The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Mark Medina On The NBA Bubble And Return To Play

Episode Date: June 17, 2020

Mark Medina On The NBA Bubble And Return To Play

We are approaching 2 o'clock on Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas show. We take you for another hour. Believe it or not today, coming up in 52 minutes. Topic is, is it Dr. Fauci? Dr. Anthony Fauci, believe it or not, today. All right. For a $50 hooters gift car, we're playing for that coming up in less than an hour.

Right now, we've rain-checked this next guest a couple of times. I've been with him on a couple of interviews, and now we get to have him on our show. Mark Medina is an NBA writer for USA. He used to cover the Warriors. He used to cover the Lakers. Now he covers basically anything west of the Mississippi when it comes to the NBA. And Mark was with us here on the Matt Thomas Show, Night writes for USA Today.

Mark, long time, no talk. How are things? Matt, good to hear your voice. Things are good. I mean, with the needed caveat and obvious caveat of all things considered. But, you know, I'm healthy. I'm working. So I'll hold on to the victory as where I can.

I understand. Mark, there's so many things I want to get to with. you. But first and foremost, can you get me a copy of this or NBA Orlando thing? I'm just fascinated by it. Everybody was tweeting. Any NBA writer yesterday, including yourself, was giving the details of it. I just wanted to soak up more of it. Have you had a chance to read a good portion of it, or are you still catching highlights from your colleagues? Yeah. Well, my colleague, Jeff Zilgin, we got the document. It's 113 pages, and it's one of those things where you want to sink your teeth into and look at all the interesting tidbits. But, you know, this isn't like a,

you know, an entertaining novel or anything. This is like a lawyer document. So there's a lot of jargon. So we divided it up into halves. He covered the last half of it. I cover the first. You know, a lot of it is stuff we already know. But I think some of the new things were, you know, what we shared about, hey, you know, they're taking these social distance protocols and safety mechanisms so serious that, you know, they're saying, hey, like, no multiple people on ping pong tables, and if you play card games, try to be six feet apart, but if that's not possible, just like don't touch each other, you know, throw the cards away after you're done. But I think that the other cool thing is not to downplay the serious concerns about safety,

and being away from family for up to three months. But this also reinforced that at the end of the day. These guys will have it pretty good. The properties look nice. There's a lot of good setups that will keep them entertained. So for any player that says that they're bored, it's hogwash because, you know, they got, they got countless video games, you know, golf courses, ping pong tables, pool tables, card games, you know, a lot of property to get fresh air.

where you can take walks, ride bikes. There'll be plenty of things I can keep them occupied in a safe way. You know what? As we ran through some of this earlier today, clearly to me, the veteran teams, I think, will have a little bit of an advantage because they're going to win a championship, especially those that are competitive.

But ultimately, Mark, the number one thing they've got to worry about is just having that cabin fever itch, because as you alluded to, everything has been thought about. When you write this over 100-page manual, about safety and culture and where you're staying and what you're eating and what you're doing. The NBA has been very thoughtful about this. So the only point that somebody could really screw this up is that they say, screw this, I want to go to Universal Studios.

Yeah, and that's the tough part about this is because I don't think that players are going to want to be reckless with their lives and put other people in danger and that they want to win as well. But you do wonder, will there be a point where they are getting cabins, fever. And when you look at the document, I mean, it makes it pretty clear that the NBA is not going to be big brother here and all that. This isn't a police state, but they are monitoring who's coming in and out. And if you do just, if you do leave the bubble, because, hey, you just got to get out, you're going to have to be in quarantine for two weeks. And that's going to be detrimental to your team. And secondly, for these guys, you know, they're going, unless it's a league

approved thing ahead of time where the player said, hey, look, there's a family emergency, or there was a wedding that was already pre-planned, I have to go to, and this is before the season starts. Those exceptions aside, they're going to say, look, you have to be in quarantine now, and for every day that you miss, your paycheck's going to be deducted on a pro-rated basis. So, You know, there is kind of a fine line where there are going to be consequences for players who are leaving the bubble. But, again, like, this isn't a police state. So these guys are adults at the end of the day. And if they wind up, you know, making those choices, they'll have to little with those consequences as well as the teams.

Mark Medina USA Today here on the Matt Thomas show. And Ross Villarreal with here, Mark. I'm wondering the Kyrie Irving element of all of this. this. And obviously, 450 NBA players aren't going to agree on anything. But how much support do you think he had in his concerns about stopping this or possibly suspending the league? Do you think there was a lot of support amongst the players in some of his thoughts? You know, it's hard to read at this point because, you know, frankly, we make a thousand calls a day and very few of them get returned. So I'm always humbled in our field of, like, you don't

know what you don't know, right? But I will say that. I think even if, regardless of whether Kyrie was speaking for the majority or the minority, there are still philosophically are a lot of concerns that players have about safety and also, you know, because of the George Floyd killing and the peaceful protests that are going on and their initiatives with trying to use this tragedy into turning into something good where there's racial justice. there were some concerns of, you know, will this platform elevate that cause or hurt it? And how do we find a way that we can use that platform or not only are the players contributing to that cause, but also having the league do that?

But, you know, you also can't help but wonder here what Kyrie's motives are because he's already had questionable leadership skills when he was in Cleveland. with boston with brooklyn and the reality is he was he is on the executive committee on the players union they've had discussions over and over again about all these issues for the last few months i understand that things have changed things are fluid uh... the racial justice things are a wrinkle that that kind of

just evolved the last few weeks and that there might be new questions that come up once you read the fine print. But at the end of the day, this vote that took place was unanimous, and there was no sense that he was voicing those kind of concerns that he suddenly is voicing now. That being said, in times like this, regardless of who the messenger is, the message itself is still valid. And so I think because of that, you know, the league and the players unit have try to take these things pretty seriously and not dismiss any of it. Gang, one of the best writers in the NBA when it comes to the sport, Mark G underscore Medina

from USA Today with us here for a couple more minutes on the Matt Thomas show. This Zoom call that took place over the week, like I said, what 200 players on it, any idea through your sources, how many real players are really contemplating saying, you know what, between social justice and what we need to do as a society and the COVID, do you expect a large amount of players to say thanks but no thanks of this? You know, I'm humbled with, you know, because there are so many moving parts of this. I don't know the exact number, but I would, if I had a guess, I think the majority of the players are going to be there. You know, the players have until, I believe, June 24th to inform the league on that decision.

and, you know, I know that publicly, well, Kyrie hasn't say anything publicly, but, you know, with the Players Coalition statement that he had, you know, Avery Bradley's been on record saying he has some question marks, Dwight Howard as well. But, you know, at the same time, I do wonder, are they bringing these concerns up more to make sure that the NBA is fully supporting their cause and also holds up their end of the bargain in terms of having, you know, different owners, the league office support things monetarily, logistically, as opposed to them actually thinking they're not going to play. You know, when this happened, I talked to a few professors, college professors around the

country that teach different sports activism classes, political classes, you know, African-American studies classes. and the handful of those experts I talked to, the sense that I got is there wasn't necessarily a wrong path to take with this. Do you play or not play in the hopes of elevating the platform? They stress the devil really is in the details, but I think if you had to pull them, they would think that the platform would be a lot bigger

if you chose to resume the season. One professor told me, hey, the reason why these guys have a voice is because they're NBA players. And if you leave that, suddenly you're losing that authority. And, you know, you're then becoming an anonymous sports activist, right? And they all do great work, but they don't have the same kind of leverage that players do. So I think with all that, there might be players that don't play because of safety concerns. you know, maybe there's some unique family situations going involved as far as health.

They're just being needed to be attentive to it. But I think the majority of the available players will be on hand to open the resume season. All right. Final question for you, Mark. And again, you're in Houston, so you don't have to push it towards a rocket. It's, but I'm going to throw your rocket question. Does this campus environment help a rocket team hurt or, frankly, indifferent? I think it can help for two reasons. One, we've seen James Hardin's Instagram page that he's been in really great shape.

And I think even for a lot of guys, including himself, that have done all the right things during quarantine, there's going to be rusting us involved. And so I think with the Rockets, that could help them because he has, has, you know, kind of won the weight with his dietary habits and his training. And then number two, you know, they're playing such an unconventional style where, you know, they decided not to really have a center at all with trading coin Capella and getting Robert Covington. And I thought before pre-pendemic, you know, the heavy favorites were going to be the L.A. teams, the Lakers and the clippers, and I don't think anyone would upset them.

But I saw the Rockets having a chance of, you know, being a wild card of just, you know, stealing a game or two, making the speed bump a little bumpier than needed. And I think in these times, you have an unconventional lineup mixed with going up against teams that are going to be rusty. That could be a good recipe for them, you know, kind of knocking some sales here. All right, Mark, thank you very much for the time. Always enjoy reading your tweets, updates on all of everything. Hope we can bother you again.

Maybe when we get the season going again, hopefully that's in July, in Orlando. And everybody's healthy, wealthy, and why does it do that? Thanks again for the time. And by the way, I do want to mention, I said last question, but I do want to ask you this because you were supposed to be on with this many months ago about this. Are you the last person that did a paper, newspaper article, Journalism Peace with Kobe Bryant before his passing? Is that accurate? Yeah. From what I was told from Kobe's camp, I had his final sit-down interview, like in front of the camera.

And fairness, he had done a few phone interviews that same day because it was on the heels of LeBron James is about to surpass him on the NBA all-time scoring list. But, yeah, it's obviously this is a tragedy for obvious reasons. But, you know, I look at that interview kind of through a mixed blessing where I'm glad that I talked with him. Sure. I was able to see him. But the fact that it was nine days before he left us, it made a, it made a little bit of, it made a, it, it made a lot of, that much harder and also the subject matter. I mean, we were talking about how he

was able to make the transition from his post-MBA career and what his ambitions are and his bucket list and all of a sudden that's come to a halt. And so when you look at the timeline here, interviewed him nine days before he passed away, the stories wound up getting published a week later.

So that was about four days, three days before his passing. We exchanged a few pleasantries on DM, you know, that Friday evening, and then all of a sudden Sunday morning, you hear the news that he's no longer with us. I mean, it's, you know, how many months ago has this been five?

I mean, to this day, I still struggle wrapping my head around. Of course. Yeah. The circumstances, but certainly the tragedy itself. Yep, yeah, one more reason why 2020 sucks. Mark, thank you very much for the time. I hope we can catch up again soon. Yeah, likewise.

Be well and hang in there. Thanks very much. Mark Medina. You can follow him on Twitter, and he's a great follow. Mark G. underscore Medina covers the NBA for USA Today.