The Kevin Sheehan Show - Bruce Turns On Dan

Episode Date: February 23, 2021

Kevin and Thom today with a ton on the story that led with Jeff Bezos' interest in the Washington Football Team but also included Bruce Allen's alleged role in the smear campaign against Dan Snyder. More on the show too including Kevin's thoughts on the Wizards' 5th straight win last night in L.A.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. LeBron to tie. Redout Coosma. This game is over, and the Wizards have won five in a row,

and they've come in and shocked the Lakers. How about the Wizards? They are on fire. Five in a row. Tommy, I got tweets from people with that I saw this morning saying, why were you up at nearly one in the morning watching the Wizards game when you have to get up at 4.30? I didn't watch the whole game. I watched the first quarter.

They were getting beat. And then I fell asleep with the TV on, woke up with five minutes to go, watch the end of the game, and watch them beat the Lakers in overtime. We're not going to do a lot of Wizards. In fact, I'll do it right now in basically 30 seconds or less. I like Hachamura as a defender. I love their rookie Deniavda. I think he's going to be a good player.

I think he competes. I think he defends. I think his shooting will become more consistent because he's got a good stroke. Westbrook's playing much better. He looks healthier. Beals, obviously, a score and is playing at a very high level. At the end of regulation, do not throw the ball into Russell Westbrook and let him get fouled. He's your worst free throw shooter that was a massive low IQ play. Beal's final attempt in regulation, he took like four steps. I can't believe they didn't call him for traveling. He missed it. They won the game in overtime. I'm happy for them. I'm going to watch the game

tonight against the Clippers. I think they'll lose tonight. They're nine and a half point underdogs. They were seven point underdogs last night. But you got to give them some credit. They're playing hard. They're doing their best they can defensively. Bertons obviously is a key when he can knock down some shots. He knocked down a couple of key ones last night wasn't great in his three-point shooting like he was against Denver as an example last week when I think he was nine for 11. But a good win for them. Anyway, we have to get to this story about Jeff Bezos from front office sports, which buried the lead as far as I'm concerned, because there is a paragraph in this story about Bruce Allen turning heel on Dan Snyder that we will get to. Tommy had a really good column about

West Unseld, but it went beyond West Unseld. It was about sort of the most impactful athletes in the history of this town. We'll get to that. I'm going to start the show, however, today with this tweet from Alan. Alan wrote, you've got huge stones telling Mark Turgeon how to coach when you've been the one jocking him all year long. Thank you, Alan. Tommy's laughing because I gave Tommy a little bit of a heads up. about this. I told this story with Cooley yesterday, Tommy, and I'm going to share it with you,

and I'm not going to make it long because anybody that listened to the podcast yesterday has heard it. By the way, real quickly, subscribe, please, and rate and review. My business partners continue to tell me to tell you that. It makes it easier for them to sell the podcast. Also, if you missed Cooley yesterday on Brandon Sheriff, I would go listen to that. I thought it was really interesting.

Anyway. So you know that I think that Mark Turgeon is doing a phenomenal job this year and that I think he's a good coach. And I've never said that he is an elite coach. And there are coaches that I think are better than Mark Turgeon. I've always felt that way. But I've said this year I think he is improving as a coach as well, which I definitely have noticed sort of manifest itself in many ways. And really, I think I said some of the same things last year. They're better offensively against a zone.

They handle pressure better. And he's doing what he's done before in the past where he does, he doesn't force a system down the throats of his talent, Tommy. He determines based on what he has a way to play that will give him the best chance. He's done that before. this year's he's really had to figure it out because I think he thought he was deeper before the season started. I think he thought maybe he had more size than he had. But anyway, to make a long story short, I sent him a short text. When I communicate with him, it's very rare, very rare

during the season. I don't want to bother somebody who's coaching a team. But every once in a while, like early in the season, when I saw a team that was starting to get better, even though, they lost a couple of games. I just sent him a text, hey, I can see it. I think you're getting better. I think, you know, keep it up and hang in there. Because I know that he hears a lot of the criticism too. It's hard not to when you have a fan base that is super, it's very hypercritical like

Maryland's fan base is. So yesterday I think was the first time I've sent him a note this year after a win. And I just said, man, your team is so much fun to watch. you're doing a great job, phenomenal job, keep it up. And he sent me a text back immediately, and he said, don't jinx me. Don't jinx us. He's superstitious. He's like, I hope your family's well.

I hope everybody's well. And so I said, okay, if you don't want me to jinx you and you want me to be more negative, and then Tommy, I gave him five suggestions on things to do, basketball-wise. You know, I basically said, look, I went against the two-three zone. I would use Darrell in the short corner. I'd use Wigginsmore at the high post in the middle. You know, against man-to-man pressure, I'd use some more screening and use your ball handlers as a screener.

And I'm going through three or four things, you know, tongue partially planted in cheek. But because I think my suggestions are good ones, but that's beside the point. But I really wasn't. I was just answering to his, don't jinx me, say something negative, kind of a thing. And then he just wrote back, man, really love the feedback. And then I just sent a laughing emoji. So to you, Alan, look, I think he's doing a great job. I think he's improved as a coach.

I think the people, more times than not, most of the people that criticize him have no idea. And if they were faced with needing to point to specifics as to why he's a bad coach, they'd point to things that actually aren't even true. And then they'd point to, like, I have people in my life that are not big, you know, marked fans. and they'll say, my God, they don't run anything on offense. And I'm like, really, they don't run anything on offense. What do you mean by that? Well, they just come down and they just, you know, go one-on-one.

No, they actually don't do that. And actually, they rarely do that. Now, at the end of a shot clock, you know, almost every team, you know, high screen and roll, or there's some clear outs in their stuff. But he runs a lot of stuff. Now, I think he has simplified his stuff with the team he has this year. and I think he's run more conceptual stuff. But no, trust me, they're running stuff.

They run a lot of stuff. And, you know, or the guys that will, I mean, I used to have parents like this that would say, I just don't understand it, man. Why doesn't he press more? Well, see, here's the deal. To press, you actually have to make shots. What do you mean? Well, to actually get a press set up, like a full court press, the ball has to go through the basket, or there's got to be a dead ball.

And they shot 20. And there has to be an inbound play. Yeah, they shot 23% in the first half. They didn't make any shots. Why don't they run more in yesterday's game? Well, because they didn't rebound very well, and they didn't get many stops. You know, it's always something like that. And by the way, I'm like that with a lot of sports, too, that I don't really have.

have any true understanding about. But I have found more times than not with this Maryland fan base that those that think he stinks, really, Tommy, some of them are good basketball. I've had some really good conversations with people that will say, you know, there's just a ceiling, you know, and the bottom line is two sweet 16s in 21 years as a head coach. You know, that's not very good. Well, I mean, he was at Jacksonville State and he was at Wichita State. He took Wichita to the Sweet 16. He was at Texas A&M, you know, football school. But, you know, if we want to come to Maryland, yeah, one Sweet 16 in nine seasons.

Now, it could have been two. I think last year would have been a Sweet 16. So I agree. Those results are not good enough for Maryland. It's not good enough for me. I want better than that. But I also need, as you know, I need to know that I need to know that I'm going to know that I'm going to get something much, much better if I'm going to take that risk because they're on the

verge of going to the tournament for the sixth time in seven years. And there are schools that are basketball schools that don't go to the tournament six times in seven years. And so I like being in the tournament. I like being, you know, a good team. Last year, they were a championship team in the Big Ten regular season. And who knows, they may have made their final four run last year. They certainly had the capability of doing it, and all of these conversations about him would have been silenced for a few years. These are a lot of the same conversations that were had about Gary Williams before he finally made the final four. But Gary all... You mentioned the problem, the big problem for Mark. He's not Gary. No. And he's following Gary. Yes, there's a lot of that to it.

You know, and there's a lot of that. I mean, you know, as time goes by, Gary Williams, who was a great coach, one of the best I've ever seen in getting intensity out of his players, he looks better and better as a coach. It's like a lot of coaches, too, as time goes by, you know, who were successful. But you're right. I mean, there was a lot of, look, there was a lot of frustration with Gary in his last few years from Maryland fans. But Mark's problem is he's following Gary.

And nothing, I don't think, short of a final four, is ever going to quell that. Maybe never silence it, but quell that. So you pointed something out that, you know, a lot of people, you know, rarely point out. And that is, you know, Gary won that national championship in 2002. He was in the Sweet 16 the following year, okay? and then he never made another sweet 16. You know, in his final seven, eight years of coaching, they never got back to a sweet 16. His final year was 2010, 2011.

Their last suite 16 was 2003. So eight seasons. Eight seasons went by. His final eight seasons did not include a sweet 16. And they only went to the tournament four times in his last eight years. So it wasn't a, a program trending up. Now, I would point out as someone who would also be accused of being a Gary defender. He also won the ACC title in 2010. The ACC regular season title, Gravis

Vasquez, Eric Hay's, Landon, Milborn's senior years. And they were, you know, a last second Cory Lucius shot that goes in at the buzzer away from being in the Sweet 16 and Tommy having a path to the final four set up. But it didn't happen. They lost that game to Michigan State. You know, they won 25 games that year. They won the ACC regular season title. And his final year, he was 19 and 14, finished seventh in the ACC. And that was it. But here's the other thing about Gary's career. Before they won the national championship, before they went to the final four national championship, there was a lot of complaining about how he can't get him past it. Sweet 16, because they had been to the Sweet 16, I think, four times under Gary.

Now, they had already been on quite the run. Remember, when Gary got here, there were a lot of issues because of the Bob Wade situation. Yeah, and I think, I think the criticisms of Gary before the national championship were always tempered by the recognition as to where the program was when he came and how far he had brought it. Yes, but Tommy. I think most people recognize that. There's no doubt, Gary, on the heels of Bob Wade's disaster, you know, turn that program around and got it back into the national, you know, conversation, you know,

almost immediately when they came off probation. I mean, when they recruited Joe Smith and Keith Booth off the heels of recruiting Simpkins, Johnny Rhodes, and X-Rehip, they were off and running. I mean, basically the second year of them being eligible for the tournament, they were in the Sweet 16 against the Fab 5 minus Weber who had gone early. But it was Joanne and it was Jimmy King and it was Jalen Rose. It was four of the five, you know, Fab 5. And then they went back to the Sweet 16 the next year.

But they lost in the Sweet 16 to a team that most people thought they would beat in Yukon in that particular year. Then they lost to Arizona who went on to win the national championship. The Steve Francis year was a very disappointing Sweet 16 loss. I think a lot of people thought Maryland could win a national championship that year. And so, you know, when you got to, you know, the late 90s before they turned the corner in 2001 and 2000, 2001, and got to the final four, there was a lot of griping about Gary. I mean, his famous story, I was there that night. They played Florida State.

You know, the year they went to the final four, they lost. They were in the midst of, you know, potentially not making the tournament. They lose to Florida State at home, and he gets booed, you know, out of Cole Fieldhouse. And then they go on to get to the final four later that year, and they won the national championship the next year. And so it didn't matter that after the national championship, he got to one sweet 16 in nine years. You know, he had won the national championship. And the thing about the years in which they didn't get to sweet 16s, there were a couple of those teams. There were good teams.

And Turgeon has had some really good. teams. The problem is he's been to one sweet 16 in the nine years he's been here, and he had to beat Hawaii to get there. Hawaii. So that's the criticism of him. The tournament, the postseason results haven't been there. It's true. You cannot debate that. Maryland should be going to more than one sweet 16 every nine years. You know, they should. It's a school capable with all of the things that we've talked about in the past of being more productive. With that said, I can say two things are true. I can say, I think he's a really good coach.

And I can also say that the postseason results in a one-and-done format have been very disappointing, which they have. But I watch it. I know what he does. I know that he's improved in a lot of different areas. And look, I mean, this morning's Joe Lenardi Bracketology, I mean, they got him as a 10 seed. Palms got him as a nine seed.

If they win a couple of more games, it's going to be like literally Maryland's going to be favored to get to the second round and maybe have a legit chance to make a sweet 16 run this year, which would be amazing, considering where they were a month ago. He's doing a phenomenal job. Anyway, I thought you'd get a kick out of Allen's tweet

and the fact that I was throwing out coaching suggestions to a college head coach. Well, I've heard the stories that you've done that to him in person. Yes. Scott and I did. You said these things to his face. Scott and I did, yeah. Scott and I were playing golf with him last, no, the summer before last. And we played golf with him last summer too, but we were playing golf.

This was before last season, their championship season. and you know Scott and I we always we always want them to play a faster pace you know right now even this year I mean their pace of play is like 305th in the country he plays he doesn't love to run I like more possessions when you have more talent I think that that's always a better thing more talent when you have better. More talent should be more possessions. You should root for more possessions. Less talent. You should have fewer possessions. I think it's, you know, it's more complex than that, but keeping it simple. Last year, in the year before, I thought they had enough talent to run more. I also thought that their talent fit running a little bit more. And he, you know, so we're on the

golf course, and, you know, Scott does this thing on the T-box where he goes, hey, Mark, Kevin has a suggestion for you. And I just looked at him, I go, and I go, fuck you. And he says, and he goes, what? You know, and I said, it's your suggestion too. And Mark just laughs. And he's got, and by the way, he's got a great sense of humor, a very, very quick and sarcastic sense of humor.

And I remember him once telling me, he's like, God, coaching here, man, all of you guys. You all are coaches. You all have all the answers, don't you? And I remember saying to him many years ago, look, you're not in freaking college station anymore, dude. You know, this is, people care about basketball at Maryland. They didn't care at Texas A&M. I mean, they cared more about spring football and baseball than they did about basketball. So there was zero criticism. This is hypercritical.

And, you know, and by the way, Tommy, as we both know, it's a basketball town very much. You know, Washington is. So anyway, he just smiled and I said, well, look, here's the thing. You have a lot of talent. Why don't you play with more pace? Why doesn't a game with more possessions in it appeal to you versus a game with less possessions? And I put it in a way, and I said you rank like 300.

By the way, I just pulled it up. They're 331st out of 357 teams in the country right now in possessions per game. And by the way, this team against the competition they're playing should be playing this way. They absolutely should be playing this way because too much get up and go and running against Michigan and Iowa and Illinois, you know, doesn't give them much of a chance. And so he said to me, he said, well, he said, Do you also know that we were top 10 in the country in offensive efficiency? Do you also know that we were top 10 in the country in defensive efficiency?

And I said, I do know that. And he said, well, we think we have an advantage running half-court offense and being in a half-court set defensively. It was a good answer. It was a good answer. It didn't satisfy me because I said, I just think Daryl and Anthony and some of the players he had, I think they would thrive more in the open floor.

I think you'd get more easy. You'd get easier looks when you're not facing a set defense. It's funny, Roy Williams was on that Coach's podcast that NACI does. It's really good. Nocky, Gary, Gordon Austin, Ed Tapscott, Jimmy Patsos, they do a thing called the D.C. Coach's podcast. If you're a basketball fan, they have great guests on. They had Roy Williams on two days ago.

And Gary said to Roy, you know what I always loved about your teams? And Roy said what? He said, you guys would take it out of the net. And you'd be at my free throw line getting ready to put up a shot within 10 seconds. And Roy Williams, I think the number was our goal was to have at least 10 to 15 shots per game where not more than 8 seconds went off. the shot clock. And that's how Carolina has always played. Carolina doesn't, you know, one of the knocks about Roy Williams over the years is he's not a great defensive coach. Well, I don't think he has really cared as much about his defense. He's like, we're going to score

85 to 90 points. And we think playing and increasing the number of possessions in a game is an advantage for us because we have more talent most of the time. And Gary loved to play. Gary hated to score less than 80. Mark's got a team right now where he has stated, our goal is to hold somebody to less than 60. We think we can win if we can hold them to 60. And you know what? They've been doing a phenomenal job. There are many ways to win a game, to skin the cat, as they say. And I just think when he's had some teams that have been loaded more talent-wise, I would have preferred to have seen them run more. I think he's totally nailed it this year. Anyway, he was, he's all always been a great sport about that stuff. And I'm not the only one he hears it from. I've got a lot of friends that know Mark very well that live near Mark. And if any of those guys are listening to it, all of them are involved in basketball. And they all think they've got the answers because he's told me about everybody else that gives them all the suggestions. And you know, on some level, can you imagine being a college head coach, right, with how many wins does Mark Turgeon have? He's,

He's won everywhere he's been. I'm pulling it up right now because it's, he's got 468 college wins at four different places. Jacksonville State, Wichita State, Texas A&M and Maryland. His winning percentage is 636. And he's got to listen to a bunch of dopes tell him how we think he should attack a two-three zone. It has to be ridiculous and absurd for him, right? It doesn't stop you, does it? Never has.

All right, up next, we've got to get to this Jeff Bezos slash Bruce Allen's story. We'll do that right after this word from one of our sponsors. The show today is presented by Window Nation's Virtual Home Show extravaganza sale. Get two free windows with every two you buy, plus no down payment, no payments, and no interest for two full years. You'll save thousands savings you will only see once this year. I've been endorsing Window Nation for more than a decade now. I know Harley and Aaron, the two brothers that started the company, two of the best and smartest

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I don't know a lot about front office. office sports. Do you in terms of a media outlet? Yeah, I get their newsletter every day among the newsletters that I get. I've always read front office sports. They do a good job. So A.J. Perez was the author of a story that broke yesterday afternoon that was titled Jeff Bezos linked to Washington football team sales talk. And it makes sense for Bezos's name to be in the title. It's Jeffrey Bezos. He's the founder of Amazon.com. He's worth $250. billion dollars and you know there has been previous written about his interest in owning an NFL team i mean that's been out there for a while even the Washington football team's name has been

mentioned in connection with Jeff Bezos before but there are two parts to this story there's the Bezos part and then there's another part it's the other part that we will spend time talking about here but let me just set it up for you as quickly as I can this story um essentially was written off of a Monday morning, meaning yesterday, filing in a lawsuit, a defamation lawsuit that Snyder has filed against the Indian media company M.E.A. Worldwide. Remember, that is the lawsuit where Snyder's attorneys claim that this company, M.E.A. Worldwide, published a string of false stories and social media posts erroneously stating that Snyder had ties to sex trafficking and was close to sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. Remember, this was the internet swirl and

speculation that was flying around the few days prior to the Washington Post and their first story on all of the sexual harassment claims from females within the Washington Football Organization. from years past. The days leading up to that, there was this understanding that this story was going to come out, and then all of these rumors started flying around about Snyder, none of which we know to be true. Snyder incensed has sued everybody, essentially, and specifically this MEA worldwide in New Delhi, India, he's got a defamation lawsuit, and he's claimed things like Dwight Schar was the money man behind this defamation attempt, behind this smear campaign. And there's someone else that he accuses, which I will get to in a moment.

But yesterday morning, there was a filing that included more information regarding this defamation lawsuit. The first part of the filing that front office sports wrote about is that Jeff Bezos's attorney reached out to Mogan Company. Mogan Company is the Baltimore-based sports investment banking firm that is representing the minority shareholders of the Washington football team, Fred Smith, Dwight Schar, and Bob Rothman in their attempt to sell their rough estimate 40% stake in the team. Apparently, Bezos's attorney reached out to Mogan Company about perhaps purchasing that 40%. So that's the first part of the story. By the way, as an aside, I find it really difficult to believe that Jeff Bezos is going to purchase 40% of anything. He's either going to own the whole thing or he's going to own none of it.

Maybe it was just to find out more about the team. I mean, to get the prospectus that Moog and Company probably had to put together to sell this 40% stake. Who knows? But that really, I think for Tommy and me, that's not the lead. even though they used it as the lead, and we understand why it would be the lead with Jeff Bezos's name attached to it. The lead for us comes about 60 to 70 percent of the way through this story. When front office sports, A.J. Perez, who was the author of this story, writes the following two paragraphs. A federal magistrate in Maryland issued subpoenas to Moog and his firm for text, email, and

other records over the MEEA worldwide case, the defamation law case against this company in India. Again, the company that Snyder believes was used by and funded by Dwight Schar and others to initiate and run this smear campaign against him. By the way, for the purposes of, you know, making him look awful and having the league say to Dan, we can't have you tied to Jeffrey Epstein, you've got to sell the team. Because if Snyder sells the team, then it's worth more. Anyway, if the majority shareholder sells the team, it's worth a lot more money than selling a minority stake. I think most of you understand that.

Anyway, here's the next paragraph. Moog in the past has denied being a part of or even having knowledge of the alleged misinformation campaign. The 18-page filing in India on Monday also stated that Moog exchanged 87 phone calls with former Washington football team president Bruce Allen. The two talked more than 22 hours in total. Mogan Allen also exchanged text and email messages that prove that the two of them were, quote, focused on negative publicity directed at Snyder, closed quote. That according to the filing. Oh my God.

Tommy, Bruce Allen turned heel on Dan Snyder, at least according to this filing. 87 phone calls, 22 hours in total. This is incredible, isn't it? It really is. This is like your brother turning on you, ratting you out. I mean, trying to stick up. a knife in your back. I mean, Bruce and Dan, we always

thought we're joined at the hip until the end. It turns out that Bruce wanted to do an operation and cut Dan loose. Maybe he... Look, when you do business with Weasels and when you trust people like Bruce Allen, this is what happens. But this is absolutely

stunning. That Bruce was behind the scenes trying to undermine Snyder. There's so much to unwrap here, Tommy, and we're going to try to do our best here over the next several minutes. I want to start with this. A couple of things that I think we know. Number one is that we know that Snyder believes that Dwight Schar and Bruce Allen now were part of a smear campaign against him. We don't know if it's true or not, but we know that he is alleging that this smear campaign against him, that Dwight Schar and Bruce Allen were involved in.

it somehow. The second thing is, and I think we can say this with relative comfort, correct me if I'm wrong, I think we can say that the Smear campaign itself, which included these horrible stories about him being tied to sex trafficking rings and, you know, holding drug in sex parties and being somehow affiliated with Jeffrey Epstein and some of his behavior, I think we can say, for the most part, that that crazy internet swirl and speculation in the days leading up to that first post story in July were not true. Well, what we can say is there's no credible evidence to believe they're true. Okay, fair enough.

What's really important as it relates to the Bruce story is the timing of these calls. First of all, 87 phone calls, 22 hours in total. That's 15 minutes a call, 87 times. and then they also exchange texts and emails. I don't know that they're... I mean, for all we know, they're best friends, and they talk all the time. I have a feeling that's not true.

The filing in court says that this proves that both of them together were focused on negative publicity directed at Dan Snyder. That was in the filing yesterday. Whether or not that's true or not, we don't know. But MoG was forced to turn over these records of messages, And there were 87 phone calls with Bruce Allen totaling 22 hours. And so they had this kind of level of communication.

I don't have that level of communication with the people that I love in my life at home. Yes. Yes. So, but here's the key to it. When were those phone calls? Were they prior to the post story? Were they prior to all of the internet speculation about Snyder? all of the, you know, the falsehoods that were being spread about Snyder that particular week.

Well, it doesn't say it in this story, but I went to this guy, A.J. Perez's Twitter account, and he got, he was in an exchange with Danny Rueh from 106-7. Danny, you know, hit on, by the way, the right question. When did this happen? And A.J. Perez said, between January and mid-November. Now, he didn't put a date on it, but we know that mid-November 2021 hasn't even happened yet. So we know that it was last year. It was January through mid-November of 2020.

January 2020 through mid-November of 2020. I guess it could have been 2019, but more likely than not, Bruce started this conversation with Moog immediately after he got fired. And let's not forget, Snyder threw him under the bus in the Happy Thanksgiving Day introductory introduction of Ron Rivera when he said, we have to change the culture. And he basically blamed Bruce for everything that happened. And somebody texted me this morning after my conversation on radio about this this morning. I can't say who. It's somebody that's somewhat in the know.

He said, this is what everybody does to Dan. It always turns out this way. Everybody turns on him. He is not well liked when it ends. So they sort of put up with him all along, and then when they turn him loose and stop paying him, it's like, now let me tell you what an asshole he was. There's only one person. Seriously. Think of this. Only Joe really, I'm talking about the significant figures. Only Joe didn't really turn on him.

Everybody else has taken shots at him along the way afterwards. No, Joe has stood by his side at games recently as a spectator during difficult times. What do we make of this? This is so fascinating. The thing was already interesting. We have the Beth Wilkinson investigation going on, and I've been told that that's coming out soon, and we've got the ownership squabble.

You know, the minority owners who hate Dan. that won out and Dan saying, well, basically go to hell because Dwight tried to undermine this whole thing and slandered me through this Indian company and funded a negative publicity campaign against me. And the NFL has a lawyer investigating that too. Right. So you have these things. And then you've got the football operation. Fortunately, way over here, actually doing some pretty good things in the midst of all of this. But this is so interesting. First of all, we don't know what the Wilkinson report will have in it.

I do think all of this stuff is going on. And I mentioned this yesterday with Cooley, I think. And maybe you and I talked about this. But, you know, they updated their website on this new branding thing. The Washington football team did sort of indicate that the new name wouldn't be out until 2022, which is something Jason Wright has sort of led to anyway over the last. couple of months. My feeling is it's just a guess that they're just waiting to find out whether or not Dan is able to keep the team. Because if they sell the team, if he decides to sell,

it's much better to sell the team where the new owner can pick the new name than it is to... I think that's a reasonable guess. Yeah. So I think this, you know, we're taking our time and, you know, we want your input and, you know, we're, we're considering all of these different things, but it takes time. It does take time to do this, but they certainly, if they were comfortable with everything in the organization, this happened, the name happened in June or July of last summer. They could have had the whole thing done by the beginning of the 2021 season. By the way, it's not by the beginning of the 20th. They need to have it well in advance of the 2021 season, but they could have had it done by then. I mean, it still would

have been a bit of a rush job, not like last summer, getting it ready for the regular season, but they could have had it done. I think personally they're waiting to see what happens with all of this. I agree. What's stunning is, I mean, Bruce Allen, you know, I mean, being involved, what was the level of his involvement? I mean, we think, look, based on what I know, I'm going to come to my conclusion, based what I know about Bruce Allen, he's capable of anything. Okay. I mean, so is Dan, too.

They're both capable of anything. So anything is possible and anything is believable in some ways when it comes to this. And you got, I mean, look, I know Bruce talks to a lot

of people. You know, Bruce was tight with Jack Evans. When Jack Evans was on the D.C. Council. They talked a lot. And it doesn't surprise me that Bruce would talk to Moog as much as he did. And I think they both thought they could use each other. I mean, Bruce... But what would Bruce get out of it other than revenge? Yes. So, you know, that's what's interesting, right? Is like, you know, I was contemplating

that earlier. First of all, you know, of all the people, that would be involved in a disinformation or an attack on Snyder publicly and personally. Bruce knows where a lot of the dead bodies are buried. I mean, he probably knows where a lot more of them are than even Dwight Schar. I mean, I think Bruce is, like you said, Bruce has been his running mate like Vinny was for the last 10 years. So Bruce... Except smarter than Vinny.

Oh, yeah, well, of course. And probably kept a record of everything that happened. Yeah, not as nice of a guy as Vinny, though. No. But anyway, what's in it for Bruce? Well, we certainly know him to be petty. We certainly know him to get pissed off, dig heels in, and try to make somebody pay for something.

See Trent Williams, as an example. You know, we see him incredibly pennywise, pound foolish time and time again. Kirk Cousins, Trent Williams, the two, you know, perfect examples of it. So there's that. You know, Dan basically threw Bruce under the bus when it was over last year, you know, saying that the culture was all Bruce's fault, you know, that this was his fault. Because it's never Snyder's fault. Bruce perhaps

What could he get out of it, Tommy? I don't know. I mean, he could get out of it a way to sort of steer a lot of the information away from him maybe. Maybe it's a way to make sure that they don't, you know, I don't know if Bruce. Here's the one thing we know about all the reporting by the Times and by the Post. that other than that plane ride back from Vegas and the fight night allegation about Snyder trying to set up his buddy with a cheerleader, which is all he said, she said, neither one of them was really the central part of any of those stories.

They both pretty much got out of it unscathed, other than being responsible for the misogynistic, you know, culture that existed. But in terms of... Oh, I don't think Snyder got out of it outskinned. In terms of a smoking gun, in terms of, oh, well, we cannot have that. You've got to sell the team. We didn't get any of that. Well, I think with Snyder, it depends on your perspective.

They came pretty close. I mean, Bruce never came into focus. Snyder, much more so. I would disagree with you that reasonable people would say that dance Snyder shouldn't be part of their organization after the incident that we read about the cheerleader and fight night. That's not my point, because my reasonable answer to that would be, as I said many times, one woman, fine, 42, this is a pervasive thing that was going on there.

My point is there hasn't been one thing that would rise to the level of having Roger Goodell and 31 other owners force him out. Not yet. Well, we don't know that yet. I said, not yet. We don't know that everything we've read, there hadn't been anything there that would force him to sell the team. Well, we don't know that yet. I'm talking about what's been reported by the Times and the Post, the multiple stories. I know that. We don't know if Roger Goodell, when he read that, and other owners said, oh, this guy's got to go.

And then Snyder said, well, we need to, like when you fire somebody, you need to have a record. The case. Yeah. You need a case. We don't know if that's what this is. This is their case for their minds that are already made up. We don't know that. Okay. That's fair. That's, I see we're. where you're going with it. I thought you were saying, no, no, no, it was this incident and this is enough. What you're saying is it could be, you know, part of a much larger case and we don't know what the rest of the case is. Yes. Because the case that was made by the post probably,

I think reasonable people can agree, that probably isn't enough for him to be forced out. If It's just part... I'm not... I'm not going to make that leap. Okay, well, then what would you say specifically? Roger Goodell's like, yeah, that was enough. We don't even need anymore. We don't need anything else.

Well, my point is... But you do need more. Okay. I mean, because you know you're going to go to court with this guy. Right. But what if you don't have more? Do they have enough? Well, then you get more.

But your mind is made up. Based on what you've read, do they have enough? For me, it would be enough. Okay. Do I, am I predicting what they'll do? That's something different. But again, I predict what they'll do. Based on what you've read, predict.

Listen, reasonable people would say that this guy's got to go. I'm not saying that you're wrong about that. Let's take it to where you just went to. Based on all of the reporting, all right, the legitimate reporting, what would you guess they would do? It would be enough for you. to say you have to sell the team if you were the commissioner and you were speaking on behalf of the other 31 owners.

I understand that. What do you think it is for them if that's all there is? It's not enough. That's a tough one because my first gut reaction is they're really lucked in to do anything like this because there, with the grace of guy, go I. Of course. I know that.

I get that. So you just answered the question. That's probably the case. Right. They need something that is so outrageous, so egregious, so completely, you know, a situation that there's no way they could get away with not forcing them out. They need that. In other words, they need to be able to look in the mirror and say, well, I'm not as bad a weasel as that guy. Exactly. Yeah, because that's a situation. Nobody wants, you know, nobody wants to, you know, get rid of a guy. for something that if they start rummaging around in their closets, they're going to find something comparable.

Do you think this is the last we'll hear about Bruce Allen's role in all this? No. No chance. Absolutely. That's going to become a story onto itself. I'd be shocked if it doesn't. I really, it's so funny because the Bezos thing, I remember when I read it, somebody sent me a text. with the attachment to the story yesterday.

So I open it up and I'm reading it. I'm like, well, we sort of knew Bezos wants to get in and, you know, and now I'm going to have to, I was thinking to myself, I'm going to have to talk tomorrow about how there's no freaking way Bezos is buying 40% of this team. I just don't think that that makes a lot of sense to me. You know, a guy like Jeff Bezos is either going to buy the team to run the team and own the team and be the majority owner or he's not.

And then, oh, by the way, we got to get into the whole, you know, these post stories. coming from the paper that he owns, has he devalued the team, and will that impact his ability to actually buy the team if he was the owner of a newspaper whose stories actually reduce the value, you know, so that he could get it for less. I don't think he really cares about getting it for less. But that's not, that's, but then I went, then I kept reading. And when this Bruce thing, I'm like, oh, my God. And then it occurred to me, I'm like, has this? is this new?

I'm pretty, you know when you read something and you're like, maybe I miss this. Did I miss this before? Has this already been reported? And then I'm like, no, this was part of the filing from yesterday that was uncovered by front office sports. This, we had,

Bruce's name has not been mentioned in any of this. He was gone. He was gone. 87 phone calls, 22 hours. The level of the level of investment that Bruce took in time in this leads me to believe, and I know how petty he is, and what a weasel he is. But all that time is a lot of investment just for revenge.

No, I'm with you. I think that there is something here that would benefit him. I can't tell you what it is. like part of me thinks, well, maybe it's a way to steer it away from him. Maybe it's a quid pro quo on, you know, I'm going to give you all this, but I don't want my name, you know, popping up in whatever else. I don't know. I mean, for all I know, Bruce and Dan both were completely clean as it relates to any sort of direct link to harassment or anything worse. I, because, you know, Tommy, we've talked about about this. The names that came out in that first post story were not surprising to those of us that have known the organization, you know, not directly, but sort of by extension, radio station for me, media member, radio station media member for you. You know, none of the names that came out

in that story were shocking to us, none of them, you know. It was all like, yeah, well, of course, his names in it. And at the same time, I will admit that the fact that Snyders and Bruce's names weren't in there as much as anybody else's names, that wasn't a shocker to me either. That wasn't necessarily a shocker for me. I mean, if we end up learning that there was much more, and by the way, I think if we learn much more about Snyder, it'll be from his early days of ownership, not the last 10 years of ownership. That's my guess. And I think with Bruce, I don't, I mean, drank a lot of Coors lights, played a lot of putt-putt golf in his office, made a lot of bad deals, a lot of bad decisions as one of the chief football decision makers.

But I don't know him. He's such an untrustworthy figure. Yeah. I mean, you know, for John Moog, and I don't know Moog personally, but I knew, you know, his involvement back when he was headed a Maryland Stadium Authority, and how influential he was with the stadiums that, particularly the football operation, by bringing the Ravens to Maryland. But, I mean, to do that much business with Bruce Allen, he's done, I mean, remember, there were stories. and polls, you know, who's the most untrustworthy GM in the league? And Bruce Down would always be last. Yep.

No doubt. But I know people who have done business with him who don't know that guy, who know a different guy. Oh, I've had conversations with people that say, look, Bruce is very well respected among league executives as, you know, a great guy, a competent guy. And everybody to a man has always said, you just don't want Bruce involved in actual football decisions. He's much more of an executive, an administrative, a guy that you want, you know, talking to politicians about a new stadium. That, you know, he can be involved in, you know, helping to manage, you know, the finances and the cap.

But you don't want him actually, you know, picking the quarterback for your head coach. That's always been the issue with Bruce. I mean, hell, I remember Adam Schaefter being with me one day saying, you know, you guys have an impression of Bruce that the rest of the league doesn't have. And I said, well, you know, most of our impression really deals with the football decisions. You know, he's the team president and the football decisions. And look at the football decisions. They haven't been very good, have they? And Adam's like, well, that's true.

But, you know, there was a lot more. I mean, I think, you know, we beat this to death all the time. But the bottom line is they really were out there. I always felt this way. I shared my feelings with various people at various times. They really were like in this different world and sort of this sheltered place way out in, you know, Loudoun County. And they didn't really ever have a true sense of what the significant majority of their fans thought about them. You know, they would get their feedback from the draft day party and from Harvest Fest.

You know, these gatherings that they would do three, four, five, or road games where they would have, you know, pep rallies the night before at a restaurant where a lot of, you know, Redskin fans in Phoenix would come out and hang out and, you know, meet, you know, Cooney or meet Doc Walker. You know, they really, they bathed in all of that and it gave them the impression for a long period of time that, that despite their performance on the field, they still had this. incredibly rabid fan base, but the numbers had to prove otherwise, you know, the dwindling season ticket base, et cetera. But they always felt like, you know, they had the majority behind them, that the majority of fans, despite all the losing, were totally with them and anti-anybody that was critical of them. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, you've got like literally a small fraction of the fan base that you are identifying with, and you think, represents the majority and it doesn't.

Look at your TV ratings. Look at your ticket sales. Look at what clients of yours say about you. Forget about the fans. How about advertisers, sponsors? You know, the stories about dealing with you guys are legendary in this town. But what was in it for Bruce? I don't know.

You cover a lot of this shit over the years. What could be in it for him? To totally turn on Snyder. I don't know, a piece of the team. You can't have Bruce Allen involved in this team. No. So what is it? He doesn't have any of that kind of money.

He's not going to get, what do you think he's going to be an advisor to the next owner? But what he's got is information. Yeah. No, I don't think that's it. But that's the first thing that comes to mind. You know, what's in it for Bruce? I mean, if it's revenge and purely revenge, and Dan Snyder just

I mean, Bruce must have had to swallow a lot of crap for 10 years, but Vinny had to, and Vinny never truly turned on Dan. Vinny never turned on Dan. No. Now, he may have gotten a nice payday out of not turning on Dan.

Yeah. He may have one of those non-disclosure agreements. Bruce may have one. Yeah. Watching how this, you know, There's something else I just want to throw into the mix of the conversation. I've been told this before, but, you know, the NFL has rules as to how much of your ownership stake can be borrowed, can be financed, you know, on a purchase.

And Snyder was highly leveraged to the most that you could be when he bought the team in 1999. I think, you know, a lot of people have this impression, you know, he bought the team for $800. million dollars. He just wrote him a check for $800 million. No, he didn't have $800 million in 1999. He borrowed a lot of money. He brought in a lot of investors. He, and, you know, he obviously had to put up a percentage of it in cash, and a lot of it was financed. Well, the league has rules about how much of your ownership stake can be, you know, can be leveraged. And so I've been told that he's just not very liquid, that a lot of his net worth is tied up in the team. Now, That's a lot of net worth.

Don't get me wrong. But the bottom line is that if he really couldn't stand being in business with Dwight Schar anymore, and maybe even Fred Smith and Bob Rothman, he could just buy them out himself. But what I've been told is, A, he can't because he doesn't have the cash to buy them out. And he can't borrow because he would go beyond. the threshold of how much of your ownership stake can be financed in the league. Now, on one level, he doesn't need to buy them out. He owns 60%.

There's no advantage of him owning the other 40%. He's got complete control of the organization. He and his sister and his mother, right, are the three people that own the 60%. So they don't need to buy out the 40% unless they just want to rid themselves of, you know, obviously one person that hates his guts, but I think all three of them can't stand him. But he doesn't have to do it. And he's got to write a first refusal on anybody that does make an offer. And by the way, that would happen in any of those, in any business where the majority owner would have the ability to control in a private company,

a minority stakeholders sale, because it's got to be at a value that the majority owner approves of. You know, you don't want to let your minority stakeholders sell their shares for a discount. And then again, they are discounted to a certain degree because you're selling a minority share. And that's why these three owners want Snyder to sell with them, because it'll be worth a lot more for them if he sells his majority stake. and they can sell 100% of the stock of the equity in the Washington football team to Jeff Bezos or somebody else. Because then it's valued at $5 billion instead of $3.5 billion if Jeff Bezos is buying 40% of it. I mean, I'm giving you round numbers. If Washington's football team, the entirety or the majority was sold,

it would be sold at a value that would be higher than any franchise that's ever been sold in North America. It would be. It's still considered to be a very, very attractive market. And it's in the Premier League, of course. By the way, I had John Orand on the show today. He said that these networks are going to get 100% increase in these TV rights. It doesn't matter. He's like, they're going to have to pay 100% increase, you mean? They're going to pay 100% increase the networks are. Yeah. And they're going to. And they're going to do? I mean, the ESPN wouldn't exist without the NFL.

Even their small sliver. I mean, people forget, they get more than the Monday night game. They get all that programming that they're allowed to have during a week. You know, all the shoulder programming that they do. There's no ESPN without the NFL. It's funny because you're right as to why these networks, like in some cases, you know, it doesn't even pencil out the investment in the NFL, they may lose money, but it's about what it brings to the rest of the network, having the NFL.

There's no, for those that don't know this, there is no television product comparable to the NFL. There's nothing more valuable than the NFL in television. You know, no sitcom, no series, no news programming, nothing brings to these networks what the NFL brings to these networks. The only comparable is the Olympics. It only comparable. That only happens once every four years. That's right.

Once every two years. And what he did say about ESPN, John did. He said, it's funny. I mean, CBS, NBC, Fox are all back in. They're going to pay basically 100% increase in rights fees. You know, even though the ratings were down. I said the ratings were down. It said it doesn't matter.

They can't not have the NFL. You know, he goes, NBC, remember, made that mistake in the 90s of, of not having the NFL and CBS got back in and got the AFC package, and then they realized that basically the entire network, the entire network is at risk if you don't have the NFL. And then they got back into the NFL with Sunday Night Football, which is the premier product. But about ESPN, he did say that ESPN is being asked to pay more than the other networks

in terms of its increase. And the reason is for everything you described. They only have one game a week. You know, and then they get a playoff game or, two maybe I forget. But it doesn't matter. They have the rights for highlights. They have the rights for all this other stuff related to the league.

They carry the draft, obviously. They have a lot of access. But he said there are definitely people at ESPN that have done and are trying to do the math on whether or not it's actually worth it. Like if they took, like if ESPN pays $2.5 billion for their slice. of the NFL pie. You know, John described a situation where they are definitely doing the research to find out, well, if they took that $2.5 billion and they owned college football and they owned college basketball

and they own the NBA and they own Major League Baseball and they own basically every other sport with that money, would it bring to them what the NFL brings to them. He thinks that the answer will probably be no, but, you know, you do... But that's an interesting scenario. because would the profile of all those sports rise with ESPN's investment in it? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, we all know intuitively that the NFL is the one thing more than anything we couldn't live without as sports fans. And everybody knows that.

And it's reflected, like I said, the ratings are down. He said, yeah, but Kevin, he's like, compare the, NFL drop in ratings to every other ratings drop with every other program category. It was much less than every other program category. This is my comparison. You know, real estate prices in the neighborhood are going down, but it's still the most valuable property in the neighborhood. It is.

All right. Anyway, Jeff Bezos. He said Bezos, by the way, would be welcomed by NFL. owners with all that money and all that clout, regardless of, you know, big tech and, you know, conservatives issues with big tech and a lot of the owners being conservative. It's like money talks, bottom line. So that'll be something to follow. But it's only something to follow, I think, if Snyder actually ends up having to put the team up. Then maybe Bezos becomes the leading contender to buy it. But publicly, with Bezos's name, now,

publicly out there, it puts more perception of pressure on the NFL. Because now the average fan knows, we don't have to have this idiot as the owner. We can have Jeff Bezos, the guy who brings me goodies every day door to door. Yeah.

Well, not everybody's a Jeff Bezos fan, Tommy. I know that. Yeah. I know that. I know that. But, I mean, I think it just puts more pressure on the NFL to, you know, to get out of the Dan Snyder business. How much?

I don't know how much, but I think publicly it does that. Now, you talked about the fact that he owns the Washington Post, and in the days when newspapers had enough money to afford ethics and concerns about conflicts of interest, that would be a non-starter. But those days are gone. These are the days of survival in the newspaper business. John Henry owns the Boston Red Sox. He also owns the Boston Globe, okay, because he had the money to buy the Boston Globe.

So, I mean, there was a time where that would have been unheard of, not anymore. So the fact that Bezos, who owns the Post, would then own the Washington football team, nobody's going to blanket that. The fact that you think that people would just get excited and it would finally dawn on them that, hey, we could have somebody other than Snyder on the team and it could be Jeff Bezos. I mean, you could throw out that, you know, Bashar Al-Assad's going to buy the team and people would take that over Snyder. I know.

I know that. It doesn't matter who buys it from them. I mean, they just want it gone from him. But this is a name that that's going to come. at track. I mean, if you're a sports fan today in America, and if you don't know by now, you'll know by the end of the day, that Jeff Bezos's name was tied to owning the Washington football team. Right. All right. Let's finish up with your column right after I tell everybody about my bookie. Right now, if you go to my bookie at mybooky.orgie. Use my promo code, Kevin,

D.C. They'll match your deposit halfway all the way up to $1,000. Want to bet the Wizards tonight. Guess what? The line is climbing. I think I mentioned to you, it was nine and a half earlier. I don't know if I mentioned that earlier in this show or it was the radio show. It's up to 12.5.5 right now. The Clippers are 12 and a half point favorites over the Wizards who are on a five-game win streak and have won their first two on the road. I like the Clippers a lot to bounce back from their loss against Brooklyn on Sunday night and the Wizards to fall hard tonight after a five-game win streak. But if you think the

Wizards are going to make it six in a row. You can get plus $6.50 on the money line. Look, MyBooky is fair and safe. You're going to get quality lines, fair lines, fair pricing, and if you win, you'll get paid. Go to MyBooky at mybooky.orgie. Use my promo code, Kevin, D.C., and they'll match your deposit halfway up to $1,000. All right, let's finish up Tommy with your column. Written sort of about West Sunselled, but really about the impact that West Suns had on this particular sports market relative to other players and their impact on various teams in the market. I think it creates an interesting conversation and debate. Why don't you start

off by describing it to everybody? Well, I read a story about what's going on in Louisville. Bush Beard, who played 10 years in the NBA, coached in the NBA, coached at Howard for a while, I always liked. He went to Louisville. He followed Unsell the year later after Unsell went to the University of Louisville. He wrote a letter to the president of the school saying that there hasn't been a strong enough effort by the school to hire, you know, people of color, black people, in positions of authority in the sports department to serve as role models. And he also pointed out that there has not been enough of an effort to honor the legacy of West Unselt, who he, you know, said basically changed basketball at Louisville by, you know, the hometown kid agreeing to play for a school that was considered Lily White at the time.

And Unseld went there, and they went to two NCD. AA championships. I mean, they went to two NCAA tournaments, one NIT. They hadn't done much before that. And other black kids in Louisville, like Bush Beard, started to follow West to Louisville. And he felt that there should be a statue for West, who passed away last June at the age of 74 in Louisville somewhere. And it made me think, well, you know, the Wizards. Maybe the Wizards should put up a statue for him, but I wanted to go beyond that.

And I thought, you know, I think West Sunself's impact, if it's possible, is underappreciated in this town. So I went back and looked at the Wizards, an organization that started at Chicago Packers in 1961, moved to Baltimore and 63, became the bullets. Eventually they would move to Washington, Landover, you know, in 73. But they drafted West on Selden in 68. He was their number one pick. And they had been 36 and 46 the year before they drafted West. The year after they drafted them, they were 57 and 25 and finished first in the East.

conference. His rookie year, he won both rookie of the year and NBA most valuable player. But then I looked at the 13 years he was with the organization. And before he arrived, the franchise had a 205-358 record. And 13 years, West played for the organization, both in Baltimore and Washington. The Bullets and Wizards, Bullets, Blitz, had a 618 and 448 record, four NBA final appearances, and one NBA championship. And then after West retired,

and I just took the 13 years after he left, 388 and 615 record. And I said, save for Sammy Baugh, who helped put Washington football on the map in its first year in town, there's nobody that had an impact in this town on winning and losing like Wes Unselton. Did you look at Walter Johnson?

I looked at I didn't look at Walter Johnson. I was just curious if you did. I don't know what they were before him and what they were after him. I think they don't know what they were before him. It could have been Walter Johnson. Look, somebody pointed out Josh Gibson, and that was a glaring omission to consider, but the homestead plays only, Grays only played half their games in D.C.,

and there were several years where Josh Gibson didn't play for the Grays in his career. He left the Grays. So I should have considered Josh Gibson as well, but I didn't. But, I mean, you know, I thought people would talk Ovechkin. I point out that the Capitals existed before Oveshkin got here and were a successful winning organization for many years. That's true.

But that was the one in reading your column where I said. First of all, before I get to that, Bouchbeard, did he play for the Golden State Warriors when the bullets played them in the finals? Didn't he play for Golden State? I think he did. I think he was on that team with Rick Berry and Phil Smith and Clifford Ray. Clifford Ray, the center. Anyway, Charles Johnson, C.J. was on that team and then was on the

bullets team that won in 7778. Anyway, to me, I know what you're saying in terms of the actual quantifiable winning impact. Alex Ovechkin totally changed, as you wrote, changed hockey in this town. Now, you're never going to make this a hockey town. But Alex Ovechkin's arrival and his existence here for the last 13, 14 years, whatever it's been, is, was a massive game changer for that franchise. But you said, I wrote that. I know you did. I wrote that.

But you think West... And I was very specific in how, in the narrow scope of what I was talking about. I understand that. I'm just saying I'm trying to change the scope. And to me, the most impactful athlete that you mentioned overall was Alex, has been Alex Ovechkin. And I said competitively impactful. Yeah.

Or the words I use. To specifically narrow it to activity in the field of play or on the court or ice. Right. Well, Washington. And there's nobody. Yeah. Washington didn't have an NBA team. So they started from scratch with him, but you obviously went back and checked the predecessor bullet teams and whatever they were.

Where did they start Chicago, I think you said? the Baltimore bullets. It was a football team name. The Chicago Packers. Yeah, the Chicago Packers. That's where they, the Chicago Packers were the Baltimore Bullets, which eventually became the Washington Bullets. Fascinating. Who knew?

Yes. The Capitol Bullets briefly. Well, the first year they got here. 1973, they were called the Washington Bullets, the Capitol Bullets, and then they change it to Washington. thankfully that would have been a weird name but i remember Tommy those teams god i remember them i'm a kid we had never had an NBA team Maryland was it and you know Maryland was everything to me Maryland that was when this town had the Washington Redskins and Maryland basketball nothing else didn't have baseball didn't have the NBA there was nothing else no hockey and uh and the bullets

played a couple of games the year before they moved at cole field house and I remember my taking me to a couple of those games to watch the bullets play at Cole when they were still the Baltimore Bullets. They played the Knicks. I think they played the Knicks in a playoff game at Cole Fieldhouse. Do you remember that or not? Yeah, I've pointed out that there was a time when Buffalo, New York had three professional sports franchises and Washington had won. Yeah. That's crazy. They had the Bills, the Braves, and the Sabres. And we had an NFL team, and that was it. Now, it's because we lost a baseball team, you know, for the second time.

But, yeah. You know, I've told you this before. I understand what a great player, Wes Unseld was. Don't get me wrong. But being a kid in rooting and remembering all of those bullet teams in the 70s, in Washington, I didn't root for the Baltimore bullets. I don't remember anything about the Baltimore bullets, and that's almost before my time. The first year here in Washington in 73, I am old enough to remember that year.

They played the Knicks in the playoffs in a seven-game series. But to me, West was great, but West didn't score. So Elvin Hayes and Phil Schneer were my guys. You know, watching Phil Schneer scored 25 points a night, and Elvin Hayes, 25. And Hayes had some of the big games. He'd have 46 or 48 or 42. And the big E was a special player. And, you know, when you went to games at the Capitol Center,

every time Elvin Hayes would touch the ball, the whole crowd would go, e! They would chant E! And he'd have that patented, fadeaway turnaround jumper off the glass. Unselled was obviously significant. instrumental and Hall of Famer and the whole thing. But I just remember as a kid, my guys were the big Ian in Phil Schneer. That may be, and because of scoring.

But look, there's always factors and other teammates on a team that factor into the winning and losing. But the one common denominator over 13 years, that before he came and after he left, there's nothing comparable to it in this town. Yeah, nothing. But they all left sort of at the same time. You know, he and Elvin...

But they didn't arrive at the same time. No. No. When did the Biggie get to Baltimore? He's your guy. I don't know. Well, I don't only remember him arriving in D.C. I mean, he played in the 69 Houston-U-C. game was 1970 his rookie year?

Well, he didn't play for Baltimore right away. Oh, he played for San Diego, right? Yeah, I mean, he wasn't on that 71 team, I think, that went to the NBA final. But he wasn't, he was on Baltimore teams before he got to Washington. Well, let's check it out and see. I mean, again, he's not, he's your guy, he's not my guy. But he's my guy from Washington. I remember, I don't remember his career before.

72, 73 was his first year in Baltimore. The last year in Baltimore was his first year. Oh, I had San Diego right. That's where he started his career. The San Diego Rockets. And he was with Houston. Well, that's because San Diego moved to Houston. And that was obviously his college town.

So in the first four years, he was not with the organization. By the way, look at his first. I mean, I know Wes was the MVP and rookie at a year at the same time, which is really incredible. Elvin Hayes is rookie year. 28.4 points per game, 17.1 rebounds per game. 27-5-16-9 in year two. 28-7-16-6. I mean, Elvin Hayes was prolific, not wilt prolific, but some of these rebound end-point totals are really amazing. The other thing, you got to check with the Big E, and here it is. Oh, I would have thought the number was even higher. I remember the thing about the Big E, is first of all, he never missed games.

He was so durable. And you can see, 82 games, 82 games, 81. He missed two games in 76. Look, he never once, in his entire NBA career, played less than 80 of the 82 games. That's amazing. Never got hurt. Well, that's because he loved to shoot so much.

The other thing is, he seemed like he rarely came out during those years in Washington. And you can see one of those years in 73-74. He averaged 44 and a half minutes per game. I mean, that's, you don't see, you never see that anymore. He was, I still think he is, in the conversation of the greatest power forwards in the history of the game, he's, he's always underrated, always underrated. And I know why he's underrated, because he never, he didn't have great playoffs. He really didn't. He was not, he, the game that they clinched the NBA championship in in Seattle in Game 7, he was a non-factor and fouled out with like five, six minutes to go.

You know, now he had some great playoff games. He had one of the greatest playoff games to me in franchise history. I think Wall's game against Atlanta a few years ago matched it. But in a game seven conference semifinal against the Hawks when they were the defending champs. Look it up. It's like 39 points, 17 rebounds, and like six block shots in a game seven. It was unbelievable. I mean, to me, he and Carl Malone are the comps. Like, Carl Malone was Elvin Hayes after Elvin Hayes. He was a much different player than the other great power forwards in the conversation like Kevin McHale, you know, as an example. Duncan, you know, it depends on where you want to put him in what part of the conversation.

Dirk was obviously a different kind of player. But in the conversation of the greatest power forwards ever, I mean, the big E's got to be, you know, up there, way up there. Yeah, he does. You're right. You can read my column in Washington Times.com slash sports, and you can read it also on Twitter and Facebook. We were talking before. I mean, the amount of reaction I've gotten to this column on Facebook is absolutely remarkable. And you know who follows me on Facebook and reads my stuff?

Who? Alvin Walton. Oh, really? I thought you were going to say Bruce Allen. No, no. Alvin Walton reads my stuff. That's awesome. He loved this article.

He shared this column. That's nice. I just looked up a list of the greatest power forwards in NBA history. First of all, Duncan's number one. And that's fine if you want to call him a power forward. But the truth is, he was... I put Duncan as a center. Me too.

Duncan was the five man on most of those teams. Carl Malone's number two. Dirk is three. They've got Barclay here as four. You know, Barclay in many ways, played small for it and handled the ball a hell of a lot. Garnett, Macale, Bob Pettett, and then Elvin Hayes is eight.

And there were several people that wrote about Elvin Hayes. The Biggie played in an era that was overshadowed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but he managed to make his market both the college and pro levels. He was the forerunner of Carl Malone, no doubt. Like if you can only remember Carl Malone playing, that was Elvin Hayes. Body type, everything, style of play, everything. I think Elvin actually was probably a better shooter. He led the NBA in points per game as a rookie back in 68, 69, something no player has done since and was the best player in the late 70s bullets, one of the best forgotten teams in league history.

I don't know if that's true to you. The late 70s Bullets team is one of the best forgotten teams. They are forgotten because it was the year before Magic and Bird entered the NBA and changed it. I didn't realize he led the NBA in points per game as a rookie, something no other player has done since as a rookie. The Big E, legend. Not always the most popular player in a locker room, but one of the greatest power forwards of all time. All right, what else you got for me today?

I got nothing else for you, buddy. All right, then. We're done for the day. Back tomorrow.