The Press Box - This Week in Ringer Sports (Nov. 27–Dec. 1, 2017) (Ep. 391)

Episode Date: December 2, 2017

On 'This Week in Ringer Sports,' Joel Embiid joins J.J. Redick on his debut podcast (00:30), 'The Ringer NBA Show' discusses the Blake Griffin injury (04:45), 'GM Street' reacts to the Eli Manning benching (07:45), 'The Press Box' breaks down Greg Schiano's short-lived career at Tennessee (12:15), 'Ringer U' weighs out the importance of dynasties in college football (16:45), 'The Masked Man Show' thinks WWE should refocus Roman Reigns's story line (20:30), and Steve Kerr shares some Michael Jordan stories on 'The Bill Simmons Podcast' (25:45). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to this week in Ringer Sports. I'm Liz Kelly bringing you the highlights from the Ringer podcast network. It was a really big week over here at The Ringer. We released a trailer for the Andre the Giant documentary, which we're doing with HBO and the WWE. And we had our very first episode of the JJ Reddick podcast. We have been so excited about this over here, and his first episode did not disappoint.

He brought on Joelle Embed, and in our first clip of this week, they talk about the process of realizing Embed's own talents. Was there a moment? Was it like, what was the first time? where you were like, oh shit, I'm really good? Oh, I mean, I think it's kind of like fair to like say that when I started playing ball, especially when I got to the state.

I mean, my junior year, I was playing JV literally with little kids, like junior year in high school. Think about it. And then there was that moment during my junior year. when I got caught back up with the senior team and we played in the National Championship tournament and I ended up having like a good semifinal and a good final.

That's when people started seeing me, but like, I was still not there. Like I wasn't good enough. Like I was just like a great running big and black shot, athletic and I go to college. I played my first pickup game against all those guys. And then that's when I'm like, huh, I'm not ready for this. These guys were just too physical.

And I don't know if you saw, if you seen my pigs when I was like younger, like I was like so skinny. And then I went I went into coach's office. And then I was like, man, I don't think I'm ready. Like I want a sweatshirt. And then going into college, I thought I was going to be there for five years, four or five years. So I sure one year and then play for four years. and stuff happened. I get to the league.

I miss two years. I lose my brother, so I go through a lot. And when that time came for me to come back on the court and play my first game, I mean, I think my first game I play like 24 minutes. And mind you, in college, I wasn't a score. Like, I was just rebounding the ball, blocking shot, pretty good defensively, offensive.

regular hook shot, like typically big man. And my first game, I think I scored 20 points in 24 minutes. And then that's when I figured out that, like, hey, it's easy. Like, it's not easy to, like, thrive in the league or scoring the league. But I was like, and I was playing against Stephen Adams, like, big, big dude and, like, really good defensively. And then I'm, like, 20 and 24 minutes. So it wasn't until your first NBA game of your third season where you were like,

I'm good, I can do this. He wasn't even at that point. I think I was, I think I still haven't figured out yet. I think I'm still like going through a lot when I'm like, oh, damn, like, I'm really good. But I don't think the moment where I'm like, this is the moment that I feel like, oh, I made it. Like, I'm really fucking good.

Like, I'm, like, tough out playing in the league or something like that. Like, I don't think that moment that's come yet,

but, like, there's some moments where, like, I do this type of moves and then I'm like, did I just do this? Like,

the dream shake or, I don't know, like, sometimes I'm just, like, do a Karim hook shot. Yeah. Like,

I don't work on that. Like, like, because I know that, like, I'm just trying to focus on, like,

areas on my game, but like me doing it in the game, I'm like, oh, damn, I have a potential to do that. Like, and then that just shows me that, oh, I got so much, I got so much more to, like, walk on and so much more to show. But I just think, I would say the first game, but I don't think the right moment that's come yet. Unfortunately, moving on to much sadder basketball news, Clippers forward and potential Kardashian cursed victim, Blake Griffin suffered in the Indian.

injury on one day, adding to an already just really ugly Clippers season. On the rear NBA show this week, Chris Fernin and Kevin O'Connor talk about the impact of Blake's injury. Clippers had won three in a row. But have they really? You saw Blake go down and get injured. And it sounds like he's going to be out for a long time. He has been plagued with injuries throughout his career.

What do we do here? Do you think, I mean, they were already not having the season that some had expected you at the beginning of the year. And they had already lost, they lost Pat Bev for a time. They had lost Golanari. I mean, do you think they can even be okay without Blake Griffin? Or do you think that this now, especially without Paul on that team anymore, that they're just. super dead without Griffin and that they're going to be a miserable team for two months. What do you think?

Bad, bad, bad times are ahead for that team. I think the Clippers are in serious, serious jeopardy of just falling off the rails over this period of time that Blake Griffin's out, two to three months with a spring MCL. I'd be extremely concerned, you know, yes, they won three in a row, but those wins were against Atlanta, Sacramento, and the Lakers. It required 42 points from Lou Williams to beat the Lakers. You needed 33 from Blake to beat the Kings and the final minutes. And then you beat the Hawks whoopty-do. They are a team where you look at those three wins in a row. If anything, those are actually losses because your team is going to be near the bottom of the barrel without Blake.

And that's the scary part because this team, you know, you said, should I apologize? for Houston, well, like I did last week or the week before, I was dead-ass wrong about the clippers. I focused too much on the upside with that team, or if Blake's healthy, if Gallo's healthy, if Patrick Beverly's healthy. And you know what? All three of them have gotten heard already. Beverly's out, Blake's out, Gallo, you know, hopefully he comes back soon. They're in trouble, man. They're in real trouble. It's only, and how long is it until you fire Doc Rivers either? I mean, there's so much wrong with that team. from a chemistry perspective, your head coach, he is somebody who I think it's getting close to

time to move on from. I just feel like December or January, that team is just due for a serious implosion. And I'd be very nervous if I'm a clubber's fan, like our producer Isaac is. I'm sorry, Isaac, but it's a bad place to be. You know, you've got to feel bad. You know it's doomed when KOC can't even find any hope for your team. But there's just one more piece of bad sports news before we move on, and this one really stings for me. So on Tuesday, Giants QB, Eli Manning was benched for backup Gino Smith

in an atrocious move that angered and confused players and analysts, including Tate and Lombardi. In this clip from GM Street, they discussed the move. I'm not an Eli fan. I think Eli's days are beyond them, but you can't treat a guy who's one. two Super Bowls for you and whose name is on the wall of the stadium eventually like this. You just can't bench him in season. You've got to grin and bear it. You've got to suck it up.

And if you do play somebody else, it can't be Gino Smith. And so this all comes out, and obviously a lot of people's first reaction was, I guess the Giants have already thrown the season. They're trying to go for draft picks. So they've made this decision to put Gino out there because they don't want to win football games. But that's not what Ben Bacadu's saying. He's saying he's binging to Eli Manning because he thinks he has a better chance. to win with Gino Smith as his quarterback. And you're saying that's not the case, right? I mean, there's no way that can be the case.

I mean, they're two, they've won two games, right? Or they've won one game, right? Two games, yes, just two games. The Kansas City Chiefs, yeah. That was probably the highlight of their season. They've won one game. I mean, like, they're going to win anymore. I mean, right now they're sitting there with the 49ers, you know,

for a chance to beat them in a game. So, like, look, you know, they're sitting there with the second pick of the draft. No doubt that they keep playing Eli, they're going to get the pick, but this is beyond the pick. I mean, this is tanking on Sterling, this is ridiculous. Eli has won championships for you. Yes, he's not the same

player. Yes, he can't do a lot of things. But this team is bad. Whomever you put it quarterback, and so we can wait. Gino Smith, if you want to learn about Gino Smith, go in the back room, go to your computer, put the 30 games he started for the New York Jets on, watch every throw he ever made.

You'll learn everything you need to know about him in that tape. Because when you put Gino out in front of this bad line, and you put Gino out in front of this offense, it's only going to get worse. So stop this. To me, this is what you get for hire in Ben Mcadoo as your head coach. Look, I've said it. I've been on McAdu's case since the day he got the job. I interviewed him when I was in Cleveland. I was least impressed about him. He doesn't have a command. And this behavior, I think the key point here is this. John Mara had a sign off on this. Like, they're not doing this without John Marriss. This is not a Jerry Reese, Ben McAdoo decision. This decision has to get approved it. To me, that's the biggest mistake of all.

So do you think of the mayor of family in general, are they trying to send a sign to Eli Manning that, hey, we don't, we aren't necessarily tied to you. You're too comfortable at this point. We want to send a message because it feels like it's sort of that thing because Ben McAdoe actually came out and he had his press conference not too long ago. And he says, just because Eli got benched does not mean his time with the Giants is over, as if he, you know, there's a chance he comes back and starts next week. Why do they let him go to press conferences? Like, why do they, they just got, somebody's got to take the keys away from this guy. Like, don't let him drive. He, you know, my dad's 91. I don't want him to drive anymore.

It's the same thing to the McAdoo. He shouldn't be going to the podium. Like, this is ridiculous. Of course his career's over with. You just slapped him in the face. You just disrespected him. It's like Uncle Junior says to Tony. I show you in my hand, you slap it away.

I mean, he disrespected this guy. Look, we benched Bernie Cozard in Cleveland. We never won a Super Bowl in Cleveland. We never did anything. If he wasn't a problem in locker, we turned a team around. We made that decision. This guy's not a problem in your team. This guy didn't get beat out by somebody else.

Testiverty played much better than it. And you've got flags hanging in your stadium that this guy won, whether it's the past, whether it's the unbelievable throat of Mario Manningham in the end zone. I'm not a fan. I think his career is beyond him. But to do this to him, I think it's an injustice. So to summarize this whole situation, Macadieu has shamed his two-time Super Bowl MVP quarterback, angered all of the Giants fans and will probably still lose,

so this is a bleak situation. If you need any more answers on the topic, Bill actually just put up a mail back home dedicated to Eli Manning. In another instance where fans were outraged this week, last Sunday newsleek that Greg Shiano was set to become the new coach for the University of Tennessee, but the deal was quickly next due to public protests of the hire. On the press box this week, David and Brian discussed the handling of Shiano's situation.

The speed at which the narrative arc took place in this story is maybe the most compelling part of it, right? I mean, the distance between we're leaking out that Tennessee was going to hire Shiano and then the chorus of loud voices emerging online in various forms. And then the chorus of defenses of Shiato coming in

largely from the sports writer contingent. It seemed like it all happened. If you weren't paying attention, it all happened at the same time. Yeah. And a lot of, a couple of the reactions said, you know,

this is unprecedented what's happening here. That people, that fans, crazy Twitter people, Clay Travis should be able to rise up and get a coach knocked out of the thing. But to me,

it's like, the speed is what's interesting, as you say, this has been happening for years. Yeah. Remember firecoach so-and-so.com? Sure. Remember when that was the thing?

When I was at the University of Texas and we had our bad, football coach John McEvick. There was like a plane that flew over the stadium that said flush the John. That was a good one. That was the overused Twitter joke of the week. Circa in 1981 or whatever that way. Overused plane joke of the plane flying over the stadium joke of the week.

People have been exerting, you know, influence on these things, if that's the word for it. Yeah. Forever. It's not new. Well, what's new is that the way. that the actual hiring process, the fact that it happens in, you know, almost complete darkness to the fan base and the general public, now there is a means of responding to it in time. With the speed, you know, with almost the same speed at which is announced, you can express,

you can express your discontent with that selection, whereas even five years ago, you know, the fastest response was the column in the sports page the next day. Absolutely. And we know they were going to hire him Sunday night. Right. The plan was to announce the hire. And this was what also made me cringe at some of the responses was essentially what you're saying is the press shouldn't have time to vet this idea.

Right. Even if you ultimately come to the conclusion that the Penn State accusation is basically hearsay, there's no proof of it, we're comfortable with it, right? Sure. We're uncomfortable with the accusation, but we're comfortable with the idea because we've talked to Shiano and he assured us that it's not true. Right. You are bringing that scandal from a different school into your public university to some level. And why do a couple of decision makers at the school get to decide this with no buy-in from MBS?

And if that's the case, why is the press rooting for that to happen? That's the craziest part. I mean, all of these football writers should be saying, you know, I disagree with, I mean, for whatever reason, I disagree with all these voices of fans and commentators that upended the deal. But please get like, like allow, like I should have been able to make this case a week ago. Sure. You know?

Even to defend him. Exactly. Let's have this. And the whole thing is they're saying this issue is so explosive that if we talk about it for a couple of hours, his whole thing will be, his whole, you know, job will go to hell. Yeah. And it's like, well, maybe if it's that explosive, maybe we should talk about it. about it.

Exactly. Maybe we should talk about it. And by the way, the other thing I saw, saw this from Pat 40 in his column about it, says, oh, all this Penn State stuff was really a cover because people don't think that Greg Shiana was a good football coach. And they're using the Penn State stuff because they want John Gruden or they want whoever, you know, they're not going to get him either. But they want somebody else. By the way, if you thought that hiring Greg Shiana was a bad idea because you don't think he's a good football coach, that was also worth discussing.

Yeah. That was also an argument worth having. Sure. So we are continuing the college football discussion on Ringer University. So on Monday, University of Alabama lost to Auburn in the Iron Bowl, which led to a discussion by Ben and Roger about the importance of dynasties like Alabama to college football. Do you think that college football is more compelling when the Alabama destruction machine occasionally falters? Because every college football season for basically the last 10 years has gone through Alabama. Do you think that is a positive or a negative?

You know, we always want to say that Alabama bores us that, oh, I hate having Alabama be good every year. But I'm going to, it makes it more fun when there's a villain. And some of the most memorable games of the last decade, like, I'd say like half of them are Alabama losses. Because they're these weird, you know, glitches in the Matrix that we remember and we, we, hold on to and normally it takes something ridiculous to beat them. I've come to appreciate Alabama as this extremely powerful evil in the sport that if you get rid of it, all of these great results lack meaning. You know, the kick six.

Amazing. You know, another Iron Bowl memory is Cam Newton coming back. The cam back. Yes. in the Iron Bowl if you said Johnny Deshawn Watson last year

so many of all of the best games not all of them but when Alabama loses it changes the college football world it's the memory that we love and we we remember

and so I've come to I've come to terms with the you know omnipresence of extremely strong Alabama. It's important that they not win every single game, though. They've got to teeter that fine edge between being perfect and being, you know, just good enough that they're, you know, they're the most perfect dynasty that you can ever really

create with a rotating cast of 19-year-olds. I think that's a good way to put it. Yeah. I mean, I think the David versus Goliath point that you bring up is important, right? All of these games are meaningful because we know who the person at the top is, and when you take that person out, it means a lot more. I don't think that team always has to be Alabama. It just has happened to be Alabama for the past decade.

It could turn out five years from now that Clemson is that team. It could turn out that Ohio State rises back to glory and is sort of sitting at the top for a while. I think having one team, though, that is clearly the team to beat is really important for the sport, because everything is more important. important when that team does go down. I don't think it necessarily always has to be Alabama, but Nick Saban happens to be a really good coach. And yeah, and his teams are always going to be in the mix as long as he's there. If you look at other memories, it's like, you know, you go back

to 2005 Rose Bowl. Yep, exactly. Or I wouldn't quite say the same about Miami losing to Ohio State. But, you know, same idea where it's great when there's a team that's like that. But, you know, Alabama has really extended this chain of being that team for longer than some of the past, you know, dynasties. Because normally it's based around a group of people who can only play for four years. Yeah, absolutely. We are moving on to wrestling now. So just before Thanksgiving break, Roman Reins defeated the Miz on Raw for the Intercontinental title. On the mass man show this week, David Chewaker and Bleacher reports, Dave Schilling, questioned the reasoning behind Reins'

Intercontinental Champion Belt. Obviously, it's beneath him. Obviously, this is just like an effort to kind of prop up the show and give it a focus and give him and give him a Grand Slam Championship. So it's another accolade. Well, I'll tell you one thing that nobody cares about is Grand Slam Championships. The only people that care about that are the people that hate Roman Raines and they're, and you only care about a Grand Slam thing in retrospect.

Also, JBL cared because JBL got left off the www.com list and he tweeted about it. Oh, wow. I think that there's no benefit to the belt either because the belt was for years designed to give people who have nothing to do and who are on their way up, something to do. To give a platform to people who deserve it. Imagine if Finn Baller won the IC title and what that would have done for him. It does nothing for Roman Raines. It doesn't make him any stronger or cooler. He beat the Miss who has been established as a coward.

Sure. And who has been run down for his wrestling acumen by people like Daniel Bryan and by Roman Reigns for a long time. Yeah. And it's a belt that Roman Raines doesn't really care about. He's never expressed any interest in it before. And now all of a sudden he's like, this is the most important belt in the entire company. And then you know, you know, in two months, when the Royal Rumble comes around, he's going to be like, The universal title means more to me than anything else.

Like, well, what about the intercontinental title? This is just, it's all, it's nonsense. I don't want to leave this subject. Another thing I'm not thankful for is the fact that there's no, they don't have any story plan for Finn Baller right now. Well, he's getting beat up by Kane every week. That's the story. I mean, they're going to, see he's going to feud with Kane?

No, because that's Bronzeman. He's just there to put Kane over. He's like, if, like, we're treating Bronzeman like Brock Lesnar, he's not going to be there. And so, so, I mean, Finn literally ran in to save Jason Jordan

and then was beat up so Braun-Stroman could make the save. Also, he did his entrance. And Kane just stood there watching him. At some point, he has to not do the entrance. If he's doing a run-in,

if he's a surprise, he should just run into the ring. He shouldn't stop and throw his hands in the air while the heel's looking at it. You're right. And at some point, the heel in the ring, how great would have been,

if Kane had just, when he came out and it was clear he was doing the entrance, Kane had just pointed at his wrist, like he's checking his time, and then just kept on beating up Jason Jordan. Yeah. He's like, I know I can do this for a while. Although, what if Finn just would win the IC title? Like, let him have that. I know.

It would have been great. It would have been much better. This is not on my notes. You can look at my screen. This is not something I came in with. But if you want, if you, like, since I'm complaining here, let me fantasy book Roman Reigns. Oh, boy.

In a way that WWE, WWW will approve of. we all know he's going to be fighting Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania save some crazy turn of offense, right? By the way, giving him the icy title and having him open raw with terrible promos and putting him in the main event is a good start to ruining your WrestleMania main event. Great job.

Well, they already started booing him again. Right, I know, that's what I'm saying. You're putting a position to fail. Here's what you do. Take a page from UFC, and I know WWs, they're not, they do it all the time. Take a page from UFC. Have Roman Rangers to open the show

Don't give them the icy title. I'm retconning that. Have them open the show and just be like, like, I just talked to the producer backstage and Brock Lesnar is not scheduled to be on Raw for eight more weeks. That is embarrassing. And so I am your new interim WW or Universal Champion

until someone takes this, I haven't come out with the old belt, until someone takes this away from me, I'm headlining this show. If Brock Lesner wants to come show up and be the champ, he can, but I know he's not going to because he's on a super part-time contract.

I'm here defending this belt so that you guys can have someone to watch wrestle cheer me or boomie, I don't care. There you go. Your WrestleMania made events already set up. It's great. It's simple. Because it's logical. Of course he would be pissed off. They should all be...

The entire locker room should be angry that Brock Lesnar is not there every week. And they probably are in real life. As a shoot, they're probably like, get this guy's never here. He parachutes in for a pay-review. gets a big payday and he goes home. And I have to be on the road every week.

Yeah. So why not include that in the storyline? It doesn't even have to be a quote-unquote worked shoot like the Sina Rames thing. Yeah, no, not at all. It's just people would say that in a real wrestling situation. People used to say that I would have grown up watching Memphis wrestling. People would point out the fact that the champ didn't show up in the studio. Paper champion.

Prove yourself. Face me. And you have months of that, months of that. And for those who want more shoemaker in their lives, If you check out are Andre the Giant documentary trailer that I mentioned earlier, you will hear a very familiar maskedman voice. In our last clip of the week, we have the Bill Simmons podcast. The Warriors are vined for a fourth straight finals appearance led by their head coach, Chief Kerr, who appeared on the Bill Simmons podcast. He answered listener questions, so here's a clip from that interview, which includes some legendary Jordan practice stories.

A couple of Jordan questions. Kevin Murray, the most intense Jordan practice story you can tell. You don't have to tell the story about the fight because everybody knows that one. Um, every, every day was, there was no most intense. It was every day he was the psycho. Every day he was psycho. And that's, I've never seen anything like it from any player that I've coached or been around. Um, practice meant so much to him. And everything was a competition. And he talked so much trash. And he literally drove some guys off the team, guys who couldn't take it because his whole philosophy was, I'm going to talk trash. I'm going to put pressure on you. And you better be able to deal with it. otherwise you're not going to be able to be my teammate.

And there were guys he drove right out of the organization. It was amazing. What happens if him and Dremont are on the same team somehow? Oh, man, that would be some. Did they get along or would they fight to the death? Oh, no, Michael would love Dremont. Yeah. I'd love him, you know, because of how hard he plays.

And Dremont, I'm pretty sure, would have revered Michael. Yeah, I was going to say. So I think it would have worked fine. Yeah, he probably would have tried to keep up with him in the casinos, which might not have been good for Dremont. Yeah, he might have. I don't know if they had to talk with Draymond. Now we're having a time machine conversation about Draymond.

Jason says, can you give us a story of MJ's inhuman competitiveness? This is a natural follow-up question. We used to have this game. We called it the Jack Haley shootout. And so for some reason, every shoot-around, Jack Haley, rest his soul, passed away last year. great teammate, fun guy to be around. He was our 15th man on the Bulls. He wanted to have a contest from the hash mark.

And it started out as Jack and me and Judd Bushler, I think, and the three of us. And Michael saw it happening. And he wanted in. Yeah. And before long, there were eight guys who took part, and we did it every shoot-round, and it was for money. Oh, no.

And when Michael would win, you know, You think about the hash mark, so it's out of bounds. He had to shoot from out of bounds at the hash mark, probably at 35, 40 footer. Yeah. And when he would make it, it was like he won game seven of the finals. I mean, it was insane. And there was money, you know, money involved. I can't remember exactly how much we shot for, but, you know, he demanded the money right away,

and he talked so much junk about it. Did Randy Brown come over and hug him each time after one? Randy took part. Randy was part of the Jack Haley issue. Is there a Michael George? and story you've never told before today when you've just kept buried on ice all these years. Maybe it was a Jack Haley shootout.

Have you told that one? Yeah, all right, we'll use that one. All right. One more MJ question. Was any player sneaky good against MJ in practice to the point that you were just shocked that they could go toe to toe with them? This is from Tyler.

I guess the answer to that was probably no. Yeah. Sorry, Tyler. Would M.J. have won six titles without the triangle? That's from Sean and Warsaw, Indiana. I'm going to say no. I think less than six. I think less than six, too.

They made him move around and give up the ball a little bit. Yeah, yeah. But the triangle can't work anymore at this point in time, right? You've borrowed pieces of it, but it can't actually work the way basketball is playing now. Yeah, I think it's, it was hard to run back then. It took a special coach and a special group of players. Obviously, you have to have talent in any offense. that was a, you know, you had Tex winner who invented the offense.

You had this incredible coaching staff. And you had a superstar who was ready to buy into it. This is my favorite Michael Triangle story. I wasn't even there yet, but I heard the story the next year. 91 finals, they beat the Lakers. They finally break through. And Phil Jackson says to Michael halfway through the fourth quarter of the clinching game, they're double teaming him every time and Michael's forcing some shots and and Phil says during a

timeout Michael who's open yeah and Michael won't answer and he's like Michael who's open and finally you know the third time MJ who's open and Michael looks at him says packs and and Phil goes and throw him the effing ball right right and and this is what was great about Phil like he would challenge anybody. But he was, you know, he had this partnership with Michael, but he wasn't afraid of Michael. And so he challenged him. That was like the watershed Jordan kind of buying in moment, right? That was the moment. And if you remember, Pax hit five straight jumpers in the fourth quarter, breaks the game open. And I think that was the moment where Michael realized, as good as he was, he had to rely on his teammates. And that was the value of the triangle. Not that it made any

difference for Michael. Yeah. But it made all the difference for John Paxson and for me and for B.J. Armstrong and for everybody else. And that's the whole point of any offense. It doesn't matter what we won. KD and Steph are going to keep people engaged. Fine. All right, that is the roundup for this week, you guys. You can find the full-length versions of all these podcasts. And of course, subscribe at the ringer.com slash podcasts.

I'll be back with hopefully better sports news next week.