The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Colangelo Saga and Best NBA Finals Narratives. Plus: Rich Kleiman on KD, Jay-Z, and Superstardom

Episode Date: May 31, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons shares his thoughts on the Bryan Colangelo situation (3:15) before talking NBA Finals narratives and subplots, including historic Finals runs, the real difference between LeBron and Michael Jordan, and Kevin Durant versus LeBron James, Part 2 (14:25). Then Bill sits down with Durant's business manager, Rich Kleiman, to talk about his music industry origins, his run with Roc Nation, meeting Durant, and how players are more equipped today to branch out in the business world (32:10). Colangelo Article Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons podcast on the online media outlet network is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Having a high sports IQ is important. Just look at LeBron James right now. He's figured out a way to play all 48 minutes in a playoff game without getting tired. He had the freakability, but now he's added the smarts, the high IQ. But when it comes to hiring, guess what? You don't need a high hiring IQ. You just need ZipRecruiter. Their powerful technology scans thousands of resumes to find people with the right experience for your job. So effective, 80% of employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site in just one day. My listeners can try it for free

at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. We're also brought to you by HBO. Yeah, screw it. We're doing a final show with them. Incredible. I am in San Francisco right now going to game one tonight. We're going to talk about that in a second. And we announced it on Tuesday.

The show is called Courtside at the NBA Finals.'re at media day yesterday, taping a whole bunch of stuff. I am very excited about this show. So yeah, if you don't have HBO yet, go get it. Get it any way you can. It's going to be good. June 19th. Also speaking of plugs, the rewatchables, we are two episodes into our 20 episode season. Chris Ryan, Sean Fantasy and I did Training Day. It went up today. I would argue it's one of the top three rewatchables podcast we've ever done. I still think Heat's the best one. I'm not sure what number two is

and Training Day's in the top three because it really turned into a referendum on how much we all love Denzel, what his best movie was, best performance. If you love Denzel, and by the way, it's not American, it's un-American if you don't like Denzel. If you love Denzel, and I know you do because who doesn't love Denzel? I would listen to this one. The best part is we called Shea Serrano at the end. I called him and he came in like Eric Gagne in 2003 in the Dodgers and just threw 101 miles an hour for 10 minutes on Denzel to close the podcast out.

So that is the rewatchables. I think that's one of the best podcasts we do at the ringer. Check that out. Subscribe right now coming up. I'm going to talk about the Brian Colangelo piece that we had on the ringer and these five Twitter accounts that may or may not be linked to him in some way. And I'm also going to talk about NBA Finals narratives heading into game one tonight.

And then we're going to talk to Rich Kleiman, who is Kevin Durant's business partner, but has a really interesting story in his own right of how he came to be where he is and a fascinating perspective on basketball players and all the opportunities they have in 2018, which is kind of timely because we got LeBron, Durant, Curry, all these guys are mini brands. That's all coming up first. Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this in San Francisco.

I'm in my hotel room. Nephew Kyle is here. He does not look too worse for wear yet. Give it a couple days. We're going to be here for the whole finals. We're going to be doing a whole bunch of pods with some fun people, uh, working on this HBO show. And, uh, and hopefully we can entertain you on this feed. It was a big week for the ringer. We had a piece, um, that might've been, might've had the biggest impact of any piece

we've had either at the ringer or at Grantland. It just blew up. We put it out on the perfect night. It was a Tuesday night right after this really, really compelling run of basketball games. All of a sudden there was nothing there. And then this piece popped up. It's a piece we were working on for a few months. Ben Dietrich wrote it for us.

Chris Ryan, the editorial director of the ringer. He was the main person editing it and working on it with Ben. They covered all the details of the behind-the-scenes stuff over at The Ringer NBA Show. So if you missed that, go check that out for a couple extra things. There was a lot of material to work with. And basically, I don't even know if you would call it an investigation. I think it was, this is weird. What is this?

Let's keep digging. Hmm, this tip that Ben got that these accounts may or may not have been linked and what's the commonalities with them and all that stuff. And Ben just kind of dug in and turned out to be a pretty incredible story. It's still shaking out. We're going to see how it plays out over the next few weeks with Philadelphia.

And if we're ever going to find out who was linked to those five accounts, it's turned into on the internet, there has been a lot of sleuthing. There has been a lot of people, almost like they're hunting down a murder suspect or something. It's a story that brings a lot of stuff to the table that makes the internet both crazy and fun and weird and all the things that we've really gotten used to the last 20 years. But for us, you know, ironically, tomorrow is the two year anniversary of the ringer. We launched it on June 1st, 2016. And, uh, you know,

we went through this, a few of us went through this before when we were launching Greatland. And you launch a site and you hope some things work. You're betting on a lot of new people. In this case, this time around, we were betting on a lot of younger people too. And it takes a while for people to get a feel for each other, for the relationships to deepen, to figure out what the attitude of the site is, to figure out what works and doesn't work. And I think we've had a pretty good handle on it now for,

I would say nine to 10 months, what we're good at, what we're not good at, the passion points that we have, how to use the staff. Now you hit a point, it's almost like putting together a football team where, you know, year one, you're just trying to hang on and survive. Year two, you kind of know what you are. You're settling into what you are.

And the relationships are deepening and you're just kind of figuring it out. And it's all good. And that's a really fun stretch. And it was the same thing at Grantland. The second year at Grantland, we really were starting to figure out who we were, what the voice was. And people just start getting comfortable and they're getting better. And they're getting better behind the scenes and they're getting better as writers and all this different stuff. This site had a pretty different direction than I think Grantland did because we were leaning much more heavily right away on multimedia stuff and

especially the podcast network which we knew from our Grantland experimentation was going to be a big part of what we did the video social all the different opportunities you have we have you know chance to produce shows with HBO and a couple other places and and uh so it was a little more ambitious but at the same time, it was fundamentally, it's the same kind of arc. You're just trying to get better and just keep plugging away and you hope some good things happen.

And for us, like the attention that the Colangelo story was able to bring the site this week was great for us because we've been doing good work for a while here. And I think we've really found what our niche is, what the passion points

are and things like that. And we're just going to keep getting better. So, you know, you learn along the way that you need some victories. And when you have these victories of just good content that stands out, it brings people that may not, might not know about your site, might've, might've forgotten about it, might have tried it out and not come back. Or like, what's this? What's going on? It's just important. And it was just ironic that this happened

the week before we turned two, basically, because two is not a long time. And I really think like, if you're thinking about, as somebody who's had two kids, if you're thinking about, as somebody who's had two kids, if you have a website, two does not equal a two-year-old kid. I would say two probably equals maybe two months per year for a human, you know, or maybe three months per human years or whatever. I would say as if this site was a human being,

it would probably be like age 10, but kind of a confident mature age 10. But you're going to keep growing. I think the one thing that we've kept in mind with this site is you just never know what's going to happen. You never know. You hire somebody to do one thing and they end up being better at something else. You try something and it turns out to be way bigger than you thought. You try something else and it doesn't work. But the key is to keep trying. And that was what the advantage we had with this site was that we'd gone through the Grantland experience, a lot of us, and especially me, because I was there from minute one. And you're not always going to have wins. And that's the thing, how you deal with something that doesn't

work and how you fix it and how you take something that you thought was going to work and it bombed, or you're taking heat for something, people react do they stick together or you have some sort of crisis behind the scenes all that stuff how how you handle it collectively is really important and i think um we're in a really weird time right now with with media both with print and with digital and people trying to figure out what works and what doesn't work how to monetize things things like that the one one thing that we had decided from the get-go was we had to have a lot of different things. There was no one model that was going to work.

We had to be covered in a whole bunch of different places because we weren't really sure where the internet was going. We knew podcasts were going to work for us, but in terms of everything else, it's like, keep trying stuff, keep moving, keep adapting. You never know. 2016 is going to be a lot different than 2018. And the era we're in right now, 2018, 2020 might be totally different. I don't know what 2020, what's in store. Is it going to be more subscription stuff? I don't store. Is it going to be more subscription stuff? I don't know.

Is it going to be more multimedia stuff? Is internet video going to matter anymore? Like who knows? But the key is you just have to be ready for it. And look, I'm not saying we're perfect. I'm not saying we're the 27 Yankees, but it has been really fun the last year. The first year you're definitely holding on.

We had a lot of stuff going on. And especially when you bring in just dozens of new people and you throw them together, it's going to take a while. I think what's happened the last, I would say nine months is when you have a better idea of what you are and what your voice is and what the people that work for you can do. And in some cases, like what they can't do, you know, you really have to have a good feel

for who works for you and what they're good at. And once you kind of feel a little bit settled, that's when it really becomes fun. And, you know, I had this at Grantland too, and then all of a sudden I wasn't at Grantland anymore and you didn't have it for a while. And I just, I love having people in my life. I love watching people get better and I love doing something collectively with a whole bunch of people.

So to be able to hit these checkpoints that we've been able to hit now, as we're looking at two years, it's been pretty cool. And, you know, for my end, I just want to say, you know, thanks to everybody at The Ringer who's been working their ass off for us, but also thanks to everybody out there that's been spreading the word for us with the content and the podcasts, all that stuff. It was really hard.

These last two and a half years were, or I guess last three years, dating back to Grandland, but it's really, really hard to launch something from scratch. At Grantland, it was a little easier because we had ESPN and we had people helping us that had been through stuff. This time we didn't. It was basically on us to figure out every single thing. And it's hard. There's a reason that not a lot of people do it well. And we learned a lot. There's a lot of stuff I would do over again, feel the same way about the Grantland experience. But ultimately when you get to a place where it's at least sturdy and you're doing good stuff

and you're putting people in a position to succeed and keep getting better, that's what makes it worth it. So this is a great week for our site. Thanks for everybody for supporting us. And that's it. The Colangelo story. Check that out on The Ringer. We might have a follow-up story in the next couple of days about it because we didn't have everything in that story. I think there's some more coming and I'm interested to

find out how it plays out and whether we find out who is responsible for those Twitter accounts and all that stuff. All right, let's talk about the finals. Hey, here's why I'm a big fan of SimpliSafe Home Security. SimpliSafe is ready for anything that gets thrown at it. If a storm takes out your power, SimpliSafe is ready. If an intruder cuts your phone line, SimpliSafe is ready. Say they destroy your keypad or siren, simply safe will still get you the help you need.

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Safe to everyone I know. You've got to check it out. Go today. SimpliSafe.com slash BS. That is Simply Safe with two I's. SimpliSafe.com slash BS. All right, I want to talk about narratives. Back when I used to write columns before my semi-retirement, I used to do a what's at stake column for the finals. And this one's a great one. There's a lot of history with this finals. It's important to know some of the narratives.

People are so trapped in the small picture with some of this stuff, and they're so obsessed with this LeBron versus Jordan thing. There's just some crazy stuff about this particular finals. First of all, I mean, you already know about LeBron with the eight straight finals. It's really him, Bill Russell, Casey Jones, and Sam Jones are the only four guys who've ever done that. I think you could make the case LeBron. I've heard it both ways.

He's never really gone against a superstar in the East from 2011 through 2018 with the exception of Derrick Rose. The Chicago fans would argue he was a superstar. I guess you could make the case. But he really hasn't had to go through like Durant in his prime or any of these dudes in their prime. But at the same time, eight straight finals, having to go three rounds of pop,

the fact that he's won 24 straight playoff rounds in the East is kind of staggering. You go back and you look at Russell and what he had with the Celtics in the early, in the early sixties, late fifties. And you're talking like eight teams and nine teams and things like that. So you knew about that one,

but I don't think enough's been made about the Warriors potentially winning three titles in four years. This is not a long list for these teams. You had the fifties Lakers. They won five and six. You have the 50s Lakers, they won five and six. You have the 60s Celtics, they won eight straight. They won 11 and 13. They became the iconic dynasty that we always point to. The 80s Lakers won five and nine, but they also won three and four and they went back to back. The 90s Bulls had the three three-peats. The 2000s Lakers, 2000 Lakers, they had the three-peat.

Other than that, to win three and four and to go back to back in this day and age with how hard it is just to get back to the finals every year and how hard it also is to just deal with the injuries and people coming at you in the bullseye and what it's like to play basketball in this day and age and social media. And it's 12 months a year and the way you can game plan against guys. And it's kind of incredible. And then you think about it and it's not that incredible because they have Kevin Durant and Steph Curry and Clay Thompson

and Draymond Green on their team. But it should be mentioned three and four, I think puts them in position to be the team of this decade. They might be the team of the decade already. On the flip side, if they lose, it's really not any different than what Miami did in those four years where they made the finals four years, they won two. The Warriors win. If they lose this final somehow this year, they made the finals for four straight years, they lost in two.

It's the same mark as Miami had. But if they win this finals, then you're looking at 50s Lakers, 60s Celtics. 70s is a hodgepodge of teams. And everybody was on cocaine. The 80s, the Lakers, Celtics were kind of the prince of that decade. The 90s were the bulls.

2000s, the Lakers, I hate to admit it, but they won three in a row. Shaq and Kobe won two more with Kobe and Powell and Odom. They won five total. They were the team of that decade. And I think if the Warriors win this, they are the team of this decade. All right. This is crazy. And I couldn't believe that I actually came to this conclusion, but I think it's true. I think if LeBron wins came to this conclusion, but I think it's true. I think if LeBron wins the finals this year, and I realized I say this in the age of hyperbole, where people love saying crazy stuff.

I was watching TV yesterday and Colin Coward was talking about, could LeBron retire for a year after this year to reset himself? I was like, no, that would not follow any sort of, any decision he's made for the last 15 years. All that dude wants to do like, no, that would not follow any sort of, any decision he's made for the last 15 years. All that dude wants to do is play basketball.

He would not retire. So, but I get it. It's finals week. People are saying crazy stuff. If LeBron wins the finals, if he beats this Warriors super team with this relatively crappy Cavs team he has, I think you make the case

this was the greatest basketball performance start to finish we've ever seen. Now here's the evidence. Right now he is closing in on 3,800 minutes. He played over 3,000 the regular season. It's 743 minutes in the playoffs. He's played, I think, 550 more minutes than anybody else in the league this season. He is at the 100-game mark in the 15th year of his career. If this series wins seven, let's say this series goes seven and they win. He's looking at 107 games. I would assume he would play another 300 here in the final, so over 4,000 minutes.

And by the way, his stats right now, he's averaging 34, 99, 54% shooting, played 41 minutes a game. He's got a 33 PER. He's demolished all the windshare stuff. And he went 48 and 48 in game six and game seven. It is one of the most staggering achievements I've seen in basketball. And if they get swept by the Warriors, it'll still be staggering. If he takes them to seven, it becomes a different story. And if he somehow beats this team. I honestly think it tops anything Jordan ever did. It really does.

Jordan was never in this position where it was basically just him in game six and game seven with no Kevin Love. The second best teammate he had in game seven was Jeff Green, who is one of the four most frustrating players I've ever rooted for in my life. Kevin Love's back now for the finals, it looks like. But who knows? I mean, it's just from a competition standpoint, the deck is stacked against him. Like it has not been stacked since I would say 07 when he pulled that really goofy Cavs team to the finals. So you got that. The other thing, we've talked about this before,

but there's only six guys in the 40K, 8K club for people who've played at least 40,000 regular season minutes and 8,000 playoff minutes. It's Kareem, Kobe, Duncan, LeBron, Shaq, and Pippen. He has the endurance that he's shown for these 15 years is really out of control. And I'll be interested to see if he can keep it going. If he can somehow get this to seven

with the way he's learned how to slow the game down, how to conserve energy, how to just control the pace of it. It's not much different than what he did in 2015 when he kind of dragged that series along too. He's just better at it now. There's also the shadow of, is this it for him in Cleveland? Where does he go?

Does he go to Houston? Does he go to the Lakers? Does he go to Philly? Now there's some Boston buzz this week, which I swear to God, I didn't start. I don't see that happening. But there is a finish line with this whole, there's a finish line with this whole LeBron thing

that's looming that I don't feel like it matters right now. But if they get killed, they get swept, as we talked about with House on the podcast the other day, I do think there's a chance that he just looks at this and goes, I want to win another title. I can't do it here. I love you, Cleveland.

That's it. So that's in play. Now, wait, there's more subplots. We got LeBron versus Durant, part two. Durant went toe-to-toe with this dude in the finals last year and was better in that series. He was, he was better.

He played better, he made bigger shots. We left that series thinking LeBron is the best player in the league, but Kevin Durant is also the best player in the league, which is super confusing. But he was the finals MVP, went toe-to-toe with him. There aren't a lot of players who can say that.

And I do think they brought the best out of each other to some degrees. Durant has had, we're going to talk to Rich Kleinman in a little bit. Durant's, he was still one of the five best guys in the league this year. Maybe one of the six best. But I wouldn't say this was his greatest season. I think he's had flashes of this being his greatest season. I think he's had games that rank among whatever anyone else can do. I think what you saw in game seven, especially in the second half,

the dude was outrageous. But the consistency, the alpha dogness has not always been there. But here's the thing. He measures himself against LeBron. You are going to see Kevin Durant's A plus game in this series. And by the way, probably the best person to go against LeBron.

I don't know if LeBron can guard him defensively and have the ability to do all the stuff that he was able to do in the last couple of series offensively, which is another thing to watch. You think about game seven against Celtics, LeBron James was basically left Jalen Brown. He was like, go ahead, knock yourself out. Keep shooting threes. I'm not going to chase you around picks for this whole game. I need to save my energy for offense. He was just able to do it. If he's guarding Durant, you will not be able to do that.

My guess is they'll put him on Draymond Green and have other people thrown at Durant. I don't really think there's anybody on the team who could guard Durant. I think Jeff Green maybe can slow him down if you're getting the rich man's Jeff Green and not the homeless man's Jeff Green. So you got that. LeBron versus Durant. Don't sleep on that matchup. That's just getting buried in all this other stuff. Warriors-Cavs 4. We've talked about this a lot. The quadrilogy.

We have a trilogy. What do we call when it's 4, Kyle? The quadrilogy? Okay. Kyle's down with the quadrilogy. It sounds like a Keanu Reeves movie that's straight to video. It's crazy. Even the Lakers and Celtics didn't play four straight finals.

I'm both bored by the matchup and also kind of excited. I actually randomly ended up in an elevator with Ty Lue last night. And I was like, is this like deja vu for you? And he's like, yeah, same time every year. We've been here for four straight years. It's, don't even know what year it is anymore. But that's cool. It's not going to be as cool if the Warriors win in four.

We talked about LeBron's last dance in Cleveland, potentially. We talked a little on previous podcasts about, could this be it for the Warriors? Would they keep the top four? Can you do it financially? Durant's going to want to get paid this year. How do you keep everybody? What kind of luxury tax is that?

What happens to your fifth through 12th guys if you're just paying all of your salary cap for four dudes and then Andre Iguodala and Livingston? We'll see how that goes. I have a feeling there's not going to be a quintilogy. Quintilogy? You got it again. Oh, thanks, Kyle.

It's almost like we're related. Yeah, so that's happening. And then finally, this is a key point, and I'm probably going to talk about people when we're doing the HBO show over these next two weeks. I do want to ask different people about this when we have the opportunity to talk to them about it. I think the real difference between Jordan and LeBron,

I'm not really ready to, I just hate the who's better thing because I think the eras are so different. The one thing I think that's changed since I wrote my book was that you just can't compare the Jordan era and the Russell era to the LeBron era. Every era is different.

And I think if I wrote that book over again, I would think about goats by generation is really the only way to do it. Maybe you separate it by every 20 years and you go Russell, and then you go Kareem, and then you go Jordan, and then you go LeBron. And that's just how you do it. Or you split it up into almost like a championship belt of goats where Russell from 56 to 69, Kareem from 69 to 80, Bird and Magic as a combo from 80 to 90, Jordan from 90 to 98, Shaq and Duncan together from 99 to 07,

and then LeBron from basically 07 on. And by the way, Kobe fans, I'm sorry. LeBron is just a much better basketball player than Kobe if you're talking about franchise all timers he just is Kobe's in my top 10 LeBron is one of the two best players who ever lived like stop it so however you want to do it you know

MJ versus LeBron here's the thing here's the key difference between them and if somebody else has mentioned this I'm sorry MJ versus LeBron. Here's the thing. Here's the key difference between them. And if somebody else has mentioned this, I'm sorry. But I have not heard this other places. I asked Steve Kerr about it yesterday at Media Day. And he actually, he made the Steve Kerr, he made the face he makes when he's like, oh, that was a good point.

Like, Jordan never had the carrot that LeBron has. All right, so what's a carrot Jordan vanquished everybody who was in his way he spent three years trying to get through the Pistons got through them now magic's in the way gets through him bird and the Celtics they're dying

they're done goes through the Cavs goes through the Riley Knicks for two straight years. Oh, Barkley's sitting there. He rolls through him. Goes play baseball for two years. Now Shaq and Penny are the new dynasty. 96 playoffs, just rips through them.

Finishes the Knicks. Oh, Carl Malone. I'm sorry, Kemp and Payton are really good. They're the next new team. Destroys them. Go to 97. Carl Malone's the MVP, actually. Jordan's like, okay, he ruins them. Miami, morning and heartache, ruins them. Go to 97. Karl Malone's the MVP, actually. Jordan's like, okay, he ruins them.

Miami, Mourning and Hardaway, ruins them and wins three more and just never had the guy. He beat everybody. He killed them. The difference with LeBron is he's never been allowed to feel safe like that. There's

always been another team. You had Dwight Howard and the Magic upended him. You had Paul Pierce and the Celtics were always there. This hump he had to get over, even when he was at Miami and he had a better team. Then it's like, here come the Spurs. The Spurs should have won in 2013. Oh, the Spurs did win in 2014. They got the upper hand on him. And then all of a sudden, here comes this Warriors team that he's had to get by for four straight years, the super team. And if you look at what LeBron has done as a basketball player, he has added stuff the last three years. He's added shots. He's figured out a way to not get tired, to play all 48 minutes. He's gotten stronger. He's figured out a low post

game. He's figured out that weird power the ball and just overpower somebody minutes. He's gotten stronger. He's figured out a low post game. He's figured out that weird power the ball and just overpower somebody game. He keeps adding things in year 13, 14, and 15 of his career that he just did not have in year eight. Now, Jordan added the follow-away. Jordan didn't have the same training. He didn't have the same videotape, all that stuff.

But he also didn't have the taste of losing in his mouth. And he also didn't have the same videotape, all that stuff. But he also didn't have the taste of losing in his mouth. And he also didn't have this other team that everybody was trumpeting and parroting and saying, this was better. And he didn't have somebody like Durant and he didn't have somebody like Kawhi Leonard. And he didn't have Paul Pierce and KG. He just, he went through all those dudes, whatever his generation's version. And I think the best thing that ever happened to LeBron is the competitiveness of the era he's in. Because if this era was as weak as the 2000s, which I really think you look back

and the talent just was not nearly what it is now, maybe he does get bored. Maybe he doesn't work as hard. Maybe he's not as obsessed as he was. But I see somebody that is just obsessed to keep getting better because of all the carrots that are dangling in front of him.

So that's to me the biggest difference between him and Jordan other than the training stuff and the hyperbaric chambers and Pilates and these medicine balls and the dieting and the sleeping and all this stuff that LeBron does now. If he pulls off this finals, this would be one of the great achievements in the history

of the league, if not number one. I still think Russell and the Celtics beating Wilt and Jerry West and Elgin in 69 when they just had this beaten up Celtics team that was on its last legs and barely even made it through the playoffs and somehow won anyway. That's way up there for me. I think Jordan winning the 98 finals, basically by himself. Pippen was in a back brace

and Rodman was out at nightclubs every night like nephew Kyle. That was pretty amazing. I think the 2014 Spurs with Duncan at the stage of the career, they had Duncan who was past his prime and Kawhi who wasn't in his prime yet and a great coach. And they just beat this super team basically. There's been some great ones. Magic in 87, putting the Lakers on his back against that Celtics team that really felt like they had been touched by God after a certain point. But LeBron doing this with this team is insane. With J.R. Smith and 37-year-old Kyle Korver,

Tristan Thompson, the tabloids, all this stuff. I would be amazed. Anyway, keep your eye on this. Great finals coming up. And just in terms of narrative, I'm not sure the basketball is going to be great. And by the time you listen to this, game one, the Warriors will probably have won by 20 and everybody's going to be pitching that. The whole series is going to be great. And by the time you listen to this, game one, the Warriors will probably have won by 20, and everybody's going to be pitching that. The whole series is going to be a blowout. And then game two will happen, and LeBron will slow the pace down and score 48 points

and have 12 rebounds and 11 assists. And all of a sudden, it'll be 80 to 79 with three minutes left, and that crowd will be tense. And people will be like, oh, shit, LeBron is really good at this. That would be my prediction, but we'll see. That's why they play the finals. All right, Rich Kleiman is here. We're going to talk to him in a second.

He's that guy from the Kevin Durant podcast. He's the third guy. Robin Quivers. Yeah, the Robin Quivers. I'm the Robin Quivers. People are like, why isn't he here? He near a mic and all that stuff. Hey, this is good, though.

I know you love sponsorship opportunities and relationships with advertisers. Yeah, let's sell ads today, bro. Let's sell ads. Hey, this is good though. I know you love sponsorship opportunities and relationships with advertisers. Let's sell ads. Captain Morgan, the captain, will not rest until he's brought his adventurous spirit and delicious rum to every corner of America. Call me Captain Morgan. Original spice, coconut, pineapple, white, black grapefruit,

whatever you want. The captain loves anyone who learns to mix like a captain. So every week we pick a captain on the BS podcast. How do you mix like a captain? How do you mix like a captain? Who's your captain this week? I'll let you do it. I'm going to turn it over to you. Do you have a captain?

Who's my captain? Why don't you do LeBron James? Why don't you be deferential to the Warriors' big opponent this year? I love LeBron James. He's been amazing, right? Amazing. Yes. What?

No, he can't be the captain. Do you have a better captain? What does that mean, though? What is it? Captain of the week. Do you have a better captain? What does that mean, though? Captain of the week. Who's the captain right now? Oh, who's the captain of the week? Wow. Probably not you for not talking to the microphone.

Who's the captain of the week? We really should just talk rap music, Tommy, right? Let's do rap music. If you had to pick Pusha T or Drake, one of those dudes are the captain? Neither? It's like we're midway through the story. Yeah, it's like game three of the finals.

Yeah, I can't talk about that. Let's make both of them the captains because- I think they're both captains. We grew up in an era when rap stars feuded. You're probably a little older than me though. Not really. How old are you? How old are you?

How old are you? What? I'm 41. You're 41? Yeah. I am older than you. You're probably what, 48? I'm 48. You look young though. Do you remember the than you. You're probably, what, 48? I'm 48.

You look young, though. Do you remember the Biggie? You were there for Biggie versus Tupac. All right, good. So that era, though, had the rap views. All right, so we're making- What the fuck? Come on, man.

We're making Pusha T and- I remember Biggie and Tupac. And Drake. We're making them the captains because- Drake and Pusha are the captains. You know what I like? When rappers don't like each other and they start escalating stuff in songs.

It's always good. For the internet, Twitter. Who was the bigger story this week? I don't even care about saying this kind of shit, but Pusha T, Drake, Brian Colangelo. Oh, man. Well, you guys, I mean, for you guys, it was Brian Colangelo.

I think Pusha T and Drake was bigger. Was it? Yeah. I mean, you look at just Twitter trending and there was one day where Pusha T had like, what, 150,000 tweets with his name in it or something? Do you think there was like a code red over at Brian Colangelo's house that night

and someone was like, yo, you're lucky though that Pusha went at, that Pusha went at Drake like that tonight. Made that, you know? Yeah, right at the same time or the other way around brian clangio could have taken a little bit away from how you know the intensity of pushing drake so those are my three captains of the week okay great there you go captain learn to mix like a captain go drink captain margaret all right rich climbing

no you yeah you uh how'd you end up at rock nation? let's do the story of Rich because we've never done it no let's do it quickly two minute cliff notes people want to know how a successful person becomes successful were you somewhere before that?

no I just landed here at Rock Nation yeah it was somewhere before that alright don't get all sarcastic I'm just saying, of course. But I'm saying, was that your first major gig or did they steal you from someone? No, this will connect well to you. Thank you.

All right. This is gonna be cool. Thanks for joining the podcast, by the way. No, my bad. I mean, no problem. I said my bad. I was at BU. Yeah. I was a bookie. We really? Yeah. Sick story. Letie. Were you really? Yeah. Sick story.

Let's not say that separately. We'll save that for when we do the six-part series about your life as a bookie. I had a, I know. But is that going to take me from ever getting a president's job in the NBA? No. No, not now, right? No way. No, it's legal.

No. Not only is it legal, but like that's light work. That's nothing. Yeah. Listen, you did what you had to do to survive. The mean streets of Boston. The mean streets of the Upper West Side of New York. That's how I was able, that was like,

that was just a little extra on the side, but it was, I ran a NISL operation, but that is aside from the point. Came home, started working with my friend, putting that show, The Life, together for ESPN. I love that show. I know, and that's how I met your boy, Connor Schell. That six-episode Clippers one.

Six. Was it six? No. Four? Two. It was more than two. No. I'll never forget Darius Miles getting gas.

I was like, this show speaks to me daris miles is getting gas right now it's good didn't he almost drive away with the things still in the gas tank he did that was i was like this is my show i didn't do the one there was a really good one on aaron brooks the saints quarterback aaron brooks where like he was going to a monday night football party at his boy's house or something like one of the other saints and he got lost the entire time the whole episode was like, remember when people gave you directions and you really had to like follow directions? Yeah. Like make a, if you, if you see the church on the right, you went too far, make a left at the

mobile, but then make your first right. But it's not really a right. It kind of just veers off to the right. So like that shit sounds insane now. Like how would you ever get to where you have to go? So the whole episode was like we were lost with aaron brooks i remember steve francis and cantino mobile went to go buy a ferrari yeah that was the other highlight it was so sick they were funny together and they were both wearing jogging suits and they walked in and jogging suits or or whatever warm-up outfits i don't know what the fuck they were in they were in like they were like they were about to go to practice yeah and remember biggie and tupac you remember those guys those guys were nuts uh but they walked in and the guy the guy who worked at ferrari just had this look on his face like i prayed this morning that something good would happen and now here are two of the rockets

thinking about buying a ferrari it was just like exactly so fired up that was a great show it was kind of it was good it was pre all the shit that we have now that- Yeah, it's just reality TV. Now you're working with Kevin, but Kevin's got stuff. LeBron's got stuff. You just jumped from the life. No, we're going back to him. Oh, okay.

But now these guys have direct access where they could just be- Kevin could come home today in his car and film something on Instagram and just post it. And it'd be like, here's me. I'm at the game. But in 06, I didn't have that. In 03, I didn't have that. I didn't know any of these dudes. That was 2000. The funny thing is, is that it's like, in some ways it's so easy for anybody to produce content now, right? So it's like, everybody can announce a deal. Everybody's partnering with so-and-so, they're putting out so-and-so, but it's just putting such an onus on

having to make the content compelling now. like seeing someone drive like watching kevin drive to the game is cool but it's not like right like that's an instagram story you know what i'm not even going with cool it's not even cool right it's like you know it's not cool just watching somebody drive somewhere no it's not exactly the only time i enjoyed it was amazing that was time versus time which was an infomercial and was still filmed like a stand a little bit for tom well it was an infomercial but there was one where he's driving from home from the game with his wife and gronkowski calls and he's like and gronkowski's at the speaker and i'm like i'm in this is great yeah i didn't watch that i'm in the car with this yeah but that that but that's

because tom brady doesn't give you that. You know what was really sick? Did you see Tom Brady's Instagram post like a month or two ago? He was home with his kids in his indoor pool, whirlpool, like water slide shit. Did you see that? That was sick.

A lot of that show was wide shots of his mansion in the giant circular driveway. Yeah, I didn't see the show, but that's what this Instagram post was this but as a pats fan who's followed him his whole career i was like this is cool and now i know what tom brady's driveway looks like i was into it yeah no so it is still cool right i do think all that stuff is fun especially if you're a fan but it's put a little bit more of an onus on like what are we doing like back then it was like the storyline was let's go get a ferrari with catino mobley and steve francis yeah but you could just scroll through the internet now and you'll get that with like some famous person every day cribs was like that too i remember yeah i wrote about it at

the time but zach randolph did a cribs that is one of the greatest half hours of my life really they went through his giant house at one point he had a framed picture of Nelson Mandela, I think on a piano. And he just showed the picture to the camera. And he's like, Nelson Mandela is a great man. He's a great man. Put the picture back. I was like, I love this more.

But now it's like, we have too much access to our guys. Yeah, exactly. These guys are also available. It's more challenging though. You got to come up with quality. Obviously it's more challenging. I saw the Uber commercial Kevin and LeBron did. It was not challenging though. You got to come up with Well, obviously it's more challenging. I saw the Uber commercial Kevin and LeBron did.

Yeah. It's not that. You don't like it? I just wish you'd asked me for creative advice. Would have pushed you guys a little bit. Couldn't they have argued

about something? Well, I don't know. I don't want them to be friends. I don't want KD and LeBron to like each other. Why? It's not like a comic book. Because they're in each other's way.

It is like a comic book. But on the court, they're not, I mean, they're not, there's no chance that like during a dead ball tonight they're just having the same conversation they had in the uber that's all that really matters about is exciting it was like hey man i thought it was really bad no it was fine it was cool it was fine i like the thought of carry champion driving an uber was that real no no no i don't know of course it

wasn't real well what was it a't real, bro. What was it? A green screen? I was there. It was real. We were in a, I thought it was good. I don't want LeBron and Durant to like each other because I still feel like magic befriending Bird at the 84 Converse commercial gave magic a little bit of an upper hand. Really?

Bird just wanted to destroy him and then actually did in the 84 finals. You say you think Bird was, that was like, he took like a mentally, he took a little notch over him. All he wanted to do was destroy Magic. Yeah. And then eventually they became buddies. He liked him too much. It's better for Magic for them to be buddies than Bird. Yeah.

I don't know. But you know what? The problem is though, like these, you play AU basketball and you're good. You're meeting these guys at like 12 years old at this point. And you know, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson didn't meet each other until they played college basketball till they were on the court probably where were they going to meet each other yeah i was thinking with uh in game seven of the finals because eric gordon was playing well and i was thinking like i wonder how long durant's known eric gordon like they were a year apart they were probably playing

au and they were like 12 13 everybody on the court yeah all those dudes yeah are you gonna turn your phone off from buzzing no what do you got people asking for tickets no we're taping this right now it's it's uh it's about 12 30 west coast time people don't really like ask like final start i don't get like a random ask for ticket when i worked in the music industry was more of that all right so let's go backwards so now oh so i was working on the life and then what happened let me do it quick because this boy i mean no one really cares what like i did that's just like i'm telling you i've had this podcast for 12 years people loved it how i got here so i worked on the show the life yeah and i was young i was 21 years old dude patchcroft yeah yeah

he was he got me involved that was he asked me to come work with him so your best friend jamie patchcroft who you've known since you were four? No, not four. Six? No. And I ended up doing a 30 for 30 with him. 10, nine? Big movie producer now.

But did a 30 for 30 in the first series. Very big. So I went to work on the show. We partnered with that company, Radical Media. So we did the show out of their production house. Yeah, I know Radical Media really well. John Kamen. Yeah. One of my early mentors. Because he let me work out of their production house. Yeah, I know Radical Media really well. John Kamen, one of my early mentors.

Because he let me work out of the office. I just dropped out of college. I had no real skill set. So you're a mover shaker? I'd say so. Yeah. I like that. Unlike now.

No, now I'm moving and shaking more than ever. How did you become- I'm locked in. How'd you get into music? I'm locked in, Tommy. I was in- Tommy thinks you're getting soft. I don't know. He just talked about I'm locked in, Tommy. I was in. Tommy thinks you're getting soft. I don't know.

No, he doesn't. He doesn't think that. He knows that's not true. He knows that's not true. Tommy's got his laminate on six hours before the game. He's ready. He's fired up. So I was working on the show and I remember somebody asked Jamie and I who was going to work on the music.

So I just jumped into it. And I who was going to work on the music. So I just jumped into it. And I knew a lot of people in New York. I had this network of friends from going out that one person was starting a band, one person was a producer, one person was a rapper, one person was an artist. And I just figured that the best thing that I could do in this budget they gave us was to accumulate all this music, put it into a library. And I went to everybody. I said, I can put your music on this show on ESPN. You can watch it with your boys or with your girlfriend on Saturday morning. You'll see your name in the credits and I'll give you $500. She was talking about some up and coming band in New York or whatever it was. Everybody was down for it. So I just started doing that. And all I was

doing was having people sending me demos and calling like raucous records and having them send me like high and mighty CDs and Talib Kweli. And then I would go to my Mark Ronson, who was like the biggest DJ in the city, but was turning into a producer would go to like DJ SNS, all these people and just tell them to give me beats. Yeah.

And I'd say, tell me which one have samples. And I have like two different folders. And if it had a sample, I wouldn't use it. Cause I couldn't clear that. And I just started working with the editors and cutting the music to the show. And this was like earlier internet, right?

So they couldn't even just send you the files. They had to actually hand over them to you, right? Then I would go over to the record label and pick up the demos and stuff. So I started doing that. And the music for the show was something people really started to like. And it started to become fun. I was sitting there and watching, sitting in the final cut and watching them edit the the episodes and suggesting songs and then i remember they were like we need a theme song so i went to a friend

of mine who had this like independent rap label um this kid matt marcus it's always good to say their names you know i'm saying because if he's listening and then i don't say his name that's not cool i grew up with matt so matt marcus my man he had this artist tribeca um i don't remember how it all exactly came about from there but it was his song tribeca this song called the life where he put this song together for me called the life and yeah he must have written it for the show and i had him write this song and put the song together and everyone was like we need no that was it that was the theme song remember it it together and everyone was like, we need, no, that was it, that was the theme song, remember it? And it was incredible, people loved it,

everyone was singing it, it was like a hit. How did it go, I forget. My life is all I have. Yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah. Yeah, so, but then the buzz around it was so big, I remember Raucous Records said to me, we should make like a record out of it. And I could get some of these facts wrong,

but it seems right. And Pharoah Monch ended up, this like another rapper at the time uh who I love ended up putting uh the hook onto it and we released it as a commercial single and was on like this soundbombing album that Eminem was on like in 2000 so like all of a sudden I was in the music business and I really wanted to work on the life because I was obsessed with sports like I just I remember going to the Speedy Claxton shoot that never made it on air, sitting there and introducing myself to Larry Brown

and Pat Croce. I was sitting in Sixers practice and I was just obsessed with it. I was just like an obsessed basketball fan like you. And I was in the Sixers practice, like I'm 21. And I was a bookie a year earlier. So like I made it in my mind, I guess be around sports. But then the music thing working on on this show, took off.

And then people started calling me. They wanted to get their music on the show. Then the life ended. And I remember John came and was like, we're doing this commercial for Chevrolet. I'm doing this show for ESPN. I'm doing this show for VH1. Can we use your music library? So I just camped out at Radical Media.

And I was a music supervisor. I figured I'd get back to sports later on. So I was doing all the music for these shows. And the money I was making was like whatever. If a budget was $25,000 for a commercial, if I spent $15,000, I kept $10,000. If the budget was $5,000, I spent $1,000, I kept $4,000. So I was hustling. But everyone I went to, I wasn't robbing them.

I was being honest. I was like, this is what I have. I have $5,000. I'm going to give you $1,000. That's what I got. I'm going to'm gonna do this commercial i'm gonna do this show and i built up this library and then i started meeting all these producers and artists and i got a bit obsessed with the music industry but in the way that like you know i'm growing up in new york city the cover of new york magazine is puff daddy the cover of you know the new york

times style section jay-z and it's like i'm obsessed with basketball players and obsessed with the nba and they're kind of merging and not only emerging it's like well who's cooler now like it used to be like the ball players were the coolest person in the room and all of a sudden you're sitting in a nick game it's like damn jay-z's who's this cool mother fuck is the coolest dude i ever met in my life so i was just like i want to be around this i just want to be around the music business. So I never loved it though. You know, like I love sports. Like going to these games is the icing on the cake

for my business now. It's not really my business. You know, like that's not the core of what I do, but I mean, I'm not, that's everything. Like you get to go to the NBA game tonight. All the other stuff you're doing, the ringer, your show, Andre Giant, all that shit is incredible, but you get to go to the finals tonight. Like that the other stuff you're doing, the ringer, your show, Andre Giant, all that shit is incredible,

but you have to go to the finals tonight. Like that's what we love to do. I still love going to a basketball game more than anything. That's me too. It's my number one favorite thing to do. Me too, me too. To go to a really good basketball game.

Me too. Like I'll go see Brooklyn Nets versus like Detroit on a Wednesday and it's raining out. I don't love that, but I'll go. The good thing about the NBA is you can always get something out of a live game. You can go to a baseball game

and it could suck for three hours. You go to a football game and it could just suck. Nothing, but a basketball game, it's almost like it's the game, but it's also the people. There's always something to see. It's human interactions. Without question.

It's all the shit's going on. Back to the net game, not to knock i went back to the net game not to knock i went to the net game and all of a sudden jared allen like cocks a windmill back from like 20 feet out i'm like yeah i just saw some shit i'll never see again the rest of my life like that was insane so i love that but back to what i was saying so i'm in the music business and all of a sudden a lot of these artists that i'm getting on these shows are like well you know if you make this the first money i've ever made so how about you manage me so i think i'll manage you yeah and i was like so i started managing these guys and then one of the first people that like was really talented

that was like yeah i need you know how about you work with me i know you don't have any background like really in this was mark ronson who now 20 years later is like still winning grammys and producing grammy war winning albums and selling out festivals and he was the preeminent dj in new york city he's almost lindsey lohan's brother-in-law that almost happened well oh man that was weird um so uh yeah so so I managed Mark, I was carrying his crates to the parties where Jay-Z and, and, and Puffy were like that. So I'm out and I'm a club kid, but I'm not in it yet. I'm not like in the inner circle. Now Mark is letting me carry his crates to these parties. And now I'm

in the inner circle. And for someone that does pride themselves on networking and moving and shaking, like now I'm in the room where I can help, you know, build my career. And the cool thing was Mark knew my wife a little bit. And I got married really early. Like I had a, you know, my wife and I were together early. So we just kind of partied together. So like we all went out. And I just, when I was out, I met people and met new people.

I knew Damon Dash, who was Jay-Z's old partner. And then I met Jay-Z's manager, John Monealy. And I set a meeting up for John with Radical Media, with John Kamen. And that ended up turning into, I actually met John Monealy through this girl, Asia DeVore Branch. You know what I'm gonna do today?

Everybody that actually really helped me in my life, I'm gonna say their full name. I think it's funny that I had to convince him to even just give the five minute thumbnail version. I'm a narcissist, man, I'm a narcissist. And now you've dropped 122 names. Fuck it, man. I'm a narcissist.

And then on a Wednesday, I went and got an egg white omelet with Damon Dash. Listen, you know why? I'll tell you why. Because I really don't need to talk about this. You can edit the whole thing out. But if I'm going to talk about it, I'm going to say it the whole way. Well, no. You took us out.

You can cut the whole thing. No. I worked on the life and then I worked with Kevin Durant. No, this is good. But now you're in shouting distance of Jay-Z. Yeah. Now you're in the room with Jay-Z. That's what you asked me.

Yeah, you took us down. So then John Monealy introduces me. I introduced John to Radical Media. They have an idea to take this concert that they filmed, which was Jay's last concert at the Garden, at the time was going to be his last concert at the Garden. And then that turned into Fade to Black. And without fail, when I'm like,

true to what I imagined when I met Jay and he came into Radical Media, I was like, I gotta be near this dude. Like, I gotta work with this guy. Like, shit was magical, you know? It was like, everything he said just seemed so practical and right on. And it really like connected with me.

Like, okay, I feel like this is where I'm supposed to be in my life right now. So then the next 15 years of my life, like him and I became really, really close friends and, you know, families close. And got to work with him and went to Radical Meat. No, that was the beginning. Went to Roc Nation. And the artists I was working with at the time, like Wale, Mark Ronson, this kid Daniel Merriweather, a bunch of DJs.

I managed a whole roster of DJs. Samantha, Q-Tip, D-Nice. I was just moving around. And the DJs are kind of the secret money. Yeah, I had a really- Those DJs clean up. Clean up. Pauly D from the Jersey Shore is like a multi-millionaire. Pauly D is a rock star, yeah. But that was my thing. I was in Vegas once a month. I had res really- Those DJs clean up. Clean up. Pauly D from the Jersey Shore is like a multi-millionaire. Pauly D is a rock star, yeah.

But that was my thing. I was like in Vegas once a month. I had residencies. I was negotiating residencies. I was in the club. It was just what I did, like these club gigs. We were like doing fashion week parties. I was just doing what I could do to stay in the mix.

I knew I had bigger plans for myself, but this was great. And this was the culture. This was everything. So I met Jay-Z, started working on my own. I had this studio in Soho and managing artists. And Jay always was like, just, you know,

stayed close. I just hung out with him and hung out with all his friends and met all his, you know, his team and the people around him. So then I went to rock nation and I brought like my music business there. Yeah. And. But now you're thinking,

you know, it'd be cool. Sports. Not yet. yet oh i really was like i'm gonna do this i'm gonna kill it in the music business now i kind of just switched for a second and i was in it and i learned everything there like so everything i thought i knew as an entrepreneur and like hustling i didn't really know shit so when i got to rock nation it was really then like working under him and his team that's when i learned really how to move and how to do this right greatest time for the music business either that was kind of between two eras but no but i

wasn't trying to sell records i was managing brands and artists and it was just a weird time it was a lot of flux yeah but in that like disruption that's when all the greatness happens because that's when you are a part of like bringing it back up so i was managing solange j cole i was working i a and r his first time. I was managing Meek Mill, Wale, all the other people I mentioned earlier, the DJs. But I just felt like, and I feel like everybody I worked with knew it. I wasn't a studio rat.

I wasn't the guy that wanted to be in the studio till six in the morning. You were Jimmy Iovine. Reading liner notes. No, Jimmy is in the studio all night. That's what I mean. Yeah, those are music guys. I like the life.

I like the music business and going to the basketball games and being able to be a part of going on tour with Jay and going to the festivals and the shows and going with Mark Ronson and going to Meek and Wale. All that stuff was cool for me, but I didn't love music like that. And I thought that was unfair because I really always had my eye on sports.

I met Kevin Durant from Wale and I always kept in touch with him just oh that's right they were buddies way back from growing up yeah and I just wanted to stay in touch with um um Kevin because I was always hitting with like good game you know way to go love how you play congrats on rookie of the year all that stuff you know and then um but we weren't really tight we just texted um and then i became really tight with victor cruz yeah big giant fan the giants like my life um so i ended up saying to jay once i remember i was like yo i want to manage victor cruz and get into sports he's like wait one second

and that always means like he's got something cooking because he had said that before when i said i want to come like work with you at Def Jam or whatever. And he was like, wait, I'm working on something. So they were starting Roc Nation Sports. And even though I was obsessed with sports and everyone knew that my knowledge of sports was great, they really took a leap of faith. You know, him and his partner, Juan Perez,

they had, they didn't need to let me do any of that. You know, I was just a music manager at Roc Nation really. Yeah. But I was, I love sports and they knew it. And I, and I studied it. Like I studied, I read the CBA, you know i was just a music manager at rock nation really yeah um but i was i love sports and they knew it and i and i studied it like i studied i read the cba you know like that was where i geeked out there's one part of my life that i did it was like reading sports business journal and studying that stuff i liked it so then they think you're the first person who's ever bragged about reading the cba but that's how you know that yeah because that yeah you're right i'll never forget page 38 the claws girls love it when you just they love cba talk yeah you pull the cba out

oh man it's a wrap hey let me show you page 53 oh my god so um they let me jump into it and and honestly victor cruz was the first one. Yeah, but Victor Cruz was the first person that like believed in me as like, this is someone that is in the music business, but I think he's someone I would work with. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So then I said to Jay, you know, Juan and Jay,

and they just let me jump into it. You know, that's rare. That's the, I couldn't have done that. If I was working at CAA Music and I went over to Vino, I was like, yo, let me run sports with you guys. They'd be like, get out of here. But they believed in me. And that's a talent.

That's a real talent. Vino would have said, I'm the only bald guy here. I'm the only bald white Jewish guy. There's only room for one bald Jewish guy. Well, sorry, Vino. Yeah. You have to start your own thing. So they let me jump right into it.

And they let me sit in the meetings for everyone that we were signing and um so when did the kd thing start well so i called kevin soon after um and he came and met with all of us and me and jay and juan and um it took a while like we built trust and and really got to a place where he felt comfortable that this was the right place to be and because everyone else was taking shots i'm sure you were aware uh so the little inside baseball circles are like that rock nation they're just sports oh it's a disaster i'm hearing it's a disaster over there there's a lot of that yeah but they didn't hear that it's just like if someone doesn't understand something

or it's like too powerful for them or it's too disruptive or it's just too dope well i'll just be like i don't get it man that'll never work but it worked and it always i've learned that when when that buzz starts building it means one of two things it either is a disaster or people you're on their corner and they're jealous and it's there's those are the only two reasons that stuff starts so i I was like, oh, this is interesting. But if you think about it, in hindsight, like if you really think about like, how's Jay-Z going to do anything that's a disaster, right? Because it's all relative.

It's like, if you're an agent at Agency X and you're like, yeah, he'll never get it. Like, what does that even mean? Like, you'll never even, like, he already got it. Right, he already won. He already won. He got it. He's in the Hall of Fame and he has seven titles already.

Yes, yes. So how is he not going to get it? He's doing, in my opinion, he's doing this business. And I'm being serious. He's doing this business a favor because you're getting a different perspective on someone who truly doesn't need the commission checks, who is looking at it like i can add value to the to these athletes who culturally come from the same place that i come from and i'm going to bring a perspective and expertise that they don't have so how are you losing i mean where and what does it even mean losing like nobody like i don't know

i mean if if if losing meant that he didn't get the number one pick in the draft every year then okay then so yeah yeah that's i mean but that was never realistic anyway right how did he help uh kate eater in the infamous summer of 2016. by being his friend you know by just being his friend because it wasn't you know at that point, I think where Jay was so helpful for Kevin and is for me, and Juan too, is their life stories are really impactful. People say that a lot, but they didn't have a playbook. I mean, no one has the playbook on that. It's not like I was like, yo, Maverick, bro, you went through this. What do I do? Nobody knows. It's like Kevin made a decision on a team to go to. It's just like any

life decision, like when Jay-Z chose a label or sold a company or didn't sell a company, when we decide if we're going to ask our wives. It was his decision. He just gave great life stories and life lessons and perspective. So that was the way he was helpful and still is helpful to both of us even though um you know businesses have evolved and um you know i think that kevin by watching jay-z was like man i want to i want this like i want to have my own empire i want my name in front of the office right jay-z being jay-z was very encouraging of us doing that so what you get from him now is perspective and and experience and life lessons so that's like that's where he's still helpful in everything you know it's the children of the magic mj generation i think that's this decade with basketball players watching them

it's not like they weren't brands before. Yeah. I think the difference now is, it's almost like with SNL in the early 90s when the SNL cast members started getting movies and people started looking at SNL, like I'll go there for a couple of years and then I'll become a movie star.

Yeah, exactly. And people, the NBA- That did not work though for those SNL people. Well, for some times it didn't work, but it was always, they saw this other carrot that was kind of dangling over in the corner. And I think with basketball now, these guys are coming in

because they're learning from the previous generation and they're learning. Somebody like Durant comes in and he's learning from not just the magic generation, but really the LeBron and Kobe generation of like, here are all the things that can happen to you once you hit this level and you can start a business and you can represent yourself

and you know all these different things. It's amazing. I swear to you though, I think the people that were just as impactful, that are just as impactful in this culture of athletes that are successful are Jay-Z, Puff Daddy, Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine. Those people have such an influence on,

there's, Kevin and I have so many conversations where I'll reference something I learned listening to Jay-Z, even if I wasn't involved, just being in a room, being in a studio, and how he would have handled something or how, you know, even like, you know, Juan as his partner, for instance, or Tata as his friend or how, you know, even like, you know, Juan as his partner, for instance, or Tata as his friend or whoever, Emery, whoever these guys are, their dynamics, like taking some lead from what I watched and how they handled the situation to how maybe I can do that for Kevin in our business and how we handle our situations and stuff. And I think that they look

at the blueprint. Clearly LeBron um i think for basketball players in terms of building a business of this magnitude well but magic did it before him but magic did it but magic didn't do it while he was playing true right and lebron was the first one and michael jordan did it and i'm not michael jordan i've never done business with him and i and i would assume he's a great businessman i don't know but i would assume he is but his business is so big so it's like michael jordan did it while he's playing and then the michael jordan logo icon all of that how about that how about him controlling his own footage michael jordan pulled that off that's incredible i mean that's but that's like put off some incredible shit yes that's some and doesn't

talk about it no so like most people today and and i'm victim to everybody's victim to we just live in a different age like if i could if i were if i worked out some deal to control all of kevin's footage one way or the other you'd all know that i worked out some deal to control kevin's footage and i'm not saying that i would do it in like some like selfless plug shameless plug i would just like that's how you have to continue to compete now michael jordan just worked out a great deal right if he really did really did, I don't know that, but he did it. They kind of owed it to him. Yeah. But LeBron is doing this during his career. That's insane. I have a Kenny, I'm bringing Kenny Anderson into this. You getting excited? But first we're gonna

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I grew up in New York City, but the Kenny Anderson generation. Stay with me. Okay, talk to me. So you're in that Shaq, Kenny Anderson, Chris Weber. I've written about this. I call it in my book, the too much, too soon generation. Oh, got it, got it, got it.

They come into the league, they're 20. They're immediately making, they're guaranteed 50, 60, 70 million bucks. They have no idea what they're doing. They have all these crazy people in their lives and family members and no real roadmap on how to handle it. And a lot of them handled it badly. And I look at somebody like Kenny Anderson,

1992 Kenny Anderson, who is still one of the most talented point guards I've ever seen in my life at Georgia Tech. If you just put him in a time machine and just put him in this era, no matter how hard his life was as a child, but he's at least seeing all these role models that you have now. He comes to the NBA. He's got to work for his max contract. He's got all these people that he can kind of count on and get counsel from

his whole career is completely different I look at somebody like Tatum I don't know how much you read about Tatum's gonna be unbelievable yeah but that dude was like

he was about as poor as you get in St. Louis and had a really rough life and was able like a lot of these guys do to rise above it use basketball as the escape route

all that stuff but he handles his business really well at age 20 and i think the reason he handles when you say his business you mean on the court or off the court both yeah he's just he just works hard and doesn't get in trouble doesn't say anything and i really think it's the lebron and kg generation kg kd okay that have the way those guys handle their business the young guys that come up are like i want to be like those guys this is how, the young guys that come up are like, I want to be like those guys. This is how they do it.

Yeah, that's dope. And I don't feel like that was the case until this decade. No. You know what's funny? You say Kenny Anderson. That's true. I swear to you, I wish I could have been around and been in the role I'm in now when Marbury was around.

I would have. Marbury is, now he's another one. Marbury made every mistake you can make for 10 years. And I mean, and man, I've watched, I watched him. I used to go to Golden Hoops when he was a junior and like Felipe Lopez was a senior. I mean, still to this day, like the top five basketball players I've watched live.

It was insane. He could go by anybody. Anybody, his lift on his jump shot was insane. I've never seen anything like it. Yeah. And he was just, I mean, the way he got to the hoop

was like Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook, but like way before that, it was insane. Really tough life, but guys have tough lives now and they're fine. And I think back then

if you had a tough life and then a lot of stuff thrown at you, just the degree of difficulty became harder. But also what happens is, you know what happens is a lot of times people talk about the life they had before

they had money. You refer to their life as tough because they had no money. And no question. I mean more than no money. It's like how am I having dinner tonight? No, no. Listen, I'm not taking away from that.

Or people are like yeah, we're not going to have electricity for December. But poverty, of course. nothing can put you in a position mentally to be able to overcome that and i haven't dealt with it i'm just saying i could i can't even imagine but if you have a loving home and loving parents you and and perspective and um and some kind of understanding of hard work and being grounded, you will have a chance to survive it. Yeah.

Sometimes. Sometimes, no. No matter what you do, no matter what circumstances you get out of it. If you're in a broken, fucked up home, no matter how much money you have, it could also fuck you up. There's no rhyme or reason, either one.

What I don't think people realize though sometimes is once these guys get in the league,'s not smooth sailing right from then on the issues that come up in your life with your friends with your business with your family extended family all of it is like so i don't know i'm not saying stefan marbury went through that i know nothing well his family is pretty i don't know but i don't know that so I don't know that. So I don't know anything about his life, but I'm saying that Marbury, we don't know what goes on when they're dealing with that. Like I don't think people understand what LeBron, let's just take LeBron. It'd be ridiculous if I just talked about Kevin Durant, but, and I don't know anything about, I mean, I know LeBron, but I'm saying, I don't know day to day. LeBron James has so much stress period that he's got to deal with

on top of the load he has on the basketball court, the business he runs, the foundation he has, it's just stressful. It's stressful when you can't see your kids every day. You travel all the time, right? I'm leaving after this game and I'm going back for my daughter's birthday and I'm coming back. I'm blessed to be able to do that. These are two great things. But that stuff all adds on to it.

And maybe like Marbury had all this stuff happening and it just broke him, you know? Or maybe it was back in his childhood. I don't know. Or just bad advice. Like you think about it. Or bad advice. He was eligible for a max contract after his third year.

I think he was like 22 maybe. And he's with KG, who's one of the best players of that generation. And KG had just signed for 120 million. And Marbury gets it in his head. Well, I want to be the guy on my own team. Yeah. I don't need KG had just signed for $120 million and Marbury gets it in his head, well, I want to be the guy on my own team. I don't need KG. It's like, actually, you should never want to leave KG.

This is the best thing that ever happened to you. But no one knew that then. Well, no, they knew KG was... No, no, no, no, no. I'm saying, but people, that was... They just didn't know. It was like, I need my own team. I'll make the most money on this other team.

But that should have broken Marbury. Yeah, but it's like if he's... That's not why you put vaseline on your face no he's definitely there's some some shit that happened but i'm not even saying that to be foul i still love stephan marbury i'm just saying that's not what it was whatever it was i don't know but that wasn't it it took him a while to get to that point he was still really good i mean he was good enough to be a starter on the olympic team even in 2004 you know what's fun him and ai's all-star fourth quarter amazing together yeah so kd um comes here and then you've and then at some point you just realized that that your entire business was kd and you dumped everything else we were doing that before he came here so what

year was that it was like the last year in Oklahoma. Yeah. But I told, but I was telling, I had been telling Jay-Z and Juan and them the whole time. I was like, listen, first I was like, I love all of this and I love the opportunity, but I quickly realized that like the business of basketball, football, baseball, we're no different than saying like, yeah, I work in film and I work in the culinary arts and I work in this like, you know, at 35. I'm 41 now, at 35 to jump into that business. It's not like I could have been a real, in my opinion, I couldn't do what I wanted to do in all every sport because it just felt like.

Well, I'd say basketball is the best position for it. Basketball and the hip hop. No, no, no, for sure. But what I'm saying is like each other i just i didn't see how i was gonna like rep right a tennis player and kd and do it the way i wanted to do it i like to really be in the weeds you know like i liked i'm at the games i'm at every photo shoot and i don't have to be i'm at every charity appearance i don't have to be it's just i like to be if he's got to do it i got to do it that's how we can build a great business together like i don't want him to him did you see the

silicon valley potential when you moved here or is it something that i mean of course but but like that he wasn't kevin wasn't trying to hear that it's not like i was like all right pros tech companies cons like not as close to like where you grew up like it wasn't that wasn't one of them all basketball for him it was was all basketball. Yeah. But for you, you were thinking like, it's all basketball. But also, if we want to really start a business and potentially own a piece of an NBA team

or an entire NBA team someday, this would be a nice place to be. I know. No. I know it sounds like it's bullshit, but no. But now you see it. Well, I saw it then, but it's not how I looked at it

because that was not fair to him. then i could have been like okay well i think you should go to the knicks because then we're in the middle of madison avenue oh and i live down the block oh i think we should go to the lakers because then you know we should be in the hot like you're a knicks fan you knew you shouldn't have gone to the next well no i know you might as well just like slice his hamstring that's sick that's sick it's like go to a haunted house slice a hamstring. That's sick. That's sick. It's like go to a haunted house. Slice a hamstring. You can't do that to somebody you care about. That's not true. The Knicks are going to be fine, man. No, they're not. What are you talking about? They're never going to be fine. That's not true. They'll be fine when they have the right owner and the right person running it. You're just

cocky because you guys are about to have a 10-year dynasty. Point to me the NBA team that has succeeded with terrible management and bad ownership. They don't have terrible management. They don't. Steve Mills and Scott Perry are not terrible managers. And I don't know James Dolan. Were those the guys that passed on Donovan Mitchell to take Frank Nalinka? There's also 13 other people that passed on Donovan Mitchell.

Well, I'll prove it to me someday when they have good management. They do have good management. You send me a text when you're like, here are three things they've done that have been great. They drafted Porzingis. Have you seen the concession stands in the garden? They're insane now. That is great. That's a good job, bud.

Good concession stands. All right. That's great. When you're talking about the concession stance, that's where you want to be as an NBA franchise. I mean, you don't want to have bad concession stance. It's great. All right.

So KD comes here. Yeah. Well, we had a business already. And what you found out- Unbeknownst to you, we had a business already. It wasn't unbeknownst to me. We had a business. And we still-

We had actually invested in some tech companies before we even moved out here but we can i ask you a question no how much of this is these rich dudes who are all just around other rich dudes all day are just excited that kevin durant's coming to their office to hang out with them from three to four and they get to meet kevin durant i don't know but that's a positive for you right of course and then you're there and they're like hey man hey by the way you're like you know what you are you're one of those guys who uh i'm not one of those guys don't talk about don't disparage me you don't like people that have trust funds that become successful i don't like people that have trust funds that don't work but if they got a trust fund and they still busted their ass and built a business, that's great.

That's completely not what I said. Hater. I'm saying it's an advantage. Of course it's an advantage. It's a huge advantage. It's as big an advantage as there is. Yeah. But.

But you also have to know which ones to leverage. You got to know which ones to leverage. You got to know, you got to know which companies and, and, and which venture capitalists and, and which areas and trends that probably are built for. I just totally zoned out. I was looking at this, sorry,

my dad was looking at this crazy thing in that pit. I thought it was art. And then I realized Tommy was just smoked a vape pen or something. I didn't know. I was like, I swear to God, I was like, that's sick. That guy looks like Tommy. I was like, it's sick.

It looks like the hotel room. And then I was like, fuck, Tommy's in it. Yeah, of course. You got to, like, obviously Kevin is an incredible, the preeminent within our business. It's Kevin Durant Enterprise. It's the Durant Company. It's 35 Media.

It's Kevin Durant Charity Foundation. All four of the pillars of our business. It doesn't even happen if there's no Kevin Durant company. It's 35 Media. It's Kevin Durant Charity Foundation. All four of the pillars of our business. It doesn't even happen if there's no Kevin Durant. That's why I say to everyone that works with us, let's not forget. The basketball is first, always. Nothing's getting in the way of that, period. Basketball, basketball, basketball. It's why we have a sneaker deal.

It's why we have brand deals. It's why we're able to invest in the companies we invest in and it's why we're able to create these shows and these and these um and these content platforms that we're putting out of course but then we have to know how to do it and we got to do it right we got to execute it better than other people we got to be in the right rooms and we got to know how to run a business how replicable is it because it seems like there's no real way this works unless you guys are just super tight. It seems like you need that one person that you're intertwined with.

I don't know how this would work if it's like five people. Five athletes? No, if it's one athlete with like five people trying to do this for them. Ultimately, they need the one person they're tied to, right? I think so. I mean, I think it's probably different for everybody. For Kevin and I, I think that. I think so. I mean, I think it's probably different for everybody. For Kevin and I, I think that the trust level we have in our partnership is, and the fact that our goals and

our kind of vision and our style of going about it are so in line that it works. So he trusts me across the board, but we then bring the right people into play that can help execute on our vision for each one of the things we're working on but yeah for sure i think it would be really tough for kevin to be like yo rich let me call you right back i'm on the phone with my film partner well hold up let me call you back he's the one conduit who does that but i think that's probably i mean i would assume that's for you know know, LeBron has his incredible, his team around him. You know, he has Randy and Maverick and Rich, but all of them are,

their trust in their relationship as the four of them is so strong that they're able to do that, right? Because they're all intertwined and work together. But that's as rare as it gets, you know? You're not going to get that. We've done five podcasts with KD. Well, yeah, and this is the sixth one but no this doesn't count as though whatever this is different this is um this is sidebar this is like when um people nobody's like a spinoff of uh but their spinoffs don't work so yeah it's i'm

trying to think of a good spinoff figure uh it's like the ropers though i was gonna say the ropers i don't know if that was too dated for you no No. I love the Ropers. The Ropers was good, but it's like the Ropers, but no one really watched it. It's like the Cleveland show. Oh, the Cleveland show. Better Call Saul. Yeah, Better Call Saul, another one. Better Call Saul, but yeah.

Nobody could fully understand why KD wanted to do those podcasts. And I would explain it to them like, because he just wants to have honest conversations with people. You should tell all those people they take life way too seriously. Like, what do you mean? That's the internet though.

That's what we do. Why would he do it? What does he get out of it? Yeah. What's in it for him? What do you enrich up to? Like, what do you mean? He wanted to do a podcast.

What do you think he, like, why are you doing any, why does anyone do anything? I think. I don't want to get it. What do you mean? Yeah, the thing. You want to do a podcast with you.

You want to talk. It's fun. You two are friends. You get along. You both love basketball. Why else would he do it? I think my takeaway from it was just, he's all about truth.

Getting to the truth of stuff. And he wants to have these conversations. just, he's all about truth and getting to the truth of stuff. And he wants to have these conversations. No, he's just like, well, shoot the shit. Here's how I feel. I'm not hiding behind stuff. This isn't the press conference version of me. Here are my thoughts on things. The only thing that there was only one third rail that we ever had and it was Westbrook.

Anytime it veered toward Westbrook, it was the only time I could feel him pulling back. Other than that, he would talk about anything. The Westbrook thing, I think, was so raw that that's the one topic we've never really had an honest conversation about on the pod. And it might never happen. Well, but that's probably because he comes to do the podcast with you because,

I don't know, I my guess is more because of what I said yeah you're saying because it's the truth that I cool maybe maybe there's like an underlying thing I think it's because he has a good time he loves talking basketball with you he's comfortable he knows that it's interesting to people to hear what he has to say and he wants his fans to be able to get that but this is a comfortable setting and then just like any other friendship or relationship you bring something up and you say you know what man i'd rather not talk about that yeah that's all it is he's not hiding for anything i mean no he loves russell so it's more like i mean there there is nothing there

no i know there's nothing there so i think it's more like, I mean, there is nothing there. No, I know there's nothing there. So I think it's more to do with that. Like, okay. I don't think he has enough distance from basically those guys splitting up to talk about it in a way he's comfortable with yet. Also, I think it's foul to talk about. Why would he talk about that?

That's what I mean. Yeah. I just don't think he's ready yet. At some point he's gonna be. But then he'll talk about it with him. That's what I mean. Yeah, he's not going to be like, Bill, I'm ready. No.

No, but here's what it's going to be. Here's what it's going to be. It's going to be Russell's in town on January 13th. We're ready to do a podcast. That's when he'll be ready. Oh, you want them to do it with you, you're saying? That's when he'll be ready oh i don't i mean i don't maybe i don't i mean or maybe not might never have it might it

might be one of those nba tv things like shaq and kobe had like 25 years later no chance that i don't get their faces caked with makeup as they stare at each other russ i do think people ask me i always i get asked about the kd pods you know every so often people really did not like that last one we did huh i don't i never pay attention to the feedback on it well what was the feedback tommy you pay attention to it the numbers are people like all of them i got the feeling people didn't really like it no i think people were confused that KD still has like a bubbling anger underneath everything, and they don't fully understand that.

He doesn't. That's the funny thing. Well, that's the thing. But the thing is, like, if you're in the room for those, it's almost like it's like a busting balls, like kind of going back and forth. It's not that – it doesn't feel like in the room what maybe it sounds like a little bit.

Yeah. But I do think. I get it. My big takeaway on him is just having spent the time with him that we spent is just like, I think he's still like, his feelings are still hurt by the OKC thing a little bit. And I don't think he's fully recovered from it. I really don't.

I think he thought his relationship with that city and the fans was so good. Yeah. And so special. Yeah. That when he decided it was time to leave they were going to be like thank you good luck we're still rooting for you you're still part of this and when that didn't happen i think it made him and that's a lot of the themes in our podcast that we've done we did five probably came up in four of them. Yeah. Like just like, oh shit.

Honestly, you know, I think this is- Like his whole concept of loyalty now is shaped from a lot of that and a lot of like, why can't players pick where they want to go? Why do I owe anything? And all that stuff. And it all came from that summer.

Maybe. Honestly, I know that you're going to think this is like really whack of me to say, but like, I honestly, that's my, I can't talk about that with you. He's my friend. I'm just telling you what people would tell, what they tell me about.

Oh. They're like. People come up to you and say that to you? Well, they asked me about KD and they're like, man, it still seems like he hasn't gotten over, blah, blah, blah. You know what I noticed? Every once in a while, I'll see on Instagram,

you'll post a picture on like a night where like you went to take, how many kids do you have? Just two. Two. Just two. Just two that I know of. Just two. This is not a safe time to say things like that, Bill.

Are you admonishing me? I'm just saying that you know about. Yeah, I have two, I have two children. You have two kids, period. Two kids. I know for a fact you don't have a love child somewhere else. Who knows?

You never know, the 90s got crazy, everyone's around, I don't know. At a Celtic game? Yeah. What I was gonna say was, wait, what were we just talking about? Oh, you'll post a picture and you'll be like, you'll be at like a post soccer game of your kids. You'll be like with some of the dads and shit. And you guys are probably having like a few beers and watching like the Bruins or something.

Yeah. And they'll probably be like, yo, you going to ask Bill? No, you ask Bill. No, you ask Bill. And they'll be like, yo, man, what's up with Kevin Durant, brah? No. That's not how it goes.

He sounds so angry, Bill. What's up with him? It's much more direct and easy than that. And usually it's the moms. It's the soccer moms that ask. But they're always like, I heard your Kevin Durant podcast. And then they'll go, what's he like?

And I'll say- Then you didn't hear the podcast. I they'll go what's he like and I'll and I'll say then you didn't hear the podcast I was like what he's on the podcast that's what he's like and I'll be like no no but what's he like

and I'm like when the cameras are off yeah I was like that's actually what he's like that's the cool thing about this podcast is that's him he's like that and we can be at dinner

and it's the same the moms really ask you that yeah did they ask you the same thing about like Al Pacino's podcast yeah that was probably so dumb I had Ethan Hawke on two weeks ago. So I got a bunch of Ethan Hawke.

Wow. What's he like? He sounded like a great guy. It's, it's always, what's he like? Yeah. That is funny. You're right. Because here's the thing.

They don't, they're never going to meet. That's the generation though. That's, that's funny. That's actually interesting. Cause I bet you no one in their twenties would say that. Well, it's all you hear a podcast and it's so intimate. It's a conversation. Like obviously people who hear this,

they can tell that we know each other. We bust each other's balls, all that stuff. But they're always wondering, is this performance theater conversation or would this actually be the conversation if the mics weren't on? And I think the thing people don't understand with the KD, the stuff that we've done is like,

maybe the first one was a little bit performance because we know each other that well but the last couple was like that's what it would have been like if the mics weren't there we would have had the same conversations I might have busted his balls a little deeper on stuff but for the most part that's what it's that's what it's like you know which one I thought was amazing remember the one in LA in the like cigar room

that was the best one that might have been because you started with the Q&A because we did the mailbag yeah the mailbag yeah room that was the best one that might have been because you started with the mailbag yeah the mailbag yeah but that was also there was distance from the final you know the problem is that we got to set new rules i think the thing is we're all so we're done katie we're retiring it the last one was the last one no the next thing we're doing we'll do something different all right but what i was gonna say is it would have been cool if like you kevin and al pacino like a little mix it like mix it up like a little iconic now you're speaking tommy's language yeah like a little iconic class stuff you know i'm saying

it's cool you're good we wanted to do that with you last summer and then you were just the whole summer you were taking you guys were taking advantage of us you said you guys started to think that it was like that it was just take advantage yeah like like why weren't we like i don't still like the andre the giant documentary for instance like i don't even we weren't even invited to like the release thing uh that's that's a lie that documentary was good not only that but we wanted to do a whole screening for the warriors we're gonna come to san francisco and screen i tell you something i and i don't take this the wrong way i don't want you guys

anyone to take this the wrong way if i managed you you you were going to love it. I don't want you guys, anyone to take this the wrong way. If I managed you, you'd be out of here. You'd be a rock star. I'd be out of here. Where am I going? No, you'd be on another level. Another level. You would.

Thank you. Another level. You're doing really well. I think you have an incredible career. That's great. We have to do one with Rich and Babydoll. Oh my God dog new york versus new york that's uh my agent james baby doll dixon from long island new york crush him yeah it would be a good battle no chance a lot of he's from long island so you said you said before we started this this podcast was going

to be big for you in the new york jew circles i know that was your crazy not mine i didn't say it would be big for me in the New York Jew circles. You know I didn't say that. What did you say? I said, it's funny how big you are in the New York City Jew circles. And then I said- No, you said your Q rating was going to go up because of the podcast. No, I didn't. No, I didn't. I heard what I heard. No, I didn't. Nephew Kyle, what'd you hear?

That's not true. Nephew knows that's not true. knows that's not true i did not say that all right um i said that you are big in the new york city jew circles oh thank you and that people um will reference the podcast to me quite a bit at my version of your like soccer mom things yeah it's cool i like it i mean. I mean, I think it's great. All right. We got to wrap up. Are you Jewish? No, but I went to a lot of bar mitzvahs when I was a kid.

You did? Yeah. I went to a school that was probably 75% Jewish. So I get it. It's my point. I would have been a great member of the tribe. I really would have. I would have been a phenomenal member. What does that mean?

I just get it. I get it. I always- You just get it. I just would have fit in. I would have made it. You would have made it. It would have been a phenomenal member. What does that mean? I just get it. I just get it. I always- You just get it. I just would have fit in. I would have made it. You would have made it. It would have been great.

I would have really enjoyed it. So, all right. So tonight- This is it. Tonight, yeah. Give me your prediction on the finals. I picked Warriors in five. I just think they have too much talent.

But the way LeBron has been able to reinvent himself for each series is, could he make it like the 2015 finals, but a better version of it where he's just controlling it and it's just these ugly games that he's just always kind of hanging around in? Yeah, maybe. It's funny.

I said at the beginning of the podcast, I think the Durant versus LeBron part of this series has now kind of been swept under the rug because it's so much LeBron versus MJ stuff. And it was like LeBron part of this series has now kind of been swept under the rug because it's so much LeBron versus MJ stuff. And it was like LeBron versus Durant last finals was fantastic. And this finals is the sequel of that. And that's like not even one of the four

most compelling storylines. So it's a good one. And my fear is that the talent difference, that'll just be a demolition. But as you've seen all year, this Warriors team, they let teams hang around, they let up, they play well one game, and then they just suck a demolition. But as you've seen all year, this Warriors team, they let teams hang around, they let up, they play well one game, and then they just suck the next game.

And they've never been able to sustain a certain level, which is dangerous against a team like LeBron. I know what your prediction is. A team like LeBron? A team like LeBron. LeBron and the LeBronettes. That's not fair. LeBron and the LeBronettes.

That's not cool. What's not cool? Every single person on the the calves could whoop your ass try and think could i get in not one against jose calderon i feel like no maybe nope nope jose who else is that why would you that's not cool to say that the lebron these are these are first of all it was a mistake oh it was actually a Freudian slip, I guess. Not Freudian slip, but yeah. Instead of calling them Cleveland, I called them the LeBron. That's foul and not cool.

Not true. They just went to four straight finals. Okay. Yeah. LeBron dragged them to the finals. He dragged them. By the hair, he dragged them to the finals. They were like just a corpse lying on the ground.

He was just pulling their hands and their feet and their arms. That's foul. He played all 48 minutes in game six and game seven. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're the Cleveland LeBrons.

They should just get rid of the Cavaliers. How upset were you that Boston lost? I was devastated. Really? I really was. I really thought the Celts were going to make it. And I thought there was a chance Houston could haymaker a gold state in game seven,

and we'd get to play the Rockets without Chris Paul and also we had a chance to win the title. You think you could have beat the Rockets without Chris Paul? We played them well every game we've played them the last three years. So I was really starting to get ideas. we played them well every every game we've played them the last three years so i would start really starting to get ideas so next year do you start kairi gordon jaylen brown tatum and horford yes you come off the bench uh you match marcus smart no matter what you could you could argue jaylen's

the sixth man and then maybe you start somebody else so you can stagger and then you finish with that lineup okay that's your death lineup yeah you're uh smart the newton five yeah the newton five chest that hill five uh yeah marcus uh he said no hometown discount but there's not a lot of money out there so i have a feeling you got it marcus smart so then you get rosier get one more year and then the good thing is you can make a decision after that. So you go Marcus Smart, Rozier, Baines, Morris. Baines is back. Morris is back.

What about Anzick, that dude? Is he all right? No, he's on. They traded him? Yeah, he's buried in the Cavs lineup now. Oh, that's right. He was in that trade. I'm bugging.

But there's a chance they move up in the draft. They have a whole bunch of stuff. And then what's the other? Oh, yeah. Daniel Tease. That's who you're thinking of have a whole bunch of stuff. And then what's the other? Oh, yeah. Daniel Tease. That's who you're thinking of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they, okay.

David Tice. So they have, who's picked out this year? Just theirs? They have theirs, but we have four a year from now and a whole bunch of trade stuff. Next year you have Sacramento's. Yeah. And who else?

Sacramento, top one protected. Clippers could get that, if it's anything below 14. And then they have somebody else's pick. They have the Memphis pick if it's anything below 14. And then they have somebody else's pick. They have the Memphis pick if it's top eight protected. And then their own pick. If it's top eight protected. Memphis goes top eight next year, top five the year after,

and then unprotected in 21. So that's a pretty good trade ship. Because that team is not heading anywhere. Wow. This is all stuff you could have told Kevin when you were in the Hamptons when the Celtics came to visit. But you didn't do your job i did yeah i did he said on this podcast you didn't tell him about this i was there he had no idea that's not true let's see did you think that he was he was misrepresented what can i say i get if we if kevin went to the celtics we probably

wouldn't have done one podcast put it think about that way yeah it's true it would have been corny i don't know if you had the alaska airlines deal either no chance we could have had like uh yeah all right we got to go there's a chance there's a chance we might do another one of these at some point at a weird hour who knows a weird hour yeah you're hiding me you're burying me no just like at one in the morning you're burying me maybe maybe you and KD could just do it. I'm not even in it. It's just the two of you.

We've been offered that. I'm just saying you can do one after game three. Why don't you guys offer us one? What do you want? We'll make you an offer right now. You want a podcast? Yeah. 10 episodes, 100,000 episodes.

100,000 an episode? Million. Give me 10 episodes. I'll make the money back. All right. We'll talk after the podcast. Million dollars. Let me 10 episodes, I'll make the money back. All right, we'll talk after the podcast. Million dollars, let me hold my own podcast. Not Kevin, me.

You? Trust me, I'll make you the money back. What's the going rate for an ad for you guys? We'll talk about it afterwards. All right. Rich, good luck tonight. Good luck during the series. You might pop on again.

Thanks for telling us your story. And by the way- I didn't even tell you my story. Get the life. ESPN has this OTT app. It's on what? This OTT app that they launched. The life should be on the OTT app.

Yeah, because they have like all the 30s on there. Maybe I'm working on something else with them. No, but get the life's on there. Oh, you mean archive? The library, yeah. Oh yeah, we should tell Connor that. I'm going to text him right them. No, but get the life's on there. Oh, you mean archive? The library, yeah. Oh, yeah. We should tell Connor that. I'm going to tell him.

I'm going to text him right now. Tell him. All right. Thanks for coming on. All right, bro. Thanks so much to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to check them out at ziprecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to SimpliSafe Home Security.

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f-l-e-a flicker dot com slash bs we will be back who knows if game one's crazy we'll come back and do a little emergency micropod tonight. If not, we'll probably see you at some point over the weekend because we have a lot of stuff planned that's going to be

a lot of fun over these next two weeks. Until then. On the way so I never said I don't have feelings within On the way so I never said I don't have feelings within