The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Gottlieb: Extremely early NBA regular season takeaways, NCAA/FBI trial verdict fallout and impact with CBB writer Mike DeCourcy

Episode Date: October 26, 2018

Subscribe here to the All Ball with Doug Gottlieb Podcast https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/all-ball-with-doug-gottlieb/id1358843497?mt=2. All Ball with Doug Gottlieb is part of the Colin Cowherd Podcast Network. All Ball is an unfiltered podcast covering the biggest stories in college basketball and the NBA. Join Doug as he brings his unique perspective as an TV analyst and radio host. Join us this week as Doug gives his extremely early NBA takeaways on the Lakers, Warriors and other top teams and discusses the NCAA/FBI trial verdict and fallout with Sporting News college hoops writer Mike DeCourcy. Follow Doug on twitter at @GottliebShow and go to theherdnow.com to find the latest content. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, welcome in. This is the all-ball podcast, and I'm your host, Doug Gottlieb, over the next 30, 45 minutes or so. We're going to get into the college basketball scandal and what it means in the short term in this season

and what it may mean in the long term. but I wanted to start with what we have seen in the NBA. A couple different things sort of to work through, and obviously it starts with some of the most prominent teams. I'm going to start at the bottom and then work my way up to the top, the top being the Golden State Warriors. We'll get to the Lakers. We'll get to the Celtics as well.

I think there's an interesting discussion to be had in regards to the Houston Rockets, who as of this recording, they lost yet again last night, and James Hardin pulled up. Gimpy with a hamstring. There's also the Rondo deal with Rondo and CP3. Who's a worst teammate? Who's a worst leader? But let me start with the bottom. The Cleveland Cavaliers are awful. And what this will lead many people to point to is how incredible LeBron James is. Now, this is not a podcast dedicated to being a LeBron hater. I do think that there's a deep dive into the fact that he did miss those two free throws that could have won them the first game

of the year going back when they lost to the spurs at home. But it's, remember, the construct of a team is very, very important. And what he's going through now is this team is built differently. He's the most important piece. He changes them completely. And I'm not trying to take away or cast shade on his greatness. But it's a team that's constructed to ultimately be one where the ball moves and they're constantly in attack mode and their strength is in their depth, not in their

individual talents. And while there is some flaws to that, this has become not just a pace and space, but a shot makers league. And they just seem to lack the shot makers, although Josh Hart continues to make shot after shot. You look at the Cleveland Cavaliers and people will say, and probably rightfully so, they're awful. In the worst team in the NBA discussion, this only proves that LeBron James is in fact the greatest player in the history of the NBA. What's really important to focus on is that while LeBron is great and the level of his sustained success really has not been matched, you know, obviously it's hard to quantify because a realist says Michael Jordan played three years in college. So, and then, of course, in the prime of his run, when they won three titles, he stepped away from basketball and then came back midway through. So you can't go the consecutive finals appearances.

but when Michael Jordan was right in his prime, they went to the finals, and when they got to the finals, they won. And while you can sit here and go, they didn't play some of the greatest teams of all time in the finals. The fact is they did play the best team in the West. And what they had to go through in the East is what LeBron James is going to have to go through in the West. But again, that's getting caught up in some. The secret to the brilliance of LeBron is sustained success, sustained excellence. He hasn't gotten hurt. And though he, He has missed games up until last year. He hasn't missed long stretches due to injury.

Some of it's been mental fatigue. But the ability to night in, night out, be LeBron James, be, if not the best, one of the two or three best players in the league for 15 straight years. And maybe one of the top five, you know, early on in his career. And there have been years in which he's been better than others is remarkable. But it's also important to point out that this, the flaw to that team was, that, again, last year it wasn't nearly as good. And if you don't believe me, I give you, they went to seven games with the Boston Celtics

that didn't have their two best players. And you can sit here and tell me that Jason Tatum ultimately may be better than Gordon Hayward. And some people believe Jason Tatum may ultimately be better than Kyrie Irving. Some people believe that. I don't yet, but I think he's tremendous. But just look at last year, Jason Tatum was a rookie.

and he kind of became their go-to guy, right? I don't know how by hook or by crook, how they did it. You know, with Al Horford just being solid and scary Terry, remember, scary Terry was their fourth guard. So the fact that the Cavaliers needed seven games, needed to go to the full series to beat the Pacers, needed seven games to beat a depleted Celtics team, that's not the same Cavs team as the past.

So it's not like they were a dominant team. team and now all of a sudden they're the worst team in the league they were a really good team in the east that had lebron james the best player in the east and they were healthy come playoff time and so they got to the NBA finals before they just got destroyed but the team was so highly leveraged on lebron that now you take karee and lebron off that team and you're left with you know kevin loves sitting there going like well i can put up numbers but we're awful so i i just think the smart basketball fan should be really should be bright enough to understand

that some of this is about construct of a team. It's like, well, you know, the Warriors won 73 before KD got there and they didn't win as many games the next year and sure they won the NBA finals but they could have won it the year before, if you don't think the Warriors were better with Kevin Duran than they were before and you need number of wins to tell you, substantially better.

And this kind of goes into play with the fact that Steph Curry had 50 last night, made 11 threes and didn't play in the fourth quarter. I mean, the type of shooting is ridiculous. Kevin Rand, by the way, had 30 on 18 shots and was kind of an effortless 30. He's yet to really find his rhythm as a three-point shooter, whereas Steph is shooting like 52% from three. It's crazy what's going on with Steph Curry right now.

The point is this. I wouldn't go crazy about being all in on, LeBron's greatness because the calves stink. The calves weren't very good last year for a good stretch of time when LeBron James was on the team. And they were highly leveraged based upon his ability and frankly, Kyrie Irving's ability. And when Kyrie Irving left, it became a house of cards and ultimately, obviously, it fell down when LeBron left. And so they're now in, and I don't, I think they're in tank mode, but I don't know even if they're yet to the point where they're trying to lose.

Like generally teams don't decide to tank until you get maybe. a quarter to halfway to the season. Last year, Memphis, once they lost Mike Conley, they looked around and said, all right, let's start tanking. It happened with the Dallas Mavericks. Once they were, you know, they had all those injuries. It was probably 20 games in, and they were like, you know, we thought we had a good team.

Let's start tanking. And I don't think the Atlanta Hawks are tanking in the purest form as they got another win last night. I think ultimately they will, but the Atlanta Hawks are just basically, hey, we're going to play our young guys. we're going to live and die by these guys and see what happens. You play and commit to the youth, play a style that's fun and fast and enjoyable, and then we'll see what happens.

And if we lose because we're playing young players, fine, so be it. But before you just go, hey, LeBron's incredible. Look, he was the best team. They were the best team in the East and then they lost LeBron James and now they can't win. It's a little bit more to it than that. They weren't actually the best team in the East. They had mind control of the Toronto Raptors. They got the Celtics without their two best players,

and they survived the Indiana Pacers. That's really the way I look at it. And they didn't have to match up with the Philadelphia 76ers, who somehow also lost to the Boston Celtics. They match up with the Sixers in any round. That's a tough matchup for that Cavs team, because they do have, they did have the bodies and the shooting and a big guy to end up beating the calves,

even if they didn't have the experience to do so. All right, so we started at the bottom with the calves. I also want to point out that I watched the, Phoenix Suns and they're horrendous. They're averaging, I think, given up over 130 points. Like, they're so awful. They're so awful. Remember, they drafted Josh Jackson a couple years ago from Kansas and the idea was Josh Jackson's not a great player, but he has great core values and he's a culture changer and you how'd that work. Now they bring in Trevor Ariza, who though he couldn't make a shot for the Houston Rockets and the playoffs against the Golden State Warriors,

is a 3-and-D guy who suddenly now he doesn't or can't guard anybody. Heck, they still have Tyson Chandler on that team. And the idea of Tyson-Channler is like, here's a guy who defends him. He can teach DeAndre Aiton. There is no commitment to defense at all. They're just out there playing. It reminds me a lot of you guys or hoop fans are old enough to remember this.

College basketball, now you can play against NAA schools D3 and D2 in exhibition games. You used to be able to play against A.U organizations and this is in the traditional marathon oil and other let's see what's the Christian organization? The

I can't remember what it was called. Anyway, the point is that I played on a couple of these teams. I played an athlete's first that traveled around. I played my dad had a team. I played on the EA sports team which was run by the Pump Brothers.

And those games were fun. I mean, they were fun. I played at Carolina where we were up at the half. We beat UCLA at the time. My dad's organization, we handed UCLA their worst home loss in the history of Pauly Pavilion. We beat San Diego State and Wichita State and Marshall. And we got handled by Oklahoma State. We went back there.

And we played all these great play at Texas Tech. And it was really a ton of fun. But there was really no repercussions, right? Like my dad, when he coached those things, he would make you play defense. or you take you out. But generally, there's not the pressure of all that goes with practice and being with a team and being benched. You only have, you know, eight guys.

So you're going to play through injury, but you're also going to take some shots and you have a little less conscience. So guys are playing free and easy. That's how the sons are playing. They're playing as if they're an exhibition team. As long as everybody gets their stats, whether they get a win or don't get a win, it doesn't matter. It is embarrassing.

It is what an embarrassing organization. And one that, by the way, has some, young talent. But just going up and down and giving up, I mean, they gave up 76 to the Lakers in the first half last night. And so I want to sit here and tell you that Lonzo Ball seems to have crossed over the threshold of becoming a damn good NBA player. And I think he has the last game and a half. The second half of the Spurs game, he looked really, really good. I want to tell you he's crossed over the threshold. The problem is that he looked good last year against the sons. and everybody looked good last night.

But I do think this is kind of working our way up the food chain. I do think that the Lakers have found something with Lanzo as their starting point guard because he plays well alongside LeBron. And the flaws that he had last year where he got rid of kind of hot potatoed the ball too quickly, that works with LeBron. Like throw it up to him, let LeBron make a play, throw it up to other guys. And the need for him to break people down and make plays off late in shot clock, like other teams need their point guard to do,

he doesn't need to do. And though he still fires up one scud a game, like there's one shot a game in which he shoots an air ball and he misses by four or five feet. But he's making enough of them and he's making 80% of his free throw. And he's decent enough defensively and he's a pretty good rebounder

and he's become more athletic. And I got to say, I think it's working. Now, I'm shaded by the fact that he played against the spurs who don't have great athleticism in their backcourt. really have a true point guard to kind of break him down. And they played against the sons who don't play any defense. But I'm cautiously optimistic, cautiously optimistic about what Lonzo Ball can do. As for LeBron, I still think he's struggling, playing with his pace.

And then last night they went to something against the sons, which looked like the old LeBron offense, where they were having whoever their weakest link was defensively for the son's ball screen onto LeBron so LeBron can get a mismatch. He'd go one-on-one, find the open shooter, and just play off his penetration. So as much as they wanted to move the ball and share the ball and play faster, end of the day, we see the kind of default setting that LeBron has and that Luke Walton is going to, at some point, wave the white flag to. Does he want to play motion and move that ball, much like the Warriors do? Yeah. Does he want to play fast? Sure. But if you play too fast, you're going to play too fast for your 34-year-old point power forward,

and you're going to ruin all the great parts of his game. A couple of other things in regards to the NBA. I did notice that James Harden pulled up Gimpy with the hamstring, and though it's just a hamstring and Hardin, among all the things and some of the nightclub stuff that he loves and, you know, his Jersey being retired to strip club, Hardin hasn't missed substantial amount of time. But there is this thought with the rockets in how long can everything go right,

you know, Carmelo Anthony got hurt a bunch and had to be shut down with the Knicks. Of course, Chris Paul has made a career out of getting hurted inopportune times. And then there's James Hardenow. A hamstring is he in the type of shape that he was in last year when he wanted to make it a point to win the MVP.

And he did win that MVP. I have my reservations about the Rockets. Not that they won't have talent and not that they can't figure out how to compete night in, night out. I think they'll be more consistent. But the idea of staying healthy, and then what do you do with Mello in big

situations? He may say right now he's okay with based upon matchups playing. But that dude's a starter. He considers himself a star, and no matter how much he makes, he's going to want to be there at the end of games. I don't know if that thing works. As a matter of fact, I've been betting on it and not working. The only thing going

against my favor is the fact that Oklahoma City's not healthy yet and hasn't been clicking yet. And so I thought Oklahoma City might be better than them. And then he got Golden State, which is really interesting on how little people are paying attention because Steph has been amazing. 11-3s, amazing. Kevin Rand has been very good, although he's not hitting his three yet.

And then there's Draymond Green. Look, they got to figure out when DeMarcus cousins comes back, how to play with him. But Draymond Green cannot make a shot. Can't make a shot at all. And whether it's his shoulder or his knee. or his confidence. Don't get me wrong. Dremont is Dremont for what he does on the defensive end,

guarding all five positions. But it's hard to play four on five. Even with those type of shop, it's a shopmaker's league, and they have three of the five best shopmakers in the league. It's hard to guard them, even when you're playing four on five, they're playing four on five with those three guys.

But it makes it easier. It makes it easier. And then you have Blake Griffin, who he scores 50 for the Pistons. and it's not that the pistons are great, but they're pretty good and that move, considering what they gave up

and how hard is the land a free agent, that thing might work after all. They did, obviously they made a coaching change and they went out and got a guy who's shown his ability to win in the regular season in the Eastern Conference and no LeBron there. Somehow this does give credence to some of the Chris Paul stuff.

I view Chris Paul as more difficult to play with than a bad teammate. whereas Rondo, duty quit on his team in Dallas. There weren't warm and fuzzies for him when they won a championship in Boston. It is competitive jealousy that Chris Paul wants what Rondo has a championship bring, and Rondo wants the respect, and everybody wants to be liked like Chris Paul is. But I'm not taking this from a player that played with him's perspective or a coach who coached him, and definitely not from a fan's perspective.

I can only react to what the league tells me. and one guy's on a one year $9 million contract to be a backup, because I think Lonzo's beating him out, now these have been suspended. And one guy is going to make $40 some odd million. It tells you what the league thinks of Chris Paul as opposed to Rajan Rondo. But, you know, Golden State is interesting. They've only lost one game.

I'm watching staff, you make that many threes. Nobody's going to beat you. They still have three big shot makers. But how they play when Cousins comes back, do they play a big guy in the fourth quarter? and can Draymond Green recapture some form of his jump shot because he's had nights where he wants no part of looking at it? We'll come back to the NBA in a second. Let's dive in with a guy who I respect

and has written for a long time for the sporting news. You can see him on BTN, the Big Ten Network covering college basketball. Mike DeCorsi joins us here on the All-Ball podcast. And Mike, now that the first group of defendants have been found guilty, and statements have been made. And, of course, you know about Kansas statements saying that Bill Self wants to run a program that's under compliance. Like, what do you take from, now we're like a day removed from the ruling. What do you think happens?

Well, I think my take on this is different than just about every other journalist or commentator that I've seen. You know, I look at things not from, you know, I'm not a vigilante. that's not my job. You know, I mean, I don't see, my job is, I believe, is to reflect what the reality of the circumstance is and to explain what I think will happen. And what I think will happen is that the NCAA, when it comes to Kansas, is going to have a very difficult approach because the University of Kansas now has, or will have, soon in its hands a document from a federal court that says it was a victim in a fraud. And that, and there are,

and there are pages in that, in that, in that document that, in which the star witness whose testimony led to that conviction, or helped lead to that conviction, uh, the testimony that says that their coach, Bill self did not know of any of what happened. And so how, how, does the NCAA then go and say to Kansas, you are both the victim and the perpetrator? I don't know that they can do that. And I know that if Kansas wants to, and everything that they've, everything that they've, every move they've made, every word they've said since they were first, since they first appeared in the superseding indictment against Jim Gatto, everything that they've done suggest that they like the idea of being the victim in this.

If they're going to be involved, that that's the place that they want to be. And so I would say that if the NCAA comes around and tries to make a big case of this, I would think that KU would say, you better be careful because I got a document that says I'm a victim and, you know, and this could end up in the court of law. I think the one I'm concerned about is Curtis Townsend, if I was Kansas. because he's on the tape and because he's talking about getting things done. Now, there is no, it didn't, and I don't know every word as, I didn't study it maybe as closely as you have, but everything that I've seen released, there is no set amount like, hey, what is the dollar amount?

Let's do it, right? It's more of, you know, we'll do what it takes. We'll get it done. And I think we all assume that he was on some level in on what Adidas was doing, even if he did not do it himself. even there is no he arranged for payments himself. But when I read the statement that Kansas and Bill Self want to operate a program that's that under compliance, it means that they can sit there and go like, look, Bill Self didn't break any rules, but Curtis Townsend may have.

We generally run a clean program and maybe we throw Curtis Townsend a long tenured assistant under the bus. That would be my read, even if you're, and by the way, I think you're taking. is fascinating because it's really smart. It's, hey, they, and the prosecutor even said that, which was, I think, a statement that's being maybe misinterpreted where they're saying, well, if, if Kansas or any of these programs knew these players were being paid this money, well, then they wouldn't have offered them a scholarship. I think what the prosecutor is trying to say is they would be ineligible or if they knew

they were on the take, or if they knew that everybody else was going to know they were on the take, then they couldn't possibly offer them a scholarship. But what do you think about Townsend as being the guy that they'll throw under the bus? Well, I think that, I think that Curtis certainly will have to explain some of the language on, on, that was caught on wire cap. But there are a couple of things in his favor, even in that. And one of them is that there was, you know, there was just a general, at first, if you even read it, you know, it, you know, it, you know, there's this concern about the request that were made of him. Now it's not clear whether that request was that he was aghast at having been asked to break rules

or if he was concerned about whether or not he could fulfill that. So there's that, and then there's the fact that the player in question did not become a Jayhawk. And so that certainly helps him because even if he talked about, the possibility of breaking rules. Unless someone comes forward and says that this particular player was offered something by Kansas, then there's really nothing necessarily to verify it. And in, again, in Kansas's favor or in Curtis's favor, because these investigations can't apparently take place until after these trial.

are over. The NCAA has indicated that they're not going to do anything until the trials are over, which appears to have been a request from the Justice Department. The player in question will no longer be an NCAA athlete by the time that's all over. I mean, we know very well that he will be in the NBA draft. And so he may just choose not to cooperate. And so there's a lot of ways that this could even go well, you know, that there are things that could happen that could favor Curtis not becoming, you know, not becoming fodder in this circumstance. Those are ways that it could turn out well for him. And, no, and he may say that also, I mean, I've talked to different coaches and scouts

and that sort of thing, who will say sometimes guys who are in this circumstance will, you know, we'll talk like this so that they can keep a conversation going, and then when it comes down to the end, you know, they're hopeful that they can get over the goal line without having broken any rules, even if they have conversations like this along the way. Those are all things that he could say in his defense, and he could then therefore retain his position. Yeah, here's one thing, and I think you know this.

I feel like college basketball recruiting and some of these things that are caught on tape. And I don't doubt that some of the money that was delivered is in fact real. I don't doubt that. that but I will point out that there's a little bit of of guy of you know guy 101 right like you ask a guy how many women he's been with in his life he's probably going to multiply that number you know it's and and for all the basketball guys this is like how much did you make playing overseas oh I made 500 like dude stop it right guys make guys make a quarter of a guy's contract is for a quarter of what

they say it's going to be and sometimes you don't even get all of that money so the the the The braggadocious, hey, you know, we're going to, we're going to pay, you know, he wants, you know, he kid wants this, he wants that. It's like, great. But what I found is, like, I remember, I remember when I was at ABCD camp in Yipsilene, Michigan. Antoine Walker out of Chicago would come over and shoot dice with Ricky Price. And those two were two of the most incredible trash talkers. And Jolani Gardner would come over. And Jolani was saying like, hey, Arizona State is offering this.

and Cal is offering this. Now, Cal did, in fact, offer him and pay him money, but it was, in comparison, like, compared to what they were talking about, I think it was like $30,000

was what ultimately brought Cal's program down. Like, at the time, they were like, yeah, it's going to be 50 or 75 to even get me to visit. And maybe those guys were getting paid at the time. Or maybe they were just 17-year-old kids throwing out numbers knowing that it wasn't really, really the case.

All right, here's the point. Before you go on, Doug, let me, let me address that, because it's one of the most fascinating things. Michael Sokolov, who did attend some of the trial. He's a writer for New York Times Magazine, and he's an author as well. And he wrote a book that's out now called The Last Temptation of Rick Petino. And it's about the case, and he talked to Rick and Tom Jurish, the former AD,

and had pretty good access to those men and some to the Bowens, I believe. And one of the fascinating, to me the most fascinating thing in the entire book was the fact that initially the deal was supposed to be for six figures. And apparently the only money that the Bowens ever got in all of this, according to the book, was money that was fronted by an FBI undercover FBI agent. They couldn't get any money out of Adidas because all their requests kept getting kicked back. And so to me, it sort of goes right along with that idea that there was so, there was so much talked about regarding money and all this money that supposedly was flying

around, but when they had an alleged deal in place to get Bowen to Louisville for $100,000, they couldn't come up with any money to pay them. And I find that to be, you know, the most fascinating element of the entire circumstance, this whole show that there's supposedly so much money being trucked around, but when they came to try to get the money to one of the, top prospects in the 2018 class, or 2017 class, excuse me, they couldn't find any. That is, I mean, that's amazing to me, right? It's like the everybody, this is the classic thing in college basketball, right, where

everybody says they're getting paid, except I didn't get paid, you know? And the truth is that, like, I paid, I played it two major college programs. I never saw it. I never saw it. I swear to you, I never saw it. Now, Notre Dame, I do think is beyond reproach, and I was there during, there was some stuff that went on during, at football, but even that wasn't about, you know, paying players.

And when I was at Oklahoma State in basketball, of course, I played Freddie Sutton, and he was, he was, he was the head coach of the staff that brought down Kentucky basketball. I can tell you, like, I never saw it, but I always heard, I've always heard rumors. And, you know, you've been around enough. I've been around enough. Do I think there are kids that have their hands out? Yes. Do I think sometimes those kids get money put in it?

Yes. But do I think it's the schools themselves? I don't. I do understand this idea that Adidas and probably Nike and Under Armour want kids to go to their programs because they're totally invested in those programs for years to come and it looks better when those programs are winning. Sure, that's an easy correlation to make. But I honestly think that this is more of the exception than the

rule. Am I, I'm not trying to be Mike Shashefsky and say, I don't think it happens and I know anything about it, especially when he just had Marvin Bagley, but am I crazy to say that though this is eye-opening, some of the things that were mentioned and talked about and recorded, I think a lot of it is a little bit nonsensical and happens far more seldom than the public thinks. You know, I think that when this first came out, there was an assumption and that I never considered to be fair that, well, if Adidas is doing this, or someone at Adidas, I should say, is doing this, then clearly the other companies are doing it. And I don't agree with that at all. I mean, my position was, you know, if you're in first place, you don't necessarily, you know,

you could just turn around and chuckle with the guys trying to catch up to you. And so I never thought that was a fair assertion. And I have not seen any evidence to suggest that that's true. There's no question that Nike wants players to go to their schools, and they have many of them from Kentucky to Duke to wherever else. I mean, there's no question that Nike wants great players at their showpiece schools, just as any company would want its product to be well displayed. But I don't think that necessarily that automatically means that they would be, willing to do these sorts of things or that executives at their companies would be willing

to do these sorts of things. If someone has evidence of that, that would be a different manner, but I've not seen anything to suggest that. And so, you know, I think that there's no question that there is rule breaking in college athletics and that someone that would constitute buying players, which, you know, to me is that and academic fraud are the two things in college. What I always have said about college athletics is that, you know, and this probably isn't necessarily as true now as it was 20 years ago because you don't have to go outside the rules to take care of your players. You can do so much for them that, you know, that's within the rules now from cost of attendance payments to the, you know, to the all-you-can-eat, all-day buffet that is a college athletic department.

I always felt that most schools take care of their players, and then there are the ones that go rogue and buy them. But like I said, I'm not even sure that the ones that take care of their players have to break the rules now to do that. Yeah, I'll give you an example, okay? So I was in an ACC school, and I went through their facility, which is, you know, all these facilities now are incredible, right? From not just the practice gyms and the arenas,

but also they have hangout rooms so the kids can come and they just, that's where, it's like their fraternity house. And they're also all building where they can come in and eat whatever they want, whenever they want. And so they pocket the meal money. Like they dial back, they don't have meal plans or they have very, very limited meal plans,

but they get to keep the meal money. So you add on that to cost of attendance. There's some stuff that we used to do that was legal, you know, with summer school where, and again, it varies school to school. but for example, when I was at Oklahoma State and for a period of time afterwards, I don't know if this is still the case.

The amount you got per summer session was based upon the number of credits you signed up for. So you'd sign up for like a full boat of classes, you know, 18 hours or something. And then whatever was hard, you just dropped. Anyway, you end up keeping the money and you took six hours and you got two A's and you also worked your coaches camp. So you got $250 there.

You know, you get $1,000, you know, for a meal money that you don't need. You know, so between per diem, meal money, cost of attendance, like this old hungry huskies deal is kind of a joke. And I think we're all kind of in on it. And I just, I find that so many people look at these stories and think these poor kids when they don't realize how much guys get, how value they are, even if they're not playing, they're still treated. as a class above the common citizen. And, you know, some would say rightfully so. And, you know, I think they're putting an incredible position to succeed in life, not just in basketball.

And in our search for the perfect system, we may end up screwing up a really, really good system. I agree with you. You know, I've watched a lot of young people go through college athletics. I've been doing this for 36 years. And everybody's experience is not positive. and everybody's outcome is not wonderful. But that's true of whether, you know,

you check with every law student who goes to law school. Not everyone turns out wonder. You know, having enjoyed going to law school, not everyone who gets to be a lawyer wants to stay one. Not everyone who wants to stay one gets the job he or she wants. But we're not, you know, we're not saying let's close down all the law schools because it doesn't work 100% for every single student. I really believe in the way college athletics works.

I make no apologies for that at all. I've always been endeavoring to try to give ideas on how to make it better. And sometimes I've been behind a curve on that, and sometimes I've been ahead. But I believe that college athletics is a positive experience for the vast majority of the young men and women who go through it. and and as I said I I you know I've got lots of anecdotal evidence of that from the people that I've covered and who've had good experiences and success in life and you know again that they're not everyone who goes through is happy with what you know with how they were coached or how they were used or the education they got or whatever but I can tell you that of the people that I've stayed in touch with who I did cover that most of them the vast majority majority again, we're very happy with how it all turned out. Yeah, I read that, I saw that, read that Darius Miles piece from the Players Tribune.

And I know we got into a little bit of a Twitter back and forth with others, with guys like David Thorpe. And I'm sitting there going like, don't, don't we see this is a, Steve Kerr wrote a piece about it. This is going back to when he was a broadcaster, having been, having been a general manager, about how he thinks guys should stay in school even longer for two years or maybe even longer and the idea is like you're just you're just not ready you don't forget about knowing how to manage your time as an athlete and you know manage all the hangers honors and whatever you're not

able to manage a checkbook and one of the things that you among the things that you learn in college is when you get that small scholarship check you got to make a work for a month you know you got to make work and then at the end of the month you're running a little light you know you can't you know if you don't have a mom or dad to call and ask for help you're just going to have to find a way way to make do. And I think it's a really good, healthy time, healthy experience. It's kind of your, it's, people always say, well, it's a job. Well, yeah, it's a job, but you can't be fired from it. It's a job, but your benefits aren't taxed. And it's a job that, um, you can always come back to if you leave based upon. And again, you talked about the rules evolution kind of, I think that's a

great one that these, you can come back and be on scholarship basically any time, which you look at the end of the piece where Darius Miles, his mom died and he didn't leave his house for a year. And he's destitute and he packs up a U-Haul and moves down with Quinn Richardson. And I don't know how self-sufficient he is financially. Like, again, if he had gone to school for a year, and I think they should go to school for long, but for a year, he could have re-enrolled, been put on the staff and been given a kind of a second chance at staying around basketball, whereas now he's kind of out of the circle of basketball.

He just is. And he's too young and he was too gifted for a basketball to chewed him up and spit him out. But he did because that was the same. system at the time and it's a system by the way that we're reverting to yeah and and I'm very disappointed in the NBA's approach to this and I understand that that Mark Emord whose position on on the age limit rule has been horrifically wrong from the day he took the job I understand that he

sort of basically figuratively browbeat the NBA into giving up on the age limit rule but I still I still believe that Adam Silver should have said, look, this is the best approach for us. This is the approach that works really well for us. And I don't know why you don't like it. You've never given me a good justification for it because Mark Emmett has no good justification for it. And so we're going to stick with it. That's what he should have said because it works for the NBA.

It's worked fabulously. I did a piece last February around the All-Star game because I wanted it to, appear because I knew silver would be asked about it there. This was when the Rice Commission was still in process before they came out with their rulings and that sort of thing. And in it, I documented all these different statistics that indicate how successful the age limit rule, the one and done concept has been for the NBA. How much more often the players succeed?

how much more often they become stars, you know, how much, how many more playoff games they've appeared in all sorts of things like that. But the best boiling down of that assistance to the NBA, now this is not a direct correlation, but it's not a coincidence either. In 2006, when the age limit rule was just being launched before there had been a draft with the one and done players in it, In 2006, the New York Knicks were $590 million, and now they are worth $3.3 billion. That kind of growth, it's not coincidental when you have all these great players going through

and becoming famous and becoming successful in your league, instead of having really great prospects crash and burn like Robert Swift or Leon Smith or Indie Eby and all these guys who never made a blip on the, NBA's radar who were all top-level prospects coming out of high school because they weren't ready to play there. And Darius Miles would fit into that category. The point you're getting to is a really smart one, okay? And Kerr did put that in his piece, which is, like, think back to when the golden era of the Big East Conference, when Pat Ewing, you know, when Patrick Ewing was drafted by the New York Knicks, everybody knew who Patrick Ewing was, right? Like, you just, you knew he was.

All of these guys, they had built up their own image and likeness. Here's the easiest one that I tell people all the time. The idea that now the NBA and the G League is going to offer 125 grand for guys to come out. The fact is that you've been able to come out and go to the G League since 2006. You've been able to come out. Now, no one has done it, but you're able to come out. And if you come out, you're able to get a shoe deal. We're able to sign autographs.

The problem is your shoe deal, your autographs, they have zero value because it's not associated with a university and it's not associated with an NBA team. Nobody cares. You're just some guy who is a high school all-American. And I think that's the easiest argument. Well, their name and likeness, the name and likeness is attached to a school. Like, you know, my brother says this all the time.

He's like, look, we're at Oregon State. But you can say this about anybody. The only people who come to our games are Oregon State fans. That's it. Now they may or they may come to see the opposition. No, people that come like, sorry, they don't, like when Lonzo Ball came to town with UCLA, Lonzo Ball, that's who you come to town for. UCLA.

That's who you come to town for. That's what the sale is. And then you learn about Lonzo Ball. And the idea, and I thought, you know, Jim Beehim may not have articulated it well enough, but what he was saying about the Basley kid was, like, look, you know, all of these deals that Syracuse has and all the tickets that are sold, they're based upon playing for Jim Beheim and playing for Syracuse and the storied success. Do you need players in order to have that success? Sure.

But you only get to know those players because they play at Syracuse. And that has value to the NBA. It has value. You don't have to tell us, you know, like we knew the only reason Trey Young is something is because ESPN followed him around like he was the Kardashians. And that's one guy a year that they follow around. So I think that part gets undervalued and by the NBA. And then I think by the common fan, they don't understand the true value in all that you get in college basketball.

Just really a frustrating fight that I feel like I'm on the right side of history. But man, if you engage in social media, they make you feel like you're, you know, you're some guy who wants to revert back to the prehistoric days. You know, I have conversations with people all the time about exactly what you're talking about. And I point out when people talk about Ben Simmons, who clearly didn't want to be at LSU, and I wrote at the time, and I still, if you didn't want to be there, then why did you travel 9,000 miles to get there? I mean, that's all he's from Australia, folks. He's not from New Orleans. Why did he come all that way if he didn't want to be there?

But even though he didn't want to be there, and even though he didn't, you know, he wasn't the world's best teammate in college, apparently, he still got a Nike contract for $20 million coming out of LSU for the very reason you talked about ESPN was absolutely fascinated with him and showed all his games and made a big deal about all of them and promoted all of them when you were watching somebody else and so at the end of that he was the number one overall pick and he was a valued commodity because people had an idea what to expect

the idea of tanking you know what is what is tanking going to be valued at, you know, except in the absolutely once every 50 years circumstance when there's a LeBron James, and that, you know, maybe in 25 years there'll be another. What are you tanking for if you do this? I mean, you're tanking for a guy coming out of high school who may turn out to be, you know, Tyson Chandler had a good career after it took him like seven years to become a player. Meanwhile, all the guys from his class that were in that class, Kawami Brown and Eddie Curry and other high school players.

I'm forgetting the guy who wound up coming out of Oak Hill now, but he was a top ten pick as well. They had four big guys in the top ten who were all high school big guys, and none of them became an immediate smash. None of them became a complete star, and Tyson Chandler only became a really good NBA player after a lot of years of trying to find his role. Yeah, I mean, if you go back and track it, I think. the big guy is the one that has been, we have chased off to the NBA far too quickly, guards

as well, but big guys especially, if they're any good at all, they're going to leave right away. And one of the things in terms of basketball that's missing, like Dwight Howard, for example, if you can, if you don't ever learn to dominate into low post, right? And what happens when you get to the NBA, generally, now generally, is you get there and you're thrust into playing far too early because you're a high draft pick. And so the owner's like, hey, you got to play the kid. You got to learn on the job. Now, Joel Embed, because of injury, didn't play and got to work and develop his game

some. So he's one of the exceptions to it. But a lot of these guys, they come out and they haven't dominated in college basketball, dominated specifically in low post. And when you combine that with the fact that NBA offenses now don't focus on the low post, you combine that with the way the NBA game. is officiated, so it's really hard to score in there. All these big guys become shop lockers and rebounders and rim runners,

and none of them have the refined skill of an Akeem Elijah. Now, in fairness, Akeem was not that refined when he got there, but compared to when he got to Houston when he learned a dunk from a scout who had to jump off a chair to teach him out of dunk a basketball, right? Like, he was more refined. So I, look, I think this is just like having a kid. I have a nine-year-old son. and yes, do I play him up some?

Sure. And when I play him up, he has to learn to facilitate and just be one of the guys and be the sixth or seventh or eighth best player. But it's also super important that you play against kids your own age, even if you dominate that so you have confidence

so that you don't fall into the trap of being just a role player. And I think that if you look at a lot of big guys that have come out early, a majority of them become role players because they're thrust in too early and there is not the time to learn to devourer. developed skilled in the low post on the fly. It's just too hard for an NBA team to work on.

I like that talk about dominance, because I've always said that dominance is a skill. And that's why, you know, I'm not the biggest admirer of the baseball circumstance. I don't think that they treat their players great. But there's a reason why you go from AA and hit 330, and then you go to AAA and maybe you hit 250, and then they keep you around a little while longer. then you hit 340, and then they bring you up to the bigs,

because you have to learn how to be great against each level of competition. And if you skip from high school competition, which isn't substantial, all the way to the NBA, which is the best in the world, you don't ever learn to dominate against real competition. Whereas you, you know, if you're Anthony Davis and you're dominating the kids at prospective charter, and then you go to Kentucky, and it takes you a little while to feel that, and then by the end of that year, even in one year, Andy has changed as a player.

And I think that's often dismissed by people who think it's really easy because they've seen Kobe and KG and LeBron. And so, oh, well, it must be easy because those guys did it. And meanwhile, they don't look below the surface and see the number of players. I mean, like I said, just from that one draft, I think that was 2001, you know, top 10 highly talented big guys who either became good players or very good players or flopped completely

because they hadn't had the training necessary to become great. No, I'm going to completely agree with you. All right, let's, let me just kind of wrap the college basketball discussion with something that I think pertains to this year. How does it affect? DeSuzes probably played his last game at Kansas. Is that fair? I'm not sure of that.

And here's the reason. And in the trial conversation, there was the talk about the guardian of DeSosa getting paid $20,000, but that payment never happened. And it's reflected in the transcript that that payment never happened. There was allegedly, according to testimony, a payment of $2,500. That can be mitigated. It may, I'm not sure exactly the number of games that he would need to miss in order for that to be mitigated. But I think it falls within the realm of a number that can be set aside if he makes restitution and it sits out an X number of games.

I think it's still possible for him to return. It may require him to do what Wiley from Auburn did a year ago, perhaps. I'm not going to – that's just a guess. I mean, where Wiley was asked to set out an entire year and did. It may get to that. Again, I'm not sure the dollar figure, and I'm not sure where the NCAA will come down. But then it would be up to Sosa to decide what he wanted to do with his career if he's handed a suspension of however many games this year or the entire year or whatever.

If he does play, it's Kansas, it's Kentucky, it's Duke, it's Gonzaga. I'd probably throw Virginia in there because I do think they have age and experience, even if it's not positive experience in the NCAA tournament recently. is it safe to say you can circle those five teams and you're probably going to get two or three final four participants? Oh, I think that, you know, I think that's the best group, although I would include probably North Carolina in there as well. North Carolina has a pretty good core of veteran players,

Kenny Williams, Cam Johnson, May. So they've got a pretty good group, and then they've got a terrific freshman in the Sear Little. the kind of game changer that they haven't had in a while. And it comes down to whether Kobe White can be a, you know, a high-level point guard for the freshman. He's not been, you know, he's not been a point guard his entire career, so it may be an adjustment.

But I think the talent is there, and Roy does well enough with these sorts of teams that it wouldn't surprise me if they were right there, you know, like a 5A or 5B kind of team. Isn't it remarkable? Roy Williams, like the, if you tell the true story of Roy Williams, right, he was the most incredible recruiter. He had, he was indefatigable when he was at Kansas, right? He'd sit, he'd have practice early, get on a plane, and fly out.

And I remember when he was recruiting Paul Pierce. Like, he'd sit midcourt at Paul Pierce's games or when Jock Vaughn was playing. Like he was an unbelievable recruiter. And then, you know, at Carolina, he had some, they had the investigation of the African-American studies, which was not just them, but it was. football as well, as well as his own personal health problems. He lost a friend as well. And remember when he lost Harrison Barnes to Duke, who he everyone, I mean, excuse me, when,

when they got Harrison Barnes, everybody thought it's back and it's on. And then Harrison Barnes didn't quite live up to the, to the billing. And then with the, with the investigation, health problems, like he lost some of the mojo in recruiting. And maybe it's because he wasn't playing, he didn't want to play ball when some of these other schools wanted to play ball or whatever. in terms of the shoe company stuff. And they haven't been seen as, you know,

they're not Duke, they're not Kentucky. And maybe they're not even as hip as, you know, Villanova is now. And yet he won a national title. He's super competitive. They got a shot this year. Like it's the evolution of Roy Williams is really kind of fascinating. It feels like it's going under the radar.

You know, I sat with him on a, it was like a rolled up wrestling mat or something like that because they, for some reason, there were no chairs in the gym that day, as they were getting ready for practice, this was the fall of 2016. And you could tell that he was just beaten down. I mean, I've never seen him like that, and I've known him for 20 years or whatever.

He was just, you know, he was just beat. And it was reflected in the conversation, both on and off the record. I mean, the investigation thing was really dragging him down. And, you know, you could feel it. And then, of course, they'd lost the game to Villanova on the buzzer shot, and that didn't help. And then all of a sudden, you know, six, eight months later, they're national champions. They had a phenomenal year.

And then subsequent to that, the NCAA says we can't make a case. And I think that that really rejuvenated him. Both the success of that team, coaching that team, I think he really enjoyed being around them. They were a good group. It was a good group of young men. He didn't have a lot of problems coaching that 2017. And I think he was really happy about that. And then when they got to clean bill, to me, there was no question that it was the controversy

that was causing them to struggle in recruiting because no one, none of the top players could be sure. They want, you know, those guys all want, you know, they're only going to be there a year. They want to play in the NCAA tournament. They're not coming there because they are, you know, they may really like your school, but they know that they're not necessarily, you know, going to be there for four or five years. They can make up for one that doesn't go right. And so it has to be just right.

And so they were getting told, you know, if you go to Carolina, this could be the year you're out. And they all said, okay. I'm out. And, you know, like, they didn't like that I was talking about it. North Carolina didn't. But I had had conversations with Coach Williams and others had as well. that said, like, maybe he's just going to retire. Maybe he's just going to take his national championship

brings in his Hall of Fame and go home. I don't think that helped him. And I also think there's one other part to it in that the no-show class thing started when Dean Smith was there and he was alive. And he wasn't. And so he's defending the honor, you know, he feels like he's defending the honor of Carolina basketball and the honor of an incredible mentor who couldn't defend himself, right?

I think all of those things took away from it. But it is interesting now on how North Carolina who used to, or Roy Williams, who used to, you know, he wasn't recruiting. He was selecting, you know. Right. Now he's, now he's really recruiting and getting pieces and guys that, I mean, Luke May's his best player. I mean, it's college basketball in 2018, 2018, 2019, but it also speaks to that would never happen for a Roy Williams team in the last 30 years. And that's kind of how he's evolved. All right, real quick, because we got to run.

one of the adages in college basketball this year are get old and stay old, right? Teams that take transfers in fifth years and whatever and have experience of playing together have a tendency, especially early in the season of win games. Then you look in the NCAA tournament, some of these older teams, you know, you got 23, 24-year-old dudes. I was 24 when I finished. You got a chance to compete against, frankly, better prospects. Is there a team out there that we're all missing on?

You know, I think that. The one team, and I'm not sure that it fits to get old thing, the one team I think that's being overlooked is Arizona. They still have high-end players there. Not guys who've been successful yet. Most of the guys that they have there have been bit players at best. But those guys were all, you know, Brandon Randolph was a really coveted player.

You look at that, and then they do have some age as well. they got players in as, they got a couple of players in as grad transfers, Ryan Luther from Pitt being one of them. And so they will have that age, and then they will have some really good athletic wings, and they've got Brandon Williams to play point guard, the top high school player. So they've got some real possibility there. And I'm not saying that they're going to be another Pac-12 champion or that they're going to be another top seed.

But I think that's a tournament team, and almost everyone I've seen has dismissed them as that sort of squad because they lost the, you know, the truckload of players to the NBA. Yeah, I'm going to be a doubt of there. I do like Ryan Luther. I thought he was a good player at Pitt, a guy who, you know, he put his time in, and then, you know, he transfers out. He's a face-up five, and they've done a nice job of not being,

they're not going to be a dormat in that league. but boy, that's replacing an entire team, which is essentially what they're doing. And overcoming this investigation, that would be a monumental achievement. For a guy who I think is a really, really good coach in a Sean Miller. I was thinking more of a Clemson team

that has, I think, four fifth-year transfers, four-fifth-year players on their squad and one that was kind of a surprise of the ACC. There's a team that I think could do some damage. I think a Kansas State is a team that, you know, know, do I think they're, and they're ranked, both teams are ranked. But I think a Kansas State is a team with the Dean Wade and a Barry Brown and having two point guards now that have seen some success.

I think that's a team that wouldn't surprise me at all if they're playing in the second weekend in the NCAA tournament. I think that's kind of what we're coming around to in college basketball, which is programs that can keep their players and add in a transfer here or there are the ones that are going to have the longest sustained success. But it's hard to get old and stay old. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you joining us. I always look forward to reading your work, whether it's on Twitter.

That links me to the sporting news or just going to the sporting news. And, of course, look forward to seeing you with my friend Dave Revson and all those Big Ten Network guys very, very soon. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, Doug. I always enjoyed listening to you and seeing you on games. You're one of my favorite analysts, so looking forward to the start of the season. A reminder to listen to the Doug Gottlieb show on Fox Sports Radio Daily from 3-6 Eastern Time,

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