch those early tapes because like you said, he didn't look awkward. He just didn't have the body to do what his mind told him to do, right?

Like he was not banging down there. Like I saw a clip from the game the other day and he just spins and he wraps around. He's just dunking and I'm like, oh my God. Like, why would anyone try to defend him when he gets that deep in the paint? But if you look at, you know, 2012 Giannis, it's like, he was almost afraid of contact. He would, you know, dip his shoulder and shy away. Right. That's, you see that sometimes. I'm a guy I really like in college right now, who's not, not a crazy opinion, Evan Mobley

at USC, who's going to be, I think, the number two pick. And I think he should be being considered for the number one pick. And when you talk about the not quite knowing what your body is yet, you kind of shy away a little bit. There's times, especially with those tall, lanky 18, 19 year olds, when they're around the rim, they kind of bring their body down or they'll crouch a little bit and then pop back up. And then eventually they learn not to do that. And all of a sudden they're seven feet all the time. That was the thing with Giannis. I remember, I don't remember what the first year I, I think I saw him, it wasn't until a second year when I saw him in person, but he just jumped off the floor. Like in person, you're like, oh my

God, wow. This is somebody who will never get hurt unless it's a freak injury. He just belongs out there. And he just moves differently than everyone else in the floor. Like you could see it. I don't know if mobile is like that. I'm excited to see him in person, but there was something shifted between that first and second year at the bucks. Cause I remember at Grantland, we were kind of enamored with him. But then his second year, we kind of adopted him as like, oh, this is a thing that's happening. He had a nickname all of a sudden.

And it was just kind of seemed like, all right, this is the guy Milwaukee had been begging for for 40 years. When do you think the Milwaukee fans realized it? I think it was that series. It might've been that second year when they played the bulls and Dunleavy had the cheap shot on MCW and Giannis like be lined for him. And it was such a moment. It was like, okay, like, you know, and it was like, obviously he hadn't learned how to, you

know, control, but you know, the people I talked to so many people that went to that game, even though they lost by like 60 points in that elimination game at the end, the fans stayed for like 10 minutes after and you just heard this cheer, Milwaukee. And so even though like Giannis was still kind of a curiosity, right? Remember Jabari Parker was supposed to be the guy and Giannis was supposed to be the sidekick. You know, at the time, it's like that moment, though, I think crystallized like, hey, Giannis is about it. He cares for us.

He's going to defend his teammates. He's going to he's going to do whatever it takes. And I think that was like a very special, prideful moment that a lot of Milwaukee fans cherish. Yeah, there was a hiccup, like a like a whisper of a moment where it was like, well, Jabari will be the Jordan and Giannis will be the Pippen. Jabari was really highly regarded. He first contract and stuff like that. But Embiid was going to be the number one pick, got hurt. He fell to three. Everyone was afraid to take him. But we really almost did have Embiid and Giannis on the same team. talking about um the anger that yannis seems to be playing with nowadays and and this like very different tone we're seeing and taking over i think around this time period that we're talking about that 2014 to 15 to 16 stretch that's when the anger started because yannis thought he was going to be the player and then jabari comes in and suddenly yannis is just like the robin and he has to prove that he's the alpha

um and it was they went at each other in practice like they learned to be friends they liked each And suddenly, Giannis is just like the Robin. And he has to prove that he's the alpha. And they went at each other in practice. They learned to be friends. They liked each other eventually. But at first, Giannis was like, Oh, no, this is my team. I worked for this. And so I think... And one of my favorite anecdotes from the book

is Giannis practicing his angry face, his scowl, like in the mirror. He was just like, How do I look mean? Because he just wasn't that guy. He was a nice guy. He was just like, how do I look mean? Because, you know, he just wasn't that guy. He was a nice guy. He was the guy that mopped up the floor in Sepolia. And he called his teammates by,

like if one guy was named Christos, he would say, Mr. Christos. So all of a sudden, Giannis has to learn how to get mean. And I think what you're seeing now is like seven years of becoming mean. What is his relationship with the other stars from what you've seen in your reporting and stuff? Has he been accepted inner circle yet? Or is he still like the outsider?

He's got to make the finals before they take him seriously. Because I know him and Durant have some stuff like friendly, competitive stuff, but they definitely have some stuff. Yeah. I mean, everyone, everyone knows what it is when it comes to Giannis. some stuff like friendly competitive stuff but they definitely have some stuff yeah i mean everyone everyone knows what it is when it comes to yannis like there's no doubt anymore that he is that type of you know game changing you know elite player but yannis prefers to not work out with these people because in his eyes it's like why would i give you my secret sauce like why would i do that you know like i think in our era, modern NBA, especially,

there's been a tendency to be like banana boat, you know, and Giannis is like never going to be on the banana boat ever. Like unless it's his brothers on the boat with him. He's just not that guy. And like, he literally does not care about fashion and, you know, going out in the tunnel. So these other superstars, you know, it's just a different approach. It's almost old school in a way. Like, yeah, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, you know, it's just a different approach. It's almost old school in a way. Like, yeah, I'm not going to, I'm not going to, I'm not going to, you know, make jokes with you. I'm here to like bust your ass. Like that is just a different thing that we haven't seen in a while. I love it.

I really think, I think he's so unique. I think most people would have played this season out and probably ended up in Dallas with Luca. Cause that was the smart move, right? It's like, all right, if me and Luca team up in Dallas with Luca. Cause that was the smart move, right? It's like, all right, if me and Luca team up together, we're going to win titles. I will get a claim. I'll be in the finals every year. And that's how it'll work out. And he didn't even consider it. I, were you surprised that he signed the extension when he did? Like, what was your, I, I mean, I know the answer cause you and I were talking about it, but for the audience,

what was, uh, what was your instinct in those two weeks leading up to that? I don't like when sports writers pretend that they knew what was going to happen when they did not. So truthfully, I thought it could go either way. Like, I really could see him staying because, of course, right, that goes along with everything we know about him as far as like loyalty and all those things. And hearing that his mom wanted to stay. So, you know, any emotional connection that he had to that city right they took a chance on him he's like we said he's not one of those prospects that's like oh that team's lucky to to have me they took a chance on him and he'll never forget that um on the other hand like when people when people say they want to win i think it's just. You know, a lot of guys say that they don't really want to win

and do whatever it takes to win. But I really believe that Giannis wants to win so badly. And I thought the Bucks' gaffes leading up to, you know, his decision really just was such a bad look. It was almost embarrassing. And so I thought like, maybe he's done. Maybe he's like, you know what? I gave it my shot. And you know, Coastless maybe he's done. Maybe he's like, you know what? I gave it,

I gave it my shot. And you know, Coastless in LA, everyone was talking about that. So I thought, okay, like it could go either way. But then when he stayed, I was like, of course, right? We all had that, like that reaction, like, duh. But it's really, it's something that you, I don't think we'll be able to appreciate for a couple of years how rare this is. And I don't think also that this is now going to lead to other people wanting to go to small markets either. I think this is just Giannis is unique and I don't think we will see other people doing this as well.

Yeah. And we have, you know, like Reggie Miller is a good example, right? Of the old school. Cause he has, um, I think it was like 92, maybe 92, 93, somewhere in there. He was going to be a free agent and Magic was lobbying him to come to the Lakers and all that stuff. And he played at UCLA and he ended up staying in Indiana and he stayed there for 18 years.

And I think, you know, we've talked about this a few times on the podcast about whether Curry was potentially going to be the last guy ever who's start, middle, finish one team. But I think Giannis has a real chance now. I think this almost was the fork in the road moment. The team's good enough that they'll make the finals one of these years. I do think they shot themselves in the foot a little bit.

The holiday trade saved a lot of it. But yeah, the summer they had, the summer of free agency last summer was just flat out bad. The DJ Augustine contract was abominable. I don't feel like they really got better. Same thing when they gave the Bledsoe the extension and didn't keep Brogdon and things like that. And I think their owners and their front office are very sensitive to this stuff. They haven't really splurged on the luxury tax. Even now, as we head toward the trade deadline,

they're not over the part where it's like, all right, this could cost a lot of money. What is his relationship with the front office? And does he put pressure on them? How does that all work? I mean, I think being vocal is something that has taken time for him to do, right? Jason Kidd used to have to force him to open his his mouth and say something so when I hear now that in these sort of you know private conversations and you know we need this guy we need that guy he's more vocal like he actually gave you know gives a list and like I want this guy and it's it's not like I wouldn't I wouldn't describe it as like aggressive or anything like that, but his voice is absolutely there because it's his team now. And he's grown into honestly just a man, you know,

he was a child when he gave into the league, really not a child, but you know, a teenager, a baby faced kid. And now he's, you know, he's earned the right to speak up in these meetings. So I think he's been very vocal about it. You know, very present. Because again, like I said, you don't want to squander this guy's youth. You just never know. And Milwaukee, it's like the wound and the fear of squandering somebody's prime is so real. And one of the things that I found most fascinating when I was thinking about will he stay or will he leave was the decades old wound of Abdul-Jabbar leaving. And it's like, finally, the superstar stays, you know?

Finally, management is actually trying to win a championship, right? There was decades under Senator Cole where it was like, we just, we don't care. You know, we're not, we're just gonna do whatever we need to do. We're gonna be competitive. We're gonna make that eighth seed.

So if you look at that mentality to now drew, you know, PJ Tucker, it's, it's just a totally different feel. And Giannis is ever, you know, a part of that. Well, the Jabbar things, especially tough because that really had nothing to do with the team being competitive. They made the 74 finals. I mean, they weren't exactly loaded, but the league was in a weird place. The ABA had all the young guys and stuff like that. He just didn't want to live in Milwaukee

anymore, which is painful if you're from Milwaukee. Right. And you have this guy's like, it's too small. Get me to New York or LA LeBron at least massaged it a little bit where he's like, I need a new journey. I need a new, but Cleveland was too small for him. And then eventually he flipped it and he came back. But, um, I don't know. I think if you're from there, that Jabbar thing is like a pretty big scar. So the fact that Yana stayed, I think that can't be understated. That's a huge thing. It can't be understated. It's a wound that is even for people that, uh, we're not, you know, Abdul Jafar's generation. It's something that's just handed down from your parents because it's not, it's not a city that doesn't love its team.

It's always loved its team. Even when people doubted whether basketball could even work in Milwaukee, right? Like the Atlanta Hawks, you know, originally being there and then leaving. It's always like the place where you start, but you never stay. That's just, it's embedded. And it's always like hope, but don't get your hopes up. Don't be too hopeful because you're going to be disappointed. The star is going to leave, you know, that 2000 to 01 run with, with George Carlin and Big Dog and Sam Cassell and Ray Allen, like that, like still triggers Milwaukeeans when they think about

Ray Allen leaving. So, you know, Giannis staying or leaving had so much more emotions than whether this player likes Milwaukee or not. It had like decades old baggage. And I know Giannis was aware of that, you know, his rookie year, they won 15 games. Like, don't forget that. That was a rough, and that was the polar vortex here. And it was cold and it was miserable. And so, yeah, like I think the history is a part of that. I don't think you can talk about Giannis staying and what that means to the franchise moving forward without having that conversation about, you know, Abdul-Jabbar. In your research for the book, because one of the kind of themes with him was he was homeless in Greece. How much of that was true? How much of it was apocryphal? Was he actually homeless? What did you find out? He wasn't homeless, but they kept getting evicted often.

And so they would have to convince the landlords like, hey, we're going to get paid tomorrow. Come back tomorrow. Promise we'll pay you. And oftentimes they would get told um you have to leave you have to get up you have to go and they would have to just be out in a matter of hours um it is very true that yannis just wasn't eating and i think lost in the narrative of he's so skinny that rookie year was like yeah because he was malnourished um like that that that draft that

you know you were part of it was such an emphasis on like yana's such a great kid great story overcomes obstacles but like i don't think people truly knew how hard that was how hard it is to compete when your first meal comes at 11 p.m how hard it is when you are essentially the alpha of your brothers at age 13. And I think like what's even more miraculous is that he didn't even really know much about the NBA at all. Like he players on the court would come up to him and say, you're like Dr. J. And then he would just be like, who is Dr. J? He and his brothers would go like scrounge around for a euro to go to the Internet cafe and Google Dr. J. He and his brothers would go like scrounge around for a euro to go to the internet cafe and Google Dr. J, you know? So for him, it's like, okay, first priority is eating. Second priority

is parents' health and them getting money. And then third is selling. And then fourth was basketball. So if you look at like him making it this far, it's miraculous because the kid had so many deeper worries. Do you think that's why he grew? It sounds weird to even think that, but if he was malnourished and then for the first time had like a normal schedule then thing, cause it's so rare. I can only remember it happening a few times. Rodman was another one where sometimes these people grow at age 19, age 20, and they'll grow an extra three inches, but it's pretty, it's a pretty late stage for him to just add on and they'll grow an extra three inches, but it's pretty, it's a pretty late stage for him to just add on two and a half inches or three inches, whatever it

was. You know, that's, that's fascinating. And there could be something to that. I talked with the former Bucks team chef. You might have to do more interviews. You might have to talk to like seven nutrition experts. This got you to like 227. Oh my God. I know. I know. Um, but the, the former buck chef was really helpful as a part of this kind of dialogue because he was telling me like, obviously Giannis has never heard of like a turmeric shot. Right. But all of a sudden he's like getting all this like health and food and treatment that he's never had before. And it's like, it made a tremendous difference. Right. I think like everyone talks about like, Oh, he just weightlifted like crazy. That's how he looks like a Greek God, but they've actually worked so much on his nutrition. Like the strength coach, when he

first got to Milwaukee had to tell him like, it's okay to eat three meals a day. Like it's okay. Because he didn't, it just wasn't part of his upbringing. And he would take stuff home and stuff it in boxes thinking like, well, I might not have food tomorrow. Even though like, of course, you're gonna have food tomorrow. The Bucks will provide food tomorrow. But how could he be sure? You know what I mean? So it's been a journey in learning how to eat properly and feeding yourself. And now he has his whole routine down. My fave thing is he sends the chef an egg emoji or the chef emoji when he wants an egg white omelet.

So I love that detail. Like casual, like, can you just fix me an omelet right now? But yeah, you would never have had him do that years ago. Never. So if I was running Dallas, I would have signed both of his brothers to like four year deals and just, and just put the pressure on Giannis. I still don't know why they didn't do that.

I don't think it would have been that expensive, but you're almost paying like the Giannis tax and you basically, he's so close to his brothers. You're basically leveraging that to try to, for a competitive advantage. I wonder what would have happened if they did that. Does he still stay? Probably, but I do think it could have swung the seesaw a tiny bit.

That would have been crazy. I don't really understand it because Costas was on Dallas for a bit of time. And Dallas is one of the major, you know, teams that are like, we wanted Giannis, you know, like we talked about that revisionist history. Dallas has been the most vocal about like, yeah, we knew he was that good. So it definitely surprised me a little too, I think. Yeah. I don't, I don't believe anyone with that draft. You and I talked about it when

I did the interview for the book. I, I just think anyone's full of shit that claims anything. It was at the point of the draft when it was a crap shoot and he was the number two international guy in the draft. Schroeder was the number one guy. And then Giannis, it was like he was going to go somewhere between 15 and 18,

whatever it was, and that was where his value was. Nobody was taking him 10th. It wasn't happening. Nobody. Nobody was taking him 10th. Wasn't happening. Nobody, nobody. Well, and this also reminds me why, like sometimes we forget that like, it's okay to have, to draft somebody that takes time to develop, right? Like he would not have developed

if they were a winning team. He would not have, he got thrown in there because they sucked. Like that and everyone got injured. It was like luck and time and circumstance and somebody making the most of their opportunity. But like nowadays, it's like if you're not ready to roll at like 18, they just look at you like something's wrong with you. But like he is such an example of like patience and hard work and being in the right situation. It's like so many

things have to go right to be in the, to be in a space where a player can flourish. Work ethic and the body he has was a good start. Do you have those two things? Yeah, those are two nice pieces. So when this book comes out, it feels like you have to run at least one high screen with him. You might have to lace him back up.

Right? For a ringer video or something? You send me to Milwaukee, Bill. I would give anything to do that. Okay? Just tell me when. I'm going. Yeah, a couple of like high lobs,

something like that. You probably didn't play with anybody like Yadis in high school or college, I'm guessing. Didn't have a seven foot lobber, lob screener. No, no. And our listeners need to know

something very important. I'm five feet tall. So that's another thing, but we can make it work. We can make it work. But you were five feet tall, but you were like the classic scrappy. Oh yeah. Like just perfect, perfect ball handling, all that fundamentally sound and just ran the team.

Like there's been models of you that have worked at a really high level in college, at least. I know. And you know, part of me is always jealous when I see a five, six girl, um, in college, like killing it and being like, damn former life. But, um, that's why I appreciate somebody like Giannis, cause I was so small and I had to fight for things. And even though our stories were completely different, like I love, I love hustle guys. And I think like 220 people that I talked to, not one person had something negative to say about him. And 220 people attested to the work ethic. It almost became cliche. Like it would be like, dude, I know he has work ethic. Okay. What else now? You know, because that's like the one thing everyone wants to talk about, but it's, it's legit. It's true. Does that almost make you suspicious after you get to like 160 people?

You're like, all right, wait a second. Come on. Wasn't he a dick to a waiter once? Like, can't you give me, yeah. There's just what didn't happen. I know. I tried to, um, when, when the last dance came out, I tried to tease it out and say like, look, anyone at that level is going to be an asshole. Like you have to be an asshole at some point. And I would try to tease it out and be like,

well, how does he, you know, talk to teammates? And then you would get these endearing anecdotes about him coming up to, you know, the 16th man and being like, you know, what play do you want to run? And then the 16th man is like, you're Giannis. Like, we're going to run whatever the hell you want to run. You know? So I think like he, what's different is he's not he's not jordan asshole he's not kobe asshole he will get on his teammates if they need to get

on it like he has that sort of like alpha leader you know he's not gonna let the team uh go out there and not have a hundred percent full effort every single time but he doesn't lead in that way. Like I said, opening his mouth and like talking is still relatively new. Like Jason Kidd, mind game coach, point guard professor, putting everybody in the right place. He knew the value of speaking up and Giannis is not the person to speak up.

And so it's been such a steady progress. But one of the things I really liked hearing from Sterling Brown when I interviewed him last year was like, it's not just Giannis speaking up now, it's Giannis listening. So when Sterling has something to say, had something to say, or Chris Middleton has something to say, Giannis listens. And I think part of being a great leader is also just knowing when to trust your teammates and listen to them. And, you know, perhaps all the chemistry and the fun whole thing was too you know he just looked at it fundamentally like my teammates are bothered by this let's not play and you know ultimately he's the alpha dog on the team and he's going to be calling it but then he wanted no credit at all

after really receding in the background of that story and it became about some other people more than him but he was the reason other other than George Hill and Sterling Brown, he was the reason it went to the next level, I think. Yeah, and he has learned, obviously, I shouldn't say learned, he has experienced so much himself as far as race and how you're treated in America versus how you're treated in Greece

and his Greek identity, Nigerian identity, and being proud of all these, you know, parts of him. And, you know, I remember, um, when he was a rookie, like he didn't know anything about Milwaukee and Karan Butler had to explain to him, you can't wear a hoodie because, you know, um, black boys and black men are targeted by police and this could happen to you, or you could get killed or this, and, you know, Milwaukee is a segregated city. We all know that. And so, you know, he has honestly had such an education about race in America and to see his recent comments about like, my son's growing up here. Like I, you know, I don't want him to live in a place where he has to be afraid. And you just

would not see him talking about race early on. You just, he like shied away from it. Even though people back home in Greece said really racist things about him. And so you're seeing a little bit more vocal these days. What's his relationship with Greece now? Goes back in the summers? He goes back all the time. You know, yeah, he loves Greece.

And I believe he, yeah, he loves greece and i i believe he yeah he took his son there for the first time um this i'm losing all track of time in my pandemic brain but um he definitely was there recently with his son and um it's a complicated thing and i i do hope people take that away from the book is that um although there were like very kind people to him growing up and a lot of amazing you know white greeks that that although there were like very kind people to him growing up and a lot of amazing, you know, white Greeks that supported him, there were also people that didn't, that just saw him as a black undocumented person. And it's been fascinating to learn how he is embraced there now because he's famous

and he's Giannis, but there is still that, you know, ugly strain of racism that's still there, still murals of him being desecrated. So it's complicated and it's interesting. When's this book come out? August 10th, 2021. Am I allowed to say pre-order it? Yeah. Do whatever you want. Is it pre-orderable? Yeah, it's pre-orderable. What's the name of the book? Giannis, The Improbable rise of an nba mvp there you go all right there you go maren great to see you um belated belated uh welcome to be

at the ringer on this podcast even though we've talked privately but it's great to have you aboard and i look forward to reading all the stuff you're going to do and listening and all that stuff uh over the next couple years i can't wait to play pickup with you. It'll never happen. You might be able to play in my backyard. That's it. Uh, thanks for coming on. Thank you. All right. We are taping this a few days before it's going to run. So if the world ends or anything crazy happens, uh, don't blame us. Alexis Ohanian is here. Ohanian, Ohanian. I asked you before we went on, I've heard it pronounced so many different ways. You're one of those guys. It's like I dated a girl whose name was Andrea

and everyone called her Andrea and it was Andrea, Andrea. So how do you pronounce it? Give it to me. Well, okay. Ohanian is what I say. I feel like there's a, there's a much more Armenian way of doing it, which is like Oh, Hanyan, but I just say Oh, Hanyan, Alexis Oh, Hanyan. The thing I care more about is being called Alexis, not Alex, because it's Alexis, it's not Alex. And I was named after that guy who's out of view, but that's Alexis Arguello. Oh my God! Yeah. I was a huge fan of his. The prior Arguello fight was unbelievable. Oh, that's a sensitive subject. It's a tough one. I know.

Yeah, my father was really into fighting in the 70s and the 80s. And Arguello was his favorite. And named me after him. And it's wild. You grow up real quick as a kid on the playground, as a boy on the playground in Alexis

and you really decide at an early age if you're going to go all in on it or you get people to call you Alex. And I went all in on it. And so I'm very married to that. I'm quite proud of it now. But it definitely taught me how to fight early as a little kid i like the

uh the prior fight i've now talked myself into prior was definitely doing something illegal during the fight like right there spiking his water and all that stuff so uh i know and it's it's like and it's a wild thing man you know he obviously had had such a a difficult life thereafter and some pretty shady circumstances around his death. And just, I think... I should ask my father again. I mean, he felt like Alexis was such a gentleman and a heck of a fighter

and carried multiple titles and multiple weights. But he was a gentleman. And it was one of those things that was instilled in me. Like, okay, I guess that's the kind of guy I got to be. And then I had this moment, talk about things I never would have expected, where I was hanging out with Mike Tyson. And I introduced myself and he's like,

Oh, Alexis. And he was like, You named after Alexis Aguayo. And I was like, Yes, I am, sir. And he was like, Oh, Alexis. And he was like, you named after Alexis Aguayo. And I was like, yes, I am, sir. And he was like, oh, let me tell you. He was an incredible fighter. And it was such a gentleman. And I'm just like, oh, look, I'm so happy.

This is what a moment. Mike Tyson, oh my God, and my father. I can't wait to tell him the story. And he's like, he's a gentleman. He's like, he was such a gentleman. Alexis used to just just beat the shit out of a guy like literally make the guy shit himself because he beat him so bad and then afterwards be like you know what i hope i really hope you get better i really i hope you're

okay and and would give him a good handshake and he said and i'm and i'm hearing mike and that's my terrible mike tyson impression and i hope i don't get a phone call after this. But it was a moment that I'll never forget. And you should have heard me recounting this story to my pops. Because you're the kid named Alexis. You're the boy named Alexis. And for years, you've grown up defending this name and telling this story and retelling this story. And then Mike freaking Tyson tells you what an amazing namesake this man was.

And yeah, it just blew me away. So yeah, as long as you call me Alexis, get some version of Bahamian right, we're cool. Well, I remember when he beat Boom Boom Mancini. And I remember really rooting for Mancini because he had his dad who was physically failing in the crowd. And Mancini just wasn't good enough. But then afterwards, Arguello felt worse about it than I And Mancini just wasn't good enough. But then afterwards,

Arguello felt worse about it than I think Mancini did. You know, his arms around him, he's consoling him. And it was, yeah. It's a beautiful thing. And it's those little moments. And I remember my dad

having this collection of VHS tapes that he would sit me down and make me watch on the VCR of these Arguello fights. And it's wild because that's how boxing was introduced to me as a kid at a time when I was born in 83. So by early 90s, my dad's really leaning in on boxing. And at this point, we're solidly an NFL household. Were you growing up at this point? So we had left New York when I was about six.

So we moved to Howard County, so outside of Baltimore, Maryland. But it was after the Colts, before the Ravens. So it was a Washington football team household. And my dad had spent some time in College Park. And so he knew the area well, and he was a DC sports fan, and in particular, the Skins,

or the team formerly known as the skins and um you know what what had drawn me to fighting in trying to like understand this was it was through his eyes because at the time right in the early 90s boxing had just changed so much as a sport and and the dynamic and the the just everything about it was just so different. And it's been tough too. Because I know... I'll still catch up with my dad about it. And he still tries to follow. He's definitely not a UFC guy.

He has not made that transition. He still just wishes boxing were like it was in the glory days. And he tells me about the Ali fight he got to go to when he was a little kid with his dad. And he tells me about these moments and memories that he had. And it's interesting. Sometimes I do wonder where the future of some of these sports do end up heading. Because at the time, no one would have expected boxing to be where it is today. Because it was such a big part, culturally relevant, such a big deal. Now it's like, oh, hey, you're a YouTuber. You can make some good money having

a fight with someone. And no disrespect, but it's just very different. And sometimes I wonder even to now with the NFL, growing up, that was a Sunday religion for us. And I just can't help but wonder if in 30 years, 40 years, I have a very different relationship and people have a very different relationship even with a powerhouse like the NFL, just because enough people are like, well, we've moved on. We're into something else. Who knows? But if anything, it taught me not to take anything for granted because I know the role that boxing had in his life and his childhood, and you just could never expect it to go away. And it's a shadow of its former self. Yeah. to go away and you know it's a shadow of its former self yeah uh you know nothing is nothing

is for certain these these things um it's they up and flow like like business cycles like everything else it's funny because in in one sense it's still successful right the pay-per-view is doing well they're selling the right stuff like that but you know i was thinking about it when when haggard died that was when you really you know that was like one of the biggest 10 and a half minutes of my life. It was such an important fight. And then it was so far exceeding the expectations when anyone had it. It's still the best fight I've ever seen. Just in general, having that division with Hagrid and Hearns and Duran and Leonard.

And it just was really meaningful. And anytime there's a big fight, everything stopped for weeks, even before the fight. And you're right. That's just probably not happening again. And I mean, it's wild to see the incarnations of it now with social media fueling it. And it's very interesting. I don't know. I really... I wonder because when I think about the purest type of sport, when you really whittle it down, the idea of two people, one-on-one with no one else,

there's only a handful of sports that give you that kind of pure one-on-one who is the best. And there's fighting, there's tennis. See, I brought it back. And not many others. And this was something, dude, as the kid who played soccer, although I am fond of calling it football, but as a kid who played soccer growing up, as a kid who played football and basketball growing up, team sports. And that was the only thing I was indoctrinated into. I used to think that was a country club sport, tennis. I mean, it is technically, but I had no respect for it as a sport

because I was so naive. And there are a few out there that are so just 1v1 who is the best and so mentally taxing as well as physically taxing because you don't have a team out there. And it's, I don't know. So I like to think I'm, we'll see what Olympia ends

up doing. But every time she messes around on that tennis court, it's exhilarating to watch. And I ended up... I selfishly named her... Well, my wife and I named her after me. So she's Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. So I don't know. I didn't become a boxer like my namesake. Maybe she won't become a CEO, a tech CEO or an investor like her namesake. Um, but whatever it is, hopefully it's a, it's a good time. Yeah. The way you describe boxing was when I was growing up tennis, like Borg versus McEnroe was as important as any other thing that was happening. And McEnroe is my guy and I was just so into it. And now I feel like looking at your wife, Serena, it's a little like how we felt with

golf with Tiger in the late 2000s, where when Tiger got hurt, even before the car crashed, when he got hurt and he was out of year, you kind of look around and go, wait, I don't care about any of these people. What happens? And Serena's been around for so long. And at some point, she just became the measuring stick for everyone else in women's tennis. And you watch a tournament and your first reaction is, where's Serena? Is she still alive? How'd she do? What round are we in with her? And it's like the tournament hasn't officially started until she's been challenged. It's going to be so weird when she's gone.

They don't even have anything close to whoever the, I know some people would say Osaka, but we just don't have the lineage with her yet. So, you know, I think it's really rare to get to that point in any sport. It's next level. And I appreciate, you said, I can't remember, I watched the thing you did a year or two ago about Serena. And I was just like, my guy. I loved it. And I'm pretty out

there on Twitter. I probably should watch my mouth more often, but I just can't help myself sometimes with some of the commentary and some of the bullshit that I see. But on the whole, I mean, obviously I agree. But on the whole, I think what's so telling is, and I think the Tiger comparison is an apt one, especially in America. This is a sport, tennis, that is not at the forefront of a lot of Americans' minds. But when it is, it's usually because... And I'll put both Serena and Venus in there. These two women, these two black women went into a sport that didn't want them, that did everything they could in a lot of ways to keep them out, to keep them from being successful ever since they were young women, girls, and overcame it. And made... Captured the attention of the whole world. But in the process, like, yeah, I mean, you know, the US Open is...

You can see it in the ratings, right? The people that America wants to watch, the stars, the greats, right? There's a ton of amazing people playing tennis right now. But Serena and V have made it relevant for us in particular, as well as the world, in a way that's remarkable. And I don't think anyone will fully appreciate until one day when they retire, which will be anytime soon.

But when they do, I think then we'll finally get a little bit of perspective on it. But look, I'm enamored with the fact that it's opened up the door for so many amazing talents, including Naomi and so many others, that it's opened up the door for so many amazing talents, including Naomi and so many others that, uh, it's great,

man. I, and again, I say this as someone who is a total bandwagon fan of the sport. I didn't watch the match until 2015, uh, when we started dating, but,

uh, it's, it's something fun, man. It's wild to see. You know, I think you look back at the career, which has been 20 years now, that first decade.

I think the dad, he was kind of his generation's LeVar Barrow in some ways where he was talking a lot and the media instantly was like, who's this guy? So you had that. Then you had the sister versus sister thing, which I still feel like you would watch those matches and you were like, are they really, are they a hundred percent trying to kill each other in this? Like there's so much love between the sisters. Like how competitive is this? And there were all these rumors about, oh, they let her win that one. And then she gets to win the next one. And I don't feel like it was till the beginning of the 2010s that people really started to be like, wait, holy shit, what's happening here? I remember I went to the Olympics in 2012.

We saw her in person a couple of times. She destroyed Sharapova. There was some back history of that. Which one? Which of the times she's destroyed Sharapova are you referring to? This was 2012 Olympics. There was that backstory of Sharapova beat her once. And since then Serena would have a little extra every time they played, but to see it in person was the two

best things I saw that in two weeks, I went to everything was Usain Bolt and Serena destroying Sharapova. Honestly, the two best things I saw in two weeks, it was just like clear like, wow, this is somebody that's not coming around again. But now, you know, we're in the twilight and she's got a family now and the whole thing. And it's like, how much longer does this go? And it becomes that old question of

when does the athlete know? Dude, I, you know, I can't, I have no answer. I have no idea. I have no idea. I'm here supporting. In the same way, she's a ceaseless supporter of my career. She puts up with a lot more than I do, for sure. But I think this is something only she is going to know and only she is going to answer.

At the end of the day, I just continue to be in awe of everything she does and continues to do. And again, I like... I don't know. I also had to look at this whole thing with fresh eyes because... So one day I'm on Twitter

and someone tweets at me highlights from a match. Hold on. I think it was with Capriotti. Oh my God. That invented Hawkeye or created the demand for Hawkeye. And I'm the tech guy. I've invested in companies like Cruise, which is a self-driving car company. Now it's a multi-billion dollar company. When it was just a couple of founders with an idea saying, we're going to make a self-driving car. I said, here's some money. Let's help you build it.

We have cars that can drive themselves. And this was 5-6 years ago and this technology was just getting started. Calling a ball in, in real time is trivial. And so I'm going to all these matches and I'm like, why are there humans doing this job? Someone's like, oh, because it's tradition. And I'm like, okay, but wait, you can challenge the call and then they can use the technology they know they have just to make sure the human got it right or wrong. As a technologist, I'm looking at this and as a sports fan, and I'm like, why would you take a sport that's potentially perfect?

Because I can't explain to my daughter what a catch is in the NFL. I don't actually know how to define a touchdown catch anymore because there's so much nuance and subjectivity. And every other sport has these dynamics, whether it's flopping or pushing off or travel calls, right? Things like that. But tennis has the chance to actually be pretty damn perfect because it's just very simple rules and some boundaries that a computer can actually tell you about. And I was so delighted... What was it? This past tournament in Australia because it was fully it was robotic right it was Hawkeye doing

the calling in and out and so there's no subjectivity and so I'm complaining about this on Twitter and yeah someone shows me this clip of this it was Capriati match and I'm watching these and I'm just like how is no one saying anything how are the commentators not saying anything like Serena is getting clearly balls

in that they're calling out and vice versa. She's getting all these calls against her like, this is absurd. You fans were feeling and have been feeling for a decade plus. And it also tapped me into just how much more there is to her matches than just the win or the loss. There's a whole... There are people all over this world who watch that and see some part of them in her struggle, who see some part of their pain in the injustice of those calls. I mean, you watch this and you some part of them in her struggle, who see some part of their pain in the injustice of those calls. I mean, you watch this and you're just like, how? It feels borderline

criminal, especially in a sport where the rules are so clear cut. And I guess that's... I think that layers into so much of what she and her sister have done and overcome and gone through. And it's awesome. It's the kind of perspective that I know Olympia is going to have just through those tapes, through that footage. Olympia will have some memories of her mom playing, but she's three now. But there's a whole legacy of conversations and memories and things that Serena is going to be able to pass on to her that

will be exciting and pretty inspirational to have a seat to. And I'll tell my great war stories from building tech companies and whatnot, but not quite the same. Right. I hope the story you just told about replay review, we'll be talking about the NBA like that in 2040. We'll be like, oh man, remember when the NBA was just completely off the rails for five years with replay reviews and then we had a rebellion and then finally they fixed it?

Do you think is that, is there actually a path to that? The NBA is the most progressive league and it feels like the one that's going to get it right sooner. The annoying thing about it is they'll spend five minutes on one call, but then there'll be another call and they'll review it. And something clearly happened in it, but they can't review. Like I was watching a Celtic game yesterday. Jalen Brown, they reviewed for a hostile act to get hit in the face, but he didn't shoot a free throw because they missed the call.

So they look at it and they're like, yep, no hostile act. It's like, well, what about the free throw he should be getting? What is the point of this? Yeah, it is where, you know, every industry is wrestling right now with technology because it's like it's changing every single thing we do and including sport and the way we play it and and this is incidentally why i think this is actually one of the best times to be investing in all things sport not that i have a sports-based venture fund but my venture fund is it's called 776 because 776 bce was the year of the first Olympics.

And though it's not a sports tech fund, uh, I just really liked the symbolism of going back to that first starting line of, you know, the, the paragon of competition, uh, and, and do this pandemic showed it though, because it, I know people are going to talk to the viewer numbers that were down, although the NWSL was higher than I think every other pro sport last year, that they're looking at the wrong numbers because television consumption is not the metric for engagement in 2020 or 2021 for that matter. Social media is where these conversations are happening, whether it's listening to a podcast, whether it's chatting with your friends on some subreddit, whether it's just

even the group chat or all these new platforms. What about TikTok? I mean, I feel like eyeballs have drifted away from TV to TikTok. That has to be a factor. It is. It is 100%. I mean, you can Quibi versus TikTok is the story of, I mean, that's the story of not just last year. Billions of dollars invested in a platform with the best actors, the best writers, the best everything, and gets eviscerated in months by teenagers doing dances. And why? Because you can't compete with the creativity of millions and millions of millions of people when the entertainment you're providing has that as an alternative. That two-minute short or that five-minute short on Quibi is fighting for five minutes of attention on the bus with the infinite feed of highly

recommended tailored content from the world. And you're not going to win that. No matter how funny that comedian is, no matter how great that script is, they're competing against the world, the hive mind. That's not going to win. But sport has an unfair advantage because it's the type of entertainment where all of that content, someone reliving the Kevin Durant dunk. I got to show my Nets bias here. Someone recreating that great play in their backyard is not a replacement

for the league. It's just an enhancement. It's one more reason to remember to watch when the next game is on. And so social media is actually a great benefit to sport unlike every other form of entertainment

where it's actually a competitor because sport sport, unlike every other form of entertainment where it's actually a competitor, because sport has a monopoly on attention. There's still only that game that you have to make. There's only one championship a year. There's only one winner of every game. There's objectivity and there's scarcity. And so the story of all these things, and frankly, a lot of the investing I've been doing has been highlighted by this last year that really shows that in a world that is getting increasingly more tribal and fractured, which has a lot of downsides to it, but is what sport does so well, right?

It artificially creates tribes that we bleed for and care so much about, even though they're totally made up. And it captures our attention and creates community in ways that no other form of entertainment can. And I think it's just, you know,

these leagues are still so out of touch with technology and improving user experience and everything else that there's just only upside from here. And I'm excited, man. It's going to be a great... The next 50 years

will be an amazing time to be a sports fan. Well, it also looks like the way we're going to be a great, the next 50 years will be an amazing time to be a sports fan. Well, and it also looks like the way we're going to be consuming this stuff is going to start to change. You can feel it even with Amazon trying to get NFL rights and stuff like that. And then, you know, I think we're headed to a future where you're going to be able to pick your announcing team. I felt like this was going to happen five years ago, but now I really feel like it's going to happen. You could have 20 different announcing team picks as you're on Amazon's NFL season ticket thing. And, um, it'll be way more inclusive and way more trying to capture people like my son and basically the narcissist generation. These people who are like,

who are like, Hey, I want in, I know I have no credentials, but get me in there. Bill, I'm going to spin it for you. I agree. I do think there is something really special. This generation, the narcissist generation, the digital native generation. The selfie generation. Selfie generation.

They're the first generation to think of themselves as much as creators, as consumers of content. And that's powerful. We used to watch a movie and we'd be like, that was a good movie. And maybe we'd bullshit with our friends after and be like, I would have done this differently, maybe. But this generation can watch the movie and actually remix it and make it better and upload it and actually have that remix, whether it's a movie or a song or artwork or whatever, be better. And even when they're editing silly videos on TikTok, they're using pretty impressive editing techniques. They are interpreting culture and content with the mindset of,

I can create something even better, which is really empowering. It's like, when you're listening... Let's see, when we're suffering through Joe Buck on an NFL broadcast, is he still doing NFL? I don't even, I can't even listen to any of this stuff with the sound on. And I don't know if I'm going to get it. He's still doing it. You just heard his feelings. Yeah. But like our generation, we were stuck suffering through that, but our kids are going to be able to, I think to your point, not only will they be able to choose from 20 different announcers, they'll be able to choose from 1000. And more than half of them are going to be randoms just in their dorm room. They're going to be homegrown. They're not going to ever have had a talent agent. They're going to have interesting accents and interesting backgrounds and interesting opinions. There'll be people doing voiceover work who never

would have gotten a job at Fox, who are just going to spend the entire time talking about I don't even know what. They'll just creates the potential for new talents to surface. And I even... I don't know. I like the fact that... I mean, I gave you a silly example, but there are people who absolutely geek out over this stuff, whose commentary, because they are so expert, is delightful to listen to. I enjoy hearing folks who are not there to talk down to me or talk to the lowest common denominator of viewer, but actually really going to indulge on all the subtleties and the nuance. Like baseball, there is... Oh my gosh, hold on.

What's this guy? Hold on. I'm going to find him on Twitter. Are you talking about John Boy? John Boy. There we go. Yes. Okay.

So John Boy does his videos. I'm not a baseball guy. I'll watch some games with some buddies. I'll go for the social effect. But I'm not here tracking every box score. And listening to his VOs, watching his commentary, I'm like, oh, wow, there's a lot more to this game than I ever realized. And it was just because no commentator on Fox or whatever network had ever been creating content for this audience because they were trying to entertain or they're trying to do something else.

So I think it's good, man. Bring on the narcissist generation of creators. Life is hard and it's not all about them. Right. Well, you created Reddit, what was it, 06? 05. 05, yeah. I'm not a So that crazy. And at the same time, the blogs are starting to kind of rise and you had this and some of them weren't good. Most of them weren't good. But then you had this new generation, like what you're describing of these people who were just really good at

hyper-focused stuff, right? Like the best possible Celtics blogger. You'd go to some Red Sox message board and there's three people on there and they know more about the team than basically anybody you're reading. And for all the downside that people attribute to some of this stuff, and look, like I think you could argue Twitter is probably the worst thing that's happened in the last five years technologically. There's still some good stuff too. And I feel like I got to know my teams a lot better from a lot of the stuff that started in the mid 2000s. What did you see? Yeah, I know you've told this story a million times, but what I was looking at this stuff, like you're looking at pieces of turf, right? Like you just, what you just laid out now about,

I saw opportunity in sports the last year. I see a piece of turf I want to grab. What was the turf you were looking at at 0405? It was, if you can believe this, back then in 2004, the front page of the New York Times was the most important news of the day. Maybe CNN.com, but really it was the front page of the New York Times. That was the news of the day. Now you ask yourself from first principles, why? Well, because it had always been that way. Because for a hundred plus years or however long, that was the institution that had invested all this money in doing great journalism and providing international broad opinions, thoughtful analysis, all that great stuff. They built a brand, they built a legacy.

And people like my dad were like, yeah, I got to have a New York Times subscription because that's how I know what's going on in the world. And that was it. And there was, frankly, there was competition, but there wasn't a ton of competition, but there was competition. And they were be one front page for the internet. Or if you were to build one, it would have to be really agnostic. It couldn't just be one newsroom's take. Because the internet was clearly so big that the definition of a front page for you, Bill, was just different than a front page for me. And yet the entire model up until then was some gatekeepers saying, this is the most important news of the day because it's on page one of our newspaper.

And you can pick on any of the large publications at the time. And it was obvious that would not scale. And what we needed to do was build a system inspired by web forums. I ran a PHP BB forum in college that I had started. A few hundred people just talking about politics and news and stuff. Message boards have been around since the start of the internet. And what was our way to build something that was a more modern, unified place for people to come and share links they thought were interesting, share photos, start discussions, and then comment about them? And the commenting, which our initial investor, Paul Graham, tried to talk us out of.

And I was like, no, we need comments. Which are now everything. And really drove so much of the great... The greatest content there comes from the users who are creative enough to express their ideas. And they invented the Ask Me Anything. They invented so many types of content that now are on the internet pretty widely. It's just some random user with a good idea. And I think that was the thing that

we caught at the right time. And certainly, there are things I think we could have executed on better. I know I could have executed on better over the years. But that was the opportunity now or then. And now, we've just gone through the first wave of social. There's a generation, Gen Z, that's grown up digitally native using these platforms over the last 10, 15 years. And this is bringing about a second wave of social. And a lot of it is a reaction to the first wave and the missteps and the mistakes that we made.

So the first investment we made at 776 was a company called Dispo, which is basically an alternative to Instagram. Instead of spending... I'm going to imagine you can go out safely and instead of spending your night taking 1000 photos with your friends and photoshopping them and making them perfect and choosing the perfect one to post, Gen Z wants to just take photos and not look at them. You can't actually see these photos until they develop the next day. And so you're living in the moment. You're not living on your phone. And then you socialize the next day with your friends online. And if you're thinking differently about how to build a photo sharing app now in 2021, you're not trying to make people chase likes from

people who don't actually care about them. You're not trying to make people chase likes from people who don't actually care about them. You're not trying to create the environment where things like bullying are so much easier. And I'm excited for the second wave because I think it's going to be way more thoughtful and just way healthier and way more fun and better. Because we've made enough mistakes and learned enough that the new generation of CEO, they're way smarter than I was. Uh, and, and they're way more aware because they lived it. They, they lived, you know, they're in their early twenties. Like I was when I started Reddit, but they're, they're coming at it with a much wiser perspective. Are you somebody that you like to build something and then move on to the next thing? Because it seems like you are.

Yes. Yes. And then I finally resigned myself to that fact and realized that being an investor, starting a firm where I could invest early, be a true believer before anyone else, help the founders build, but have a portfolio of companies gave me something that I could build long-term wealth and sort of legacy with, which is the fund itself. But still satisfy the kind of like ADD of what am I working on today? Oh, it's going to be, it's a, it's a hardware company doing a revolutionary new speaker system, or it's a verticalized social network for soccer, like Gloria. Like I get the benefit of building a team, building a kind of empire, but getting to have a different thing

on my plate every morning. And it's kind of the best of both worlds. So you're saying these people in their early 20s who are now going to decide everything that happens in the second generation. But it's also a generation that, you know, they're online a lot. A lot.

They're very sensitive. Sensitive. Yeah. They, uh, the cancel culture piece still seems like it's being worked out and the varying degrees of, are you even allowed to make a mistake anymore? If you're a 15 year old kid and you're on a TikTok video and you say one dumb thing, make one dumb joke, whatever, is your life over. That's it. You can never go online again. How do we navigate some of this stuff over the next two, three years? Because it seems like we're at a fever pitch now of people just kind of, it's like this gotcha

culture that I think people think their, their heart's in the right place with it. But at the same time, I also feel like people, especially under 25 and under 20, like you should be allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. Isn't that the whole point of having a life? Yes. I, I, so I absolutely agree. And I think, uh, the unfortunate answer is, I think it doesn't go away until it's basically time, until there's enough mutually assured destruction of everyone. Part of the disparity here is you have multiple generations from pre-internet, middle internet, which would be me, and then we grew up on the internet

and, and all of them are now colliding. And, and there's, I think, I think basically everyone has valid points, uh, but we've reached a point where no one's talking anymore and, and where it's about either scoring points or, or just sort of hating the fact that there are new people who have a platform whose opinion matters. And those are my simplifications of the extremes. And so I think there will be a point when Gen Z is old, and then basically every single person alive has an embarrassing video from high school, including the oldest folks in the retirement homes and all the people who filled the Senate and the House and highest levels of business. And once everyone has that mutually assured destruction of that embarrassing thing

from when they were kids, then it goes away. But in the interim, we have this conflict. And I hope... I don't just hope that we get there. We need to get there through more dialogue and more empathy and more understanding now than ever. Because I think the the same time, dude, as a capitalist businessman, I can't escape this fact, which is technology is so drastically shaping our world. The last year was one of the best years for people plugged into technology and wealth. One of the best. It's shocking how well it has gone. You can see this in the public markets. You can see this at the same time when it was one of the hardest years for the vast majority of working folks, of people. And that is not sustainable, but that is foreshadowing for what the next 10 years are going to unveil because technology is this great multiplier

of wealth, of efficiency, of value, if you have access to it, if you have the means to invest in it, if you have all this stuff. And if you don't, you're talking about a much bigger wealth gap in this country. You're talking about way, way bigger opportunity gap in this country.

And that part is not healthy for a viable republic. Not to get too heavy, but I think we have at the same time, we have these strong, strong social pressures, which are splitting us and polarizing us. We have these very real economic pressures that are polarizing us. They don't always do so on the same sort of wavelengths. And those are two existential threats to, frankly, the country. And I'm still an optimist. I say this very optimistic. And hopefully, maybe sport can be one of the things that helps us realize we have more in common than not.

But it's important. These next 10 years are going to be very, very, very important. Well, ironically, Reddit combines a lot of the stuff we're talking about, right? Some of the best stuff and some of the worst stuff. And you could really feel it the last four or five years. And as basically these alternate universes are forming in 2015, 16, and then kind of just coexisting. And how do you police it? How do you stop it? Should you police it? What, what,

what are the ramifications of we have freedom of speech in this country telling somebody they can't say or write certain things. And, and it just became a mess. And I feel like Reddit was at the forefront of it. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, all of the... And I'm no longer affiliated with the company. I did step down pretty publicly in protest last June. But as an out from a sort of outside perspective now, and I've gone off on Twitter about this stuff too. it is ultimately up to any private business to decide what they want on the platform and what they don't. Just like it's up to, you know, you know, as the, the, the kinds of policy guidelines a platform wants to set should be in the best interests of if we're being really capitalist, they're shareholders. And I would argue that having a place where people feel safe expressing

themselves, a place where people feel safe expressing themselves, a place where people feel they can find their home and just feel safe, period, is good for business. And so it's good for shareholders. And then they also have to make decisions about just what kind of values they want to have as a company. And that has an impact. The kinds of advertisers that are going to want to be involved, the kinds of users, the kinds of employees. There's a lot more stakeholders there beyond shareholders. And I think new generation is going to feel way more confident and comfortable saying, this is what we're about and this is what we're not about. And I think what folks maybe don't realize is the vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of people are actually decent people online. We're talking about tens of thousands

of users who are very organized, very motivated, very determined, create so much of the toxicity on most of these platforms. And so then the question is, I think these new platforms will understand, look, we want... For all those reasons I mentioned, we want to create a great user experience because we want people to feel all those things around community and purpose and belonging. And so it's actually in their best business interest to say, look, this is where we draw a line. And the reality is, though, it is forever going to be a work in progress in the same way that technology creates new opportunities. It also creates new risks, deep fakes being the most recent one. There's going to be videos of Bill Simmons saying things that just literally have never

said before. But you've probably saw the Tom Cruise ones. This technology is here. It is not going away. There's going to be a new industry created just to have watermarked videos one day, just so that you can basically digitally sign that, oh, this was photoshopped because someone else has the actual original tweet. There's a proof of record so that the world is not rife with fake photoshop tweets. They exist, but there's not billions of them because our immune system has learned that we need to see some more proof. It'll be the same thing with deepfakes and these videos that look really, really real, but are totally artificially generated through AI. And it's an arms race. And there's lots of...

There is value to creating things like that. One way or another, the technology is not stopping because someone's going to create it somewhere. And then it's on the entrepreneurs, it's on creators, it's on platforms to decide, okay, what are the things we're doing to protect our users? What are the things we can build to make better alternatives? But like I said, that's why I said the next 10 years are going to be very important to get right. Because we already see the prevalence of fake news using pretty low tech technology

and it's effective. So what happens when it gets much, much, much better? Do you think the internet, you think it should almost be like a driver's license? You go on the internet, you have to apply? Like, cause you could argue, you could do just as much damage on the internet as you could behind the wheel of a car, right? And we're so careful about, like I'm going through it now with my daughter. You'll go through it someday. My daughter's 15 and a half.

Now she's driving us around cause she's got her permit. And it's by the way, completely terrifying, harrowing, pick a word, it's the worst. But there's this whole process before she's allowed to drive. And I wonder, maybe the internet should work this way. Maybe there should be a footprint for everybody. And maybe that's the solution for this.

I don't think it'll ever happen. But it's hard to see the downside of it. It would probably have... Okay, it would definitely not hurt. There are still plenty of people who have driver's licenses who are terrible, irresponsible, reckless drivers who cause problems. So it's not going to solve things. But that's the... Sure. I think... So without a doubt, media literacy should be a part of the education of every kid. Formalize it. I think personal finance is another one

that's borderline criminal that we don't teach young people. Because then as soon as they're 18, it's like, would you like a credit card? And it's like, well, wait, wait. There's a lot of people who are making a lot of money thanks to the fact that you have a population

that doesn't have exposure to personal finance at a young age. Or school loans, same thing. Oh, 100%. Hey, yeah, you go to college, you just pay later. Okay, cool. Good deal. thing. Oh, 100%. Hey, yeah, you go to college, you just pay later. Okay, cool. Good deal.

Yeah. Oh, 100%. And so where that comes from, I mean, gosh, there's a long list of things that we need in terms of education reform. So I can't give you a really pragmatic answer because I don't know how that change comes. But I would say media literacy needs to be a part of every child's education. Whether it's the parents doing it, I'm sure there's probably some startups pitching some version of it. But that's going to be important.

Now, it goes the other way, though. You still have a population of... I'm going to avoid the OK Boomer meme. But you have a population of boomers who are notorious for sharing misinformation on social media. They're the biggest... They're actually the most likely, based on some, I guess, fairly rigorous studies, to share fake news or misinformation because they came up in an era where, yeah, you trusted

the one of a handful of trusted sources for news. And so if something shows up in your newsfeed, it's probably true. Why ask? So what do you do there? There's a lot that's going to be changing these next 10 years. And I don't know. I'm trying to do my best to make sure that I'm helping build the things that are a part of the positive. I got two speed round questions for you. Okay. We're trading cards. Yeah. So I I've had like a whole long history with it. And then like a lot of people, um, reignited yet again during the pandemic, but it's been astonishing to watch it, to get cards out of my house and put

them in safety deposit boxes. Cause things were like tripling and quadrupling and quintupling. I was like, oh my God. And it doesn't seem like it's going away. And it ties into a lot of stuff that's just happening in the country right now where gambling, speculation, hedge fund type stuff, people just liking to bet on assets and hoping it turns out. And then foreign money coming in, rich people coming in, trying to push the market. So how long have you been in it and did you uh did it increase i i'm doing okay i have a i collected

you know as a kid in the 90s so most of that collection is pretty worthless even though i was i was the dork who kept it mint condition and like i wasn't wearing gloves back then but i was still pretty ocd and i never let my friends touch my cards or anything like that. I was a really fun kid. And then I came back around maybe a year and a half ago because a buddy of mine, a guy much smarter than me, was like, Hey, man, I got back into card collecting lately. You should really check it out.

And I was like, Wait, what? Trading cards? That's a thing now? He turns me on to a couple of forums and there's some communities on Reddit too. And I'm thinking, Oh oh man, this reminds me. 2012, I stumbled into the Bitcoin community on Reddit. And I'm like, this is cooking. There's a lot of smart people. I don't quite believe that this will become what they think it will. Because at the time, it was very like, this is going to be the formation of a new digital-first society. But I was like, all right, let's get in this a little bit. I ended up investing in Coinbase back in 2014. So that's turning out pretty well. We'll

see how the IPO goes. But now flashback to a couple years ago. And I'm like, okay, I understand what this is. I don't need to read a white paper. I get it. I collected these things. This is a new type of contemporary art because it's culture. Sport is culture. And it's a scarce asset. There's only a few. They're beautiful. Some are more beautiful than others. And they have value. And so I started dipping in. And then like a good husband, I'm like, I got to start buying my wife's cards. Oh, this is

great. I forget. What's her rookie card? It's like 2000 range? There's a 2003 NetPro. They did a whole series. That's actually... Those kits were very valuable to pick up. Because even if you get the packs or the boxes, because it was Rafa's rookie card,

Roger's rookie card, and Serena and Venus'. Wow. And so there's a bunch of different NetPro series that kind of created Glossy and these international different versions. But that's arguably the rookie. She has a Sports Illustrated kids card from...

98, I think, is that one. It's kind of is the true one, but it's a really thin paper. So that one's been... It's harder to get in gym mid-grade. But I started collecting because sure enough, tennis cards were back then notorious, just ridiculously undervalued. Because who was collecting? No one was collecting tennis cards. They couldn't give those things away, I'm sure. And then women's tennis cards or Serena's and Venus's as well were just ridiculously undervalued. So I just started buying as many as I could. And I'm buying, I'm buying, I'm buying. And I'm giving them to my wife. And she's like, can you just get me a purse next time or some jewelry? And I'm like, nah, babe, this is a gift.

This is an investment. Trust me. Like, trust me. And she's like, okay, weirdo. Cause for, cause for the athletes, I don't know if there's other athletes, but like for her, she's just like, okay, like, well, I guess the trading card is kind of weird that you're giving me, but okay. And, and I, and I said, no, you don't understand. Like this is, this is like investing in Serena Williams stock. Like this is going to change everything because a new generation of athletes coming up now understands that they're more than just an athlete. They know they're building a community and a following and all these other businesses. And yeah, they can create a Delaware C Corp and invest in that, literally. But the other way to

invest really in themselves is having these vaulted. Because whether they're having success on the court or off, it's going up in value. It's like when Floyd Mayweather used to bet on himself before fights. Well, yes. But totally legal and ethical. Yes. And that is a powerful sea change. And then once she started seeing the prices going up, she was like, Okay, this was a good gift. Thanks. And so I become this obsessive collector. And also was buying into... I'm very big on the culture and that long term value because I'm an early stage investor. So I want to

buy early and undervalued and really help it grow to long term. So I've got a ton of Alex Morgan cards, Megan Rapinoe cards. I do have a women's football club in Angel City FC. But I also know these women are tremendously undervalued. And if I believe this eventually gets to be as easy as buying and selling stocks, then think of all the cultural value, especially women athletes have. Those women I just named are icons who have transcended their sport. If you give the population access, that's as easy as buying and selling shares, half the population are women who are basically being left out of most of this. This industry right now is very male-dominated. I think when you start to see more efficiency, you're going to see way more movement even there.

And I'm a HODL guy from Bitcoin terminology. I'm definitely holding for the long term. And then this CEO I knew, Lior, says, Hey, man, I've been collecting too. And I'm actually trying to build a platform to make it as easy to buy and sell trading cards as it is to buy and sell stocks. And eventually we do all kinds of alternative assets. And I was like, say no more. I need to invest. I need to lead this round. And we ended up leading their Series A and the company was Alt. We launched last week. And so I didn't want to manage my portfolio in a spreadsheet anymore. So I just managed it on Alt. And I didn't want to have to

explain to my wife why there were all these cards in my closet. And so now they're vaulting them for me. So it's the very start of building this marketplace. And I'm excited, man. It's a reflection of the shift that is happening. And you saw it a little bit with GameStop and WallStreetBets. You saw it with crypto. You're seeing with NFTs. Gen Z, or let's just say digital natives in particular, are seeing zero percent interest rates. So you put your... Or near zero. So you put your money in the bank, you're not going to make any money on savings. They're understanding now that financial literacy is increased that as long as the Fed is printing money and keeps dumping money into the system, inflation is gonna probably keep going up and interest rates are gonna probably stay low. So where do you make money? Because if you keep in the bank, keep in the savings account,

you're not only not making money on interest, it's losing value as the currency is getting inflated. And so I think that's given rise to all these alternative assets or all these alternative investments. And in particular, now they realize like, okay, well, what are rich people doing during this time? They're investing in things that have higher yields of return, like alternative assets, like art, for instance. So okay, I want a taste of that too. Why not? And just in the same way, we've seen buying and selling stocks gotten... You don't have to call up your broker. You just do it with a couple of taps. You're combining a generation that

is digitally native and understands great user interfaces and is motivated enough to just do it themselves with a feeling of distrust around institutions where they're like, well, if it's good enough for them, it should be good enough for me too. And you start looking at the pieces of that. You brought up student loan debt. A whole generation told, work hard, get good grades, go to college. Don't worry about that student loan debt. You're going to have a great job after. We're looking around going, okay, wait, I did all the things you told me for all those years. I did what you said. And now I have a ton of student loan debt and I don't have that job that I was told and that I

had worked so hard toward. And it feels like a bum deal. And so I think you combine that with the financial crisis and banks getting bailed out and average Americans fitting the bill and it layers. And then you democratize access with technology. And I think this is just the start, man. You brought up sports betting. It's finally taken hold here in the US. And it's been good for us. Yeah. I mean, it's wild because the states are certainly motivated after COVID now because it's additional revenue for them. Selfishly, I think that's going to help drive a lot of it. They're just going to want the tax revenue, the additional revenue. And then as you see that evolve, it's like one

part of it is you scratch your itch actually betting on the game. And then you also scratch your itch making the long-term investment. Don't just bet on KD for the game. And then you also scratch your itch making the long-term investment. Don't just bet on KD for the game. Bet on him for his career by investing in the asset, by investing in him through the cards. And I'm curious to see where this goes. But there was a... I don't know. There was definitely a moment in, I think it was a game three post. It was a post-game press conference where LeBron was talking in the bubble finals

where he was asked about the card that had sold for like 1.8. And actually Lior, who founded Alt, was the guy who bought it, interestingly enough. But LeBron gets asked about it and he's like, yeah, it's crazy. It's a lot of money. When I was growing up, I never could have imagined a trading card being worth that much. But I know I have two in my safe generation coming up of athletes, they're thinking of themselves the same way as that new generation of the YouTubers,

of content creators, of podcasters. They know what their business is, is more than just specifically what they do. They have to be multifaceted. They have to build a community. They have to be thinking for the long term. And I just see this. I just see it continuing to grow. And it took my dad six years to buy his first Bitcoin. And I was like, Dad, we invested in Coinbase in 2013, 2014. I was like, Dad, come on. Please buy some Bitcoin. Please buy some Bitcoin. Never did. Convincing him the value of the 86 FLIR Jordan rookie card, much easier, much easier.

And I think that's a huge, huge shift that we're only starting to see. And I don't know, I hope you've got, I hope you've got them graded, Bill, and then properly vaulted. If not, we can help with that. No, it's PSA. I was the only child.

Of course, I was going to collect cards. But in the 80s, they didn't have the PSA stuff. So you'd go to the card shows. You would actually really study the card and try to make sure it was truly meant. And then things really changed. eBay was the second wave and 0203, earlier than that, 2000, 2001. There was a lot of fraud back then, but there was also some good opportunity and great deals. And then I, it's funny, you mentioned it was a male dominated industry. Um, that's an understatement. We used to go to the collector convention every year. It was all guys. You, you might see six women out of

2000 people at the collectors thing. So I'll be interested to see if you're right about more females. I, I, I think about this based on mimetic strength. And I'm fond of saying every business has to be a meme. And not just like the image memes we think about that are just silly gifs or whatever. But it needs to be mimetic. It needs to be something that people want to share because it's so unique, because it's so creative,

it's so funny, it's something... And you're seeing this across the board on the internet. The way to build an audience and get attention is through mimetic growth. Something that people just really want to talk about and share and build community around. And that's value. The reason the GameStop stock, and this is not financial advice, is worth what it is, is because a bunch of people believe in it being worth that because it has this memetic value where they can't help but talk to one another about it or literally make memes about it. And so markets are only going to get more and more driven by this reality because community and capital have never been able to interplay in real time at this scale before because now millions of

people can coordinate with a tweet or with a post or with whatever and actually move dollars. And those, you know, maybe a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars, but in aggregate, that is a lot of money. That's enough to nearly kill, uh, was it Melvin capital, right? And a big time hedge fund. And this is just, these are early innings. And so the reason I bet on the memetic strength of these athletes, and particularly women athletes, is that you just need to look at the energy and the attention and the interest when they sort of go viral. When they... Like you may have never watched an NWSL match,

but you've probably got the Megan Rapinoe pose in your head, right? After that goal. You may hate Megan Rapinoe, and you still know that pose. You may love Megan Rapinoe and you still know that pose. You may love Rapinoe and I definitely know you love that pose. That is mimetic strength you can't pay for. Alex Morgan sipping a tea on England. There is community built around that. And the idea that you could put dollars behind it as a fan. And if you believe that other people in

your tribe believe in this player and their long-term strength too, that they'll put money into and then it keeps going up and then it reinforces that. I think we're going to look back on it as one of the most obvious in hindsight investments. This is why I invested in Angel City. Out the gate, this team has brand partnerships with amazing companies like DoorDash is our main kit sponsor. They set records for that kit deal, not just for the NWSL, but records around women's pro sports. Because there's been this latent energy, this hunger. Brands want to be associated with it. Fans want to be associated with it. It just wasn't given its equal due.

And so I'm excited to see what happens now that we invest with the same fervor and excitement and energy. Because that leveling of the playing field... I mean, look, just in the same way. If Serena is not in the US Open, those ratings go down. There is a lack of interest, there's lack of energy. That has value. And today, we only calculate that value based on maybe some decrease in ticket sales and decrease in viewer dollars and ad dollars. That's a small part of the story. And I'm very excited to see it because I... Look, I want... Should my daughter want to play sports, you better believe I want her to be paid just as much as her male counterparts. And you better believe I want to see the next, call it 15 years of work

helping supply meet demand, helping the market actually be more efficient to show just how valuable these women are. And with women's soccer in particular, these women are literally the best in the world. And they have been year after year after year. And the average American can't tell you too many MLS players. No disrespect to MLS. Can't tell you. But they can tell you about Alex. They can tell you about Megan. And that means cultural value. That means importance. And I think once... I think Americans love greatness and we love excellence. And I think we have a huge opportunity to introduce them to soccer, where they don't really have...

I mean, unless you're really paying attention overseas, you're not really paying attention to soccer day-to-day as a sports fan here in the US because there's so much competition. It's a huge white space for us. And I say that with no disrespect to MLS. They've grown by leaps and bounds and they're doing very well. But I do think long-term, it's on the women's side. Because frankly, for a lot of Americans, soccer is a sport played by women. That is the stereotype. And part of that is just because our women have been so damn dominant and good. And the men, not so much. You have to go, but I could do 20 minutes on the disparity with just living through it with

my daughter, like how boys' teams are treated versus the girls teams. But it's bad. But maybe 15 years from now, it'll be better. We got to get you in a team. We need to get you to be a, are you allowed to be an owner in a New England women's football club? Sure. We cook something? All right.

Yeah. Talk to me after. Wait, three speed round questions for you. And then we have to go. These are quick, quick answers. All right. Yeah. Talk to me after. Wait, three speed round questions for you. And then we have to go. These are quick, quick answers. All right. I'll try. Do you ever get used to actually dating a famous person?

Being out in public with somebody who's actually legitimately famous? Oh, because of the internet guy is not famous? Yeah, no. No, no. I'm saying like just being out in public at a restaurant when all the eyes stop and they're just staring at her. Do you ever get used to it? Not at all. I'll ever get used to it? Not at all.

I'll never get used to it. And I still, I mean, I got to puff up my chest and get in front of guys who come over to the table just to say hi. And I'm like, dude, I'm on a date with my wife here. I had this happen during our anniversary. And I almost, I mean, I had words with this guy because I'm just like, you need to just walk away, dude. And he had a few drinks in him and he gets confident and comes over.

And I'm just like, I'm trying to have an anniversary with my wife here so no i don't get used to it and i'm i'm yeah all right second question all right did you did you study other uh other spouses girlfriends boyfriends of people sitting in the box and how they reacted after big points and big games to their famous tennis player partner. I did not. Did not. And what's good is if your research team looks on YouTube, they'll find clips of me at DC football games

like screaming. I get reckless at sporting events, right? And I've made it on ESPN years ago for my antics. I can't bring any of that to tennis, which sucks because you're supposed to be restrained in between points and stuff. And so grandmother, my mother-in-law, Serena's mom, my antics. I can't bring any of that to tennis, which sucks because you're supposed to be restrained in between points and stuff. And so grandmother, my mother-in-law, Serena's mom, she was the one who coached me. And so if I got too loud or something, she'd give me a look

and I'd be like, okay, all right, noted. This is not the right time to cheer. So that's all the coaching I needed. I think the goat for box reactions was Pete Sampras' wife, Brigitte Wilson Sampras, the actress. She was just great. Oh, she's a professional. Yeah. You might have to study some of her YouTube. See some of the tricks she had. Okay. Last question. How tall are you? Six foot five. Okay. So here's my theory and then we can end on this. I think the athletic genes come from the mom. I'm not saying 100%, but I think it's like

75 to 80, but the dad still needs to throw something in, whether it's height, maybe some muscle, hand eyes, stuff like that. I just have high hopes for your daughter. I'm monitoring it. There were rookie cards for your daughter. I'm buying them now. I appreciate that, Bill. You won't miss it. That first

run of Olympio hand and rookie cards will be out one of these days. I appreciate that, Bill. You won't miss it. That first run of Olympio Hanyan rookie cards will be out one of these days. I am very hopeful and I can tell so far she's inherited all of her mom's best qualities including her athleticism, which we're all grateful for. She does look like she's getting my height though because she's

already like three and a half feet tall. She's a tall... She's like 98th, 99th percentile. Um, and so Papa Bear definitely brought some height in. So I think it'll help her with the serves, you know, but again,

no pressure, no pressure, whatever she wants to do. Well, she could zag on you like Agassi and Steffi Graf's kid was, was what a hockey player or baseball player? Oh, all right.

Yeah. She could still be, she could be an engineer and a CEO and a startup founder too. I'll be very happy. We'll be happy no matter what. I'm monitoring. I'm monitoring the rookie cards. I'll start searching on eBay in about eight years.

You won't, you won't be able to miss it though. And I'll get you one. I'll get you one. All right. Appreciate it. Thanks for coming on. This was fun.

Cool. I've wanted to be on for a minute and very, very happy to be on here. All right, cool. Best luck with everything. Thanks Bill. All right, cool. Best of luck with everything. Thanks, Bill. All right, that's it for the podcast.

Don't forget about the rewatchables. Insidious, it's up now. Two more coming next week. And me and Ryan Rossello reacting at the trade deadline. That is going to be up earlier than usual on Thursday. As soon as we can get it up right after the trade deadline. Might have a special guest or two as we'll see you next time.