The Press Box - Ryen Russillo on Covering the NBA Finals, Explaining Jokic’s Greatness, and Getting the Sports TV We Want

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

Bryan is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss Jokic’s impressive performance in the Finals and the media’s response to the Denver Nuggets. Then, they talk through Russillo’s theory on how we all get what we want from the media and how one prepares for the draft. Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Chris Vernon, and me and my buddy Kevin O'Connor, aka Kevin O Everything, host an NBA podcast called The Mismatch. They call it The Mismatch because I'm awesome and Kevin is a gigantic nerd. No, no, that's not why at all, Chris. They call it the Mismatch because I have a brain and you're a loudmouth bozo. Good grief. Anyway, listen to our amazing NBA podcast, The Mismatch. Or don't.

We really don't care. We're probably going to win a million awards either way. Good, Chris. We do care. So don't say that. Please subscribe and listen to the mismatch only on Spotify. Did you really call me a bozo? Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox final edition. Ryan Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Erica Servantes.

Before we get to Ryan Rosillo, a few notes on the big media story of the week, which is, of course, the ouster or defenestration, if you will, of CNN's, Chris Licked. The story was broken Wednesday morning by Dylan Byers, which is appropriate because he's kind of America's Chris Licked feet writer. I encourage you first of all to go ahead and actually read Tim Alberta's story in the Atlantic. Not just take summaries of it like you got on this podcast, but actually go read it. It's a really, really good story. It's fascinating. You'll learn a lot about how the media works. A couple of thoughts from me. One is when someone exits a job after a story like this, it's sort of natural to wonder how much of the exit was due to the story

and how much of it would have just happened anyway. With Chris Licked, I think his scoreboard at CNN was ratings and revenue. He and his boss's whole theory of moving to the center, of accommodating more Republican voices, was that's going to make us money. So Chris Lick's ratings and revenue problem was happening. Anyway, what the Alberta piece did very, very skillfully, was take a bunch of complaints and put them in one place. So that is part of what nudges him out, right? All these complaints we've been reading about, they appear and not appear in Puck, but in a magazine like the Atlantic, a mainstream organ that's at least theoretically friendly,

the kind of ideas Lick was trying to implement at CNN and a place for his bosses to read it. And of course, Alberta also added new material with Lick running down CNN's COVID coverage, which just helped him lose the newsroom even more. Anyway, that's thought number one. Thought number two is, can reporters, especially my fellow media reporters, stop talking about CNN's decision to let Alberta follow around Lick like it was some PR disaster? Everybody who says that would have killed to spend that kind of time with Chris Lick. Right?

And if it had been you that had gotten to spend that time with him, would you be calling this bad PR? I just think it's very self-defeating to grade the people we cover on these terms of, hey, you gave us access and the peace turned out to be bad, therefore you were stupid. We want to be able to ask important people questions and hold them accountable and write what we want. And we should be pushing for that ideal, not shaming PR departments because they did it. Anyway, end of rant. Here's Ryan Rosillo. My guest today, Ryan Rosillo, spends most of his time talking sports or offering life advice. But there are these moments when he starts to talk about how the sports media industry really works.

And I find myself in the car nodding vigorously and wishing I could just jump right into that conversation. It's one of my favorite people to talk about the business with on and off the air. Ryan, welcome back to the press box. Thanks for having, man. Always good catching up. So I always appreciate the invite. Question for you as a podcaster. When you got up to do your pod after game three,

how did you find a new way to say Nicola Yokic is really great? Well, you know, it's funny. I'll never forget, like, I'm not going to name names on this one, but it was a colleague who said something like, I'm speechless after somebody did something amazing. And then another colleague was like, it's your job to not be speechless. And I thought, whoa.

That back and forth made the rounds. We're like, yeah, we all get it. You know, we all have to figure out new ways to say stuff, but sometimes you're just speechless. I've been really focused in on the zone stuff because I felt like after watching the zone destroy Boston, and I think the reason we don't see it that much, as you imagine with superior NBA athletes,

you kind of figure things out. But Miami does it at such a level, and they do it so often, more zone possessions on defense than any team in 19 years in the NBA this year. And I just love that I you know this this Miami run has it doesn't make me rethink what you do with basketball rosters. It's it's an anomaly. It's special because it doesn't happen. And I think some of the pushback that I've seen from people that I've argued with about the heat who want to be like,

now you should have seen this coming. And I'm like, no, the whole point, the reason this is special is that you don't see this coming. And the zone has been one of those weapons. But understanding Yokic's game, I was like, I wonder how. They're going to try this. And at times the numbers have told you that zone has worked. So the first thing I did this morning after, you know, I take my notes and I track the game and I look for those zone possessions because it's been such a big weapon for the heat, there are 12 possessions if you go by tracking data, which I have a account with synergy,

which I live on this time of year. And if you look at the points possession, it would be way below what Denver would normally score in just their pick and roll offense. And so it would be it would be looked at as a win statistically. But I knew when I watched the game, I was like, I think they had 12 possessions and all the looks were really, really good. And Denver made an adjustment. And even though they missed a lot of the shots and the stats,

the results would be lower than what their expected offense would give you, it was the least amount of zone we had seen from Miami because the coaching staff was like, it may be working because of not scoring points, but it's not working. And that's been one of the things I keep talking about because Yokic breaks it. He breaks it once he,

understands it. He's an easy guy to pass to. He can also dribble from wherever he is. He probably should shoot more. And there's probably a big victory lap for a lot of us that have MVP votes that voted for Yokic. And I don't regret my Mbid vote now because I remind myself all the time. It's a regular season award. It's not who I think is going to win in the finals. And I thought Mbid certainly was deserving. That's why I gave the vote. But there is this awareness that comes with final success and what he's doing historically and in such an efficient way where, you know, I've already hinted at it. I've already said it a few times. But if Denver ends up winning this thing, which I'd expect they will, it's like, it all of a sudden the rules change where we're allowed to talk about him in the way

we always should have talked about him. That gives us all license because he's got a ring. Yeah, those are the rules. I mean, the rules can get really frustrating at times. Like, I just believe there are really good coaches that don't win games. And I believe there are average coaches that win a lot of games. I believe there are great players that never get to win a ring and we're not allowed to call them great. And I think there's some other players that are less than the players that don't have rings that have rings and we're supposed to prop them up ahead of everybody else. I remember Jay Billis one time, we were talking about great college basketball coaches and he said, you know, we're really good at counting. We just go, hey, this guy has three and then this guy

only has one. So this college coach was just better than that one. And a lot of its resume stuff and, people that'll be chasing Brady for decades. It's going to be hard to ever say anybody's better than him, but there may be guys that are physically more gifted than him. I think Mahomes is on that trajectory, but I don't know that he's going to catch the rings. But for Yokic, who has looked like, you know, if it's been Yonis at times,

I think that's fair. The same thing happened with Yonnas a couple years ago, where it's the coronation. So when it's all done, which I expect to go Denver's way, I just, I like that the rules that frustrate me, can be worked in his favor. You know, it's kind of like, you know, just some,

I just really felt like a lot of the Yolkid certificate really nasty the last couple years where it also, I think, exposes a lot of people that, you know, I tell whenever I talked to NBA, especially when I worked at ESPN, I think half the time I was on the phone with NBA teams, it would be to hear them bitch about somebody else that said something at ESPN. And I remind him, I go, just so you know, I work with a lot of these people, and it's hard to watch everything. I try to watch everything, and it's really hard.

So just remember that not everybody up there that's on TV is watching nearly as much as they may think they are. So let's say Yokish wins, the title. There's the coronation, as you say. Then how does the conversation about him in Take Land change next year? Well, then you start saying ridiculous stuff. Like one of my favorite exercises is the Monday after Super Bowl. You know how many best Super Bowls ever I've had in my lifetime?

No, because nobody, I think we've even joked about this before, but like nobody's listening to a get up tease where it's like fourth most entertaining Super Bowl, we'll break it down next. You know, like it doesn't, it doesn't sell. It doesn't sell the audience, which is, you know, another topic that I know we'll get to is that we kind of get as an audience, we get what we want. So if Yokic wins it all, it won't be good enough that he's just the best player in the end. NBA, it'll be, does he have a chance to be this? You know, like, we move the goalposts on players and then once we move them because they're there, then it's like, well, how can I stand out by saying, I think he's better than Dirk? I think he's better than, and look, I think he's heading in a direction where he'll be better than Dirk, but there's a longevity thing to it where the accumulation

of stats you're going to have to have them to, you know, that's the whole point of sticking around that long to have that kind of stuff. So these arguments, that go on forever, which is also like a fun part of it. But you have to raise the stakes. Like once everything becomes accepted, accepted isn't a good topic anymore. It has to be, is this potentially, could there potentially be pushed back from this? And that's kind of the game. I love the moment last night.

The Nuggets win and he does the interview with Lisa Salters after the game. And he says, hey, you know, those numbers, they don't matter to me as much as having a win. My teammates are fantastic. And then the announcers, who I like, we're like, What a great interview. You know, he really handled that well. And I'm like, if you want to hear this same interview, by the way, just walk in that room and listen to what Jamal Murray says after the game.

Joel Murray's not going to go, you know, I wish I'd gotten 50 tonight. We got and we'd take in the L. I understand we're just trying to process, trying to say something new, but he's just giving a sports interview after basketball game. Yeah, no, you're right. I mean, it's actually, it's funny how you reframe it all. I'm just like, actually, that isn't that interesting. That isn't a great interview.

But it's the message, and I think it's what he represents for the team, that he really is a selfless guy in a game that you kind of grow up being rewarded for being selfish. And, you know, I don't care who you are. You still want to score. Like, you still want to score. I mean, it's fun to score. And that's the thing we keep track of the most. What became most enamored with is fans. But if you ask Denver, like, is this really his deal?

Because, you know, it's pretty easy to ace this stuff. Like, we could be, we can be marks at times too. Like, oh, this guy's all about winning. Why? Because he said it. Like, what was he going to say? Who actually would say, you know, look, I kind of want to get a max deal. And then maybe year seven, I'll start worrying about winning.

And that's what happens in the NBA a lot. Like rookie guys looking for that max extension. He's putting up buckets. He's losing games. He's not doing anything in the playoffs. And then, like, 28, you're like, okay. It's losing the first and second round thing sucks. And some players have to sacrifice and all this kind of things.

But it feels very real with him maybe because he was so easily overlooked. You know, I remember watching his draft stuff because I used to do the draft at ESPN. And you were like, this fat kid can pass. But, you know, it didn't really make any sense. And there wasn't really a profile for it. And that's something else you think about with. So you're right. Like we we love praising a very cliche team-oriented answer, but you know, like himself, I think Steph,

like Steph to me is the greatest teammate of his generation because there, as much as it's up to use sort of save your team at times when you're the best player, the best players learn how to sacrifice certain parts of their game because, you know, the other four guys have to feel like at times an option or that they're somewhat involved. I remember interviewing Larry Brown once when he was coaching the Pistons, and I was like, why do you want to get Ben Wallace more shots on offense? Like, didn't make any sense to me. It's Ben Wallace.

And he was like, because when Ben Wallace gets more shots, he plays better defense. He rebounds harder. He feels like he's a part of it. And it actually gets back to being a kid, you know? Like, anybody wants to run around and never touch the basketball. And even though these are grown men and they're still making millions, you want to touch the basketball sometimes.

So the great ones figure out that balance of when to push and be selfish while also knowing to make sure everybody feels like they're involved. And Yokic is the epitome of that. I mean, look at some of the players that have gone somewhere else, then go and play with him. And you look at the numbers and you go, you're engaged. It reminds me a lot of Steph, even though their approach to the game is different. There's a payoff in that I know if I do my job, I'll always be a potential option. And that's why, you know, this Denver team's been so connected this year. And I just, I think anybody that loves basketball, I don't know how you could ever watch that guy and not want that to be the team you're rooting for.

Or I mean, I don't mean it like, hey, we're all sitting here rooting for Denver. But like if you just appreciate the right things in basketball and you watch him, you go, this is this is kind of what it's all about. And we all get to see it on the biggest stage now. What did you make of the idea that reporters were ignoring the Nuggets? I think that there's some truth, but you also have to remember, like, I'm a big intent guy, okay? Like, what do you think the intent is? Do you think that we all got together one day and be like, hey, let's just, hey, fuck the nuggets, huh? You win? Right? Nobody does that. What's hard is we're not good with new. I struggle with new. And when a team is successful, you know, and I think back to the teams that I was like, okay, this team has a chance. Like the Warriors are actually one of the rare example. of like before, I feel like anybody else in that run.

Even 14 when they beat Denver and they lost the San Antonio in a close series, I was like, this is something special here. I didn't pick him to win the whole title the next year, but then as the regular season finished out, I was like, I'm going to pick him to win the whole thing. They went down 2-1 against Memphis, and there was a lot of now what are incredibly outdated, but people weren't ready for it.

And I remember having Chauncey Billups in studio with us. And I was like, what do you think? Memphis was up 2-1. He's like, ah, this is over. He's like, they're going to clutch. They're going to grab. They're going to get into them. physical playoffs are completely different, whatever.

And they made that one adjustment. I think they put Bogot on Tony Allen, so he didn't really have to defend him, whereas ended up hitting more shots. And, you know, it was a wrap. And they went on, granted, they beat up Cleveland team. But fan bases are so much more connected to their team and the emotional ups and downs of it, that, yeah, no shit. Nobody's paying attention to it as much as you are.

Nobody's as invested in it as you are. But the idea that there's this creative, specific bias. you're actually not that special. You know, Toronto for years being like, oh, nobody wanted us to win this in 2019. Well, you guys were pretty much a rap in all those playoffs series. Like there wasn't anything for me to go, you know what I liked was when it looked like you had no chance against Cleveland. That's what I really liked about you.

So it's not specific to Denver. I think it's a very consistent cyclical thing that happens with all of us is that something that's new and good, you're just not going to have the same buy-in. the way we probably at times make mistakes where we give the benefit of the doubt to a team that's won before, but probably is giving us plenty of evidence that they can't pull it off. So it's never specifically about Denver. It was never about Toronto not being an American city. It was about, you know, any group, especially in basketball that hasn't been through the

playoff wars before. You're like, I mean, their only thing that was any good on a playoff resume was a 4-1 series loss in the bubble to Lakers in 20. And they were super hurt last year. So when they got smoked by the Warriors, it was. wasn't like, you know, that big of a deal. They got swept by the suns before that. So, you know, you would have had to have been really close or maybe game seven of the Western

Conference Finals, I think for us to go, all right, we got to take you seriously. Like sometimes you're not taken seriously until after you win. So I always disagree with that because every year there's some fan base that feels like it's slighted. And it's like it's probably because you haven't done anything for anyone to feel like you're a safe bet. And that's what's interesting for me is when it's real. at least to a degree for non-nefarious reasons. Like Jeff Van Gundy said, that's on your pod last week.

He had not done a Nuggets game until the Western Conference Finals. Right. That would again, that was not an ESPN conspiracy. Let's keep him out of Denver. It's just like a lot of factors go into that, right? He'll do more next year in any case before the playoffs. Yeah. I mean, college football is way worse, way worse.

The amount of thoughts and just absurd things, theories about like why a team is here, why game day showed up for this weekend. And, you know, look, I was on the radio side of game day. So we were, it wasn't even like a second class thing. It wasn't even close. Radio comparison to the television product and never should have been. But, you know, it was constant. And then you start realizing like, wait, everybody actually kind of feels the same. Like, you think you're being treated differently. But so do like 30 other college campuses. So is it us or is it maybe you individually feeling the same way collectively, but you just don't even realize because you know what? You don't care. I actually think

this kind of speaks to like life. If I see a slight, right? If I see a slight in something that maybe would be something I would connect with, right? I'd be like, hey, wait a minute. Why is that happening? I may only be aware of it because it's something I relate to, where there's other slights that are happening or other things that I've seen that I have no connection to and I don't understand. So I think sometimes we can become a little difficult because we're only paying attention to the slights that impact something that we have some connection to. And, you know, there's all these times. I remember Florida State Twitter was like out of their minds with this conspiracy that it was like, oh, ESPN's against us and all this stuff and whatever. They're going to

make sure we're not in this and whatever. And like all these predictions about how ESPN was going to screw over Florida State, it didn't happen. They'd won the title of the year. And it was, year before. The polls kept them up because of that. They were actually getting the benefit of the doubt. They were winning these close games. It was really weird. You're like, what's up with this team? They're not the same. Winston was still there. And then they played Oregon and the Rose Bowl and they got smoked. And it was like, yeah, like you were held to a standard as a title defender. And yet you still made the playoff. And I mean, there was like Rolling Stone actually let some dude who went to Florida State write an article about all of these theories about how ESPN was screwing over Florida

State. And I read it. I couldn't believe even like at the time it was an online thing. Like there wasn't one person that was like it would say, oh, look at, look at how the Sports Center anchor says that Iowa doubled up Michigan State 2814, but Florida State only survived, or Florida State barely survived against Louisville, 2814. And you're like, that's, like this wouldn't even go to trial, man. So I always feel like this filter of all of it when you were doing national radio, like this filter of all of it where it's like, oh, this group's the one that feels like they're the one being left out.

It's like, no, it's actually just it's a rotating thing of feeling like you're being diminished. Like, yeah, guess what? Everybody talks about the Cowboys and Lakers too much. Sorry. nothing will ever beat the college football message board slight list and i know this because i'm on the university of texas ones and they're like yeah remember that guy took a shot at charlie strong that one time i like wait are we are we now back to defending charlie strong like yeah it's what if i i almost every argument that i've ever seen or like it would be brought to me personally

if i run into somebody something like that like i remember i was at a wedding and it was in Chicago and it was a bunch of Ohio State guys and they were convinced seven, eight deep. They've been drinking and they come up to me the reception and they're like, fucking Herb Street, man. Like he hates Ohio State. And I was like, I don't think he hates Ohio State. Of all things he hates, it's none.

Right. Right. Right. And then it actually got so weird, he had to move because his house. I went to it once. He had like a party there when we went to and did a game. And I think people just kept driving by his house all the time, whatever. And I ended up moving to Nashville, I think.

And, you know, I got to know, Kirk pretty well. It's not to the point where, you know, we were texting checking in with each other every weekend. But I traveled with him a bunch of years. I'd like to think I got to know him. And I'm sitting there going, well, give me your arguments for why he hates Ohio State. And they were like the worst arguments ever. Oh, he did this. And then you guys went to Penn State for Game Day for this.

And it's just on and on and on, like all these bullshit things. You realize everything you think is happening to you happens to all of these other fan bases, but the only ones you pay attention are the ones that you're emotionally connected to. So you're not a great frame of reference. You're so biased. The bias you think you're arguing against is the one you're actually extremely guilty of. And I don't care. I'm just telling you how it is.

I work there. I travel with them. I know the guy. I have no reason to defend him. I'm just telling you you're wrong. Did I change their minds? Of course not. You mentioned this theory of the media that you also.

mentioned with Bill the other day. We all get what we want from the media. What do you mean by that? Well, I don't, you know, I feel like I probably talked post-Espan four years now, almost four years, maybe too much, but I like to bring it up, but just, you know, I've already named dropped a bunch of different stories and anecdotes for my time there because it's a really important time of my life, an important time of my career, and I, you know, I love that I get a chance to work there. And, you know, if I'm critical of any of the shows, I know it can be perceived as like, oh, you know, it didn't quite work out for you the way you wanted it to, so now you're pissed about all this stuff. Look, I remember I talked to Dan Patrick one day years and years ago. And, you know, he was

always somebody I could, you know, maybe once every two years I check in or something like that. And he was like, what do you want to do? And I was like, I want to be on TV doing NBA stuff. He's like, what is the anchor? I was like, no, kind of like this hybrid anchor analyst thing, but really more analyst. He's like, you're an idiot. That's never happening. That's never happening. So I don't watch these shows going, oh, it sucks, I never get a chance to do that because I knew I was never going to be on a countdown or whatever. And even when I started going on Mike and Mike,

Mike and Mike wanted me on every week during the basketball season, they're like, you're just good on it. Like, come on. And then they shut it down after three weeks being like, this guy shouldn't be coming on as an opinionist as a non-player, which is definitely weird now because the lines have been blurred. And, you know, when I think about Stephen A, it's not like he's a writer anymore.

He's just opinionist going on TV. There isn't even a time where they talked about putting cowhurt on game day just as an opinionist. because he got your eyeballs. When the college football playoff Reveal Show first started up, the ratings were a little flat, and they put Skip Bayliss on

to talk about the playoff rankings. They did that on one of the shows because I remember other people got pissed about it, and those higher-ups were like, you know, we needed to kind of juice it a little bit, whatever. So whatever I was trying to do

is actually being done, and it's happened, but it just wasn't going to happen for me. And that's fine. Like I actually got to do some of the shows and, you know, whatever. Wasn't that big of a deal. but I know I'm like the hardcore, hardcore guy.

Again, I woke up this morning tracking zone possessions that I watched last night. I'm not telling you that get up, first take, or countdown should be going over zone stuff. But the drama of the NBA is a big selling point. But those shows aren't for me. And I say that as as somebody who I don't watch like ESPN shows at home or listen to ESPN radio being like, oh, damn it. Like, once I was done, I was good with it. I knew it was going to be good with it. I do it because I'm still a fan of sports.

I do it because, like, I like listening to Sports Talk Radio. I'm still a nerd about it, the way I was before I had the job, while I had the job, and while I don't work there anymore. But the push, I guess, you know, I know you're kind of referencing like Bill and I talking about the pre and the halftime. First of all, the halftime show has no chance in the world. They're barely even on TV. They come back from this long commercial break.

They give, like, two guys, 30 seconds to say one thing. There's no time in there. But I'd like at times, like especially with a former player, like, did you notice anything specific in the first 24 minutes? Did you notice this one specific thing? Like, hey, guess what? They started to trap Murray Moore. What could be an adjustment? And when I'm saying, I want that and I want to be taught something, am I actually wrong?

And are all of us that complain about content wrong? because deep down what we want is a lot of the junk food, right? Like what plays on Twitter is so-and-so came on and said this guy is in top 10 and so-and-so came on and said that this guy's washed and that this guy's not this guy and all these different things. Look, I like some of it too. And I'm also with Bill guilty of it at times. But I do think when I watch some of the shows, I'm like, wait, could it be that this is actually

what we want when we pretend we want something else. And it gets back to like programming on anything, Brian, with TV. Like cop shows. All right. Yeah, you know, he's down on his luck. In, two seasons, you know. Hospital show, young, young up-and-coming dive. He's a little unorthodox in his style.

Done, three seasons. We're picking it up. What's this show? Courtroom drama. You know, she's from the Midwest, trying to make it in the city. In. Like, we're getting a lot of the same stuff over. and over again. And I don't think it's because all the programming people are stupid. I think it's because

deep down, we're way more simple than we'd like to think that we are. And I am in like a completely different category of somebody that's doing this every single day, watching every position, thinking about everything that I'm going to say when I'm doing. So I know I'm not the audience. But when Bill and I were talking about it, I didn't want to make it sound like I was just being critical of all of this programming. I think the epiphany that I've come to is that I think if you did the nerdy breakdown stuff, if you did the hardcore stuff, if you did all that, the audience may actually reject that more, even if it feels like the complaints are always about the way they're doing. I think we're actually getting what we want, even though we don't want

to admit it, was my point. And I'd love to know your thoughts on that. Well, I think one piece of evidence for your theory is this, that you and I are old enough to remember 90s newspaper columnists and early 2000s newspaper columns. And what were the complaints about those guys? virtually identical, right? He's just doing this for attention. It's he's too many hobby horses. It's getting very personal, you know, it's too negative. It's unrelenting. It's, it's the same things. But then that was the newspaper column that got written over and over again. And that was the person that got hired to write the newspaper column, which I think is again, were those newspaper sports editors all stupid? Or were they programming their sports sections? Because that's what we're worked and that's what people wanted. I don't know. It feels awfully familiar to me. Yeah, right. Could we all have been doing it wrong for this long? Right? Like, I remember, and I don't do this because I don't

think these are like these awesome name drops. They're just quotes from people along my career and stuff that I've never forgotten. But I remember talking to Ron Borges when I first, first started in Boston. And he was like, I don't think anybody should be a columnist more than 10 years. What could you possibly have left to say. And I was like, wow, you know, is he actually right about this? Like, I used to read the Sunday Globe, like, you know, I mean, that was religion. I'd read the Kevin Paul DePont hockey notes. Like, I was like, you know, I got to a fourth, but I'd read it all. And that was our limited, you know, ability to access any of this information. But then when I go back and, like, I have a friend, we'll go back and read like Peter Gamma's diamond notes.

I'll be like, I can't believe I thought this was it. Like this was the gospel. But it's completely unfair to do that, decades removed from the whole thing. But, you know, as everybody tries to figure out like where they fit in and how you keep this going, you know, first take started as a real studio show, right? It was cold pizza. Then it was first take. But then guess what they realized is that when they went over to the,

debate desk, the numbers went up. And then when they went back to the studio for the traditional kind of, you know, they were more GMAing a sports set, the ratings went back down. And, you know, we could even look at some of our radio stuff where it's like you could have great guests all the time. And you wanted to make sure you had a certain level of guests, but you could see the retention rate was usually better on opening monologues and that kind of stuff. So I have, even if we can sit here and complain about it all and say, oh, I can't believe this or this guy's any good and all these different things. It's like, you know what? Sometimes you're just supposed to go on the air and say shit. Just say it. Like, I've never wanted to do the job that way. I don't think anybody would

describe me that way. But I don't know, maybe as I get older, a little more reflective about it all. I just have a hard time believe that everybody's been doing it wrong the whole time. I think there's a self-consciousness, too, in people in our profession, both podcasting and writing. I don't want to be one of those guys on TV. I'm doing something different. I'm not one of those TV debate people. Oh, what's my pod segment today? Top five running backs.

Oh, well, that, oh, wait. That kind of sounds like a TV segment. And I totally understand, because they are different worlds at the moment, right? TV debate and what the kind of stuff that often happens, not always, but often happens in podcasting. And one of the things I've been wondering about is, will that will one ever start to resemble the other? If there's a sports fan out there who can get a podcast, it sounds way, way different than a debate show. Is there going to be a point where the debate show says, we want to sound more like that? Or are they just catering to different audiences, different wants, and they remain two different worlds?

Yeah, because I think the first thing, if you're in programming, right? And, you know, I've said this a few times before, but like you go to ESPN and you're on air and as hard as it is to make it at ESPN, it's even harder to make it once you're there. And part of that is your own journey of like figuring out who to align yourself with, right? You're like, Game of Thrones stuff where you're like, okay, well, this guy's a now becoming programming guy and this guy's a big time producer. He's a little younger and then they're doing the same thing with us. So like, oh, this guy's really good or she's great or, you know, she can do, she's really versatile. Like, okay, maybe I'll hitch my wagon.

You're all hitching each other's wagons to each other. Then you make the wrong bet. The person that you lined yourself with for two years doesn't have any juice anymore. You know, like, what happened to me? You know, I remember meeting with somebody who was like, you know, if I were running college game day, I'd put Lou Holtz and Mark May on it instead of the other guys because those are my guys. And I was like, you know, I didn't say it to him, but I'm thinking of my head. I'm like, that's the dumbest fucking idea I've ever heard.

but whatever. It was a lesson. It was a lesson at a very young age where I'm like, wait, that's how it works. Like, I thought I was just, you do your job. And if you're good at it, everything's good. It's like, no, no, no, no. You got to find like the kingmaker. So then you're going and you're like kind of coming up with ideas.

But all the ideas about you, they're all things to benefit you. They're like, hey, have you thought about maybe doing a little bit more of this? And the worst thing you can do with any of this. And I imagine it's the same thing for people trying to get shows on TV. It's like, I want to do something. totally different. I want to have a sports talk show, but we do this. Right. Like I remember there was one, they did a sports nation that started with Beetle and Cowherd. It was just a different thing. They had visuals that were really different. And honestly, it was just a mechanism to showcase

Colin and Beetle who were, you know, deserving. They're really good on TV. And then they did like a radio version of it where it was like, hey, we're going to do this radio show, but we're going to call it Sports Nation, but it's going to have all these gimmicks and these sound effects. And, you know, after a couple months, you're like, what the hell is this? Again, it wasn't, you know, honestly, it wasn't anybody's fault. It was actually cool. They were trying to do something different. But I don't, I don't think it's that complicated, you know, like the Brady Deflate Gate. I was so sick of talking about it. I was so sick of talking about it. And I didn't want to open a show with it. I was like, dude, I don't care. We're going to get another update in

48 hours. Like, this is pointless. And, you know, I looked at the producer and we were okay. He's like, that's kind of the job, man. And even for somebody like me who I feel like I'm pretty independent work-wise, I was like, and I needed him to say that to me to remind me. I was like, yeah, that's the job. And as much as people are going like, oh, I can't believe you guys are talking about Brady again, you know, to zag against the hits, to zag against some of the headlines,

you can't, you know, every now and then you can deviate, but your show's not going to last very long. If you're just trying to do the opposite of what everybody else is doing, unless you're that special, if you're that special and you've created this new way of doing it. And I think for the most part, the format, you know, I think the format is kind of what it is. You also mentioned this with Bill the other day.

Why does being on TV make people want to come down hard on John Morant? Yeah, that's really weird. You know, the Jod thing, I mean, based on what we know, obviously, you know, somebody's like, hey, I really, I really like Jha. Right? That's not where this is coming from. Not doing a great job of explaining this.

But the first time around with the gun incident in shotgun willies, it was a lot of performance where I felt like the people that were on air were showing you how much they cared when they don't care about Jop Morant. they just wanted to look really good, right? Like you get that single shot on the jib and you're like, I hope Jha, you're listening. I hope you're listening to somebody. And I'm not even thinking of anyone in particular

because I saw it so many times. There people have been like, hey, you know what, John Morant, this gun video. Let me get on Twitter and fire off a 60 second video that shows how compassionate I am. It's like, you're only fucking doing it for your rewards. You know what I mean? Like, give me a break.

And then I think there's another part of it where if you start arguing punishment, you know, we've had things happen in the NFL that are horrible things, horrible things. And it's like, I don't want to get on a TV show and go like, all right, that's awful, but it feels like eight games. Because then it makes you sound like you're insensitive to the act that's happened. But in the real world of how punishment works is that people come together collectively on a number and go, this feels like the right amount of punishment for what this person did and what their track record is. And so for Jaws' current situation, which this is all the stuff that's public, there could be more that I don't know.

So I'm leaving myself a bit of an out here. But it then becomes a contest to how much punishment matters to the person that's on TV. And you're kind of stuck because if you're on the other side of less punishment, then you're automatically like, wait, you don't think what Jod did was bad. But that's not what I said. I think what Jod did is bad. And now he appears to be a repeat offender. He clearly doesn't get it. The whole PR approach to how they handle the first and.

incident was embarrassing, but they did whatever they did to get it out of the way. So you'd come back and play basketball, which is what anybody else would have done. But on TV, it's like, man, that guy said 40 games. Well, the other dude said 50 games. It's like, why are you so obsessed with punishment to the point where I think we kind of lose any rational thought with it where you're like, okay, he's screwed up and what he's done is really stupid? But you think this should be a season? You think this should be half a season? I think 20 games is a lot. But then it's like, wait, you don't think what he did is bad? Again, didn't say that.

But it's a contest to see how much the person who doesn't even really know the person and probably doesn't care that much about the person. It's a contest to show off how serious you're taking this thing. Because in the moment, man, in the moment, it's dangerous to seem as if you're being dismissive. Very different note, Ryan. What did you make of LeBron James's press conference after Game, before the Western Conference Finals? I don't blame him for being exhausted.

I don't blame it for being mentally exhausted. What he's doing is, you know, it's not rare territory, it's new territory, right? It's like discovering another continent. We're talking about what he's doing at this age this many minutes into his NBA career. If you've been friends or covered, any athletes, like right after it's over,

is the worst time to ask him about their future of retirement's even an option. But with LeBron, I think everything's very calculated. I think at times he's so calculated, that it's a waste of energy where in the past, I think he said things publicly about his basketball situation, which was a warning to the front office and warning to owners. He's one of the all-time greats, but it's about his quest. And it's been successful, but he's a mercenary. He's a mercenary as a basketball player. And I don't think it's his responsibility to make sure the

attention stayed on Denver sweeping them, right? That's not his fault because I saw that, you know, The A block tomorrow deserves to be devoted to the Denver Nuggets. Right, right. There you go. Right back full circle. I can understand Denver fans, but like just, you know, cares. You're in the finals, right? You just swept them.

Good for you guys. But I thought it was, you know, I thought it was a very, very typical LeBron playbook move where he was going to threaten retirement or hint at it as a warning, which, you know, I just think. I like basketball players that are partners and when things get weird he starts to kind of go on the passive aggressive offensive

and I I don't know man like I don't know why he wants to be with Kyrie again so bad but if that was like a hey I may retire unless you guys figure out a way to get Kyrie like and I don't think he's going to retire I mean for years and years and years have been

old, his quest was to play with his son. His son is, you know, at least in the conversation of playing with him as a possibility. So I don't think he wants to retire. I can't imagine him with this much basketball and I'm wanting to retire anytime soon. But I think he's a very calculated dude. And sometimes I think it's really smart. It makes a ton of sense. But I think he does it so often there's other times where it feels like it's a miss. It was really funny that next day in media because none of us really believe that LeBron James going to retire. I don't think any fans really believe LeBron's going to retire. Nobody was like, wow, we could have seen the end of a great career tonight.

That's it. You know, time to say goodbye. But because it's LeBron and because that's the A block, you have to do a segment and probably a segment at the top of the show trying to decode what that means. And again, it's totally fine to be like, it's Kyrie, it's him putting pressure on the front office, whatever it is. It's just a very strange set of circumstances to be a media member in a moment like that. And I can't totally remember or think of anything that's exactly like that. Yeah, I know. It's a good point. But there have to be examples. Like, I feel like this is one of

those things where it's like there are examples, but they're just, these are tough examples that think of off the top of your head of like, you know, baseball trade deadline, like the worst thing you can do, especially when it's like a clubhouse and it's every day. And before the trade deadline, you tell the local beat guy, but we need some better arms in here. Like, you just, you can't do that because this guy's going to, the end of the season is a little different. I also feel like, and it's not even specific to LeBron, but I just feel like it's a little insulting to the front office. You know, I'm sure there's some owners where maybe they've got to go a little bit deeper into the old checkbook than they normally would, feeling like there's some external pressure. But I just, I don't think NBA front office is sit around being like, hey, what do you want to do this off season?

You're like, I don't know, maybe we'd get marginally better, you know, with A.D. and LeBron in this short one. window. Like, I don't know. Do you even want to try? Like, I don't know, dude, I'm not even watching that much of the draft stuff. And then it's like, wait, wait, LeBron City may retire if we're not, you know, that's all right, you know what, let's actually make the team better now. Let's all work a little harder. And maybe there's, there's something to it. But it, it, I look, he's a theatrical dude, man. He's, he's been in front of the camera since junior high. I don't know how you could not be theatrical, knowing that everyone is watching you for more than half your life. You've delivered and more on any expectation of you as a player and as a person. He's one of the great

success stories in the history of American sports. And so I think it'd be hard to not feel like you're at the center of the stage all the time when he's always been at the center of stage. And I think it's part of his personality. And it's not necessarily criticism as much as it's an observation in that I think he can be theatrical, whether it's on the court or off of it. Last question for you. Since you mentioned the draft, you're in draft mode studying all these guys. By doing the work that you do, how good do you think you can get at predicting how good these players are going to be? Doing the work only makes me realize how much harder the job of predicting is.

I think we're more younger, we're really certain about everything because we haven't been wrong enough yet. And when Bill, who loves to do, you're like, which GM sucks and who sucks and, you know, which GMs. was the suckiest. It's fun, like, stuff. It's fun radio stuff. I think he gets frustrated at me at times because I was like, okay, but here's why he would have done this, this, or this. And, hey, it didn't work.

He's like, yeah, it didn't work, dude. Like, that's the point. And I think he probably feels like deep down, like I always want to work for a team, so maybe I'm being too nice. And that's definitely not it anymore. You know, whatever. There's definitely things that I've noticed.

You'd like to think after this many thousands of hours of watching the same sport. that there be a couple things that you notice when you're watching drafted players. We're like, okay, physically this jumps out from him that's special. Oh, okay, you know what? He's actually noticing things around him

even though he doesn't have the basketball. Oh, look at this guy. He doesn't know that he's actually allowed to pass. I don't need an assist number. I can see that he never looks to another cutter. He's missing people all the time. So I know that I've gotten better at like these these things where I notice like,

okay, this is what you see. Like, this is what you see an NBA player. But the guys that are the best at this still screw up all the time. I mean, the quarterback thing, it's always funny to me when I, when I'll see kind of like some new approach to it and or like, hey, the quarterback's all bus. It's because the guys are doing it wrong the whole time. It's actually kind of funny because it relates to what we were talking about with programming. It's like, is it that they're doing it wrong and there's a secret magical way to do it right or is it the act itself is actually that hard? They think about people in relationships, the people you think you know, where you're like, hey, we're all evaluating each other, right?

Marriage alone. You know, you're putting in the hours, you're watching the tape, you think you get a good read, and then, you know, you move a different situation, different surroundings. And you were like, I thought I knew this person. And that's just marriage. I don't know why people think there's some new way of doing the quarterback evaluation where all of a sudden you're going to hit on 75. percent of the first rounders. So I'm more accepting of how hard it is because I try to at least do it with the basketball stuff. And I just like doing it. I got sick of reading other people's mock drafts. And I'd be, you know, I first, first started. I'd memorize everybody's mock drafts. And I'd form my opinion that way.

And then I'd be wrong. And I was pissed. I was like, look, if I'm going to be wrong, I might as well be wrong because of what I think. Right. But I do know that even though not playing at a high level or really any level that matters, not coaching. There's still stuff like an adjustment than Van Gundy will point out. They're like, ah, I didn't see it. I needed him to point it out for me. I'd like to think that on players, even with as many misses

as a lot of guys, like, I'd like to think that I've gotten better at just going like yes or no on certain guys. I know I have, but nobody's going to make it make me sound like a dick. It's going to make me sound like I'm being arrogant about it. I wouldn't keep doing it and then sharing my opinion. If deep down, I was like, hey, you're, you suck at this. Like, you're always wrong

about all of these dudes. And I just like it. And it also gives you like a really good, it's a really good foundation for watching the NBA players because you go like, oh man, remember when I thought that guy could do this? And you got better at this. And that's the other part about all this stuff.

Like, who's actually going to show up and improve? And some guys will not improve because they don't want to. And it's really hard to figure out who those guys are in short interviews and asking other coaches. And, you know, it's a very, I can't even say it's a flawed process. it's a challenging process that I respect it more as opposed to thinking that I have it solved because I know I don't and I don't think anybody does.

And an NFL draft writer wants to tell me that it's a little bit like baseball batting average. If you're really great, you're going to hit 300. You're not going to hit 500 or 700. You're hit like 300, maybe 350. If you're really, if you're bad at it, or let's say average at it, you hit 250. And if you're bad at it, you hit 200. So we're talking, and again, we could say, well, you need to hit, you need to get those hits in the first round, second round with that quarterback right at the top of the draft, right?

There's a lot of variation in there. But his point was, I've been doing this for years and years. And when I do well, I hit 300. Like, that's about as good as it gets. And that also plays into like the fears where, you know, I had a GM tell me about the lottery in the mock drafts. He's like, if we didn't have mock drafts, it would be totally different. And I was like, well, okay, explain. he goes because if you're on the fence about a guy and your owner sees you took the guy that was like projected to go 12 over the guy that was projected to go 6th he might as well just take the guy that's going to go 6th that's fascinating right it's the old prozingis Carl Anthony towns thing it's like if I take prozengis and I'm wrong I'm fired if I take towns and I'm wrong you know maybe they'll make me change out my scouting staff a little bit and you know the owner

part of it is a big deal. And look, drafting isn't the only part of the job. It's, you know, I think the best and worst GMs, it's great. Like, there's certain scouting departments from like, man, they're really good. They're consistently always finding guys later on, right? Or they have, you know, some principles in place about production, right? Like, they've got to have a certain level of production wherever they were at. So we're not taking guys that are complete, like, close your eyes and swing as hard as you can. But then when it's picked 15, like John Hammond, we had him in an interview. And I was like, like what's the secret?

You know, when I was younger, I was like, what do these guys see? What lens do they watch all this stuff through to be able to do this job? And then you realize, like,

it's not this special vision that they have. It's that they, they see those identifying traits maybe quicker than anybody else does because they've been watching it so long. And so, like, I was like,

hey, you know, what happened with Janus? Like, how'd you figure it out? How'd you figured it out? How'd you figured out? And Hammond was like, how we had the 15th pick.

Like, whatever. Like, he's pretty tall. Like completely, he, I was giving him the opportunity to praise himself and he wouldn't even take it. He was like, look, man, he goes physically, we were just like, man, if this guy ever were to kind of like figure it out, you may have something here.

I'm like, okay, we've got the 15th pick. That's why he went as late as he did. And so, you know, the rest of the job is the owner's driving you crazy. The owner's having a plan and then giving completely impatient. The owner's being at the golf course, having other members tell him their team sucks. And then it's like, go trade for this guy. hey, he's older in the contract stinks. I don't care.

I want to win 48 games instead of. So, like, you can have a plan. You can have it all mapped out as a GM. I don't think that we do enough on how much the owners can impact. Like, even good for, like, there's guys that I know are great evaluators. And you would think they're terrible GMs. And, you know, it kind of gets back to the original point of, like, all the work, 21 years of doing it. I think I have more sympathy for the position than I would the arrogance of thinking that

just anybody that watches a lot of basketball could do it. Brian Rosillo, I love talking to you about this stuff. We'll continue the conversation off the air and then on the air eventually too. Thanks for coming to the press box. Thanks, Brian. That's the press box. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Servantes.

I think I got a whole CNN reading list for you today. Start with Tim Alberta's piece in the Atlantic. You should definitely check out Ben Smith's piece and semaphore, Brian Stelter's piece, which was written. right before Lick's departure in New York Magazine. There's a big New York Times piece that has the detail about Lick losing his job in the park. It's got like four bylines on it. Check that out.

Jack Schaefer in Politico, a whole cornecopia of CNN reading for you. In the meantime, read, relax, revise your nut graphs. Let us meet back here Monday. Shall we for more lukewarm takes about the meeting. Have a fantastic weekend.