The Press Box - Final (?) NBA Finals Takes, the Caitlin Clark Discourse, and Hollywood’s Junket Crisis With Katie Baker

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

On the Final Edition, Bryan welcomes Katie Baker, and they have a loaded show for you, with the following discussion topics: Brian Windhorst's Scarface-like message to Luka Doncic (1:45) Jayson Tatum’s reaction to Joe Mazzulla's quotes (5:57) Remembering Jerry West, a friend to sportswriters everywhere (14:03) The Olympics and Caitlin Clark discourse (24:03) The Hollywood junket crisis (37:14) Remembering Howard Fineman (52:14) Then, David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Katie Baker Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Bill Simmons. I am thrilled to announce our newest YouTube channel. It's called Ringer Movies. If you're a fan of our movie coverage here at The Ringer, then you're in luck because every episode of The Rwatchables and the Big Picture, now on YouTube. Like Bill said, Ringer movies will feature full episodes of my show, The Big Picture, the Rewatchables, as well as special live episodes, deep dives into movie history and a bunch of other fun stuff featuring other movie-loving Ringer personalities. Search Ringer movies on YouTube and Experience the Joy, Chris Ryan impersonating Wayne Jenkins on camera. Hello media consumers, welcome to press box. Brian Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Brian Waters. Coming up, it's our last chance to weigh in on the NBA finals. Brian Winhorst is talking about Luca, Joe Missoula is about to be a champion,

and we remember Jerry West, a friend to reporters everywhere. Plus, the latest on the Caitlin Clark discourse, and Lepeda Njango and Jennifer Lopez agree, Hollywood is having a junket crisis. All of this with my guest host today, she is Katie Baker, officially a Ringer senior staff writer, also officially a colleague who writes

awesome stuff and a pal going back to the Grantland days. Katie writes about everything from pop culture to ski culture to finance bro culture. She keeps the Ringer's NHL flame alive. Katie, welcome to the press box. Thank you for having me, you've hit all the bases. I think I can go home now. All my enthusiasms in one place. Everything but Nick's fandom, but we will get there, Katie. Trust me. We will get there.

All right, NBA finals game three last night. The Celtics win and we better get these media takes in before it's too late. I want to start with Brian Winhorse Corner, a new segment here at the press box. You saw this last night. Luca Donchich fouled out of the game with about four minutes left in the fourth quarter. There was a big discussion about how Luca put himself in that position to get that six foul in such a big game. Windhorst goes on with SVP after the game and he had some thought. Luca and Kyrie combined for actually more than Tatum and Brown did, but Luca fouls out late.

I just wonder your reaction to that whole sequence. Yeah, I thought it was perfect that Luca fell onto the ground there in an unacceptable position to put himself in with four minutes left with five fouls. and then immediately looks at the bench and says you better bleeping challenge it as if it's the bench's fault that he just made a terrible play. I'm standing here in the Mavericks Tunnel. Over there is the Celtics Tunnel. That's where the winners are.

If Luke is ever going to be a winner coming out of this tunnel here, he is going to have to use what's happened in this finals as a learning experience. His defensive performance is unacceptable. He is a hole on the court. The Celtics are attacking him. They are ahead in this series because they have attacked him defensively. And you've got a situation here where Luca is complaining about the officiating. They have begged him.

They have talked with him. They have pleaded with him. He is costing his team because of how he treats the officials. He's a brilliant player. He does so many things well. They are here because of how he did. His performance in this game is unacceptable, and the reason why the Mavericks are not going to win.

He's got to get over this. The fact that he came out after the game and blamed the officials showed me he's nowhere close yet. So maybe over the summer somebody will get to him because nobody with the Mavericks or anybody else in his life has. And that's where the mavericks are at this point. They're never going to get to this tunnel with the trophy if he doesn't improve those aspects of his game. Brian Whitehorse. I'll leave it right there.

SVP was like, I have no further questions, Brian. What did you make of that, Katie? Well, first of all, you know, I'm a citizen of Windy City after not only this, but some of his other very meme-worthy remarks. I thought it was really fun. You know, it's funny you were mentioning keeping the hockey flame alive. But to some extent, he was reminding me of the way some of the most angry old Canadian hockey writers sound kind of a little bit scolding, snarky, not wrong, and saying the things that, you know, are going to rile people up.

And so I really appreciated that from him. What did you think? So I had a similar media PTSD, except I was thinking of the. the 90s newspaper sports columnist that you and I grew up with, where as a matter of pride, sometimes the gay man's, and you're like, I'm just going to go crush somebody tonight. That's what it is. Like we've become a gentler and more stats-driven sports media since then. Yeah.

This to me was like a taste of the old times. Yeah. The two things that stood out to me were pointing out, you know, the winner's tunnel is over there. That was a great touch. Also, by the way, you know, listening to the. on audio doesn't have the same effect as when you see it in person and you can see his his hand. You know, he's such a gesturing presence as we know from his like kind of famous meme where he's doing, you know, two fingers up in the air. And yeah, you could just, his hands were rising.

He was getting into it. And then he also, you know, when he said there's no one in the Mavericks organization or in his life who has been able to reach him so far. I really appreciated that little, you know, one extra turn of the knife there. So good. And it's always the signature of the 90s columnist where you take it from you had a bad basketball game to your life is broken. There's no one in your life that can get through to you. But yeah, I mean, it was, it was, I'm glad to have him, you know, making these sorts of

pronouncements. Totally. And Luca, incidentally, 25 years old. So these are the announcements we're making about his life. Great job by Wendy there. I miss that as part of the sports media. We desperately need more of it. Let's go from Windy Corner to Joe Missoula Corner.

He is, of course, the head coach of the Boston Celtics. He has pretty much relentlessly been made fun of, not just for losing to the heat last year, but for some of his press conference answers during the NBA finals. He, I mean, I don't even know where to begin. I mean, I think I forget when some of these answers have been. But, you know, over the years we've heard about the fact that he's the only man on earth who's seen the movie The Town more often than the ringers Ryan Rusillo. You know, we've learned, I was looking at some quotes like Kendrick Perkins.

If you take Joe Missoula's brain and put it in a bird, the bird is going to start flying backwards. Love that. Sam Hauser, I would say he's got a unique approach to the game. He pulls things from like soccer teams, pulls things from killer whales and how they go about finding food and prey, things like that. So, yeah, most recently we had another great example of the full Joe. Yeah, this was a postgame last night. Jason Tatum was explaining how Missoula wouldn't let the Celtics let up when they got a leave. You know, Joe does a great job of showing us clips and, and, and, you know, things from different sports.

He's a big UFC fan and showing us fights of people that, I'm not, I don't know like the terminology of USC, but put them in a choke code and like they're about to tap out and you just see the guy or the woman who's winning, relaxing because they feel like they're about to win. And then, you know, you give the other person life. Just trying to translate that to the game of basketball that, you know, the closer you are to winning,

the closer that they are to surviving. Do we think the message really got across there at the end? It's all unclear. I'm not sure. You know, if the Celtics had truly blown that 21-point lead last night, as they almost did. Not sure those UFC clips would have played exactly the same way. Speaking of which afterwards, Derek White was asked,

or I don't know what he was asked, but he said that he thought that Missoula probably enjoyed the way they almost blew the league because, quote, he's a sicko, so probably. So, yeah, I mean, I think my favorite one, I don't know when this was, but someone was asking him about if he had noticed that the royal family was in town. And he said, oh, do you mean Jesus, Mary and Joseph? That's his royal family.

You know, TradCath is in these days and, you know, he should go on Red Scare. But yeah, I mean, we're, you know, I'm making fun of him. but here he is up 3-0 in the NBA final. So he's all the killer whale and UFC snuff films are doing something, right? And that's what's so funny to me about this is when you have a guy like this now on the brink of winning an NBA title, proving that he is a great coach, no matter what stuff the Celtics front office has done for him, what kind of roster they've put together, right?

He has navigated them through the finals and barely lost a game in the process. So what you're going to see sports writers do now is try to reprocess everything. Take all those press conference clips that might have played a certain way if the Celtics had lost to the Mavericks. And if they go ahead and beat them, if we don't see history made and the Mavs come back from down 0-03, they're just going to have to send those through the machine in a different way that this is a successful basketball coach. And that process is going to be absolutely. hilarious for me. What's going to be fun is, you know, there's always kind of a few-year lag after that process, but then someday we'll start getting the copycat Joe Missoula's

rising through the league. Joe Mazula coaching tree? Press conference tree. But yeah, I mean, I think Bill Simmons and his dad the other day were we're talking about, you know, whether he has transcended his own, or, you know, transcended the nickname that had been bestowed upon him of second road Joe. Do you think he has? If he wins a title, he's not second row Joe anymore. I think Bill's already declared this.

Like I said, everything changes. You know, you win a ring. And again, all those decisions, whether you set, whatever decisions you made, whatever thing you said during a press conference is just thought of completely differently. you're a Mike Breen fan going way back to his days at WFAM. Huge, huge, huge. So we got maybe our second to last dose of Breen last night. How do you think he's holding up during the finals?

You know, love Green. It's been of, I don't know, just in general, watching the finals has been a little strange that the current trio of him and Doris and JJ, you know, all respect to all. of them, you know, individually, but it kind of feels sometimes like Breen's kind of fighting for his life out there because Doris and JJ are both, you know, kind of dry analytical, you know, factual people. And I think Green does best when he's a little bit of a straight man next to, you know, your Clyde Frazier, your Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson, your Doc Rivers for a hot

minute, you know, you're, you're Don I miss back in the day. And so, you know, I think we're losing like that part of it. And there's, you know, there's a lot of weird awkward silences, I feel like, where no one's really talking. So it's been a little strange, but, you know, I'll always be a brain appreciator. And I think it's just been a strange year for the broadcast team in general with all the moves that have been made. completely agree with what you say by the straight man role. And I think that's pretty much true for everybody who's a play-by-play announcer. Yeah.

It's almost like if you mess it up, right, then you start becoming the point guard who has to also score 35 points a game. And the whole basketball team gets thrown off. That's what you want to be. You want to be dishing. You want to be heading it off. And if there was anything that was that fell a little off, especially earlier in the playoffs, And this is probably lack of reps as much as anything else. I thought Burke and JJ would be really,

really quiet at the beginning of games. And often just were not very, very present. And you could feel brain exactly what you're talking about, just working, being like, no, no,

this is big. We're here. We're here. It's the playoffs. Yeah. And just a little bit out of his natural mode. Yeah. Yeah,

because you're not usually hearing him kind of, you know, if you think of the kind of those Twitter memes that are always going around where people are, talking in the voices of the analysts, you know, about some day-to-day event in the news. And it always ends with Breen saying, you know, curry for three. Like, you know, just something so neutral, you know, while the rest of them are going off. And so it's, you know, the whole final just in general has had a strange cast to it between just the games being pretty lopsided and, you know,

the big, I felt like the time off beforehand was just weird. So it's just been a straight after the playoffs that began really excitingly, and I'm obviously biased as a Knicks fan, but it just seems like with every round, things have gotten just a little bit dimmer in a strange way. He had a great bummer. Last night when Dante Exum, the Mavericks had a slam dunk.

Dante Exum with the exclamation point. Like the video, it's like a video game, like the nail in the coffin from NBA Jam. So good. We lost Jerry West yesterday, Katie. He was 86 years old. Hall of Famer as a player.

Hall of Famer as an architect of the champion Laker teams of Kobe and Shaq. I wanted to pull one part of his legacy here for us to highlight. And it's that Jerry West was a friend to sports writers everywhere. Kevin Clark back when we had him at the Ringer. And I used to, yeah, RIP Kevin. I'm just kidding. He's still around. Kevin Clark and I used to have this thing where we would call the all availability team. And these were the famous people in the world of sports who seemingly would always be happy to get on the phone and give you a quote or two. No matter what was happening.

Jerry West was an all availability, all pro or all NBA, whatever, fit in there whatever you want. for his entire career as an executive. Yeah. He was fantastic. I was doing a story for The Ringer. This is, I think 2016, our first year about the Warriors beat. And Jerry West was a board member at the time and kind of a shadow architect to those teams.

And I'd like, oh, I'd love to get a quote from Jerry West for this story. So I sent him an email. And for some reason, Katie, my phone, this sounds so old person, but my phone had been reprogramed probably by me to only accept calls from people that were in my contacts. A perfect journalist setting. Yeah. Yes. Not a great mode for your phone if you're getting calls from all kinds of people. So I'm sitting there at the house and up on my screen pops up, you have voicemail. And it's Jerry West going, hey, Brian, Jerry West giving you a call. And I'm like, wait just saying. My phone didn't even ring. What did this happen? And I think he

didn't leave his number. It was a block number. So I couldn't call him back. 20 minutes later, 30 minutes later, another voicemail from Jerry West pops up. Another voicemail from Jerry West. I'm not aware that my phone is on this setting. And I am just frantically Googling, why can I not receive phone calls right now from Jerry West? I managed to change the setting finally. And what do you know? I get maybe the fifth or sixth call from the logo himself.

Wow. Say, hey, Brian, this is Jerry West. How can I help? You're like, oh, my phone wasn't. ringing. I don't care. I don't care. No, no. Yeah. I was so apologetic, but he was great. That's amazing. And also the fact, like, I mean, the Golden State Warriors in general, I've always been so impressed at their media availability, just kind of ethos.

Like, they, they make people available. They have every ability to be super stingy about access, given, you know, their stature and everything. And, um, and they're the opposite. And, you know, he obviously really exemplifies that even dating to before when he played for them. But yeah, there's been all kinds of, you know, stories I've seen, you know, of that ilk, the friend to journalist, you know, qualification. Oh, my God. There's so many. And, you know, often when you get the member of the all availability team, you feel that

they want good press. That's what they're getting out of returning all those calls. I'm sure Jerry West was not averse to that. but there was a real human part of this too. Andrew Gryfe, who got laid off from the L.A. Times fairly recently said that after that happened, Jerry West called to check in on him a number of times. Ben Hockman, who writes a column in St. Louis, said, years ago, when I was an NBA writer, I suffered a devastating loss in my life.

And completely separate to that, he is trying to get an interview with Jerry West, through the Warriors, as you mentioned, who were run by Ray Ritter, who's a great PR guy. and Ray Ritter had happened to mention something to Jerry West about this. So Hockman continues, Jerry and I did the phone interview, but when I was done, Jerry didn't want to end the call. He told me he'd heard about my loss. Jerry West talked to me for probably 10 minutes about love and life and death. He shared emotions from when he lost somebody extremely close to him who was young. We talked about grieving and persevering.

It was one of the sweetest out of nowhere things to ever happen to me. Again, Jerry West, man. That makes me want to see a conversation between Jerry West and Bill Walton taking place. You know, like we've got so many similar stories about Bill Walton a couple weeks ago. And, you know, just people that, like, they're the ones initiating the conversations. And they're the ones keeping the conversations going. And it would be funny to see what it looks like when they chatted. One thing I also noticed from journalists who were writing about their memories of him is that there are a lot of people.

kind of still carrying the grudge against the TV show winning time, which had a very volatile mercurial thing throwing depiction of him, which I actually loved. And to be honest, like, that show made me more interested in Jerry West because I, you know, he wasn't, I didn't have a huge well of knowledge in the ways in which he was distinct from other, you know, players and executives of his generation. I just don't cover the league that closely and hadn't ever really, you know, spoken to him myself or anything like that. So I was like, this performance is nailing the personality of this competitor who's just

kind of totally wound up inside, but that's why he's successful. And to me, it was a, I loved it. And I understand if maybe it wasn't, you know, word for word, who he was. And I feel badly that it obviously upset him. It's also a little funny that as he was saying that he's not, you know, a rageaholic, he's also threatening to take this to the Supreme Court. So, you know, that was just another thing I noticed, how many people were kind of scolding winning time because I think they feel so close to him or they, you know, he's done so much

for them over the years that they take his side on that. Yeah. One of the funny stories about winning time was it kind of lost basketball Twitter, which was a bad sign for winning time. But I think part of the reason it did is because all those writers who had all those interactions off the record, on the record, however it was with Jerry West, were coming to his defense and sort of cutting off the show on his behalf. Would you believe that there's even a sweet behind the scenes Jerry West story that

Stephen A tells? I would love nothing more than to know about this. Here's Stephen A. on his interactions with Jerry West. It was the first time I ever had a conversation with him, and that was when our relationship really took off because he heard me saying that Michael Jordan should have been, should, the silhouette should be changed

to Michael Jordan from him. And he wasn't calling to refute it. He was calling because he felt like I sounded like it's something he would refute. And he was saying absolutely not. I think Michael Jordan is the greatest. I think he deserves it, of course. And I said, sir, I said, I am sorry that I gave you the impression that I have an issue with you because I don't.

I know who the hell I'm talking to. I know how great you are. Everything about that is so great from the first take sports radio bit of should we change the logo to Michael Jordan. 100%. I can see that as a summer. That's a summer topic through and through. Oh, my God. What a slow week that must have been.

to Jerry West being such a friend to writers and broadcasters. He's like, I know you didn't say this, but I want to make sure you know that I am not opposed to changing the logo that features me. I mean, yeah, and unfortunately, you know, I'm half imagining Jason Clark on the other end of the phone there with that character. But yeah, he really did just kind of have. this canny way of connecting. And not that it was necessarily like really strategic. I don't, I don't think that it always sounds like it was. But he, he got it. He, he knew sort of how to, how to talk to people, how to, you know, even if he's not trying to get quoted at the moment, how to plant seeds. And, and yeah, I mean, I think people really just take that to heart.

I mean, when I have certain people that are nice to me and talk to me for a while, I definitely remember that. So it makes sense. Every member of the all availability team is interested in the media and they understand intimately how the media works. And that's why the reporter is on the other end of the phone. Appreciate it. I wonder who the all availability like All Star was. I mean, there's a couple. I can give you like Bob Aram, the boxing promoter, definitely all availability team.

Gil Brandt, the architect of the 60s through 80s, Dallas Cowboys, definitely very, very all availability. Jim Bouten back in the day and Jim Bouton all the way through the end of his life. Absolutely wanted to get on the phone and tell stories about Mickey Mantle and the Yankee locker room. Yeah, it's a small handful. And again, a small handful that are both great talkers and famous enough that they are being called again and again for quotations.

Yeah. I shouldn't even say this because, I'm calling myself out as someone who was able to, who appreciated his availability at the time. But in the modern day, I would say Daryl Morey is moving up there. Oh, there you go. Yeah, absolutely. He's always ready to share some thoughts.

Yes, and sometimes the fingerprints are visible. Sometimes they're not, but Daryl, yes, definitely a friend of the writers. All right, Katie, from that very sweet Stephen A story, let us proceed to this other thing. because Stephen A was on first take on Monday, and so was Andrea Carter, the fantastic analyst. Stephen A. had some advice for Carter. Andrea, I strongly suggest you rethink such positions, especially when it comes to you, because marketing matters. It's how you get paid. If you don't know that, you better hear me and hear me good.

I am telling you right now, you are. are going to be underpaid for the rest of what I consider, what I believe will be an illustrious career unless you get your mind right about that marketing. It matters. It matters. Chenet, you know I'm right. I hear you. Stephen A. But I will not sacrifice my basketball knowledge and my integrity in terms of the game for marketing. My marketing is doing just fine. Isn't it weird how in certain moments Stephen A has begun to sound like his sparring partner, Mad Dog Rousseau? I was just thinking the exact same thing. There was some, I forget what moment it was right in that clip, but I was like, that is so mad dog coded.

You don't get your marketing right. I mean, that's just, there's the intonation, something is eerily. The voice cracks. Yeah, I feel like he's leaning into that a little bit lately. So if people are hopelessly confused about what that was about, that segment ostensibly addressed Caitlin Clark being left off the U.S. Olympic basketball team, something that has produced a ton of takes on ESPN and elsewhere. What do you make of all of the Olympic Caitlin Clark talk? Well, I mean, what kind of sticks out to me is just there's sort of something for everyone. And as a result, everyone has taken something from me.

it, you know, to back up for anyone who somehow isn't quite aware of this yet. Caitlin Clark, the, you know, basketball phenomenon that has, you know, swept through college and now is in her rookie season in the WNBA, was not one of the players on the U.S. Olympic team coming up. And that has just caused the firestorm. It's kind of there were already a lot of discussion points involving her and the WNBA and the reception she's gotten so far already. And this just kind of poured lighter fluid on it and then, you know, started a, you know, barbecue where Clay Travis outkick the coverage is talking to Governor Glenn Young. You know, about about Caitlin Clark.

Why? And so, you know, and I know why it's because she's really interesting. Everyone wants to watch her. She's extremely talented. It's, it's been kind of cool to see the trials and tribulations of a rookie in the league in a way that's almost like cliche. Like she's getting hazed out there, you know? But yeah, it's kind of just achieved like exit velocity. And now it's just this, I think Spencer Hall called it like, you know,

there should be like a fee you have to pay now. It's reached what he calls the Bayless line. And now the core subject doesn't matter. It's just the layers on top of it. I think we're even past the Bayless line because I totally understand that you're in. There's this moment where an issue like this that was whatever Stephen A says was not a huge part of debate television. Whatever he told Monica McNath the other day, I'm sorry. You know, we can go back.

I would love to see some numbers on how many women's basketball segments. the first take was actually doing. But it gets into the A block, a first take, and the other debate shows. And then, as you point out, it just rises beyond that or whatever direction you want to call this, where we have former South Carolina governor and presidential candidate, Nikki Haley, weighing in on Caitlin Clark. You sent me this this morning. Alexi Lawless is weighing in on Caitlin Clark.

We've really covered the waterfront when we've gone from Nikki Haley. Alexi Lollas. Yeah, and Alexi Lollas, I want to say, Alexi Lollis said, who, by the way, like, I've, he's one to talk, I guess, in terms of like, but anyway, he said, I don't know enough about USA Women's Olympic Basketball to know if Caitlin Clark's omission is a snub.

Appreciate him, you know, qualifying his knowledge. I do know that right now, she would be the only reason I would remotely care about USA Women's Olympic Basketball. Thank you, Alexie Wallace, United States Olympic, you know, U.S. national team guy for that, like, for weighing in there. But that's kind of the tenor of how so much of this has been. There's been like that kind of vibe.

There's been this kind of very almost like menacing vibe of, you know, here's what's going to happen to you. You know, Stephen Smith sort of embodied it in a more comedic way, but sort of if you don't put her on the team, like women's basketball is through. And because I say so. And it's a really strange tone. The people saying it saying, I really care very deeply about the marketing of the women's game. Yeah.

I really care about the NBC Olympic, you know, early round women's basketball ratings. I know that's a popular press box topic as people that care about ratings. This is like that, you know, multiplied. Yeah, I was, exactly. I've been on this corner for years. I'm just trying to grow the game the best way I know. And I'm just want to give you my advice, which has nothing to do with me staking out a take on this particular day. And so content moments, Katie and this, going back to Angel Reese at the final four two years ago, Angel Reese redux at the final four this year. We had the Greg Doyle. I heart. you intro. Yes. When Caitlin Clark had her introductory press conference with the fever, mentioned the Kennedy Carter hip check.

That was a big moment where everybody was weighing in. There's also, like recently, one that kind of has stuck out to me is the fact that the coach of the national team, Cheryl Reeve, had some tweets with hashtags like the W is more than one player. There's, you know, there's 12 teams. I think she was angry at the time because her team was not like being televised nationally and maybe the fever were. I'm not entirely sure.

But, you know, that's the coach of the team. And, you know, the NBA basketball has said the coach doesn't make the roster decisions. The committee does. But, you know, of course, there's a very obvious line there. And, you know, whether or not that really comes into play, it's just hard to ignore. And, you know, of all of this, the person that's been like the most normal is Caitlin Clark herself. Every time they talk to her, she says the right things. She, you know, hasn't used it as a way to, you know, she doesn't whine. She hasn't done anything. She's, she's kind of said exactly what she

should say and that she wants to play basketball. She is, you know, wishes she was on the team. It's motivation. But, you know, and so all around her, everyone's freaking out. And then she's in the center of the storm and she's relatively professional, not relatively. She's very professional about it. The line her fever coach, Christy Sides, had was that when she found out she wasn't on the Olympic team, she said, hey, coach, they woke a monster. So not only very normal, very normal sports thing, right? Nobody believed in me. Now, now I'm ready to be an even more dominant basketball player than I've already been. Now she's an underdog for life, right? That's an underdog. No, it's fantastic. So the first.

The reverse side effect of this is that not only do you have a take about women's basketball, you have this unfurling relationship between Stephen A. Smith and a women's basketball commentator. Andrea Carter, Monica McNutt, on the upside, they're getting bigger looks as a result of the growth of the women's game, which is awesome. The accidental side effect of Stephen A going bonkers in their presence is that they get even more looks beyond. that. Monica McNutt was on the show and then as a result of being on the show, she did kind of a post game on Shannon Sharp show and then on Bumani Jones's show. She was the guest of John Stewart on the Daily Show on Monday. Yeah. And that clip was kind of going around too. And I saw like today she was on Carmelo Anthony, you know, another luminary of the media, Carmelo Anthony's show, which was. And even she says, more. so than most takes she has about, you know, women's basketball topics. She actually kind of feels in the middle. And I think, I think that's kind of part of what has made this so ripe for all

these kinds of sidelines and unfurling relationships and takes by Fox News. And is because the truth is, would we like to see Caitlin Clark play in the Olympics? Yes. Is it, you know, is it, is she not on the team for a reason? Yes. And like that's kind of what it is. And it's almost like debating like, what does it mean to be MVP? What does it mean to be valuable? Does it mean you're the most outstanding player or does it mean you're the player without whom your team would struggle the most? You know, you can have that conversation for the rest of your life. And so and and we will. And it kind of strikes me similarly. Yeah. Imagine a sports talk show having the conversation. What does it mean to be MVP? Yeah, exactly.

But like, you know, so at the same time, you know, you're mentioning now, now when something else happens, like you said, now there's this history of like what Stephen A said and who he said it to and what do they think and what do they think about each other? And it really does just unspool in all these directions. Yeah. And it's something that happens to there's a lot of, a lot of subtleties here about women's basketball that we could look at and the way they're talking about it. I don't know if we've mentioned Pat McAvey's name, but his name should probably be in the segment after his moment the other day.

But there's also the sense of like, this is how sports shows treat everything, right? They put it in this grinder. The idea that you know a ton about this is not what's important. It's can you fashion this into various angles and have an impassioned, fearsome debate about this thing. Yeah. And boy, can you. I mean, the other thing it has reminded me of is a little bit, what happened with the women's national soccer team before the last World Cup, which was, you know, they were making a lot of social justice, you know, advocacy remarks and those sorts of things and annoying people that who were annoyed by those types of statements.

And then the team didn't do well. And people were like almost celebrating it in this very, in this way of, you know, go woke, go broke. And there's kind of an aspect to that here where. rather than being excited that she's in this league where, you know, she's so good and she's not even the best player in the league, wow, this must be a great league. There's people that are very excited to use it as like a cudgel toward, you know, what they consider to be the old guard of the league, which often is, you know, a more diverse, you know, women of color, you know, people with different sexualities, just kind of

you know, that's what who has helped, like, lead women's basketball into this position that it's in today. And, and just using Caitlin Clark as like this human shield to be able to, like, own those people. And that's what's, that's when it gets like chilling to me. Like, that's when it's, it's not just Stephen A running his mouth. It's, it's people really finding these routes into their own bigotry, just kind of grabbing anything around them that they can feel makes them stronger in it. That's what unsettles me, especially when you hear about people showing up at the team hotels and harassing players outside the bus. And that's obviously just awful to hear. Here, here. Absolutely. All right, Katie, last topic. You've written a lot

about pop culture, including a really good story about hacks last month that everybody should read on the ringer.com. So I know you have some experience with the press machine Hollywood calls junkets. I do, unfortunately. The junket for those who are unaware, you know, there's different versions of it. The sort of in-person version is often held at a hotel and it's basically a giant press press day where a lot of the actors in a movie are are there and a lot of media is there and they kind of shuffle everyone around like speed dating which is and it's probably I've never speed dated but I would imagine it's equally terrible and yeah you have you know a few minutes often you're going into a hotel room then leaving

then going down the hall that was all kind of pre-COVID since then a lot of it's just on Zoom and they have digital hallways and green rooms. And you know, you're kind of being thrown onto Zoom with, you know, kind of a one person after the other. And to them, you're one person after the other too. So, yeah, that's the context of what a junket is. Our pal Alan Seagull tip me off to the fact that Hollywood is having something of a junket crisis. You've got a number of actors who are saying, I don't want to do speed dating anymore.

Lupita Nyango in glamour compared the junket to a quote-unquote torture technique. Killion Murphy complained about it in a GQ profile. Note that both of these are happening within the confines of promoting their new movie. And last but certainly not least, Jennifer Lopez was promoting Atlas and she got asked about her pending divorce from Ben Affleck, or at least reported divorce from Ben Affleck. you can't really hear the question, but you can't hear J-Lo and her co-star

Simon Liu's response right here. Okay, we're not doing that. Thank you so much, guys. I really appreciate it. Thank you. You know better than that. Come on. Don't come in here with that energy, please.

Thank you so much. I look come in here with that energy all day. Oh, man, that's a good one. On the other hand, Glenn Powell, the University of Texas's very own, tells the New York Times, I will always find it lame when actors are like, I just want to act in the movie. I don't want to promote the movie. If you want this career, part of your job, a big part is doing everything you can to help sell your movies. Doing publicity matters, you've got to give people a reason to care.

So I want... Glenn gives people a reason to care with his urban legend backrope. flesh-eating lotion story. And if you don't know what that means, like, I'll let you, I'll let you look it up. But that's, that's one of the, that's one of the highlights of of film promotion is getting little nuggets like that. So thank you, Glenn. We salute you. And I believe you, Glenn. I think it's what happens. Can you give us a few details of what happens during the Zoom junket? Because I think a lot of people on here think, okay, I see Katie do a piece. It has an interview with the stars.

Tell us how these interviews actually have. Yeah. So, I mean, and it's not always this way, but it frequently is, especially for like TV shows lately. Basically, they have these big press days that are on Zoom. And often there's all these kind of rules and regulations. So a lot of times, for example, to avoid a situation in which everyone wants to talk to the star, but no one wants to talk to the, you know, up-and-coming young actor that gets killed in the third episode, you have to talk to. to both of them. So it's kind of an all or nothing thing. You have to talk to the character that gets killed if you also want to talk to the start. And you're definitely going to get a lot of time with that person. And so for example, there was a recent show called The Regime, which I was the only person in the world that really liked. And I don't think, I think everyone else either didn't ever hear

of it or hated it, which is cool. But Kate Winslet is in it. And so she was part of a junket. And then there's some, you know, other actors that I was less familiar with and some showrunners. So, for example, in this junket, I was lucky to get some time with Kate Winslet, which meant four minutes on Zoom at 4.35 a.m. Pacific time. Four minutes. Can we just pause right there, four minutes with Kate Winslet? Four minutes with the star of the show. And let me just, let me preface this by saying, like, all respect to all the people that have to put together these junkets. It's like, this is not complaining about you. It's complaining about, you know, the industry at

large and everything. But, but yeah, four minutes and I actually got a breathless email beforehand saying that they were so happy to tell me that they had secured an extra minute. So I got five minutes. Four-35 in the morning, my time, which is, you know, I live in California. That's my fault. She lives in England. That's fine. Too bad. My second interview that day was at 7 a.m. So it was like, and I'm a nervous person when I have an interview coming up. So that meant from, you know, 3 a.m. when I was worried I was going to oversleep until 7.30, I was in that state of like full cortisol. Just, you know, couldn't think of anything else. So, you know, with Kate, it's like she saw that it was snowing and dark outside my window and was asking me where I lived and, oh, do you like the snow?

And next thing I know, here's another thing about a Zoom junket. The chat room lights up with the publicists saying you have three minutes left. You have two minutes left. One minute. Please wrap after this question. And half the time, you know, so the first two and a half of those five minutes were Kate Winslet and I being polite to one another. And then suddenly, you know, the clock is ticking and I can get in like two questions. So it's a weird dance of you don't want to suddenly come on Zoom and come in at them hard with some out of the blue question, you need to like say hello first. Barely have time to do that. A lot of times they pair them together. So you'll get seven minutes, but it's with two people together. And so, you know,

and they kind of each answer the question and you've already killed, you know, the first two minutes of that. So it's a very hectic situation. I can understand how it is probably worse for the talent, you know, from their perspective, they're sitting in a room and random people on Zoom are coming at them all day, being like, oh, hello, just having to repeat themselves over and over. If you're doing it with a partner, having to hear yourself, repeat yourself, and knowing your partner keeps hearing it, like, that's always awkward. So I don't, you know, we need the publicity. But it's kind of, I don't know, it's kind of like you hear people say like, oh, I wish that this wasn't such a car wash or, you know, I feel like people are just coming in one after the

other. But then at the same time, a lot of people aren't doing big access profiles either. So, you know, they just kind of don't want to do publicity, which is fine. I mean, if I were a creative, genius actor, I might not be a very publicity savvy person either. It's like a totally different skill set. I do wonder about the junket in 2024, because it does feel like it was made or it was created in a time of local newspapers and local news sources where you wanted to make sure you were in front of as many faces as possible, even if for four minutes, enough time to get a sound bite out there.

So it could be on local news in Fort Worth and the local news in New York and everywhere in between. But I'm thinking now, I'm like, is this still the best way to get publicity for a movie? It's interesting because I'm like, I feel like I agree. And I think to some extent those like local publications have been replaced by, you know, like topical blogs or even like at this point. I think one thing that has started to become a little bit of an issue is, you know, TikTok influencers or TikTok reporters that, you know, I'm sure have huge followings. but now like they're coming on the red carpet or they're coming to junkets and they have this very irreverent

spirit and tone which is great but it's um it can come across as you know they're sticking the mic in someone's face on the red carpet and asking some weird meme question you know and it's and then you have the actual you know long time trade industry journalists that are like what is this um so yeah i wonder how much of that is kind of like the kooky um small, you know, small town thing has now been replaced by the not so small, probably huge followings, independent press. But yeah, it's, you know, but the thing is a lot of those are what hits Twitter, like those little interactions or those clips. And so it can be hard to like, when you have four minutes, it's like, what do you ask in four minutes? That's going to give you a

different answer than everyone else got. And that's, you're going to be able to use in the story, because you can get like the funniest anecdote ever and that it has nothing to do with the show or so yeah i'm thinking four minutes i'm definitely going to want as many usable quotes as possible ideally right and you know an interview it's a mix of you're actually telling me information that i don't know that's useful for the story and then i'm also you're also saying in a quotable way so i can have you in my story especially for writing like a short feature yeah that's so true like you're yeah like getting those little details, like what color was the car? Like, yeah, versus like, I need you to speak in a complete sentence so I can use it.

Yeah, it's hard. And it's, you know, one of my things just in general, junk it or not, is I hate when I think I have some anecdote that it's like unique. And then I come to find out it's just their go-to talk show story. So now I like try to preempt that. So I feel like I probably come in hot to some of these. Junketh because I'm like, I know you always say that, you know, X, Y, Z. So please don't say that again. But take that off the table. Yeah. So it's just, it's just tough. Like I, you know, I always would

prefer more time. And, but I understand why they do it this way. It's probably, you know, logistically way more efficient. And, you know, you just get the talent in for like two days and they have to be miserable for two days, but then they're free. But yeah, it's, you know, it's, you know, It's an unpleasant. My husband always hears me be like, I'm not doing it junkins anymore. It's just I can't do this anymore. And then I always do it again. Because if you get the chance to speak with the people involved,

and that's going to be your only chance to do it in many cases, then, yeah, just got to grin and bear it. I'm just going to like, you know, close my eyes and think of Glenn Powell, right? And from the celebrity's point of view, is it really that miserable? I mean, come on. I saw Glenn Powell was getting saluted in the New York Times profile for doing publicity for his movies for wanting to talk about himself. Like, I love Glenn Powell, man.

He seems like an awesome guy, but is that really a big lift in the whole scheme of things? You know, the real MVP of the whole press circuit, junket, everything is what's name, Melanie Griffith's daughter. Oh, Dakota Johnson, who is just reliably cantankerous. But in a way that I think draws perfect attention to the absurdity of the process. It's very genius. But yeah, we need, yeah, Glenn Powell getting hailed for, you know, sitting and allowing himself to be hailed. It's kind of a circular.

You know what the big winner of the junket circuit this year was, Will Smith? Yep. When I saw those bad boys box office numbers, I was like, oh, you're saying we do love Will Smith, who had just been through this interview process where he didn't get asked or asked very much, about the one thing people want to ask Will Smith about. Yeah. He's telling funny stories with Martin Lawrence and doing these. I saw some serious XM thing.

I was like, oh, whoa, look at this. You know, stuff like that. Like, oh, no wonder it was a big box office hit because it had laundered his reputation away from the last thing people remembered about Will Smith. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, he's a master. I mean, he's also, I've noticed him like, he went to a movie theater and watched a screening. like in the audience.

And then when it ended, there's a video of a, he walked out and it's kind of funny. He walked out and was kind of like, it's me. And everyone started screaming and crowding him. And it kind of looked like that, what's her name?

Olivia Wilde, like that clip of her with Michael Moore where she's like smiling. But he, you know, he has a grasp. I guess he's got that old school understanding of like the blockbuster machine

and what makes it tick. And, you know, kind of those old like entertainment tonight sort of, you know, clips and those sorts of things. But yeah, it does end up laundering his reputation because it's so orchestrated. It's, you know, friendly fire. It's just everyone that's involved is, like, afraid to lose the access next time or to ask, you know, to get the answer where you get shut down by J-Lo and Simululu.

And so it does enable, I guess, I'm sure Tom Cruise, Cruz kills it at these things too, you know. Entertainment tonight. That was the televised junket. When people were, we're talking about round ball rock, I was like, next, let's rediscover John Tash is the host of entertainment tonight because that was really his true legacy of the 80s and 90s. All right.

Last thing for you. Before we go, Howard Feynman, Katie, veteran political journalist. They say veteran political journalist when you've had a career for so long. that the individual things of what you actually did sort of get sort of, you know, become subsumed by your bigness, by your aura. Howard Feynman died yesterday at 75. He is a particular figure of a particular newsweekly driven period

of American media. He worked at Newsweek. This is back when time in Newsweek were a lot of people's only doses of national media, quote unquote, outside of television, covered a number of presidential campaigns later goes on to HuffPost when Newsweek starts falling apart. He did a lot of work on MSNBC. You saw a lot of people from that network talking about him yesterday.

What should we think about when we remember Howard Feynman? That's funny. I was going to say, like, what percentage of the, you know, longtime political journalist has Newsweek on their resume? It's got to be, you know, 80%. But like with these week in mind, I saw a great quote from the, I think the former editor, John Meacham. He said, Howard was what was known as a master violinist, the lead voice of the magazine responsible for writing the piece that served as the overture to everything that followed. And I love that.

I'd never heard that term the violinists, like of a magazine. Now I'm going to start thinking about that of all old magazines. but, you know, like Andre Leon Talley at Vogue. But yeah, you know, he was kind of just, I remember growing up and listening to Imus in the morning in my dad's car. And he always had, you know, Mike Lupica, Mike Barnacle and, you know, Howard Feynman, kind of this rotating almost like a meet the press cast of these political people that who actually had like, I don't know, like opinions, like in a way that I don't even

know if there is like a place that puts things together in that same way anymore. Not to say I miss in the morning is like no one's ever done it since then. But I sometimes wonder that like for a while Bill Maher, but now that's he has gotten crazy. But there is no like who are those people now? Yeah. And one of the things about that show that was so interesting was so you saw these people who were either writing in a magazine or in the newspaper or talking on TV very much in their suit jacket. Right. There were guardrails and then they would get on there and you'd be like, oh, that guy's funny.

Or that, you know, Anna Quinlan, wow, look at that. You know, Evan Thomas, you and I do the whole roll call right now, the people that popped up on that show, Maureen Doud. And it was also such a different. And it was also such a different time was like, you know, and again, I certainly speak for this. It's like, you're not sitting around with, you know, anything like the internet or any access to political information, forget punditry, forget reporting, just information like there is now.

So the tiny handful of people like Howard Feynman who were on that tier just seem like the most knowledgeable people in the world. They had this just enormous presence and you're like, oh my gosh, that person knows politics. You know, George Will on TV. You're just like, these are the experts. I need to listen. I need to hang on their words. And they did, of course, know like Howard Feynman. You read this New York Times, oh, but wrote a ton, broke stories, you know, was in Newsweek. And again, that master violinist opinion shaping state of the race, state of American politics kind of big piece that would be very, very influential. But in that world, they were so outsized. So much, so bigger than life. They were, they were, yeah, they were,

it's funny, like before personal branding was such a thing. Like, they were, they were personal brands in their own way. And, you know, I was kind of looking up like just the kind of Feynman's like the timeline of his life and that sort of thing. And what was so interesting is that he was a longtime IMA guest. And when Imas had his kind of career ending remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team, which just goes to show women's basketball has, you know, this isn't anything new, I guess. But, um, five, uh, uh, Biden went on his show like a couple of days later and kind of, um, not scolded him, but was, did say on the show, you know, you can't really make jokes like that these days, you know,

comedy is not what it used to be, but, um, and was sort of this voice of reason. But then at the same time, his evidence for why, for like why you can't do that anymore had to do with, oh, Barack Obama has raised all this money, which is why we can't do this anymore. So he still had that sort of old you know, worldview where he is maybe one step ahead of some people, still one step behind others. And, you know, that's kind of a, we still see that type of guy around and gal. But yeah, he just really, that sort of trusted and not necessarily like you always agreed with them, but just these people where they're, you know, they're emerging from a, you know, inside the Beltway cocktail party or whatever it is and like giving you that information.

It just doesn't hit the same way when you watch like CNN and they have the various guests. Like something something has changed. No, and it never will be again for better or worse, probably for the better on balance. All right, Katie Baker, you can always find her in the winner's tunnel. Reader at the ringer.com. It's great to see it, Katie. Thank you for coming on the press box.

Thank you for having me. It's time for the second. weekly edition of David Shoemaker guest as the strain pun headline. Yeah, hell of a job by Katie Baker. Hell of a job by Katie Baker. I'm a little bit surprised you didn't pop in there a little bit more, David, but you're always waiting for your moment.

Monday's headline about the retirement of Darrell Strawberries number at City Field was Strawberries Field Forever. Today's headline comes from valued listener Alex Gordon. It's from the New York Times. David, the New York Times never writes better headlines. then when they get a great story about marine life. Oh, yeah.

We have documented this. They write the best marine life puns this side of, I can't imagine what the competition would be. In this case, David, 2,000 sea lions have appeared on San Francisco's Pier 39. According to reporter Heather Knight, that is apparently a record, a record. A record.

we had a little strawberry fields forever reference i want you to continue to think of oldies as you ponder what was the new york times as strain pun headline sea lion uh this the sea lion there are 2,000 of them and that's going to be uh important here 2,000 2,000 lion 2000 uh think of old it do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do sitting on the dock of the bay. Yeah. I was just singing. I was listening.

I was listening that song yesterday and singing along. So you remember 2,000 miles I roamed just to make this dog myself. 2,000 lions. Sea lions roamed just to make this dock their home? There we go. 2,000 sea lions roam just to make this dock their home. Great work there by the New York Times. May we have many, many more great marine life headlines.

All right, that is the press box. I'm Brian Curtis, production magic by Brian Waters. We got the entire June schedule for the press box up at the press box pod, our Twitter account. Check that out. I'm going to even revise it for you just a little bit. Next Thursday, June 20th,

Dylan Byers from Puck is going to be here. So much to talk about. The NBA rights, the zaz of it all, newspapers like the Washington, post CNN, Dylan can, and will take us anywhere. I look forward to talking to him. Then two weeks from today, as hard as this is to believe, we have the first Joe Biden-Donald Trump presidential debate, or the first one of this cycle anyway. That is unbelievable. To accommodate that, we're going to do the pot a day later than normal on Friday, June 28th,

and it's going to be a two-parter. Part one, semaphores Benji Sarland is going to join us to do some post-gaming, who won, who lost, what we think of the moderators, all that good stuff. And then part two will be a fun, long interview with stories from the campaign trail with a veteran, there's that word again, political journalist. That's going to be so much fun. That is Friday, June 28th. Trust me, there is no summer break. There is no end of news.

We're going all the way. Shoemaker returns Monday, and he will have more lukewarm takes about the media. Have a fantastic weekend.