The Press Box - 25 for 25: Noah Eagle. Plus, NBA Finals Notes, and WaPo Becomes HuffPo.

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and Joel discuss some NBA Finals thoughts, Oklahoma City as a host city, reports of Doris Burke's uncertain future in ESPN's broadcast booth, Cam'ron the journalist, and more (2:47). Then they discuss The Washington Post's puzzling new strategy and Pablo Torre's Bill Belichick–Jordon Hudson investigation (30:05). Then they are joined by NBC's Noah Eagle to talk about the Finals, the NBA on NBC 2.0, and the future of play-by-play (48:22). Finally, Bryan and Joel close the show with some weekend book recommendations and a solemn addition to the Hall of Departed Journalists (1:22:37). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel AndersonGuest: Noah EagleProducers: Kyle Crichton and Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Folks, it's Jay Kyle Mann from The Ringer, and as always, basketball is so freaking, freaking good. It's so good, in fact, that the Ringer's NBA draft show is finally back just in time for a ramp up to June. We've got you covered every week as we take an in-depth look at who's got next for the NBA's future. We'll talk the rising and falling stocks of the best and the brightest prospects in the 2025 NBA draft class. From Cooper Flag to Dylan Harper, the VJ Edgecom, and more. tap in with me on the Ringer NBA draft show every Wednesday and make sure that you follow, subscribe, and hit us with those five-star ratings. Media consumers, welcome to Press Box. You've got Brian Curtis. You've got Joel Anderson. And we've got a new member of our team. He is one of my favorite coworkers at the Ringer period. He was already the official nephew of this podcast. And today I am psych to announce he's our producer. Kyle Crichton, welcome to the press box.

I've officially been put out to pasture here on the press box. No, I'm just kidding. You guys have a pretty scary track record, but for real, I never miss an episode. And I rarely even go into an episode, like hoping you guys cover a specific thing. I just see what you got in the chamber. And I think I've just put that magic to an end now that I'm on the emails now.

But I'll find a way to love it in this version as well. But anyway, I'm really happy to be with you guys. Oh, this guy is like our biggest internal support. Porter at the Ringer. One thousand percent. Man, well, he, I mean, already we were talking off air before we got started about this very professional video clip he's produced for us, because we're going to, unfortunately, for those of you who might end up having to see us on social media, we're trying to get a little more professional around here and produce some more video clips. And he, Kyle did that.

And it's great. Like, I mean, as far as those things go, he's working with the material he's got. You know what I mean? But, no, it was great. So I'm really excited to have you here, man. And I hope you stay. I hope you stay for a while. Me too. Put in a word with the, with the big guy and see if we can make that happen. I don't know if I listen to me, but we'll see. All right, coming up on the podcast, Wapo is becoming Huffpo. A few words about Pablo Torre, Jordan Hudson, and Bill Belichick. In the seventh edition of our 25 for 25 series, Joel and I quiz Noah Eagle about the finals, the NBA on NBC, and the future of play-by-play. But first, let me take you to a place where they never wait for the official review. Let's go to J-School. You know, we call our own

files at J-School, Brian, like respectable men and women. Speaking of basketball, you know, by the time many people hear this, game one of the NBA finals will probably already be in the books out of soon, right? If you're a kind of person, you wake up on a Friday morning and that's when your day starts and you start listening to the podcast that came out the day before, right? So it's a showdown between the Oklahoma City Thunder, the one seat out of the west and the Indiana Pacers, the four seat in the east. And that's a little misleading because the Pacers have been the league's second best team since the first of the year. The Pacers were on apparently a 58 win pace, which is still 10 games behind the Thunder. It's amazing.

Very heavy favorites to win their first NBA title in OKC. And second in franchise history, which I know is going to piss off a lot of people in Seattle because, you know, the Sonics won in 79. Look, I'm excited that OKC gets to be the host city here, Brian. Not everybody feels that way, but I am. Aren't you like, you don't get to see a city like Oklahoma City in this kind of spotlight, right? As a Texan, this is all tough for me. Oh, I'm sorry. I forget the OU Texas thing, my bad.

But I'm happy, and I hope I sound sincere. I'm happy for OKC. Yeah, right. Does that sound convincing? I'm happy for OKC. Look, man, I'm very happy. You know, and I've probably mentioned this a few times here. I lived in OKC in 2003, 2004, and that was like four years before the thunder came to town.

And it's actually almost sort of surreal to see Oklahoma City mentioned in the national news, given where it was before. Like, it was a, I mean, I think pretty much the only thing that it was famous for other than the Oklahoma City bombing was, I mean, what? What was Oklahoma City famous for prior to that? I'm trying to think of what a person who'd never been would think of the city. What's the first thing that would come to mind? Yeah. That's a tough one before the Sonics. Yeah.

I don't know that it really had much, man. I think that's about right. And I mean, and the thing is, it's like if you, so they do this thing during the playoffs, where they do the aerial shots of Oklahoma City. And it's just sort of, I mean, it's sad if you're looking for the big building. Like the big building there is like the Devon. Energy Center, which is like 844 feet high, which is tall, but it would be dwarfed in a lot of other cities.

So it's, you know, I'm kind of interested and excited to see Oklahoma City in the public spotlight. But the one thing about it that really hurts me, and we talked about this little Brian is, you know, a generation ago, this series would have been perfect for that like once treasured tradition of a sports column that's coming to town and just shitting all over it. You know what I mean? You know, like the guys from New York are like Bob Ryan or Lupy. or somebody like that, Jim Murray come to your town and be like, this place sucks. And so, I mean, we got Bob Kravitz, Greg Doyle, Barry Trammell, Jenny Carlson.

I mean, you know, maybe they can mix it up. But it's just you don't see that kind of stuff anymore. Yeah, that was a really great public tradition that now I think just happens on texts. Yeah. Or happens on podcasts after you push the record button and turn everything off. Yeah. NBA writers grumble about where they're going to. go. Yeah, right. I mean, the thing about sports writers, it all usually comes down to like

Marriott's reward points, right? That's it. That's all sports writers care about it's all they care about is. But the good thing about Oklahoma City, again, I've said this before, no traffic. You'll never have to wait in line anywhere to get anywhere. Pretty good food town, I would say. And, you know, I'll think of some other things. But if you're, but if you're, but, but if you're, if you're are going to go to Oklahoma City. I'm sure Boomtown is going to come up. They've got a nice restaurant that I used to like Crabbtown. So, you know, you can do a few things there. You can have your fun. But, Brian, you sent me a column of the late great Jim Murray talking about cities. And it just really made me miss that particular genre, man. It is. And Jim Murray, for those who don't know,

was columnist the L.A. Times for 100 years. And he would go on road trips. And he was so good at making fun of other cities that the people on the road would beg him to make fun of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to give a couple of examples here. Spokane, because I've actually spent more time in Spokane, Washington than would seem to make sense. The only trouble with Spokane, Washington as a city is that there's nothing to do there after 10 o'clock in the morning, but it's a nice place to go for breakfast. I've not had breakfast in Spokane, so I can't speak to that.

And then you recommended the Cincinnati line, which is really good. They still haven't finished the freeway. Dot, dot, dot. It's Kentucky's turn to use the submit mixer. Nobody could do it like Murray. That may be why nobody's doing it now. That's it. I mean, why, you know, why mess with perfection, right?

Are we going to have a celebrity fan crisis when the NBA finals comes to Oklahoma City? Oh, buddy. Man, it is a very thin list of celebrities out of that place, right? And in fairness, this happened two years ago in Denver. Man, that's a good point. Because, right, who are the people from Denver? We're sort of wondering. And then it was like, Ken Jong did a scrum with reporters before one of the games.

I'm not making that up. That actually happened two years ago. And then eventually we got to like Peyton Manning sitting courtside, which is cool. I'm all for that. But that isn't like the usual, like, I'm a celebrity and I am born in Denver. This is my childhood team. This is the love of my life. So can Peyton credibly show up in Indianapolis then?

Sure. Can you? Okay. Okay. All right. If you say so. Sitting next to Omar Epps on the sidelines who made at least one conference finals game. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, they can try that. I'm looking at this list of people in Oklahoma City. And, man, it's pretty rough. I saw Xavier Henry play in high school when he was there. So he's the former NBA guard. Blake Griffin is from Oklahoma City.

I mean, maybe. Okay. You got to think he'll be working, though, probably. He's going to be on the mic somewhere, I'd imagine. Yeah, he's also just got other affiliations at this point in his life. Yeah. We were also talking about, I mean, is it possible that the most popular, the most famous people in Oklahoma are Barry Switzer and Bob Stoops? Yes.

I mean, and I think that's in a way when you're talking about, like, what does the national media? What do people outside of Oklahoma City know about that place? It's Sooners football. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and it's it's Stoops. It's Coach Barry. It's the late great Toby Keith standing on the sidelines.

Is Jim Ross, the WWE announcer standing on the sidelines? That is that part of the world to me. Yeah. Man, Toby Keith was that guy. When I was in Oklahoma in 2004, like, if, Toby Keith showed up. Like, he was your, he was the Timothy Shalameh of Oklahoma City at the time. It's too bad that he didn't get to live to see this, man.

By the way, was the national media just such a cheap date about the whole Timothy Salome going to Indiana thing? I mean, yeah, I mean, it's like he can't afford to do it. That's what I mean. He makes his own schedule. If you had tons of money, wouldn't you, like, fly to sporting events? Right. And again, it's not in, like, Alberta or, you know.

you know, Alaska or something like that. It's not a very far trip from him, I'm sure. Like, it's like, that's not, yeah, that's just not a sacrifice to me. Like, oh, wow, I, you know, I'm showing my love for this team by going to one of their games. Like, oh, that's cool. That is exactly how I would be famous. I would go with my beautiful partner and sit courtsided NBA games. Like, that seems like the way I would want to live if I was famous, which I would give him credit for, for living out a lot of our dreams.

A couple more notes about the NBA finals for you. Okay. Number one, ESPN is going wobbly on Doris Burke. Andrew Marchand has a big piece in the athletic in which he says Burke's spot is not guaranteed for next season. According to sources familiar with ESPN's preliminary plans. He notes that ESPN is trying to resign Richard Jefferson, who's the other co-analyst along with Mike Breen. Jefferson's also getting some interest from Amazon and maybe there would be a two-person booth instead of a three-person booth.

Man, that's really tough because, I mean, I feel like wasn't it within this decade that Doris Burke was sort of like the darling of critics and NBA fans, like people really appreciate it. And I mean, she earned that. Like, I mean, she was very good at her job. And it came through on the mic, but it's just kind of surprising that, you know, everybody has an end, I guess. And so with all this shifting around, I guess it sort of makes sense that they might be

looking to look elsewhere. But it's crazy how quick things turn. And what's also crazy is they just have not given her a chance to succeed. Named her the job to the number one ESPN team two years ago. And in that two years, she has had three different analyst partners. Man, that was Doc Rivers, there was JJ Reddick, and now there's Richard Jefferson. Yeah. So in terms of, you know, a three-person booth, which is already hard to get right, because there's not very much time to talk in basketball, you're trying to make sure everybody's, you know, getting touches and not.

talking over the action, Stan Van Gundy style. And now you're saying like, wait a second, you've had three different partners. You have Richard Jefferson, who to me is not working well with Doris Burke at all. Like Andrew in his article points the finger at Mike Breen and said he could do a better job bringing them in. I'm watching the games and I'm like, Richard Jefferson is not listening to what Doris Burke is saying. Right, right, right. You can just hear that. There was that play.

I think it was game four of the Western Conference final. where the thunderer up, the ball goes out of bounce. They're just kind of trying to throw the ball down the court to end the game. And a Minnesota fan catches the ball on the sidelines. And Burke is like, wait a second, he caught the ball. Does that mean there's actually more time on the clock for the wolves to get a final shot up rather than just 0.1 seconds when it's a huge, huge long shot that you'd actually be able to score in that scenario? and Jefferson's like, oh, no, no, no, Doris, it's like 0.1 seconds.

You can't get off a shot in that amount of time. And I'm like, no, no, that's actually not what she's saying at all. She's making the correct point here. And in fact, the refs put a little more time on the clock. But I'm just like, this is not, he is not getting along with her in the broadcasting sense. Right. Anybody who watches the games can see that. And so suddenly, wait, she's going to maybe be out of a job because of that?

do you think and anybody that ever has worked at ESPN for the most part you kind of got to have an agent because that's how that stuff works and I'm just wondering if

I mean who who benefits from that news getting out there this is what I think about that news getting out then I'm wondering if like Doris Doris's agent

and again I'm not accusing them anything but it's just like hey you know they may be thinking about moving on and it's a good way to test to like see how people are going to respond and maybe press ESPN and do a little

actually. I don't, I'm not saying that that's what happened, but it is kind of, usually we don't get the, this person may be on the way out. Like, either we know it's already happened or it's not, it's, you know, it's not going to happen. Well, and it's certainly a really awkward story right before the finals. Right. Absolutely. And I'm not implying anything about Andrew or why he reported or whatever. But for this story to be out right before the finals is awkward and then some. Yeah. All right. That's point number one. Point number two about the finals. I think the thunder have got to have one of the most. Stark, smart basketball fan versus normie basketball fan divides in the NBA. I can see that. Yeah. And I'm just talking about media people here too, because all of our smart basketball reporter friends, they're into Sam Presti. Oh, yeah. He's that guy.

He's the dude. They're into stockpiling draft picks. They're the one. Taking on bad contracts so you can stockpile draft picks. This list of transactions that somehow goes all the way. back to 2007 and Kurt Thomas, which is the name I had not. CCU legend. CCU's very own, right?

Uh-huh. And I think for other people, it's kind of like, wait, what? Yeah. Well, I mean, the thing about Sam Presti is that obviously, it's just funny because in a world in which players are judged by championships, you would think that the GM would sort of be judged by that, but that's not quite what's happening here. And everybody, when it's players, people don't, when the players, people don't understand the nuance of like maybe my second best player was hurt maybe whatever it was going on but with

gms we all understand oh he was limited by the players that he acquired are the players he sent away um but i mean the thing you can't deny sam presti i mean durant one draft westbrook one draft sir jubacco one draft james hardin yeah i mean so i mean the dude is official but it's like all right you know what are we going to get out of this at some point those draft picks got to turn into something at some point. Yes. And I think when they win the title or if they win the title, that changes a little bit. But Thunder fandom, and again, I mean this not just among normal people, but among media people. It's sort of based on understanding how team building works through compiling draft picks. Right. And appreciating Sam Presti, who as far as I can tell, has almost

zero public profile. Right. Well, it's not a Daryl Morey style character where it's like, we got Dork Elvis on the pod. If he's talking to people, he's doing it mostly behind the scenes or totally behind the scenes. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's not like, you know, one of the things, too, is that, you know, I guess they did sort of, I don't, tanking is not really the word, but it has been a respectable rebuild in Oklahoma City. Nobody, it's been a build, yeah. It's been a bill. You know, nobody, you know, Oklahoma City, if they're bad, can you imagine what the crowds would look like there? So he has a responsibility to a very sort of, you know, of a small fan base and a small market and to keep that team relevant. And he's been able to do that. And I can respect that, right? Like, you know,

there's plenty of teams that have been there tanking year after year for no apparent reason. And you're just like, what are you hoping is going to happen? And like, at least with Sam Presti, you can see that they're building towards something. And like, that is, you know, I can understand why the basketball geeks are in love with him. Totally. And, you know, when you actually watch the Thunder play basketball. SGA, there's this whole Jason Tatum conversation about him where it's like he's really good, but we don't approve of the way he plays basketball. The whole free throw merchant chant that you heard during the Western Conference Finals, but I don't know, if you don't like watching Jaylon Williams play basketball, there's something wrong.

Right. And I think SGA is really fat. I think the thing, if SGA was more explosive, if he was Duncan like Anthony Edwards or something, he might be a much bigger star, but you've got to appreciate his footwork and mid-range game. And, you know, that's not the basketball that the people, the kids that today grew up on. Do we want to move on to something that I got you into that is actually sort of crazy? In other news. In other news. Pressbox listeners, I gently coaxed our friend Brian into watching Cameron.

Cameron's interview of Sherey Hayes, aka The Punisher, one of the witnesses in the ongoing did a federal trial. Was this one of your first brushes with the Camron phenomenon, Brian? It was, and I was so glad I'd be able to answer the question. What's your favorite Cameron podcast? I wasn't even going to do it to you, but go ahead. Tell me what it is, which is it? It's this one.

His interview with Shiree Hayes, aka the Ponshire. Okay. That's it. That's it. Look, there you go. I can respect that. It came up because we were talking last week about the No Rules era of media, particularly in podcast. And the expectations people should have about journalism involved in the production of these shows.

And like, is this journalism or entertainment or whatever? And I mean, so what did you think of this? I mean, it's amazing. I mean, I don't want to spoil it for people because I really want you to go watch it. But what did you think of it? I want you to go watch it. if your kids are not in the room, because this is a very explicit material in this interview.

This is very true. Because he's describing basically his testimony in the government's case against Diddy, aka Sean Combs. I mean, I guess my first reaction here was, I'm watching this, and all I can think about are the Barbara Walters type interviews where they would have a guest like this,

but it would all be in euphemism. Right, right, right. They would all be networked to them. network TV PG rating. And here it was just, it got more and more explicit as the interview went on. Like, what happened then? What happened then? What happened then? Yeah, I mean, there's a question that he starts with. Okay, it's Harlem time. Dot, dot, dot. And I'll let you fill in the rest.

So again, maybe it will help if I fill in people on Cameron. I know him best for being the preeminent rapper from Harlem. Like he's been famous to me since 1998. Maybe he's notable to some folks for going on Bill O'Reilly show in 2003 and getting the best of him, which isn't something that happened all the time, or maybe when he went on 60 minutes and he became the face of the stop snitching movement. So yeah, long story short, Cameron told Anderson Cooper that he wouldn't even tell the police the identity of the dude or dudes who shot him in a carjacking in D.C. in 2005, he said, the people who buy my records understand where I'm coming from, Anderson followed up with if there's a serial killer living next to you and he's killing people, would you be a snitch

if you called police and told him? Cameron responded. I wouldn't call and tell anybody on him, but I'd probably move. Not a typical journalist background, you know? No. And it goes to what we were talking about last week, where so many of the interviews that used to be done almost solely by journalists, right, are now being done by other people. Yeah. And when you watch, something like this, and again, your mileage may vary, because it's some very explicit subject matter here. But you watch and you're like, I understand why this is super entertaining. These are, these are interesting questions. And sometimes people like him ask different questions that journalists would not ask. Right. And take you to different places. It's definitely taking it's just some different

places. And you don't, I mean, I think the thing is, I don't believe that this guy, the Punisher is going to sit down for a lot of other interviews, to be honest. I think that Cameron calling him and showing up, he's going to do that. And that's kind of the way media is working in a lot of ways now. Like, we talked about Bill Belichick. If Ryan Clark calls him, it's different than if you or I call him, right? Or, you know, Seth Wickersham calls him or whatever. And that's what's so interesting about this moment because I'm not, as you know, a declineist. I'm not somebody who's saying like, the world's going to hell because this stuff is happening on podcast. because these podcasts are incredibly fun to listen to.

My concern about some of them, like the Ryan Clark podcast, is like, what are the rules here? What kind of rules of engagement are happening with this? Do podcast guests have final cut of an interview? Can they ask for something interesting they said to be taken out of an interview? Is that happening? And then a point that Jamel Hill was making on Twitter the other day, and she was talking about ESPN, but I think it applies here, which is that journalists are slowly disappearing from these kinds of encounters. They're disappearing from ESPN chat shows.

They're disappearing at least ratio-wise, I think, from podcasts. And so what's happening is you often don't have that person as part of the mix. And as somebody who is a watcher of a lot of these things, sometimes I miss somebody being like, but I would really like somebody there to be like, I'm sorry, I have to be that guy, but I have to ask this question. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, because, again, we don't know what the relationship.

A lot of these interviews are based on relationships. And you get on this stuff because I know this guy or my agent knows this guy. We don't know what to be in a background. And so they're going to do it. But with a journalist, it's just, I mean, I hate to say it, just a geek. You know, it's just me showing up. You don't know me. I have no obligation to you to protect your career or to protect your privacy or anything.

And you can understand why a celebrity or somebody in the public spotlight might say, I don't know if I want to do that. Totally. Totally. I mean, and again, if there's an alternative, of course you're going to take door number two. Right. Right. Why would you, why would you agree to the journalist interview? And again, that's, that's again, where danger lies. It's not that they exist. It's not that they're not cool to watch and fun and I adore them just like everybody else. It's just like, what if that's everything? Or what if that's such a huge percentage of the world that journalists begin to sort of seep out of the equation? Right. I mean, it's just kind of crazy to think like Stephen A. Smith is a job. journalist, right? Like he's, that's kind of the last, Jamel held up as like one of the people who's the last protector of journalism.

He's one of the last lines of defense here, which is, you know, think about that. Telling. Telling. Look, I really want to thank you, Brian, for having on Mark Kriegel. He's a great writer.

He was on 25 for 25 on Monday to talk about his new book about Mike Tyson. And I was familiar with him because of his biographies on Joe Namath and Pete Marevich, which I give the highest recommendation. And I haven't read the Tyson biography yet and I can't wait to get to it. But I was so jealous listening to that interview because I wanted to ask him about so many things. And he, I mean, I'm sure you're going to agree with me on this. He's a throwback, isn't he? I remember guys like that 20 years ago. It was. And I had this whole section of the interview about writing a column in New York City.

and there was just so much to say about Tyson, I never even got to it. Oh, man, I believe it. I believe it. And I, you know, it's like his voice alone. There was a guy in media, and maybe I shouldn't even say his name, but he was a New York journalist from the AP.

He was basketball guys, so maybe that'll clear, you know, clear the lane for some folks. And it just, I remember, like, the voice sounded like cigarettes. Like, I remember I covered a playoff game with him, and we left at some point, during this playoff game so he could go outside and smoke a cigarette. It was just the kind of thing that's only happening, you know,

it's not happening past like 2008, right? But any, you know, and a lot of people may not know, like, that's not just not a many writers that want to do boxing anymore. As I mentioned, I was a huge William Nack fan. And so Kregel said something during the interview, like you're always at the end of boxing. And it's true because I can't even think of many media outlets that have a dedicated boxing writer anymore.

No. They may have an MMA boxing guy, but they don't have a boxing guy anymore, you know? Yeah, and that was the way that you made your reputation. You know, it wasn't just like sports writers. It was, well, it was Norman Mailer. It was Joyce Carol Oates. Well, to your point, Brian, did you know that my first ever published story in a newspaper that wasn't the Daily Skiff at TCU was about boxing?

Was Norman Mailer and you? You know, I'm Norman Mailer. Exactly. I was following the well-worn path of Norman Mailer. Yeah. So it's the summer of 99. I'm an intern at the Star Telegram of Fort Worth. And as you know, summer's a really tough time for sports in the newspaper.

There's not much to cover. And the Rangers, I mean, this is just how luxurious that time is. The Rangers had two beatwriters and a backup, right? I'd imagine that today, right? And so an intern might get to do it most, a sidebar at one of those games. But Fort Worth had this local band-of-weight, Pauli Ayala. You remember Polly Ayala? Sure.

You do? Okay. Yeah, man. So he was going to fight for the WBA title against a guy named Johnny Tapia. I'm the intern. I didn't get to write about Pauly, but I got to write about Johnny Tapia, the guy he was going to fight against. And, man, Tapia was like really the far more fascinating guy. A little about Johnny Tapia.

His dad was killed when his mother was pregnant with him. And then his mother was killed and brutally raped when he was eight years old. So he had a lot of trouble. So anyway, his fight against Ayala in Vegas that June was a classic and ended up becoming Ring Magazine's fight of the year. Ayala won his first title and it turned out to be Topi's first career loss and it's spiraling. He overdosed, had to go into the hospital.

And I kind of followed his career in life sporadically from there. He eventually got a heart failure at the age of 45 in 2012. He wrote an autobiography titled Mi Vita Loca, My Crazy Life in 2006, that I haven't read yet, But his life reminded me quite a bit of Tyson. And the reason I knew that is because when I was like 11 or 12 years old, my mom brought home a used copy of the Jose Torres biography of Mike Tyson, fire and fear, the inside story of Mike Tyson. And I know Kregal sort of dismissively referred to him as a member of Custamato's camp, but

Torres himself was a former light heavyweight champ. He was a silver medalist at the 56 Olympics. and he's also in the international boxing Hall of Fame, that book really gave away this inside dope on Tyson. He came from, you know, desperate beginnings and was into a juvenile detention center and was sent away to live with Cuss who changed his life and made him a champ.

But he also goes into all these other vices that Tyson was dealing with along the way. And it was like this really unsparing portrait of Tyson, and that's even before the rape case that ultimately sent him to prison. So if you read that book before, then you see how everything in his life led up to those charges.

And I've walked away feeling really empathetic to Tyson and following him like so many other people in our generation. And so, look, there's so much to say about Mike Tyson. That book came out in 91. It was so on time for somebody to take on that book. And I can't wait to read it. Like maybe when I finished the book next summer, you know, or the year after, because Brian has heard my kids yelling behind me as we record this. Maybe we can have a press box book club or something like that. And we're overdue for a press box book club. Yeah, man. And we should pick the next big, juicy book like this that we both really, really want to sink our teeth into.

And we can read it. We can have the author on. It'll be a little bit of an early Yola Boko Flood for everyone. I would love that. A couple of topics for you. Okay. Number one, Wapo has become Huffpo. Or is about to become Huffpo.

The insider, Ben Mullen, has an amazing story in the New York Times. It ran on Tuesday. It is about the Washington Post. You and I know that their opinion section has been in a kind of limbo. They are still searching for their free market friendly, personal liberties friendly editor of that section. Right. Well, there's this new program within the paper, Mullen reports, called Ripple. Oh, man.

And the idea of Ripple is to publish more opinion columns. Oh, man. Now, you might ask you, where are these opinion columns going to come from in the post? as well, some of the things they've been talking about is syndicating columns from other newspapers. The Washington Post. The Washington Post. And one of the funnier moments in this piece is Mullen calls the publisher of one paper. The Post was considering syndicating columns from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

And the publisher tells Mullen, we think scale is yesterday's war. Like, you want to publish a bunch of our stuff so you have more columns, but you're actually finding using a strategy that we have abandoned here in Atlanta. Right. How would that benefit Atlanta's columnist to be in the Washington Post? We're already on to that game now, right? To get some money, I have no idea. You know, also toying with like publishing a Madaglacius substag post or, you know,

something from the Never Trump website, the dispatch. Yeah. I mean, in their respectable days, they would hire Madaglacius. They would give him money and bring him onto the staff, right? You would be able to hire Maddoxies. You would be able to say this real estate is so important that you have to be here. That's better than doing your own thing. Right.

Ben Mullen also describes the final phase that the Post is toying with. Hold on. Quote, allowing non-professionals to submit columns with help from an AI writing coach. So basically they're taking the pros out of post-anything. I mean, and that would post anything? thing was. That's a great callback, by the way. Yeah, I don't understand.

They're doing what's old as new again. Yeah. And if you want some more details about the AI writing coach that is going to coach up these non-professionals, well, let me tell you, early mockups of the tool feature a, quote, story strength tracker that tells writers how their piece is shaping up with a sidebar that lays out basic parts of story structure, quote, early thesis. quote, supporting points, and quote, memorable ending. Yes.

Can we teach the AI bot that the word from memorable ending in journalism is kicker? Does it no lead? It's getting smarter every day. I'm not sure. I mean, this is so tough because, I mean, the thing about newspapers is that, I mean, you know, we're always sort of behind in technology. And I said, R, I don't work in a newspaper, but you know what I mean. And I understand that we don't want to replicate the mistakes of the past by being skeptical of new technology that may be able to help us. But I don't understand why, I mean, I understand why the Washington Post isn't owned by a tech guy, right, who wants to just make money.

But in terms of the journalism and the newspaper itself, like, why there's not more skeptical? What is the need for this? Like, why do you think people would want to read this? people, I'm drawn to people who have strong opinions about things or interesting things to say about the world, not just people throwing shit up at the, throwing shit up on the website, right? Yeah, and I'm interested in the Washington Post picking people to tell me things. The Washington Post can pretty much get whoever they want if they don't already work at the New York Times and get them to write things for them. Like, it just means something.

That's what's so weird. Yeah. And that's what's so weird about Will Lewis, the publisher of the post, who's been in that job since 2023. Yeah. I think the fear when he came over from the UK was, oh, my goodness, he is going to visit upon this respectable paper, all these British strategies. We're going to do all these things. And there's always this little bit of a nativist streak to that.

What's he going to do to us? What turned out to be the case was he does not have any new ideas. He is pulling from the early aughts journalism playbook here. I'm like, wait. This is it. You're devaluing your own real estate. You are the Washington Post. Act like it, damn it.

You know what I mean? You don't have to pull stuff from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. People from the Atlanta Journal Constitution aspire to work at the Washington Post. You know? Or they did. And I just, yeah, it's really disheartening. Because, I mean, this is a lot of jobs. That's a place that theoretically can pay people a lot of money.

and that it kind of seems like they're throwing up their hands here. You're outsourcing your journalism. Yeah. You know, you could do what the New York Times opinion section has already done. You could just rip off their strategy and say, hey, let's go get 50 new contributing writers. Right. That we pick, that we like, and bump up their scale that way. Yeah.

But you're not doing that. That's the thing. Like, what the New York Times has done has clearly worked. and like maybe they don't feel that they can compete on the same turf as them because I'm pretty sure they see them in the Wall Street Journal. Those are their daily competitors, right? And maybe they don't think they can compete. So they're just, they're zagging.

You know, this is, maybe this is they're like, we're just going to shoot a lot of threes. Like, we don't have the talent, but we're going to run the option offense. You know, we're going to run the VIR because we don't have the talent to compete. We're going to run the Forbes offense. I mean, like, what are we doing? Like, I just don't, again, that's not, it's not. It's not that it's a bad idea. It's not an idea.

It's not. It's not. Do we dare talk about Pablo Torre? I don't know, man. Our boss is still in a beef. Well, maybe they're not in a beef anymore. If you watch that episode or listen to it, they're not in a beef anymore.

It's over. But it's kind of, I guess we dare bring this up again, I suppose. A treaty has been signed. And I don't want to be the guy who comes when a treaty is being signed. But just a couple more points. But we did. talk about the Pablo Tori Bill Belichick episodes a couple of weeks ago. And I do think there's a few more points to make from our point of view.

Sure. About what he's attempting to do here. Because it strikes me that what he's attempting to do is land the plane somewhere between a reported podcast and a chat show. Right. between serious reporting and reporting on a story that is in some ways frivolous. Right. Football coach and his younger girlfriend.

He's trying to get in the middle of those things. And what I said a couple of weeks ago was, I don't begrudge him for doing that. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. but the way that it has landed, the way the two podcasts he's now done on Jordan Hudson and Belichick have not totally worked for me. Right.

Well, for the same reasons as the last time, it sounds like, right? Same reasons. So this most recent episode, which is now almost two weeks old, is about the Belichick Ring Camera Video. Yeah. That's where Pablo starts. which if anyone says they were not interested in the Belichick ring camera video when they first saw it, they're lying. Man, there was a lot of ham hawk in that video.

A lot of ham talk. I'm not one to talk. I'm a father too now, but a lot of hamhawk. Pablo points out in his episode that there was a really interesting unanswered question, which is how did this ring camera video get out into the world? Where did this come from? Who released this? So he goes on this quest or he unboxes, this is his term he's using to talk about the way he presents this research to his co-hosts there, Katie Nolan and Michael Cruz Kane.

And he talks about, okay, so I got these guys who are known as geogessers who can look at things, look at pictures and find where things are in the world. And the geogessers lead him to this Airbnb in Winthrop, Massachusetts. it's, Pablo goes to the Airbnb. Delightful little Airbnb, by the way. Delightful Airbnb. Pablo recreates the Belichick video himself in the Airbnb. And all of this, by the way, I'm watching this and I'm just like smiling. This is funny.

Like as a crazy stunt, as a quest, this is funny. It's really, it's a very amusing theater. Yes. Very amusing theater. Absolutely. And he eventually comes to the idea that the way, way this leaked was because the property owners, who he interviews in the podcast, sent it to their friends. And that most likely some friend then puts it out into the world. This is somewhat

exonerating because there had been, I don't know if it was a notion, but there was at least an open question. And wait a second. This wasn't Jordan Hudson putting this out into the world, right? And he goes to some lengths to exonerate her, said, no, no, no, that's not how this got out into the world. But then I watched this whole thing and I was like, so wait a second. So this was a really, really fun quest to go on. But what did we learn here besides that fact, which I just related to you about how the video got out? I guess it veered. So Pablo in his interviews as of late had talked about, and he made, I think, a fairly strong case for why he had reported on it. You know, this is the highest paid employee,

state employee in North Carolina, a guy who has very not lived his life out in public, all of a sudden is, why is he doing that? Trying to get to the bottom of that. This one doesn't answer that so well, right? Like, now it's to the extent that he's giving grist to his critics, that this is just, you know, you're being prurient, right? or you're allowing us to be voyeurs and an old man, you know, an older man and his younger girlfriend.

Like that probably gives them a little bit more ammunition than the first episode did. And that's kind of where I landed on it. Like I still watched it. I thought that it was fun. Like you said, I watched it with a smile on my face. But if you wanted to levy that critique that this didn't really serve any purpose, but to bring this back up again and embarrass Bill Belichick, then, you know, that was.

would be a you could make that case. And I come from the point of view, and I suspect you do too, that there's not a very high bar for reporting on Jordan Hudson. Like, if you needed the official CGR approved into this story, it was when Matt Baker reported in The Athletic that she was being copied on emails. Right. At the University of North Carolina. Right.

We're, by the way, we're in. The journalistic dons are nodding, yes, this is a legitimate story. I'm not even sure you needed that, to be honest. I mean, if you have somebody posting. Instagram pictures of herself and Bill Belichick or Bill Belichick doing that himself. I kind of think there's these are public figures, right? Like there's a lot here. And as Pablo points out, it's a guy who was a not public public figure awkwardly becoming a fully public one with interviews and podcasts and everything else. So I get there. I will just go back to something I said about the first episode.

I think the way this is being presented comes off awkwardly to me. Because the co-ho most Katie Nolan and Michael Cruz Kane are making jokes. Every time he presents a piece of reporting, they are saying phrases like, oh my God, Pablo over and over again.

This is crazy. Oh my goodness. This is wild. What I would love from them is just teasing this information out. Yeah. So what do we know here? Why is this important?

What's our nut graph here? And again, I don't want to make this into a not fun exercise from, you know, a media podcast because what what Pablo is trying to do is do something that people are actually going to watch, right? He wants to make this fun. He's trying again, between chat show and reported podcasts so that people watch us. I just think the questions from the people sitting next to him could really help with the why of this. But where are we on this story?

What's happening here? instead of just being laughs and oh my god this is amazing that's my take on right that part is sort of gratuitous and like i mean look uh katie nolan and i know a little less about the michael guy but um they're good podcasters in the own right they're good media personalities in their own right um and they've got their followings or whatever but i did think oh man this would have been a good time to have me in a cons on you know what i mean like if you're going to get like you're going to have one a journalist and somebody that's steeped in football is going to ask the questions that you probably would want out of this. Like, okay, well, what does this mean? Why are you doing this?

So on and so forth. But again, that may not be as good of a presentation, right? Like, I don't know. A good of a hang. Yeah, it's good of a hang. But to turn it all serious and turn it into a real investigation. Because I think even Pablo has said, like, you know, I'm doing this so that we could do the other serious stuff like interviewing, you know, the Cowboys fan on death row, right? Totally. Totally. Totally. But again, that's where to me, when I'm watching it, it's a little awkward going down to me. Yeah. It's not that he's doing this. It's not what he's reporting. It's just the presentation of it. So you really do think that there's a way that this could, even this second episode could have been done if they had just not done the show and tell format that he did or with the co-host that they had.

Well, I just think that like it just needs a little, I just need a little bit more there. Again, we're just kind of not just, you know, opening the mystery box. Right. Looking at the ring camera. But just explaining, just explaining things a little bit more. And there were a few moments too, like he's interviewing the landlords of this Airbnb. They're anonymous. We don't know their names.

And I'll read you some quotes here. We were legitimately worried about her. They're talking about Jordan Hudson because she booked for five nights and she was here that one night with him. and we didn't see her again, dot, dot, dot. We thought she was a dancer or an escort. I remember saying that, yeah. And I'm just like, wait, we're putting that thought into the universe. I mean, we thought she was a dancer and escort.

Well, we know who Jordan Hudson is. Right, right. So do we need that? Doesn't that just obscure the reporting here to put that into the podcast? Don't you think that the line about, you know, they invited her to go golfing? And she says, well, I prefer a male senior. shaft. Like that was that was included to get the left line, right? Sure. And again, like, I don't know. I feel now I feel like I'm being, you know, the, the CGR cops or whatever.

But that, my point is, and there was, you know, there was a big portion in the last video in their first episode he did, which was where he was talking about the mom having, the mom manages a sex shop in Provincetown Mass. Right. We knew, we knew that, or I guess people who, cared about the story, knew that because New York Post had reported on it last summer. But they sent somebody there and they take pictures and there's this big section where, you know, you're having fun because there's, there's dildos and other things in the section. Here it is, but I'm just kind of like, this feels like we're getting away from the story to me. And again, that's not saying that the enterprise is illegitimate, reporting on this is

illegitimate. It's just when you're trying to land somewhere between reported pod and chat show between serious and frivolous, that the ground to me is a little bit uncertain here. Right. Just, again, just purely as not as media cop, not as, oh, you don't, how dare you do that, sir? But just as somebody who is a viewer of this, it's a tad awkward to me. I give him credit for trying something really unique. Like we've not seen this sort of presentation about this sort of story, about a sports figure, this prominent. I mean, I just, yeah, I don't know what would even, you know, sort of meet that sort of standard.

like what would be similar to that, but I also think that they've got to move on now, right? Because anything else would really seem gratuitous. And I think that, like, they've done what they're going to do. And like, don't, you know, don't bring on Katie Nolan and Michael Cruz can't cane and whatever. Like, move on now. Yeah.

But again, like, what if there's something big? What if there's a big piece of reporters that's, you know, germane to this whole thing? Again, I don't hold out that you have to be done. But again, I just think for this particular kind of presentation on probably. With this piece of it, right? Like, unless we get some news, that it is affecting the job that he's doing. It is affecting the way that the North Carolina administration is looking at him,

that he's actually in some sort of danger or that this is a, you know, you know, could potentially affect his professional career. Then, yeah. But, you know, I think we've, we all got our jokes off now. It's probably, you know, and I think Pablo pretty much implied that I'm done with this and I'm going to go find a hobby. All right, Joel. time for Part 7 of 25 for 25.

All right, Joel, let us welcome in a guy who's one of the stars of a major reboot. When the NBA on NBC comes back online this fall, Noah Eagle is going to be calling games. It's already been calling NBA games on the radio and guest network, not to mention Olympic basketball from Paris. As the NBA final start, we thought we'd bring him on to talk about the future of play-by-play and whether he and Jamal Crawford will be appearing as holograms 10 years from now. Noah, welcome to the press box.

I hope not. And when you were saying a reboot of a major show, so to speak, I was really hoping it was like step by step or boy meets world or something crazy that they could just shove me in there. But certainly excited to be a part of the round ball rock crew and can't wait for next season. Before we talk about the future,

a few questions about the present, Noah. How would you describe Tyrese Halliburton 's magical run through these playoffs? It's been extraordinarily fun, at least from just a completely unbiased viewer. And I live in New York City, so a lot of the people around here are very much anti-Tirees Halliburton

when you walk the streets, but it's been awesome. I think the way that he's carried himself, the way that he's inserted himself after these big moments, his willingness to go into celebrations that have been used before, but maybe aren't necessarily the norm.

You know, the Sam Cassell, I won't describe it any other way other than the Sam Cassell, which was really from Major League 2. So the Major League 2, and then, of course, the Reggie Miller choke, right with Reggie being in the building. That's cinema.

That's really, I think, what all of us want when we watch sports is the entertainment value that comes with it. And Tyrese is such a big WWE fan that he blends those worlds, it feels like. He plays that villain when he needs. needs to play the villain and he can be the hero instead of the heel when it comes to that moment as well. So I've loved every second of it. I love the fact that Indiana's made it. I think Rick Carlisle is finally getting his due diligence for as great of a coach as he's been his entire career.

And I just remember back-to-back years, my first two years with the Clippers, it was Clippers Mavs in the first round and Rick Carlyle's adjustments. That was what stood out. First year was with Doc Rivers as the head coach in L.A. then to Ron Liu the second year. And both, guys were just like this guy's among the hardest coaches to have to coach against in the history of the game because he sees it so well. And I think we see that with Indiana and Halliburton's the head of the snake. So it's been a lot of fun to watch. Noah, as you mentioned, you live in NYC. And so I assume it's impossible to not think about and have opinions about the Knicks. So how, first of all, I mean, because watching it on TV, like New York just feels so energized,

like watching it through the screen with the Knicks are good and the fans are excited about it. So how does New York feel in the wake of this loss in the way? What do you think they need to even get back to this point or beyond next year? Yeah, well, being here for really the last two years, because even to a certain degree last year, what they did was already another step in the right direction. You could feel the positivity and the energy around the city. Just walking the streets, even for game seven, I was walking to meet some people, not game seven, game six of this year.

I was walking to meet some people to watch at a bar on the Upper East Side. And as you're walking along, you see every bar is not just full, but it's overflowing with people. And obviously outside of Madison Square Garden, it was Bedlam after they beat Boston and any win that they had in any series throughout this run. It was chaos. And so it was fun in that sense. It was really enjoyable as just an overall person that can, just watch it and someone is a huge fan of the game and what this means to the sport,

I think is great. For the team themselves, it still was a step in the right direction. I know that there's a lot of disappointed people here because you lose to the Pacers for the second straight year. And I think a lot of people really went into this series feeling like this was a very winnable series. Again, I think that goes back to probably discrediting or at least just not giving enough credit to what Indiana's been since January 1st, which is the second best.

team in the NBA and they've run through the playoffs for a reason. They're really good. They're well-oiled machine offensively. They deserve credit. I think a lot of people have undervalued that. With that being said, the disappointment, I think, comes from the fact that they did have opportunities. Obviously, game one was just an absolute collapse and one of the more epic finishes in NBA history and certainly Halliburton playing that hero slash villain on both sides again. Game two, same type of deal. Both of those games, I think New York felt like they had chances to win. Game three, they essentially steal themselves with Carl Anthony Towns, and then game four opportunities were there. Game six opportunities were there. And so I think that's where the

frustrations lay for most fans around here, just from what I've gathered. In terms of what they need to do now, I think it's difficult. You know, we saw Landry Shamid and Delon Wright really come in and provide a nice spark. And so the ideal first step forward would be depth. I don't think a coaching change is really going to do much. I think Tom Thibodeau has done an outstanding job since coming over to New York of reestablishing what New York Knicks basketball is all about and finding success within this market, which is not necessarily a simple thing, especially in the current climate with the second apron and luxury tax and everything that comes with that.

You have a very small window. And I think the Knicks right now still have a very much open window, certainly going into next year, given what the Eastern Conference looks like. So for me, it's about smaller tweets. It's about finding depth where you can get it, guys who can come in and play legitimate minutes in the playoffs so that Jalen Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns and McKell Bridges and Josh Hart are a little bit fresher

when they need to be late in the series and O.G. and Anobie and all those guys. But it's right there for the Taking Forum. The Eastern Conference, I think, is very much there for the taking for just about any team, the Orlando Magic, and obviously the Indiana Pacers, but with the Jason Tatum injury and the uncertainty of what Cleveland's going to look like after this offseason, it's anybody's game.

So if I'm a Knicks fan, I'm hoping for small tweaks. I just know that that's not the general Knicks fan take, given that I've been around it. Well, again, can you teach Carl Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson how to play defense too? That probably would help. It would help. But I do think that there's a way of doing it and we've seen it because, look, I don't think Tyrese Halliburton's an all-world defender necessarily, but they've surrounded him with elite defense. Aaron Neesmith has taken a major step

and been willing to accept the challenges of guarding the guys like Jalen Brunson or Donovan Mitchell. You've got a Pascal Seaccom who's long range. He has been a legitimate defender in his career. Miles Turner, a great rim protector. So you surround the pieces the right way. I think you can still do that the right way here. You've got the defenders in place with Ananovi Heart and Bridges,

but now with the depth that you're adding, I think that's where you really need to look, is three in D specialists who are the modern prototypical Oklahoma City type, Alex Caruso's that you can go out there and find to add to your team. Noah, back in the 90s, Joel and I, in addition to watching step by step, we're watching the NBA on NBC's original run. I know what that franchise means to us. How does it sit in your mind?

Well, that was still the formative years for me early in my life because it goes into the early 2000s, and that first New Jersey Nets run to the NBA finals was the final year of the NBA on NBC. And so that's really where I think I was forming a lot of my first sports memories, certainly in person, and I've told Reggie this already,

but my first really big-time memory where I can remember the feeling where I was, everything that was going through my mind was game five of the 2002 first round between the New Jersey Nets in the Indiana Pacers that goes eventually double over time because Reggie has that banked in just in front of half-court shot at the end of regulation and the dunk to send it to double O.T. And the Nets took over from there was franchise altering and really career altering for a lot of people,

including Reggie, because the Nets end up going to the finals and getting blown out by the Lakers that year. But it sets the tone for them to go back to next year and compete with the spurs in a six-game loss. For me, that was the formative formative. moment of in-person sports fandom and then certainly watching along the way for a lot of the road games on NBC and hearing Marv Albert eventually sign off in the matter in which he did and Bob Costas helping to narrate and just getting this sense of regal and more than anything, heavyweight deal every time they did a broadcast. That's what it meant to me.

and then as I got back to NBC two years ago, full time, and joined them, I just went back and watched a lot of old games to prepare myself in general for really for football. I was going back and watching Super Bowls and college football national championship games and the 05 Rose Bowl. And that was just something I wanted to do. But the other thing I ended up doing is you go down the rabbit ball and we all do. And so you're on YouTube and you see the 1994 conference finals narration that Bob Costas is hyping up this incredible matchup or the 1997 NBA finals open and you're watching all this stuff. And I certainly did.

And what stuck out to me is there is no corner that is cut with the NBA on NBC. It was a full-fledged all-in production and they were making sure that they were going to give you everything that they had. Production-wise and certainly with what the on-air side was looking like. And that was the Costas and Marv and eventually the Mike Fratelli. my guy the czar and Dukas and Walton eventually getting there. It is awesome. It was all awesome. And so I loved every second of that, just going through that exercise myself.

And the hope is you can blend the old with a new as we try to reboot it all up again. It's sort of inevitable that you hear this sort of teeth gnashing among in NBA circles. If the Lakers or the Celtics don't make it to the NBA finals, that there's going to be these concerns. Like, oh, my God, Oklahoma City and Indianapolis. in the finals. Who's going to watch that? Do you think that there is any truth

of veracity to these concerns, right? The sort of concern trolling about it. And if so, or not, why? Well, I think it depends who you ask. If it's a true blood NBA fan, I was somebody who grew up obsessed with the NBA. That was always my favorite league,

and I was a long-suffering Nets fan after those two finals runs, and then certainly the 12 and 70 season. I think I might have been in that building when they won 12 games more than just about anybody other than my dad and whoever he was doing the games with at that point, whether it was Fretello or Mark Jackson or Kelly Trucuka. I can't even remember that year who he was with. But the point being, I love the NBA and I grew up loving the NBA. And I think a lot of the friends that I have that feel the

same are excited, thoroughly excited for this finals matchup because the style of play is so interesting to hit up against one another, the best offense against the best defense. You want to see that. Those are the types of matchups that you look forward to. And I also think you can look back and you say, well, San Antonio wasn't a big market, but people eventually got interested in Tim Duncan and Mono Genoblely and Tony Parker and eventually Kauai Leonard and the entire Greg Popovich experience. So it can happen.

And I'll even go back to 2015 because that's really what this reminds me of. It was Golden State Cleveland and obviously you have LeBron. but Steph at that point wasn't what Steph would become in terms of popularity. And Golden State wasn't what they'd become in terms of popularity, because what Steph and Clay and Draymond-Draimond built, and obviously Kevin Durant going there, built was a fan base that is now among the most powerful in the NBA. Golden State wasn't that.

They had the We Believe, and they were certainly powerful to a certain degree during the We Believe years. But those years in between, I can't say that their support was at an all-time high, I can't say that their jersey sales were at an all-time high. And this Oklahoma City team really reminds me of that 2015 Golden State team that was dominant all regular season. They get into the postseason and everybody says, well, we don't really know if they can do it. We don't really know if Steph Curry can be your number one guy on a championship winning team. And they roll through the postseason.

They defeat LeBron in six games in the NBA finals and a dynasty is born. And I'm not saying that Oklahoma City is going to turn into a dynasty, but we are watching all-time. great basketball from this team. There are very few teams that have won 68 games and had a 13 plus point differential through the regular season like this team has. And then blown through the postseason the way that they have to get to the NBA finals.

Of course, the seven-game series against Denver was incredibly fun and I think really shows how big of a deal Nicole Yokic truly is and how incredible player he is. But I do think that there's something to be said about the markets. I think it's true of any sport to a certain degree at least. I mean, last year the World Series rating spoke for themselves because

you had L.A. and New York, and there is still a factor there that comes with it. But at the end of the day, the true basketball fans are going to be flocking to watch this series because it's going to be just an interesting matchup. And so as long as you're still catering to your audience, which to me, the audience of the NBA are fans of the NBA, then there shouldn't be that much of a concern because you're still going to have impressions on social media. You're still going to have impressions internationally, which I think people probably are recognizing more and more is a huge deal in NBA circles. And then you're still going to have impressions, especially if this series gets interesting.

And Indiana takes one in Oklahoma City coming back to Indiana, I'm sure that those ratings are getting a nice little bump. Let's talk about the future of play by play a little bit. Because when I go down my own rabbit holes and watch a Marv game from the 90s or Dick Stockton from the 80s, I am struck by the fact that styling. differences aside, the language of play-by-play is very similar to what it is today. As you've gone back and watched games, what do you think has changed about NBA play-by-play over the last few decades?

I think national play-by-play is actually incredibly similar. I would say the difference or bigger change would be on the local level, because if you go back to the 80s and 90s, you were, if you were living in Philadelphia, I'll take it even if you were living in Indiana. You're watching the Pacers. You're not necessarily seeing these broadcasters from everywhere. And what my dad always liked to tell me, even when I was doing the Clippers on radio,

was every game's a national game, if you're a local announcer now, because of League Pass. And certainly, Sirius XM does the same thing on radio. And so you have to, I think, tailor it a little bit differently than maybe you did in the past, where it was maybe a little bit more accepted to be more biased towards your team in the past. I think you do it now. You get a little bit more pushback from people because you're getting viewers and listeners from all over the world and certainly all over the country.

I mean, an example would be for me growing up, especially with social media. And I think this is the other difference is just how it's consumed and the parts that matter to people. But growing up for me in the New York area, you would think, all right, I would. known my father, Mike Green, maybe even Mark Zumoff, if you're going to go Philadelphia, and just the general vicinity, general area of the tri-state area, we'll call it. And you know those announcers because those are your local announcers. But I knew all the way on the west coast, Ralph Lawler, who I was hearing do all the clipper games, and I love the Lob City Clippers.

And I'm like, I like this, the Lob the Jam and oh, me, oh, mine. I'm hearing these calls. And then I go an interview for the Clipper games. Clipper job, I interviewed for Ralph's job in 2019. And I think in maybe a past time, you know, if it was 20 years earlier, I wouldn't have had the knowledge of what Ralph was or who he was to the market or what he had done for 40 years with one organization. But because I grew up watching him and watching others across the league that Kevin Collabros of the world, I had this intimate knowledge already going into it. So I do think that's probably the biggest difference.

for instance, the local side. The national side's your point. Play-by-play is still play-by-play. And I think it's probably one of the few positions that is resistant to a certain degree of massive overhaul changes just because what you're providing the listener or the viewer doesn't change from what was provided to the listener or viewer maybe 40 years ago. A slight difference, I guess, would just be technological support that you have now and graphical support, things of that nature, where you have to talk a little bit more to that, talk to what's on the screen that people are seeing

as opposed to just saying what you're seeing in front of you live. Certainly having the scorebug is a big difference from the 80s and early 90s, but overall, the job is still the job. And your job is to tell the people what's happening, provide some backgrounds and context, try to tell as many great stories as you can along the way. and entertained while also informing your viewer.

And as long as you're doing that, you're doing the job at a high level. The social media aspect of it that I was referring to is just the highlights of it. I think that's how people consume highlights now, as opposed to sitting down and watching TV with SportsCenter on like I did before I went to school where I was eating my cereal

and I was hearing Stuart Scott do a highlight or whatever it might have been of the Nets game so I could get caught up on what I missed because I was told I had to go to bed earlier than I wanted to. You know, that doesn't exist anymore. Now it's House of Highlights, Bleach Report, all these services on Twitter and Instagram. That's where a lot of especially younger people are consuming. And that's why somebody like Eric Collins can become a household name because the highlights are awesome.

And he's so excited and he's so, you know, in your face with it, people respond to that. It still resonates with them. So I think now you just have to be cognizant. And you always did, but now more than ever, the NBA is a league where the best play of the season can happen at any moment because these guys are so athletic, so gifted, so talented, and really so skilled that anything can happen in a blink. And so you have to be so prepared at any moment that the best play of the season could happen in front of you and you better be on it. Because if you miss it, that highlight lives forever. And especially now, it comes back on Twitter and then it comes back on Twitter. and then a year from now comes back on Twitter,

and so you better be prepared to nail it. I was actually going to ask you about that, Noah. How has social media impacted the broadcasts and sort of the way you go about your job, right? Because obviously there's a lot more feedback that you get. Maybe it's certainly like even a generation ago that the people in your position didn't get. So how does that affect how you go about your job?

It's a good question. I think that you have to find the right blend because there are times where maybe you see something about yourself, on social media and say, you know what, I didn't consider that, but honestly, I probably should eliminate saying something like that. It actually is a good tip, and you just never would have thought of it. And then there are a lot of other times where it's just somebody saying something and you're like, why would I ever pay attention to anything like this? I was in the habit early in my career of responding to anything positive anybody wrote about me, whether it was

on Twitter, Instagram, it was a DM. That was a big deal for me. And when I got to NBC, Sam Flood, one of my bosses there, said to me, hey, why do you only respond to the positive ones? I go, well, you know, it's just nice that people have nice things to say about me. I just want to make sure that they know that they're appreciated. He goes, totally get that. But if you're going to respond to the positive ones, then I'm going to tell you to

respond to the negative ones too. And I was like, I'm not going to respond to the negative ones. He goes, so then just don't respond. Don't focus on it. Don't use your energy and attention on something that is insignificant to your performance. What you should be focused on is what we're telling you, what the people you love and care about tell you, and your own feelings about your performance, be your own harshest critic.

So I think you have to take it all with a grain of salt. At the same time, the other aspect of social media that I think is really important to the job, certainly when I was doing the Clippers was the news part of it. I was doing the Clippers on radio by myself. Didn't have a sideline reporter. I didn't have an analyst there with me. So if there was something happening during a game, I could catch it on social media before anybody could get it to me.

And now I can report it to the audience. And the same is true with the TV side. It's just the difference of having other people as support around you. And so I think that's where now I can be a good teammate. I see something pop up and I probably have gotten in the bad habit. You know, I am not a text and drive. type of guy, but I am a text and broadcast type of guy, which is probably not a great habit. It's something I learned from my dad.

And I think he's put me in a bad position because people text him during games and I think he'll respond while he's calling. Like he'll talk and text. And so now the expectation is that I talk and text. So I've had to learn that. But with that being said, I can see something while I'm broadcasting and I can hit the producer, hey, I just saw this, maybe take a look at it, check on it, see if we can do a story on it, see if the sideline reporter can do something on it.

So that's really where it can be a big-time benefit. All of us print journalists have a nagging fear that AI is going to replace us one day or make us seem less necessary. Do play-by-play announcers have that fear? I think everybody has that fear, no matter what position you're in, what field you're in. I think that AI, I've just seen enough movies where the robots take over the world to know that we should be scared of something at some point. At the same time, I do think that there's a nuance that you're not going to get,

if it's not from a human touch, when it comes to play-by-play, when it's analysts, whether it's sideline reporting, you're going to get it very matter of fact. And if that's all you care about, then great. But the big moments where it requires emotion to convey it, the big moments where the energy is what carries, you're just not going to get the same feel. And so if the viewers don't care about that, so be it. But I do think what would happen is maybe you would try and people would sit and they'd go, well, this isn't as fun.

This isn't as enjoyable. I'm not getting the same adrenaline rush that I was before. So let's go back to what we were doing before. At least that's my hope. But I certainly know that AI is here to stay. And so if we can find ways to integrate it and incorporate it while maintaining the integrity of our own jobs, I'd say that's the ideal scenario for all of us to be in. Thank God Tom Cruise and his team were able to keep it at bay for at least a few more years.

Yeah, come on. Tom, we need you even more. More stunts. All right, it's lightning round time. Welcome to the Lightning Round, a Jill Anderson special. And I'm going to go with something you just mentioned during your previous answer. What cereal did you eat while watching SportsCenter highlights? I loved Cocoa Krispies because I hated my health, but either Cocoa Krispies or Honeynut Cheerios with banana. Those were the two options for me growing up for sure.

The thing is my dad didn't really get to have much sugar growing up. Brian knows a lot about his background, and he was definitely much more regimented by his parents of what he was going to eat, really his dad. And so as he grew up, he had the worst sweet tooth still does. And so he loves candy, but he also loves the sugary cereals to the point that when he was growing up, he would go over to people's apartments and houses and Queens. And the parents would say, hey, I'm, you know, school descended. What do you want?

And he would just point out cocoa puffs. They're like, really? You want that? He goes, multiple bowls would be great. You know, that's what I was dealing with as a kid is he would have it. So then I would have it. So I think I've gone somewhat the opposite where I'm not necessarily having Cocoa Krispies all the time. But that milk afterward, that turned a chocolate milk is just too good.

I love it. Okay. Who's the goat NBA play by play guy? It would be, yeah, that's a hard one. I mean, it's hard not to say Marv because he was so influential. And if you go back even further, it's hard not to say Marty Glickman because he's really the most influential. You know, everybody came after him. So that's probably who I would say because he was the first real NBA voice before everybody else.

But Marv is the one who really popularized it and then inspired the next generation. And that's usually who you kind of have to put up there as your top one. But for my generation, Mike Breen's a hard one not to say him as well. So I'm going to go cop out and just kind of say all of them blended together and then put my dad in there so I don't get grounded. I'm going to I'm going to mix a couple of these in then so your favorite thing that Mike Green does

Favorite thing that Mike Green does is rising to the occasion. I talked about the emotion aspect of it. There's few broadcasters in any sport that are as good as Mike when the moment is at its biggest at its peak conveying that

without having to overdo it. So obviously his bang call is legendary but it also allows allows him to know what he's going to say so that he can just use his own kind of reaction to then convey what you need to feel. I think that there's very few broadcasters that are better at that than he has been throughout his career. Harlan. Harlan is another one where, I mean, it just feels like a big game when he's on it because he's done so many of them. But with that, I think that it's the iconic sounds. There are a few.

broadcasters that have a sound like Kevin Harlan. And so when you hear a big call that he's calling, it etches in your memory. I mean, I was watching live when the J.R. Smith poster dunk, he said, J.R. Smith, we just saw a man fly. Ride him cowboy. Like, there are a few guys who can say that and get away with it, but because of his sound, he can. And so it's probably one of the most elite sounds in broadcasting history. Mark Jones. Mark Jones creativity. Just, He's different. You know, he's unique. He doesn't, he does things his way.

It's not what other people do. And I love that for it. I love that about him. And I love the way that he is unapologetically himself. Because at the end of the day, that's what we're all trying to be. And I have certainly had Mark Jonesism stuck in my head throughout the day where I'm walking around saying he's hotter than fish grease. I think we all, we have all had those moments with somebody like Jonesy.

And so he is, he's all about it. And he's also so entrenched in the game. and loves the game. And you can tell when he's broadcasting it. Your pops. I just think all around. He's just everything is good. Everything is good.

And he is always ready for a big moment, but he's also always ready for a blowout. And I just don't think you can say that about everybody. To me, the mark of a great and elite broadcaster is, how are they when it's a 35 point blowout? And I don't think that there's anybody better than him when there's a 35 point blowout. He's as entertaining and informative of a broadcaster, really, that this sport has ever seen. And I'd say that across all sports for him.

But that's what always stood out to me is I never felt bored watching a game that he was calling. And that's the goal for all of us is can you keep people engaged? He keeps everybody engaged. And he is the quickest broadcaster you're ever going to meet. He's really the quickest person that you're ever going to meet. I asked this question to Wendy when he was here. And I'm asking, it's not your favorite city, but your favorite MBA city where you like you go into town. You like the hotel. You like the restaurants. You like the scene on the sideline.

You like that home atmosphere. What's your favorite NBA city? Well, I'd say when they're good, I love Chicago because I love the city and the fans when they're good are truly into it. They can be absolute fanatics. But it's been, you know, they've been middle of the pack for for now the last several years that it's been a little tough. The year they first had to Rosen, Levine, Lonzo ball before he got hurt. It was rocking again at United Center. And so that was that was pretty cool. And so that's high. But I would tell you that number one in terms of everything that you just said is Toronto. Toronto is just, it's a whole country. And so when you're in there, you feel that. You feel the support. Even when they're not great, they still come out and support them and they're

loud and they're into it. And they're pretty educated fans. And then the city itself is great. It's basically like a clean New York to me, smaller, but cleaner New York. And so as somebody who lives in New York, it just gives me a nice feel that I can walk around. It's not great in terms of the weather, obviously, when it's in the middle of winter and it's January 7th, and it's 10 degrees or whatever it might be. But it's still well worth it if you've got a good enough coat to do it. And I like the fact that you do have to leave the country every now and then. I think that's a cool aspect that not everybody gets. current or former NBA player currently not doing in-game analysis that you think he'd be great

if given the opportunity? Jared Dudley, like Jared Dudley would be really good. Somebody always had a great personality and little moments over the course of his career that I think would be great stories that he could bring to light. And he was considering doing it, I think, at the end of his career, but he went into coaching instead. But somebody that I always thought would just do really well if given the opportunity, and maybe it still does exist for him out there somewhere. He was every beat writer's favorite player. There you go.

He did come up a lot. He did come up a lot. Jared Dunl. Last question, your voice. Were you born with it? I mean, I always make the joke to people that's a lot of cigarettes and whiskey, but I don't think I've had either of those in a long time, if ever.

No, I got really lucky. I would say that what's funny is I always thought I had a pretty deep voice, and I certainly do now. But when I go back and listen to my first couple games with the Clippers, I sound like I hadn't gone for puberty yet, almost. It's weird how quickly that can happen. And I know that that's natural to a certain degree. And obviously, the more you're straining your voice,

the more that it almost builds itself. And so I'm a little concerned for what the future is going to look like. But I'm certainly thankful that I have it now, and we'll see what I can do with it from there. And maybe one day they'll have AI, Noah Eagle to voice some other stuff as well. All right. Next season on NBC, you're going to hear Noah Eagle and his voice changing as he does NBA games.

And between now and then Notre Dame, Texas A&M and September and a whole bunch of college football as well. Noah, thanks for coming on the press box. Thanks for having me, guys. It's the treat. All right, Joel, for a little 25 for 25 post game. Mm-hmm. A couple things stood out to me about that interview in addition to the first ever step-by-step

reference in the history of the press box. Yeah, that was very delightful. I'm glad that came up. So, student of play-by-play, the thing he said about Mike Green is fascinating. Because to me, the crazy, otherworldly, inhuman talent of play-by-play announcers is how they say things and process things instantly. It's coming out of their mouth before you and I sitting on our couch at home can even think it. And when he says with Breen, Breen knows he's going to say bang on a certain kind of play. So if you have the words already in your head, then you can play with the emotion.

Absolutely. How big of a bang is it? Is it a double bang territory, right? And those are those little tricks, those little linguistic tricks, I think, that help them do that crazy thing that they do. And I'm sure a lot of it is intuition, seeing the game, getting a feel for it. But it made me, and maybe the next time we have him on, I'll ask him because, you know, during the Olympics, he was in Paris, he covered that great gold, metal game. And I wanted to ask him, hey, was gold dagger? Was that? Did you plan that? Did that just happen? But that's for the next one. But yeah, he's absolutely right about that.

I mean, those guys, they're just, their brains are moving at a different speed for the rest of us. I also like the phrase, the cinema of Tyrese Halliburton, because that's the word. I mean, he's, I mean, man, he's a pro, man. And I, yeah, look, I mean, Tyrese is a very fun guy. I can imagine that documentary on him and that Nixie's documentary because all Nix events apparently end up becoming a documentary. It's up time or another. And the nice part is you just go to the game and every former player's on the sideline.

Yeah, John Stark, step on up. All we get to do is get Charles Oakley back in here. We can have literally every former living Nick. I don't sound like Charles Oakley is going to be coming back in a time soon if you've listed any recent interviews with that dude. Yeah, he's out. Joel, a couple more things before we go here. in all the email messages I've been getting

about press box buttons. People make suggestions for the show. One thing they say is we want more recommendations from you guys. So can we start a little mini feature here called weekend blurbs? Yeah. Where we give people a couple of things

that they might want to check out as they sail into the weekend. I like doing segments. We should just try a bunch of them. And this is a cool one. Yeah, well, let me recommend And you had to get this on pre-order because it doesn't come out until Tuesday. Bad Company by Megan Greenwell.

You know, she's worked at the New York Times, Washington Post, New York Maguire, ESPN, which actually gave me my very first assignment for the worldwide leader. But the book, Bad Company, it starts in 2019 at Deadspin, where Megan was the editor-in-chief when private equity firm Great Hill Partners bought it and effectively gutted it. And the book is a look at how private equity is effectively ruining and running our country. And it's just sort of out of the purview of most Americans.

We don't think about it. But, you know, private equity has taken over some of our most important institutions and industries. Like it's like it goes beyond local newspapers. Like private equity runs nursing homes, daycare centers, hospitals, fire stations. It's sort of terrifying how they've been able to insert themselves into our American infrastructure. And the book covers a lot of that. It's not just about how things went deadspin. So anyway, actually, in this.

is another, this isn't, you know, am I recommending this? Who knows? But I'm going to be talking about this book with Megan next Wednesday, June 11th at Solid State Books here in D.C. We start at 7. If you happen to be nearby, please come through. Excellent. I'm going to recommend a book myself. It's one that came out last year, Joel, and I read 100 pages of it. And then life happened. And this book has been staring accusingly at me from my bookshelf since then. It's called Chasing Hope, a Reporter's Life. It's by Nicholas Christoph, the New York Times columnist. He's had a really, really extraordinary career, and I picked up the book again two days ago

because I was like, I must read this book. I was enjoying it so much. I cannot just let it get away. And last time, I'm sitting there reading next to my wife, and I'm reading the whole chapter, and it's actually multiple chapters, about him covering Tiananmen Square in 1989. Oh, wow. Okay. when he was the Beijing Bureau Chief of the New York Times.

And he was reporting there with his wife, Cheryl Wu Dunn, who was also a foreign correspondent for the paper. And, you know, basically what he does is he says goodbye to his wife in their mutual house because she's going to stay in right from there. And he gets on a bicycle and he bikes to T&M and Square while the massacre is happening. And he's interviewing journal, or excuse me, he's interviewing the protesters there while shots are being fired by government. forces. And there's a couple of images that really stick with me. One is he was taller than a lot of people there. So he finds himself ducking down as he's interviewing people because not doesn't want to present a target. Yeah. And the other thing is he talks about like he was using a pen and it wasn't working. So he switched pens. You might just imagine like of all the times, which is for a journalist

pen not to work, imagine it's during Tiananmen Square. So he starts taking note and he finds the second pin isn't working either and he realizes that he's so, his palms are so sweaty that they've soaked through the pages of the notebook that he's holding. Oh, man. Because he realizes gravity of what he's reporting on and then he winds up, he can't get his bike back because the square is overrun. So he winds up having basically to run three plus miles all the way home. He's late.

It's right up against deadline. His wife is worried about him because she knows how he had actually forgotten what the deadline was to get a story back to the times. his wife was worried because he never forgot about deadlines. Yeah. And was late. He winds up sitting down and in a few minutes pounding on a story that's on the front page of the paper the next day.

It's a really, really extraordinary book. So that's my choice. Chasing Hope or Reporters' Life by Nick Christoph. Check that out right now. Yeah. And Brian, I know that, you know, it usually happens on Monday, but you have a feature called the Hall of Departed Journalist. Yes.

Yeah. So I want to, you know, make my submission to that hall right here. Because I, like a lot of other people, apparently had missed it. The pioneering journalist Kenneth Walker had died last month at the age of 73. He was an Emmy Award-winning journalist who's reporting for Nightline really brought home, like, the brutality of South Africa's system of apartheid to the attention of the American public. His coverage of the story helped Nightline win a 1985 Emmy Award for outstanding analysis of a news story. It also led to the NABJ naming him as journalists of the year that year. And he later went on to serve as the Africa Bureau Chief NPR, 99 to 2002.

But it was Ted Koppel, the face of people. Man, that's the name right there, man. There you go. Ted Koppel, the face of Nightline. He said in a previous interview that Walker, quote, was one of a number of African-American staffers at Nightline who were gently and not so gently pushing for more attention being paid than Nelson Mandela when he was still in jail. It was anything but he wrote a millions of people, including the president of the United

States, end quote. That president, by the way, was Ronald Reagan. his obituary ran last month in New York Times. You can read more about it there, but I really wanted to echo the words of Dr. Sarah Jackson. I've known her for a little bit, and she's a co-director of the Media Inequality and Change Center at the Annenberg School for Communication as the University of Pennsylvania. Mouthful. But I found out about Mr. Walker's death through her post on Blue Sky, where she said, quote, It always matters who is in the room.

It's why they are obsessed with limiting who is in the room. So anyway, RIP and Godspeed, Mr. Walker, job well done. All right, that is the press box. He's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis, production magic by Kyle Crichton. Coming up Monday on the press box, Joel, our colleague, the ringer's Hollywood bureau chief, Alan Siegel is going to be on the podcast. He's got a new book out about The Simpsons.

Thought maybe we'd have him read some early Simpsons reviews. Oh, man, amazing. Remember the Simpsons-Cosby Show divide? you were on one side or the other on Thursday nights in America. Oh, my God. People thought, I mean, I hate to say it. People thought that they put up The Simpsons against the Cosby show because of racism. Like once in a while I was like, oh, they're trying to diminish the influence of the Cosby show.

So much for that. He's going to be here on Monday. Joel, you're back Thursday with more lukewarm takes about the media. I can't wait to talk to you that. Likewise, buddy.