The Press Box - Why the Nancy Guthrie Case Captivates America, Joel’s Winter Olympics Takes, and Tales From an NBA Locker Room With Logan Murdock

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Bryan and Joel are back, and they start by talking about the national story of Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance (1:04). Then we get Joel’s thoughts on the Winter Olympics (13:50). They also give their final Super Bowl thoughts (26:15), and they talk through some ideas for how to fix the NBA (32:55). Then they are joined by Logan Murdock ahead of All-Star Weekend to hear his locker-room stories covering the Golden State Warriors (41:24). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel AndersonGuest: Logan MurdockProducers: Bruce Baldwin, Isaiah Blakely, and Jamie Yukich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Press Box Thursday. It's Brian Curtis. It's Joel Anderson. It is producers, Bruce Baldwin and Isaiah Blakely. Coming up on this here podcast, why America is tuned in to the story of the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie. Joel is going to put on his spandex luge suit to talk about the Winter Olympics.

Wow. We got some final thoughts about the Super Bowl and the Super Bowl ratings. How to fix the NBA. and ahead of Sunday's All-Star game, our pal Logan Murdoch stops by to tell us some tales from his days as a Golden State Warriors beat writer. Fashion icon Logan Murdoch.

Truly. Look at Instagram if you don't believe us. We got to start with Nancy Guthrie, Joel. Oh, man, yeah. Because as we talk on Thursday morning, she is still missing. Yeah. Nancy Guthrie is 84 years old.

She is the mother of Today Show. host Savannah Guthrie. She disappeared 12 days ago on February 1st from her home near Tucson, Arizona. I mean, that's just, it's really one of the worst nightmares a family can endure because the mystery is probably worse than like certainty or like having some sort of closure about what's going on, right? And the way it is right now, and hopefully, you know, we get some information about what has happened here.

but there's no guarantee that we'll get any real closure at this point. Absolutely not. A number of developments this week on Monday, Savannah Guthrie released a video on Instagram. Here's a little bit of that. So I'm coming on just to ask you, not just for your prayers, but no matter where you are,

even if you're far from Tucson, if you see anything, you hear anything, if there's anything at all that seems strange to you, that you report to law enforcement, we are at an hour of desperation and we need your help on Tuesday, Joel, the authorities released pictures of the apparent

kidnapper who was wearing gloves and a ski mask. Those pictures were taken by Guthrie's doorbell camera. There been a lot of explainers about how that footage was recovered as well. We had Harvey Levin from TMZ making the cable news rounds, speculating on the person or persons who wrote the purported ransom notes. He was also talking about how there was activity in a Bitcoin account that was mentioned

in one of those notes. And then late Tuesday, a man was detained by authorities in Rio Rico, which is south of Tucson. The man was then released, and he told reporters, quote, I hope they get the suspect because I'm not it. Here's what I'd love to discuss with you. Yeah. Why is America so tuned into this story, do you think?

Well, I think Savannah Guthrie is maybe one of the most famous and least polarizing people on daily TV left. She's been doing the Today Show for so long. And that's not a show that is a lightning ride for controversy, right? Like it's usually cooking segments, the bright side of the news. And she's just generally sort of given off a sunny and warm disposition that is really hard to disagree with unless you're a sociopath. And there's more than a few people out there that are like that. But so we know there's a feeling of like familiarity with her. And, you know, it's easy to think about her and see what those people.

pictures of her mom and like, you know, feel, get a sense that we can feel what she's feeling because she's been in front of us for, you know, up 20 some odd years. And her mom's been on the Today show. Yeah. So for people who are really locked into that show, she's a person they know, a person they've seen on television before. Again, you know, if you talk to people, my mother-in-law is one of those people who really watch those morning shows.

They regard the host of those shows like family. Yeah. No things about them. Right. know what they do, know what they like, know their, you know, their habits and, and, you know, their passions and all that kind of stuff. So I think for a big segment of the TV watching audience, this feels very personal. Absolutely. Absolutely. It, you know, it, I mean, we don't know how this is going to end, but you know how like something, some, um, crimes, just a sort of

an inflection point, like, like Adam Walsh. I don't know if people remember Adam Walsh. And it's like it totally reoriented the way a lot of parents parented their children. And like the fears that they had about leaving them alone or, you know, a stranger danger and that sort of thing. And I sort of wonder if that is also sort of driving this too. Because it's like it really, it's so random, but it also feels like that could happen to anybody, right?

Absolutely. Jesse McKinley has a good story in the New York Times called Why Nancy Guthrie's Disapprehend, is breaking through the noise, mentions the celebrity aspect with Savannah Guthrie, mentions, as you say, this idea that it could happen to everybody. Yeah. Or anybody. I mean, you and I have parents who are in their golden years. Absolutely.

And you see a story like this and you're like, you suddenly become even more protective of your parents, more worried about them. That's mixed up in this. You see them get older. You see them get more vulnerable. you see that like, because it hits you right around that age is like, oh, the role of protector has fundamentally changed, right? Like that I, yeah, it's flipped by this point in their lives and that like I'm responsible for their safety in a lot of ways. Man, you know, when I worked at the Hernando Times, which was, you know, one of the regional papers of the St. Petersburg Times, I had to cover this really horrible murder case in Brooksville, Florida.

and an 83, 84-year-old woman had opened her door to somebody in her neighborhood. It was like sort of known to her, but it was still like a street person. And that person murdered her in her home. Like he stabbed her, left that house bloody, whatever. And I remember having to talk to her son about what it happened. And like he was just so torn up about like, I knew that she should have been living on her own. You know, like that was, I remember that was like one of the things that he kept saying, over and I knew that she shouldn't have been living alone. And it's just like, yeah, like that's,

it's, it really touches on anything. Anybody who's watched their somebody that they love that is older than them get, get, get vulnerable and fragile for this to happen. Like, it really would hit you in a particular way. We all have so many versions of that conversation. Oh, should my mom or dad be driving? Should they be living alone? Should they be as far away from me as they might be? You know, Should they be doing this and that as part of their weekly routine? Absolutely. The thing I was thinking about too, and McKinley mentions this, is we live in this world with nest cameras and cell phone signals. And it seems crazy that something like this could just happen.

Yeah. And the authorities would, yeah, exactly. And the authorities would just have no idea about what happened or very few ideas, at least as we talk here on Thursday morning. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean, you know, one of the most controversial Super Bowl ads was about the ring camera, right? And people were sort of upset because, you know, people don't, I mean, there's a debate if you're progressive about whether or not you should invest in ring cameras or whatever. But you hear about something like this. And even it didn't, it has not thus far protected Nancy Guthrie. But you hear about a story like this and you're like, well, this is why people have it. Right. Because if people, it didn't. pieces together, like it's a piece of evidence. If they didn't have that, it's already sort of a, it seems like a really difficult investigation at this point. But if they didn't have that, I mean, just think about how much further behind the eight ball they would be. Do you use a term of art that we employed a lot back in the 1990s? This is a true media circus.

Every break in the case or seeming break in the case has been documented on cable news. You've had ex-law enforcement types parading through every single show. offering their expertise or something like expertise. You have reporters camped outside Nancy Guthrie's house. And this week, the Pima County Sheriff's Department tweeted, we can't believe we have to say this, but media on scene, please do not order food delivery to the crime scene address. This interferes with an active investigation.

Then you have the figure that is inevitably dragged into this or becomes the center of this investigation. Pima County Sheriff, for Chris Nanos. Yeah. Who said, I'm not used to everybody hanging on my words and then trying to hold me accountable for what I say. I mean, so I remember watching one of the early press conferences he gave, but I was like,

well, he's not ready for prong time, right? Like, he's just not used to anything like this. And that's a media story, too, because, I mean, Pima County, the second largest county in Arizona, but, I mean, the second largest county in Arizona. I think the main media outlets there, the Arizona Daily Star, which I've read has like 10,000 digital subscribers. And it has like a normal number of broadcast outlets for sort of a medium-sized outlet. But like he's very rarely had to deal with this sort of thing. My understanding is the last real big national major story there was in 2011 and the mass shooting that involved Gabby Giffords.

I think six people died and that 13 people were wounded. And at the time, Nanos was involved in the investigation and he gave quotes, but he wasn't at the top of things. But just think that was a long time ago to have to deal with national media, right? Like he's just not at the center of things and he's not normally having to have every word parsed the decisions that they're making with the department questioned in that way. It must be, I don't, it's not that I feel sorry for him, but it's just like, man, this is. is not of the kind of case that you guys typically handle, and it's showing right now. You saw it's getting dinged for going to an Arizona, Oklahoma State basketball game?

I kind of felt that wasn't fair, man. First of all, Arizona is great this year. They're really good basketball. I think number one in the country, I think. And so, you know, I mean, the thing is that's what happens when you're in a media storm and you're not used to it, right? Like somebody would have probably been like, you know what? that's probably one of the games you should watch on TV tonight, bro, or whatever.

But even then, I've always vowed not to be a bad look guy. Well, that's a bad look. And I'm like, well, who cares about it? Is it bad? Yeah. Isn't that what's important? You know, is it a bad look? But I'm like, I was also like, you know what?

You probably shouldn't go to a basketball game while. Probably shouldn't. But then it's just like. 9,000 media members are in Tucson. And that kind of tough day, you know, it's like, would make you get your mind off of it for a few minutes like that, but then people would probably credibly say, you probably should not have your mind off of it.

Like this, I'm sure people think you should be thinking about this with every waking moment that you have. Well, that's the thing. It's like, do we think, you know, again, to go back to bad look, would we think this guy shouldn't have two hours where he is not thinking about the case or is doing something else while he's thinking about the case

if he were to do that at home? Would we be against that, you know, in 12 days? I don't know. That's a, that's a tough one. But that was a report. And it was out there and, you know. Yeah. And it's just weird because, like, you people, I'm sure, have sort of an impression of what a sheriff is and where they are.

But it's not like this guy's Joe Arpaio. Like, he's a Democrat. He's a Democrat. He represents a Democratic Party. He's been the sheriff there since 2020. And like, he's said that his department. is not going to enforce federal immigration law. Like, he's, in a lot of way, he's like sort of the vision of like a reformist

law enforcement authority. So it's not like he's, would be the typical law enforcement villain in this case. But, you know, yeah, just whenever people get a chance to start questioning the actions of law enforcement, because, again, most law enforcement is, most law enforcement never has to deal with a case like this anyway, like, no matter how big of a city you're in. Like, it's a very unique case. nobody's going to be well equipped to handle it. And so then every step is going to be scrutinized.

And you end up with people mad that you went to go see the number one team in a country play a home game. Can I tell you how excited I've been to hear you talk about the Winter Olympics? Really? Since the torch was lit, I've been waiting for Joel Anderson's analysis. I am that guy. Milan and Cortina. Here we go. Do you know that my first national job when I was at BuzzFeed?

I covered the 2014 Winter Olympics, but it covered it from home. They gave me a whole little setup where I could record gifts, and I had to get up at 3 o'clock in the morning to watch the... That's so BuzzFeed. The Winter Olympics, yeah, I used to make my own gifts back in the day. Wow. And so, yeah, isn't that crazy? I used to know, and I don't even know where all that equipment is now.

I mean, it's long gone, but since... So, you know, I was thinking, especially after the Super Bowl, I was just like, man, this seems, this seems like we're in sort of a malaise, that there's sort of a low energy and low enthusiasm for, like, major sporting events. And I've been so wrong. Like, it's not reflected. Like, the super, first of all, the Super Bowl, like, did pretty well. But, like, these winter games are the highest rated games since the 2014 games.

And apparently it's a continuation of everything that's happened since the Paris games, which were a hit, if you recall, for people that can even think back two years ago, they were a hit in a way that I can't really recall over the course of my life in terms of like the Olympics. Like it felt like everybody was watching some part of the Olympics at that point. And NBC had done so well carrying them, it was like, damn, they did a really good job with that and everybody was engaged, right? Yes, I totally agree.

And I think two things are happening is one, it's technology finally caught up to the Olympics. Yep. Because the problem with an overseas Olympics would be stuff would happen during the day. Yep. You'd be like they do the old remember turn on turn down your radio when the sports update would come on sports radio if you don't want to hear what happens. Yeah. And then NBC would repackage him from prime time. Yeah.

We've now gotten the point where we have Bacock. We have streaming. So you can just watch anything you want no matter how obscure live on tape whenever you want, which is really, really works for the Olympics. Like what Netflix did to movies, streaming has also done for the Olympics because it's this monstrous, diffuse sporting event. That's one thing. The other thing is, you're right. Like, it feels like there's just so much going on in the world. And it feels like we have so many options that naturally we would be less interested in this.

And I think that is generally true. But at the same time, live sports are the one thing. We are all interested in. Right. And if you ever had any doubt about that, a fan, a network executive, or whatever, like, this really confirms that live sports are the thing that people are going to tune in to watch pretty much whenever. But do you think media has done a good job of reflecting that?

Because I feel like even, you know, we'll talk about Super Bowl later, but I just kind of feel like I haven't seen the coverage or I haven't seen the attention or the, you know, the headlines coming out of there. I've heard about Lindsey Vaughn, you know, tearing her knee and then crashing. in her final, her most recent event. But that's kind of all that's broken through. And I was thinking, well, who the hell is even over there covering the Olympics outside of NBC? Is that because we're just the ultimate casual fans when it comes to the Olympics?

Possibly. Yeah. I mean, I've been watching every night because my kids just love this. Really? But I did not know. California kids loving the winter games, huh? Truly. And they love it in exactly the same way I do.

I'm not football dad where I'm like, okay, this is who this is. This is Sam Darnold's story. I'm like, your guess is who Breezy Johnson is as good as mine, because I just learned that name myself. You know, there's something kind of like wonderful about being a casual fan. Oh, yeah. We were watching the men's Super G last night. Do I know the difference between Super G and other skiing events?

No, I do not. At all. I do not at all. But I watched, and I'm people who are watching us on the Spotify app right now will see me glancing at my notes because I'm going to have to get this right here. Coughran Siegel. Okay. Win a silver last night.

Vermont's very own, Ryan Cochran Siegel. Vermont? And I'm like, this is cool, right? This also feels no matter, forget the fact that J.D. Vance got booed and then everybody got mad

because an Olympian said something other than America. Hooray, we are the best and everything is great. This actually feels like a safe space for patriotism. Yeah. I'm rooting for you skier from Vermont that I've never heard of. And it'd be really cool if you got a medal. And I feel that I feel great.

And that feels uncomplicated to me, unlike other feelings about America or every other feeling about America. I've enjoyed it on that level, too. Oh, that's what's up? Yeah. I mean, and that's totally the way, like, because, I mean, again, it's not like they're sitting around doing, you know, the San Marino, a biathlon competitor or whatever, right? We're not getting a lot of that. So, yeah, so we have the people that they're bringing to us. And NBC, as we've pointed out before, and they're doing a great job with the NBA.

they're really good at telling stories, getting you engaged in these folks and introducing them to you. And it's just like, I don't know anything about this, but I might as well root for this person who I just met 30 seconds ago. 100%.

And NBC, that's an interesting part of it because you're right when you say like the tip-offs that you and I, the Olympic casual, the Olympic normie fan would have gotten decades ago, are gone. Yeah. Remember that Sports Illustrated issue that would arrive in the mail?

And again, once again, who's potentially going to, like metal and everything in every event. Oh, that was so great. Right. Sports Illustert still exists, still covering the Olympics, but used to get something in the mail, and it would be like, oh my gosh, now I understand. I see somebody on the cover. I see

Brian Boytano. It would be that nice, thick Olympic preview issue, and you would just learn everything. Christa Yamaguchi on the cover, you know what I mean? Right before the Olympics, it was fantastic. That doesn't exist in the same way anymore. But if you watch NBC, and again,

I'll go back to the Super G last if I can sound like an expert here. They had a feature on Marco Odomat. Who's that? Well, he's a Swiss skier. He's a multi-time medalist in the Olympics. He, his parents, they were at his house talking to his parents. And you're like, this is so much detail for someone who wound up finishing third in that event.

Yeah. Here's who he is. Here's him talking. Here's his parents. Here's the photo albums of his early days. There's a skier. and you're like, you could do this a lot more cheaply and a lot more half-assed than NBC's doing.

They're putting a lot of muscle into telling you who these people are. The thing is, if they're not going to do it, who's going to do it? And it has me thinking about the Wapo's decision. Because, I mean, they still sent three people over there, including Rick Mace, who's one of the best feature writers in America, of course. Who's staying in the post. He's one of the survivors of the sports section massacre. He made it.

He made it. And I'm just thinking, I just wonder if, like, this is how it's going to be or if this is sort of where we're headed, if, like, this is what sports going to be. It's going to be, like, the networks and the casual sports fan, they're going to really gravitate toward each other, and the casual sports fan is going to tune in for the big events, and they're going to get all their information from the broadcast partner and then the, you know, the hardcore fans, the real, you know, sports stat nerds, they're going to listen, like I do. When I consume college football content, I go to the different podcasts that I listen to,

the different blogs, the different substacks, whatever, the social media accounts. And there's nothing really in the middle for like, you know, because normally in the Houston Chronicle or whatever, you'd read and they'd be, okay, like I'm following the local team or whatever. But I just wonder if people, if there's a fundamental change in the way we think sports are now and what they're supposed to mean to people. It's a good question. I think the Winter Olympics is probably not the best test case for. for that. Yeah. I mean, when I saw that the Washington Post asked for 14 credentials to the

Winter Olympics, that was not the most sympathetic moment I had for the sports section. Fair point. Yeah. Yeah, right. I was like, damn, y'all doing it like it's 1996. I mean, look, and if you're, if you're a Washington Post sports writer, it's not your job to go to Will Lewis, the departed Will Louis and say, hey, please don't put me on this plane because I'm worried about the financial health of the paper. That's somebody else's job. So, I mean, get on the plane. Go for it. But I'm like, really we're saying 14 people to Italy nobody else is who I mean who else would even be maybe the associated press I guess the athletic has I mean but we could I bet we could find somebody in the and I was explained to me that the thing is you have to ask for the same amount

every year so you're going to want 14 for LA in 2028 got you got so you ask for 14 for Italy because the number you don't want the number to go down so oh well you only sent six you know six last time. We only get six for the summer Olympics. Right. But to me, you know, it's like, we have this very old school idea from newspapers of the period and Sports Illustrated, the period that like you just send a squad to everything, even when it's across the world. And even when it's the winter games, which are not going to be as big a part of the American consciousness as something else. And I'm like, I'm, you know, do I want more people to be there? Yes. Do I want people to be able to get on a plane and go? Absolutely. But we also just can

of this in a more modern context. Like maybe, maybe we just send fewer people to stuff like this. Every local newspaper, major local newspaper would send somebody to the Super Bowl, even if they have a team participating. Like the NFL person at that newspaper would go, or the NBA writer would go to the NBA finals or even a number of playoff games. They just start showing up and covering the Western Conference finals or whatever. And like, obviously, that is all gone. And it probably makes a lot of sense, right? Because it's like, yeah, that's of questionable value to the reader. But it sucks for the writers.

It sucks for the people in journalism because there's just a lot few opportunities to do those sorts of big events. But at this point, I'd rather have a job than have to worry about that kind of stuff. We just might have to make it work a different way. Yeah. Last note on the Olympics, skiing.

Yeah. Always exciting. It was part of the member of famous montage for the wide world of sports. Oh, yeah. Thrill of victory and agony of defeat with the big crash. Yeah.

Look, look, it was always a little flat TV-wise. When the skier comes around and now we get another camera shot, now we get another camera shot. It was exciting, but it was only so exciting. Let me tell you something. Drones have absolutely changed skiing on television. It looks phenomenal now. And now you understand a little bit of what it takes to compete in one of those events.

Oh, man. Absolutely. Yeah, it does. It looks so different and so like, yeah, it just, it's not even remotely like, the two-dimensional thing that you got when we were kids are growing up right? There's a better word, yes.

It is in three dimensions and it looks unbelievable. Have you ever skied before, Brian? My mom one time, we went to New Mexico. So I grew up, I don't know if you were around this in Texas, but like all friends would ski,

like that was a big deal. Sometimes there'd be the Christian, you know, skiing trip kind of game or young life. Was that what it was called or whatever? That was a thing? And I don't know what I'm not. But I was not a scary.

because I thought rich people did that. I was not into that. And then my mom one time when we went to New Mexico bribed me with a hot dog and said, can you take one lesson? I was probably in elementary school. And I took one lesson. And then that was one and done for old Curtis.

That was it. I'm down. I've never been skiing. Don't know what it's like. But I like the vibe, like the cabins, the fire, you know, the suits. It seems like that's really fun.

But you know what actually kind, and this is kind of a crazy thing to bring up. Do you know what really kind of fucked me got kind of got scared about skiing what's that sunny bono oh my god you remember sunny bono yes i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm laughing but yeah sorry i p sunny but i mean he lost his life you can die skin didn't somebody else like natasha hinsries or somebody like that die skiing too yeah there's been there been a lot of skiing yeah i was like oh accidents and that might as well be bungee jumping to me man doesn't seem like it's worth the that juice is worth the squeeze you have any final

thoughts on the Super Bowl as long as we're talking sports. I thought it was a decent game, you know? I can understand why nobody else cared because like there wasn't, who would you, I think you talked about this with Dave, who would you say was the biggest star in the game? I mean, I asked the high-fidson Kelly, our favorite Danny's that question. And it was like, Stefan Diggs. Stefan Diggs. Because of who he's dating or was dating.

Was dating until the Super Bowl week, right? Maybe. I mean, Donald and Drake May, it's like, I can't remember a Super Bowl without, with so few famous people. It was so low wattage. So low wattage. Yeah. And again, that's fine. Like you and I are football fans.

Not like we have to have famous football players to enjoy a game. We like college football and all those guys are low wattage too. But I'm like, was anybody as famous as Fernando Mendoza in that game? I don't know how to measure that. That's a good question. Sam Darnold is famous as Fernando Medeza probably is just because of Piannsia. I mean, one thing that helps Sam Darnold is that he was a star at USC, and they've always got a little cachet in ways that other people don't.

But, yeah, I mean, it's close if it's... NFL is just on another level, though, with gambling fantasy and all that stuff. So maybe, you know, it may just be... But regardless, it was a low-water Super Bowl, and it was a low-scoring Super Bowl. Low-scoring Super Bowl, which isn't a problem for me. You know, I like defense. Of course, you know...

Do you like no touchdowns? Because there were no touchdowns to three-quarters of that game. Well, so I talked about this on Tailgate, the other day. And I like defense when a great defense is stopping a great offense. It's a little less compelling when it's a great defense against an outmatched offense, right? Where they're just like, man, I mean, those cornerbacks were breaking on passes. Like, I don't give a shit about your arm strength or anything. Like, they're just like, they had no respect for the arm strength of Sam Donald or Drake May, who may have been hurt. So maybe that's it. But that's the thing, right?

Drake May was a vote away from being the NFL's MVP this year. It's amazing. Which, I mean, does that say something about like the celebrity of the whole, the staying power, the NFL because they didn't have, I mean, I guess the Patriots are sort of a premier team, but they didn't have any stars. Nobody was at, and it still did pretty huge numbers, right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't honestly don't know how much to think, what to think about those numbers or how much stock to put into them. Yeah.

Because it's like, you know, everybody goes with, oh, my God, it averaged 124.9 million people. And look, that is a gigantic number in the society we live in in the post, you know, Cheers Cosby Show world that you and I exist in now. But I'm also like, what do we learn from those numbers? If football is popular, right, that Bad Bunny is popular. I mean, I don't, I like, I'm sorry, what, like, you will look at, can you tell me something that that number tells you that if it had been 120, or 120 that that number wouldn't have told? I'm like, what? I think would it tell, so the two ways it could,

what to me, it does say something is that at least right now, and I haven't listened to Chuck Closterman's interview yet with Pablo, right? But football is really, its ratings are resilient. Like, especially the NFL, it barely matters who's playing the quality of the game. because I often, you NFL fans, I'm like, how can you sit here and watch this shit, bro? Like, you're watching the Jets versus the Bengals. This game is so horrible. You're a college sports guy.

I'm a college football guy, and I had to make a decision for the sanctity of my marriage and my family. So I had to pick one day on the weekend, and it was college football. But also it's because I'm drawn to it, and I look at the NFL, and I'm just like, that looks horrible. But it doesn't matter. Like, it just doesn't seem to matter who's playing the quality of the game when it's played, Saturday, Sunday, Thursday, you sickles are going to sit there and watch NFL football.

And God bless you, I guess, you know, because I don't have that sort of patience for it. But the only other way that it could have made news is if it had a really low score, right? Yes, which looks like we were going there for a while when it was 9-0 and then 12-0. your point about the resilience in the NFL about how it doesn't really matter who plays which stars all that kind of stuff or only on the margins completely agree also I already knew

that yeah I mean it just like we knew all that stuff that's right so I just always I just love the gazing at these numbers I do find it interesting and there's a good explainer on awful announcing about this is that people I think here's so many numbers now with like YouTube

downloads and views and all I think the Super Bowl ratings or any ratings are measured for an average number of people watching any minute of the game. Okay. So this is not a cumulative 124.9 million people. This is, there were an average of a 124.9 million viewers watching at any minute of the Super Bowl, including the brutal early minutes and the brutal late minutes of that game.

Man, that's, that's incredible, man. I mean, again, God bless these people because, I mean, that helps us. Like, is a media. And the people's, you know, repacious appetite for football is what helps keep us employed. But I'm just stunned that there's nothing that seems to put it in at it. And look, this is the 10-year anniversary of the Colin Kaepernick stuff. You know, everybody was full of shit. Just for the record, everybody was going to boycott the NFL.

Both sides were going to boycott. Both sides. Yeah, like the NFL is too woke. I'm going to support Colin Kaepernick and boycott and like none of the way. y'all were up for it, bro. Like that shit didn't matter. Both sides tried to piece out. And there was a, remember the brain injury part of it too?

Like, I can't do it anymore. I can't watch that. It's too tough. Yeah. Like everybody's full of shit, man. Before we bring on Logan. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

There was another interesting podcast out there. Bill Simmons and Nick Wright, which started with, by the way, like 20 really fascinating minutes comparing the Chief's Dynasty and the Patriots dynasty. And it sounds like that would just be one of those, you know, first things first, we're yelling at each other in a playful way, say, but it was actually a really fascinating comparison of those two dynasties and how we think of dynasties and all that kind of stuff and, you know, what it feels like to lose a Super Bowl,

which both men had been through in the last two years. Patriots has been through a lot of them, man. They've lost six Super Bowls, as they'll point it out. There you go. They also got into the NBA. Yeah. And how to fix the product that is the NBA here a couple of days before the All-Star game. What did you make of that discussion?

Well, I know it's not possible, but Nick's idea to have the black guys versus the white guys was a pretty good guy. I was like, he was right. It would get very intense. That would be very interesting. But in lieu of that, you know, I don't, because I'm not the NBA head, like I'm a NBA fan, but I'm not an NBA head like those guys. I'm just kind of overcomplaints about the NBA. And here's what I mean. my entire life,

everybody has wanted the NBA to do something different. There's too much defense. There's not enough defense. They don't shoot well enough. Fundamentals bad. Oh, the shooting's too good now. Now they shoot too well.

Like, do you all like basketball? Like, I don't understand. What are we supposed to, like, what do you guys want them to do to play basketball in a way that you will find appealing enough that you will stop complaining about the way they're playing basketball? Because I haven't seen that version of basketball

played in my entire life apparently. All right, put aside style of play. What about tanking and load management? Yeah, I mean, I mean, it seems like the issues here, and they've pointed it out, they should play fewer games. And tanking, I mean, that's tight. They're not going to get rid of the draft. Like, that's just not going to happen. I know that everybody says, they want to get rid of tanking.

They should get rid of the draft. It's not going to happen. Okay. So what are we supposed to do? Right? So, again, I think it does kind of suck, and especially if you're the kind of person that wants to go to a game. Like, I wouldn't mind taking my kids to a Wizards game someday. And I can only imagine preparing all month to take my two kids, my wife to an NBA game, showing up and, like, Luca don't play.

You know, I would be so pissed. I'd be so mad. But that's just sort of the bargain you got to deal with it. I think that, yeah, you're right. If they played fewer games, but I still think that players would still take. I still, you know, but still take time off. I don't know that that would necessarily, by reducing the season of 75 games,

I don't know that that would get it. What do you think? Exactly. I mean, I think that's the problem. And there's this interesting tension in the NBA right now, which is that Adam Silver went out to get a new TV deal. And boy, did he get a new TV deal. Yes, he did.

A lot of rumblings that he wasn't going to get a great TV deal, but he got $7 billion a year. Yeah. To put professional basketball. on television and now on streaming. Yeah. So what happens now? Well, what if we made the season shorter?

That sounds like a very, very reasonable idea to me. What if we start the season on Christmas Day rather than creeping up into the fall? All that kind of stuff. You're going to give them money back? Right. You got $7 billion a year. And now you're going to try to give some of it back. I mean, this is what makes things impossible.

Right. And we see this in every sport. Oh, oh, we. We have 64 teams the NCAA tournament. Why don't we just have a ton more? Because that's not nearly enough. Or we have a 12 team playoff in college football. Why don't we go to 16?

Why don't we go to 24? What happens is you go up and up and up and you get more money. And then it becomes impossible to go back. Because nobody's going to write a check and send it back to NBC and ESPN and Amazon. Absolutely. So they're just stuck. We can talk about it. And like I think it's shorter season to be a great idea.

maybe you could, you know, try to fix some of those load management issues. The tanking thing feels like a little bit of a separate discussion. But how are do you get past the point of you did the thing you're supposed to do? You made everybody even richer, especially the owners. Yeah. Now what? What they talked about, a little bit poorer. Yeah.

And they got. They talked about tanking that the whole, the play in was supposed to have been sort of a solution for that. They're like, okay, there's still a little bit more engagement. A few more teams have a chance to make the playoffs. and then people are like, well, I mean, I don't know. It's just a sort of like derision about the play-in games. And I'm like, oh, those are terrible. They're horrible.

Yeah, I mean, I guess I don't know how many times I have to watch the Chicago Bulls playing a play-end game. But I guess this is going to happen forever. But yeah, I'm just like, look, man, they're doing the best they can. I just don't know that there's a real solution for this. I will say to Bill, because Bill said, oh, I should not address our boss like this. But Bill, I saw what you said about how the players should give back money. No, the owner should give back their money.

The player, let the owners give back some of their money instead of the players. Well, I just don't think anybody's giving back any of money. Nobody's giving any money. That's the thing. I mean, look, the baseball season, you could make the same argument. It's too long.

We could, you know, do you really need that many games? Could you decrease it by 10, 20, 30, whatever it is? Who's giving that back? Right. Do you also think, and people, the way we cover basketball and the way we cover, just sports in general, is like there's so much fixation with the postseason.

Like, nobody's legacy met. Like, James Hardin is reviled for a number of reasons, but also because he's played terrible in the playoffs in key moments. And it's like when you get, the fans in the media have sent the message to the NBA players that it doesn't matter what you do in the regular season. You are going to be judged as a player and your legacy is going to be judged on what you do in the postseason.

If you would just say, I enjoy the games, I like going to watch hoop, and it doesn't matter what happens, but I like basketball. And if people covered it in that way, I wonder if that would make a difference and the players would receive that message. But the messages that all the players have gotten for the last, I mean, since the MJ, you know, since the end of the MJ era is that the rings are the only thing that matter. And that's how you're going to be judged. And so they're acting accordingly, which makes sense. I think that's fair. But I also think you get messages that lots of people don't care about the NBA regular season.

That's true. That's true. You know, you can get messages from the teams. You get messages from the players. You get messages, all kinds of messages. And I think it's all self-reinforcing. Like, I don't think we created this with Rings culture. I really don't. You don't?

At least exclusively with Rings culture. Not exclusively. So you're not in for the Blazers King, a Blazers game tonight or something, huh? Yeah. I mean, look, and it's just different than the NFL, right? In the NFL, you want to win all those games because you want home field advantage and all that stuff in the playoffs, right?

There's very few that you're just like, wow, that team just took the week off. Yeah. But it happens in the NBA. and then once it happens a little, it gets real hard to get somebody to watch a Monday night NBA game. Because it's only, like you said, only got to take go once and no Luca and you're like, or no LeBron.

You're like, actually, I don't trust this product anymore. Fundamentally. What is load management about keeping players healthy for the playoffs? Yeah. They don't load manage into postseason, you know. That's what it is. That's absolutely what it is. And again, NBC's really trying to figure out ways to get people to watch

you know NBA games on Monday nights. Amazon's trying to get people to watch. That's the fundamental challenge the NBA is really, really simple. How do you get people to pay attention during the regular season? How do you make those games seem meaningful? And again, is it us?

Sure. Is it the players? Yes. Is it the owners? Yeah. Like, is it Adam Silver? Who Bill was saying very interesting things about? Yeah, I think it's all those things.

But you're just like, it's really complicated. And I do not see an obvious way out of this. Yeah. Also, again, I'll just, I bet there's a lot of revisionism about, like, how people regarded the regular season 30 years ago. I'm curious to know how many people were tuning in for Bullets Hawks on a Wednesday night in 1992. You can even watch that game, you know, like in a lot of, like, TNT Turner was probably the best way to watch that. I don't know if it was Bullets Hawks, but I don't know how many Bullets game Turner had on a regular rotation. But no, I think it was, I mean, look, what's the oldest sluror?

about the NBA. The first, the only the last two minutes of the game matters. The last two matters, right. And it was the same thing about the regular season of playoffs. Only the playoffs matter. I guarantee that's been around a long time. I didn't know which direction you were going with the oldest slur. I was like, how far you're going back? Not the

oldest slur about the NBA. Okay. One of the older complaints about the NBA. Excuse me there. Excuse me there. All right, Joel. Time for a very, very special guest. All right, Joel. We are joined now in the ringer headquarters here in Los Angeles, which has been a very interesting place lately.

A very interesting place. People come through, man. I mean, you've had a senator, you had the face of a centrist media outlet, and now you've got a cover model. So I've seen his photo shoot. He did the Kobe L.A. magazine photo shoot for his Netflix debut. He's also a ringer writer. He's a host of real ones.

He's a guy who knows his way around the Warriors Locker's Locker. room and basically every NBA locker room at this point. He's our friend. He's Logan Murdoch. Logan, welcome back to the press box. Thanks so much for having, man. It is an honor. This is crazy. You guys are on video now. The digs are great. It's good to see Joel. I know he's going to hate. I'm not going to hate. I was happy. I'm happy to see you, brother. I was, I was alerting people to the fact that you're on Netflix now. I have you up and pause right now on my screen is you, Rajah, and Howard, man.

Good looking group, good looking grew of people, man. No wonder y'all on TV. I appreciate that, man. It's very surreal to be even saying that sentence that, like, I am on Netflix. Like, my granny can see me on TV now. You know, that's pretty, it's pretty cool. It's a really surreal experience, for sure. So, Joel,

Logan and I had lunch a while back. And he started telling me stories about interviewing Steph and interviewing Dremond and working the Golden State Warriors locker room. And I was like, wait a second. We need to take this conversation we had over tacos

and put this on a podcast, which will call Tales from the NBA locker room. That's great. Did you go to the same taco place you took me to when I was there? No, it was a different one. Oh, man. Okay. All right.

Different one. Thank you. Thank you for asking for that detail, though. Okay. Appreciate you keeping me honest here. All right. I just wanted to see. Anyway,

Tales from an NBA locker room. You got your first job, Logan, when you were 24 years old as a beat writer for the San Jose Mercury News. How did you walk into the Warriors locker room and make relationships at that age? Well, first of all, let's just give some backstory

of kind of how that happened to just kind of paint a picture of just how intimidated I was. So this was 2017. at the time this little mom and pop shop called The Athletic was starting up, and they had a goal of pillaging all the newsrooms. And they pillaged the San Jose Mercury News newsroom of Tim Kawakami, Marcus Thompson, and Anthony Slater, all in one swoop, all in one summer.

And at the time, I was interning in Memphis, Tennessee at the Commercial Appeal. and for a program called Sports Journalism Institute. And I was writing, and I remember I got a text from Marcus, like you need to reach out to the Mercury News. And I'm just thinking like, all right, cool, I'll do it when I get back. I'm not really thinking much of it. And also at the time, like, I really didn't have that much experience writing, right? Like it was, I could write creatively, but like, you know,

just writing the newsers, writing, you know, the gamers. is that was very green at the time. And I think that speaks to just the state of the business at that point in time, right? Where, you know, you just have, you know, just a cheap way of running a lot of newspapers and a lot of newsrooms. This was the beginning of, like, you know, the venture capitalist buying up newsrooms and, like, just kind of pillaging the resources. And so I was, I was cheap. And, you know, I had gotten recommended by somebody else. by Marcus and some other folks because I just had been in the region,

interning and just a myriad of different places. And so when I got back from, when I was in Memphis, I had written a story on Nick Van Exel that got the attention of the San Jose Mercury News editors. And then when Marcus, Tim, and Anthony left, I got a call from their editors and they really took a chance on me. I got the job October of 27th. the day of the season opener was my first day.

And it was really, really intimidating. I had been around the Warriors, but just like I had worked at NBC Sports Bay Area as an assignment editor. So I would occasionally go into, go to games. And, you know, I'd interned like CanBR and a couple other places. So I'd been around the team a little bit, not enough for them to know who I was necessarily, but to know like, oh, that's a familiar face.

We kind of know him. And so when I got, But when I got the job, I remember being like, wow, this is crazy. And also I have a lot of work to do because, like I just said, you know, Marcus is on the beat. Anthony's on the beat. Tim's on the beat. Chris Haynes was on the beat at that time. Ethan Strauss was on the beat at that time.

And it was also a national beat. So, you know, Rachel Nichols is popping in. Will Bond. Everybody you can imagine was, I remember the first practice. I ever attended as a beat writer, David Aldridge was like, was there. And that was like a huge deal for me because he was at Turner at the time. And I'm like, this is what I have to compete against. That's how I felt in my mind. So I remember just doing like crazy research on every single player. Like all other ticks, I read about everything and I just wrote it down before the season and like

wrote some like story angles. But I had no idea like what I was getting myself into. And one thing that really helped me early on is that like I had a I had a relationship a little bit with KD going into that because we had met when I was when I was interning and he was actually my first ever byline for this for this newspaper out of Sacramento so Black on newspaper called the Sacramento Observer and he I did a story I requested to do a story on him on one of his older um he had a rapper called name privilege I know it's one of Brian's favorite rappers. What's your favorite privilege song, Brian?

I'm sorry. Please don't interrupt, Logan. I was just talking about his experience. So I had written a piece on him, like, one of my first, my first byline when I was 18 on KD and him, like, basically producing a rapper. And I had kind of known him over the years. He had known my face. So that was cool.

So like my first month then, I was able to write like a Q&A, get a Q&A with KD, and that really the kind of solidified. who I was on the beat, but still I had to master the day to day type of stuff, breaking news, writing newsers. I was third on the beat, so I didn't really write gamers like that, which kind of, which helped because it was like that, as an industry, we were going away from that. So I was learning new tools, but I was very much learning on the fly.

So I'm learning on the fly from a technical standpoint. And I also, like, I'm covering a version of the Beatles, right? And it was very, very intimidating to do all those things. It was a lot of frustrating nights, right? Sometimes I just didn't get what I needed or I failed. You know, I absolutely failed a couple of times. I had high highs and very low, low was my first year. And so it was a very big learning process to kind of just stay even killed.

And just I learned a lot on the fly. I think that was my education, those three years on the beat for sure. Well, I just kind of want to know because I remember early in my career, I had an opportunity to cover some professional sports teams like, you know, the Mavericks, the Cowboys, Rangers, and then later, you know, in Houston. And the one thing that really flammocks me was, how do I make relationships with these people? Like, I mean, they've already got established media relationships, right?

Clearly they've already got people they talk to. And these people that are working in the newsroom around me, they're veterans. They know, I don't know how they're breaking news, but they're breaking it all around me. And I could never quite figure out how that stuff happened. So, like, how did you get any guidance about how to work a locker room or team beat? I think it was, um,

it was the years before I got on the beat that was really my education. I didn't have like a formal education in journalism. I just, it was just, the education that I got was like seeing stuff around me, right? So when I was in college, I went to Laney College in Oakland. And I was really just going there honestly for the Pell Grant, you know. And so I would, I would, my first year of college was the lockout year. And so I had an internship in Sacramento at KFBK Radio. And what I would do was I would just, I would go front low my classes until, I,

in the morning and then go to Kings games. And so when I would go to Kings games, I would just kind of, I would have a credential for the games because my role was just being a stringer, which was, hey, you get the, you get string,

which is sound, and you send it at the time, I was an intern for Pat Walsh, and I would just send the sound in. This is like for the sports updates. For the sports updates, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I would just, send it in and then I would, you know, and then I would use that, that, uh, in with the Kings to, uh, get credentials everywhere. So I would come down to L.A. all the time and just like, I'm, Kings and Lakers are playing bed. I'll plan a little, you know, weekend around it or I'll plan a time going to L.A. But through that time, I was seeing like other people, how they did their job, right? Like Mark Spears was, I learned how to like get a player off to the side for Mark Spears because he was doing that, right? I learned how to, like, I learned how, to also write on deadline from Jason Jones at a Sacramento Bee because I would literally sit by him

because I'm like, yo, bro, let's look at some food after. He's like, hold on. I got an 11 p.m. deadline. I got a right. And so I'm sitting next to him. I'm like looking at his laptop like, okay, how do you, what are you doing right now? Or you're doing a, this is a lead? Okay.

How are you trying to, how are you writing through this story? Oh, you're just writing around these quotes. Okay, how do you do this? So I'm just like looking. And then I'm seeing just kind of how everything is working around me. And that happened, that was going on for about five years. So once I got to the Warriors Beat, I was using all the tool, all the like stuff that I was, that I learned from just being around and how like kind of the world worked, this world worked. And kind of using that, I would, I remember thinking like, oh, I wouldn't do that.

Oh, I think I'm going to take that from him. I don't, I don't really like how they kind of did that. I'm going to refine it. So by the time, I was just really just going on instinct my first couple of years. And the biggest challenge, though, was like, you know, just being scared. My first, my first year on the Warriors beat, I remember towards the end, I had gotten, you know, some interviews and I, you know, I had broken some news. But one of the biggest takeaways was that I was writing and reporting scared. Or I was reporting like somebody was watching and I was scared of what their reaction was going to be.

And I remember going into that next season just being like, I'm not going to do that anymore. And whatever I do, I'm just going to go 100% full go. And that's something that I really learned that first year. But I learned how to build relationships by really just, like, on one level, I just did a ton of research on everybody, right, and just see where I could get in and like, you know, where I can find some common ground. But by and large, I didn't really have any, I didn't start with the stars. I started with the bench players, right? I started with, Jordan Bell was like the first person that would give me, like, exclusives and stuff like that and would like give me interviews.

And, you know, that was, he was, you know, a rising, you know, player on that team. So that kind of, once I got, you know, interviewing with him, he was cool with Dremont. So I would go to, you know, they had like a mother's event, my first. year and I just wrote a story on Draymond and Jordan Bell's relationship and that was really vital because I was able that's when I first met Draymond for real and I met his mom you know and that was that was a really important thing was just to go like to the events you might not see him in the in the locker room but if they see you at the events then there's some you know familiarity like oh I know this kid his kid is grinding you know I'll give

him some time and that's how you build up trust so I was able to go from you you know, doing stories on the lock, the people around the locker room and then getting to the stars. That's what really helped me out. And it was more of just like me building confidence, you know, through the locker room and through the young guys and getting up to the older players.

Let's go one by one through the Beatles. Okay. Steph Curry. Yeah. How do you get to know Steph Curry? That was hard. And it was more because it wasn't because of necessarily, it was more because of my fear, right?

Like my first year, was like he was the top of the top and also was a fear because, you know, I think one thing young writers get in trouble with is they, like, are resigned to the fact that the player is already spoken for in terms of like someone in the locker room, right? They're like, oh, man, such and such wrote a book on them. And they, you know, that's, that's, that's, that's step's guy. Well, I'm going to give up, right? And I, you know, I kind of fell into that, right? Like, there's no way I'm going to get in, you know, or be cool with, or not even be cool with it, but like build a relationship with them. So, like, I don't think I tried the first year, but, like, I remember, like, there were some inroads here and there.

Like, I don't, I think we probably had our first conversation, maybe, like, midway through my second year on the beep. But one of the things, one of the times, I mean, when me and stuff got cool was honestly when he got injured in the 1920 season because there was no beat right. writers there. There were local beat writers, but the national beat had all gone away. I think that was LeBron's second year in L.A. And so they were, the Lakers were title contenders, so everybody went every which away. And then Steph got injured. So I would see him alone in the locker room all this time. I was seeing pregame, and I would just, you know, shoot the shit with him. I remember there was this one time where, this is a thing when we got cool. There was this one time where there's this rapper name

Dilo out of Oakland and at the time I know neither one of you guys or nobody on the press box knows who the hell Dilo is, but everybody man is a tough one I mean to know all the rappers you know anyway you know it's a lot I don't feel terrible yeah but anyway there's this rapper who's a legend

named Dilo right and so at the time DiAngelo Russell goes by you know he goes by Dilo but I told me and Steph were having a conversation and he brought up Dilo and I was like there's no way in hell that I can call DeAngelo Russell Delo. And he's like, why?

And I'm like, because there's only one Delo that I recognize, and that is Delo from Oakland. And he's like, who's Deelow from Oakland? And he has this, has two songs that's great, both of which you guys won't know. One is called, you played me, and one is called No-H-O-E. Oh, no, yeah, Mr. No-Ho.

Exactly, exactly. So I played that for Steph, right? Yeah. And he just was so amused by that, and it was hilarious. and then we were cool ever since then, you know? And that was how we got cool, but that was like midway through his third season.

Was it a good song? Did he like it or did he just think it was a... I think he was amused by. I don't know if he liked it. Maybe I got to check him with him, but it was definitely, he said he saved it. So that was, but anyways, that was like, but I still hadn't written a story on him substantially.

And I think that when I left the beat, when I got here, I wanted to just kind of, I felt like I was ready to, to take on the challenge of writing about him and with some depth and writing about him in a way that could compete

with all the other writers that write about him. But that relationship started, I think, like, my second or third year in the beat. When do you work up the courage and say, hey, Steph, can I get your cell? Um, mm-hmm.

I think, yeah, I was around that time, too. I was just like, yeah, let me get your math. And I think we built up that trust at that point. and it worked out. But like... Did he look funny? When you asked him, he was just like...

No, not at all. He just was like here. But I really take... But that, like, the phone numbers and all that stuff, like, I don't know. I really just try to, like, for me, I really only just try to use that, like, just make sure it's all about work and business. Like, I don't really like to small talk or anything like that. I just really just be like, oh, let me confirm this or, like, when you think about this.

Like, I like to have a barrier between me and them, you know, know what I mean? Like, it's very explicitly work at this point. Not to say we don't have like a relationship, but it's very much a working relationship. But I don't think I got built to the courage until like, until Dilo. So shout out to Dilo. Mr. Noho. What's what's up? All right. Well, you do, okay, so you did stuff. What about Dre? How did you get to know? I got to know Draymond. I think it was at that mother's event. That was like 2018. We had gotten, no, we had. started building a relationship there.

Draymond is, uh, Draymond, I would say is very, what I learned about him as covering him, he's very savvy with the media. He's, he's very,

like he's the guy that is, um, you know, if he sees a young beat writer that he starts to respect, like he'll go to him and like give them exclusives. Like I've seen him even like in the last couple of years. Like if somebody and he sees somebody new and up and coming, he definitely will give them an extra quote or something.

like that, right? But I remember there was this one time. This was after the, this is when I was like, okay, we're in a good place, right? And I still criticize him if you guys listen to real ones. Like, it's still like a balance and I'm, you know, we've never had a back and forth, but I try to be as honest

as I can about him. But I do remember there was this one time. I really stuck out. It was after the Western Conference Finals in 2019 and they were about to go to the finals. And I was tasked to write, I was tasked to write a piece on Draymond because he was incredible during that 2019 postseason. I was when KD was out before he tore his Achilles.

And I think Draymond Average, like nearly a triple double. Like people forget like right now, like he's not, he's towards the end of his career. But Draymond was good for like 15, 7 and 7, especially when you needed it. Like he was an offensive force. But anyway, he basically helped carry Golden State to the 2019 finals that year. And I needed to write about him. and I was trying to get him, like, just get maybe like a couple quotes for him from him, like extra quotes outside of the press conference, because that's what a real currency is. And I remember going and being like trying to like see if I can get an extra quote from him.

And a PR person, I don't even remember who it was, might have been like a league PR person, kept shoeing him away from me. And I was just like very, I was just trying to get him. So I was very persistent because I was like, I need this. quote, man. Like, I ain't trying to go back. And I remember, like, following him for, like, a good, like, three or four stops. And he was about to go to the bus. And he agreed to it.

And I brought down a recorder. And he, like, he pushed my hand down and was, like, not yet. And before I record, he was like, I see how they were doing you just now. And I see how they kind of do you for the rest. basically you're low on the totem pole and I see how they're treating you because of that. But if you ever need anything for me, I got you. And that really meant a lot at a young stage of my career at that point. Because what I've learned in this business, when you write, it's about moments.

And it's about getting players. You can get a player at any time. But when you get them at the moment is a difference between whether the piece is red or not. And I needed him in that moment for the story that I was writing because it was his moment. And for him to give me time during his moment really helped. So like that piece, he talked about his relationship with Kevin Durant at that time, which was really, which was really critical for me because it led the jump the next day. And it got my name out there. And like Rachel Nichols said my name on TV.

And I was really big for my career. And so that was when that was, that's my Draymond story that I always go back to because I was really helpful him doing that and giving me extra time when I really needed it. So that's my Draymond story. KD is intensely interested in the media. He was tweeting at you last year or tweeting about you last year. No, he added me. He added me. He's nice courtesy. Yeah, yeah.

What was your relationship like with him in the Warriors locker room? I mean, it was pivotal, man. It was, you know, like I alluded to it at the beginning, but I've known Kevin since I was a child, since I was literally a kid in this business, right? Like he, like I just said, he gave me my first exclusive. He was always, like, he was always good to me early in my career and was very pivotal. Pivotable. What's the word? Pivotal in my career. And I, like, when he says in the tweet, what's annoyed me? In the beginning, like he, like, he said that, like, I forget the tweet, but he alluded to the fact that, like, that I'm trying to steal off of his name or something like that.

But it's a two-way street when it comes to interviewer and interviewee. And, you know, he, early in my career, he went out of his way to help me out. And then on the back end, shitting on me for him helping me out in his mind, right? So that's what annoyed me. But the, I remember, like, when I was 18, he, you know, he would help me out and he was my first big exclusive. He always really gave me time when I needed it when he wasn't talking to other people. And what I do respect about him is, like, he's kind of cut from an old school cloth. Now, it's a new, new technology and new means of doing that.

But, like, he's one of a player that, like, you kind of know where he stands at any given time. Like, when he sent that tweet off, it's not, it's not something that I didn't hear. from him in the DMs or something. Like he's all, like, we don't, we don't necessarily talk all the time, but like, if he sees something, he'll definitely make you know that he sees it and is frustrated by it or annoyed

by it. Never when he's happy about it, which is, you know, an interesting thing. I don't know what that says about him, but I do respect that, like, he, if he feels some type of way, he will come at, he will come at you. But I do remember, like, he, Kay was like, or Kevin was

very pivotal because my first byline was when he was in OKC in 2011. And I remember I had no journal. I had nowhere with all of like journalism protocol within the NBA. Like I didn't know when the open locker rooms. I just walk up to play. And I remember getting to, it was sleep train arena at the time, very early for around the time when he was warming up. And I remember I was trying to get him for an interview and I just sat on the baseline. I was very nervous. I was still a teenager. And he,

I went to go after his warmup. I went to go say, hey, can I interview you about such and such and such and such and the PR people at the Thunder were like, no. And because, you know, they, I think you've written about it. Like, you know, OKC could be really stringent. They've been really helpful in recent times for me, but at the time they were really stringent and I was a nobody. And he pushed aside, the PR person was like, no, I'll talk to him.

and he talked to me for like 10 minutes. And that was really, you know, it was really formative for me. And he's always really giving me time, even when, like, he's gone at me on social media. But, like, it's fine. It is what it is. But that, that's what you get when you cover Kevin.

Like, you're going to get, you know, the highs of a great quote, but he's also, if he sees everything. So you got to go in mind with that and just know, like, sometimes he's going to pop off. but when he pops off, typically when you see him in person or afterwards, he's not really on. It's a weird comp, but he's always reminded me of Aaron Rogers in a way. That's a really good.

Very online, very interested in the media, very interesting how the media works. Yeah. And always happy to tell you if they didn't like what you wrote. But on the other end of that, he also was a very big proponent of media members in the locker room. you know, and he, I remember going out and asking him for a story I did on the ringer back in 2022 about how he felt about people coming into the locker room media members. And this was at a time when it was, locker room access was pretty much on the brink, right? This was when Adam Silver was test ballooning the whole idea of, what if we just kicked the reporters out?

Right, exactly. And Kay was like, no, I want them in there because we need that dialogue for them to understand us and we need to understand them. It's going to be helpful for all parties involved. So like, you know, it's, I think, you know, I know that I know what the job requires and I know that like there are going to be sometimes when players, you know, go at you and, you know, he's not the only one that is that has done that. But also like, you know, it's part of the job, you know, I'm not, it is what it is. But he is a throwback in that sense because back in the day, like, there wasn't no subliminal tweets. There wasn't none of that. there was like, no, I'm going at you.

And if I don't like what you saying, I'm going to tell you about it. So I respect it. Well, I want to, because this actually happened to me. I'm not going to make this about me, because I'll tell him some other time. Jeff Kent once came at me in an Astros clubhouse for writing something about him in a game,

in a game story, it wasn't even a column. But at any rate, and it was just a very surreal to see, like, Jeff Kent is like mad at me, talking shit about me as I walk up to him on crudgeon. I tore my Achilles and, So I was like hobbling in there. Oh, wow. So what kind of experience did you have like that that did not involve Kevin Durant?

Was there ever a time you walked into the Warriors locker room and it was like, oh, man, they got it out for me. They don't want me in here or I'm about to get it. I remember one time I reported that DeMarcus cousins was trying to come back around Christmas. This is when DeMarcus was on the team for the year. and he was really trying to get back because he was trying to get a new contract at that time. It didn't really work out for him in New Orleans

and he signed a mid-level exception with Golden State. He was really trying to get back fast so he can get paid again. And I reported on his, I reported on, you know, what he wanted his injury timeline to be. He was not happy with that at all.

He was pissed. And, you know, I went in there, and I remember Raymond Ritter, the PR guy. He's a PR legend. and it would go to state. And he came up to me. He was like,

the parkings ain't happy with you. And I was like, and I just went into the locker room. And I was like, let's talk. And he, you know, said what he had to say. And I responded. And that was that. And, but like, you know, there's much, you know, I'm not going to say like I come from like the hardest environment.

But like, you know, when I was growing up, there was a lot more things to worry about than somebody yelling at you probably not actually going to do anything to you. So, you know, you got over it. Once you, you know, somebody yelled, like I've been yelled at before in like real life, um, with more dire consequences. So it wasn't like that big of a deal. So once I got through it, it was like, whatever. How much of these guys actually read what you wrote? I think variations. It depends, you know. I don't know. I write a, I write a lot of words now. Very dense things. So I don't, I don't expect them to read every single word.

And I think more now it's the aggregation of what you write more than the actual piece of what you write. They hear about it. They hear about it, right? And we're just so, we're so connected now. I think more than we've ever been, right, where, you know, you may know somebody is somebody's camp and they might send it to, can you, like, send it to the player? Like, can you believe he said this or can you believe he wrote this and send something

completely out of context and then you get a text based on something that was out of context, you get a call, or you get a cold shoulder on something and you know that they didn't read the whole piece. They just read what was, like the Kevin thing, for instance. Like, he read an aggregation of something and responded to said aggregation. I highly doubt he read the whole entire piece. I think Warriors World screenshot at a paragraph. Yep. And that's what he was responding to. Yep. And so, um, Yeah, I don't. I do know there was another story, people that do read the whole piece.

I remember there was a piece I wrote on Omri Caspi back in the day. Oh, man. That's going back. It was, what, 2019, 2018? And I remember the headline was like how Omory, his experience playing in Israel, shaped his journey into the NBA or whatever, right? But it was really like a 500-word piece on Omory Caspi from the game. And I remember Steve Kerr was like, yeah, man,

I came to read your piece on Omory Caspi, and it was, yeah, the headline was kind of misleading. Like, you didn't really write anything about his journey. I was really excited to read it. He basically said my piece was shit. Damn. Or the headline was shit. Or the headline was shit. And I was like, oops.

So I know he read all of it, but I don't know, like, you never really can get a good gauge if they read the whole piece or listened to the whole podcast. because, you know, people listen to get snippets of real ones, gets aggregated all the time. And, you know, it's devoid of context. Or, like, the other thing that I'm trying to, like, trying to master at this point is, you know, when you're talking on podcast, you are talking like how we're talking. I'm talking to my buddy, Brian and my buddy Joel, right? But, like, when you're talking, sometimes you mess up the context of what is actually being, what's you're thinking because you're, you're, talking as if you expect the other person to understand what you're saying, not,

you kind of forget about the audience because you get lost in the conversation. And sometimes that kind of bites you in the ass because you really have to think about what you're saying on any given moment. At least I try to do that. And sometimes when you're lost in the conversation, it messes up the context of what you're actually trying to say. And as a result, you know, people will come at you because it gets aggregated. as such. And so that's something

that I'm trying to figure out, especially as we get into this new Netflix video age and the Spotify video age, it's even more tricky. So, yeah, I'm trying to get used to that as well as it pertains to being in locker rooms and being, because I'm somebody that like, I'm going to be around. If you want to see me, you're going to see you. Stephen A. Okay.

No, hey, I don't want no beef. I'm not trying to be, I ain't trying to be like Stephen A. I'm not trying to, don't come at me on camera. around, please. I'm not trying to have no World Star moment. I'm just trying to do my job. Do you watch World Star? No. You missed out. You never seen a World Star clip? No, I don't think so. Man, I remember I used to, this is, I know you old, Joe. I remember like fresh, not freshman year, but like in probably like junior and senior year of high school, we'd have like zero period and that would just all be watching

World Star. So I saw we got our news. It was great. World Star was a really like you guys should do like a press box World Star. We may have to do a special monthly issue on that. Yeah, no actually though. For real. That'd be kind of interesting. I got a lot of my news like legitimate news from news clips from World Star. It had a lot of it had a lot of cultural

cachet for a long time. I mean, if you saw anybody getting into it in the street, somebody would yell at a World Star. You could watch a a Rick Ross exclusive music video, but you could also watch the CBS Evening News Snipet. Did Sharkisha come through World Star? Maybe.

Do you remember Sharkisha? Vaguely. We're getting real deep. Okay, anyways, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I want to ask you about this, and I'm sorry if I'm pivoting too far field here, but you reported and wrote a great profile of Chet Homegram

because you were talking about Oklahoma City. And I just wanted to bring this up because it really came up in the last few days after somebody asked him about the shooting of Alex Pretti there. And, you know, he kind of, I mean, he gave sort of a, he equivocated a lot. He said that's a very loaded topic, obviously. I don't want to get into the opinion and politics of everything. Well, the thing that you wrote about him was about, you know, the influences in his life. And anybody who has heard Chet Holmgren or looked at pictures of him can see that he

spent a lot of time around black people in his life, which is going to happen because he played basketball. And you wanted to talk to him about that and focus a little bit. on that part of his presentation and even to the way that he speaks, what made you comfortable asking him about that? And did you let him know that that might be something

that you were going to touch on when you talked with him? Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back, honestly, to my first year on the beat with the Warriors and, like, making that promise to myself that I just wasn't going to be scared, you know, right? And I'm not going to report scared. I'm not going to write scared.

I'm not going to interview scared. And I remember going into the interview and going and prepping for the interview and saying, I can't write this story unless I go there with him, right? Unless I ask him about his upbringing and what makes him him. Because that's always, I think, and everything I read about him, that was always the biggest question mark. And that was always something that like when you read about his journey, the black influence on his life was kind of always, it wasn't.

no one actually went there when they wrote about it. You know what I mean? Like they never actually like explored that nuance of a white kid that is thought to be a suburban white kid actually living around blacks and actually being influenced about blacks. And from how they speak to the food that they eat to also quite frankly his game, right? Like he was taught by black people how to play the game of basketball. And I wanted to explore that. And fortunately, for me and the piece, I think that was something he was open to talking about.

And I got the impression that he felt that he needed to talk about and actually explain himself. At least that was the impression that I got to say like, hey, man, I'm not, I'm not faking this. This is really just who I am, right? And I talked to a lot of people around him. for that piece. And it was a lot of black folks around him. And a lot of them were like, no, this is kind of who Chet is. Not only this is who Chet is, this is a product of the family he comes from, right?

And the father that he has and the mother that he has that made sure that, you know, he was around a diverse set of people. And, you know, that. So I went into the piece knowing that I had to touch on this if I'm going to write a really in-depth profile of somebody, right? Because I feel like it would have been hot. I wouldn't have felt good about myself and I would have felt the piece was hollow

if I didn't go there. Because I feel like it explains a lot of who he is as a person. So I knew going in that it was going to be some tough subjects being broached, but I knew that I couldn't be scared going to that interview. I got two quick ones before Joel hits you in a lighting round. Could you do this now, what you did starting in 2017? team, get to know players, create relationships, given how much players are now giving to their own

podcast and their social media accounts and given about and given how much the media has come down in everyone's estimation since then. Yeah. No, I think about that a lot. In some ways, I, you know, I have the ego and being like, yeah, of course, because I would have just grinded my way and I would have did exactly what I've, you know, did in this moment. I would have just used those same tools in this moment to get there. But on the other hand, it was like that was a, that was the, it was a different era,

but it was also the end of a particular era going into this one. And I think with the mindset that I had at that point, you know, I was really new to the beat, but I also knew the language of my generation, right? I knew how to use Instagram at that point. I knew how to use Twitter. I knew how to use those things to my advantage. And so if I was coming up now, I would like to think that I would know my generation's language. And I would do what I did when Instagram was popping and when Twitter was popping, I would use that for other algorithmic social media platforms.

Like I probably would be on TikTok. And I'm not fluent in TikTok right now. But I feel like if I was coming up in this generation, I would be fluid in that. and I would learn how to speak to my generation through those mediums and through how I write. And also, like, even the way I write now, it's just kind of evolved with the times because, you know, I think, and I'm not just saying this because I work here. I think coming to the ringer was really formative for me because creatively I could kind of do what I want and I could try stuff and copy. and I could try stuff to continue to make my copy interesting. And this place has allowed me to be able to do that

and kind of let my hair down in a way that a newspaper wouldn't and the way that it made a regional sports network that has ties to the team wouldn't necessarily do it. So the ringer was like a real big help for me in getting here. But I'd like to think that I could do it because I would just use the same mindset of just evolving, using my way to evolve within the context of what this generation's communication style is.

So that's change number one. Change number two, just about every outlet has cut travel for beat writers. Yeah. The Washington Post cut travel before they murdered the sports section altogether. Yeah. Could you have done what you did without road locker rooms? Well, the interesting thing was I didn't really have access to road locker rooms. during my time at the San Jose Mercury News.

I can count on one hand during my time at the Merck that I, I think I maybe did like three road trips that whole season. So you did this all at home. I did this all at the crib. Like I would just take advantage of, so my road trips were like Sacramento. Which is a drive. Which is a drive,

but you get a road shoot around because it's still a road shooting around, right? So I, there's a lot of arenas at the NBA that I haven't been to because I just did it. I've never done a full 41 game season because at the Mercury News, I was third on the beat. So I was third on the priority list in terms of beat writers, but I was so young that the columnist would go before me. And like, it would really, I remember when the only reason why I got to travel during the finals is because I was in the J.R. Smith locker room after he did the, I was tasked to go to the Cavs locker room after J.R. Smith dribbled the ball out of the paint and let the time run out and pissed off LeBron. And I went into the locker room and they were like, oh, we liked your copy from that.

We're going to send you to Cleveland. And but so, yeah, like I had to grind despite it. You know, I had to do that despite it. I didn't really start traveling regularly until I was at NBC. And even that was aleg road trip. So, you know, I do believe that you can do it. It's going to be harder than ever, but I believe that it can be done. You know, I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of great young journalists out here.

It's got a great young writers with, with ingenuity, with persistence, with wherewithal. I think they're going to find a way. You know, I don't think they're going to take no for an answer. You know, I think they're going to figure it out in the way that they do. The method is going to change. I think the overall mindset is not. and the adaptability is going to be there for this younger generation. I truly believe that.

All right, Logan. This is going to be your second lightning round. So I don't have wanted to hear about you talking about, oh, I'm so honored to be a dog. You've had, you got two lightning rounds on our show in the time I've been here, bro. I feel, I feel great about this. Chris Collinsworth's only gotten one. Only gotten one. Yeah, Chris.

Do you go get one? Yeah, he did. He did. Okay. All right. All right. We're going to start this lightning round now. All right. Most helpful public relations team in the NBA.

I mean, it's go to state. There's definitely going to stay. Nobody's better than Ray Ritter at that. Yeah. I don't like giving him full. I gave him two compliments during this podcast. I don't know how I feel about that. So as an outsider, I've dealt with some of these guys.

Ray Ritter. Ray Ritter's just under the United. Yeah, man. And also one of the things about Ray is like he loves this shit. You could tell like he's just, it's in his bones. He's like, yo, he is all. always checking in on road beat riders or people coming in, you know, he just goes to extra ball and like everything, like, you always have a gift when you go to your hotel room.

Like, how the hell do you know where I'm staying out here, right? Or like, you know, he's walking the press area and just making sure everybody gets what they needs and he just tries to accommodate. And also is like, hey, you need stuff for 15 minutes? And you're like, yeah, it'll be great. That'd be great to have stuff for 15. Look, there's a lightning round. What are you doing?

Sorry, sorry. I got caught in a moment shit. Okay, damn, okay. All right. I want to get the, I want to ask you all the questions. I appreciate it. Least. Least.

Helpful PR team and lead. Well, I'm trying to get something from them right now. I'm going to, I'm going to say it offline. I'm going to refrain. Oklahoma City. Actually, no. They helped the Chet Holmgren piece. They were very accommodating for the Chet Holmbrin piece.

Okay. So I'm not going to say them. There was a time when I covered the NBA that the NBA beat writers and team could sit right on court side. And I don't, I feel like Mark Cuban was one of the first people to be like, I think I want people that pay for it to sit along that line. So what is the best press row in the league at this point? Man, I was at a crypto last night. And I was a second row in crypto watching behind the basket, watching Wemby fucking ball out. So that was pretty cool.

Lakers is up there because, I mean, they could pull the, I'm really, I was talking to Beck, Howard Beck. last night and I'm like, I'm surprised that they even have us here because they're missing out on a lot of bread by having us right here. So I would say like the Lakers is really good if you get a good seat there. Who else, man? The Kings used to be really good. They put you up there. I don't know, man. I think that also speaks.

Oklahoma City is good. They can be good because they put you behind the scores table. If you're important enough, I'm not that important. I don't know. I think it also speaks to I haven't been to all the arenas yet. You know what I mean? Oh, Philly. Philly's great.

I love Philly. Philly just gives you like a whole, like a whole bottom of the section. It's, I was, I remember I went there for a game and I was like, wow, I'm pretty cool. This is pretty cool. Yeah, I would say those three. Okay. Well, okay. This is, what NBA City Arena haven't you been to that you want to get to?

Madison Square Garden. Damn. You haven't been to, you know, what it happened was. So, um, when I was working at NBC, the pandemic happened. And right around the time when the pandemic and they happened around March, we were actually had a road trip.

We were going to go to Milwaukee, Toronto, and MSG. And I was really looking forward to MSG because I was doing television at the time. And I was really excited. It was like a bucketless moment to be able to do a television hit from the floor of Madison Square Garden. And it really hurt that I wasn't going to ever be able to do that. And so I've been to Madison Square Garden,

but it wasn't in the media, capacity. It was, I went to a Liberty game. I just happened to me in New York and I was like, let me just see my MSG. But that's the, that's the arena that I would like love to go to, that I haven't been. But we got hell of, we got hella, we got hella, um, ringer people in New York that I, there's no, I can't go to New York. Like, I'm just stuck on the West Coast. So, you know, I don't know when that's going to happen. Last two. What player other than Draymond seems best poised to be a media star after their career is over? That's a good question.

I don't know. Because there's a question of being good at media and also wanting to do it. Yeah. Like having an interest in. Because there's a big difference in that, right? Well, you know, it's funny. Like all the people that I would have said, because I would have said from like three years ago, they're kind of in media right now.

Like Austin Rivers is great. You know, Austin Rivers, I really, I really love what he's doing. I don't know what I think would be good I don't think he would ever want to do it though I think well Brian is going to be great Clay Thompson would be amazing on television I think he would be amazing

like he has so much great perspective you ask him one question he's just going to go like off on so many different tangents about everything and he also is a very worldly guy I don't think he's let people get to know him like that but like he's like he loves to surf but he's also like a huge bone thugs and

Harmony fan, right? Like, the range of this guy is just incredible. No, don't you dare. Don't you dare. I don't have enough time for it anyway. It's not my lighting round. Last one. It's a former high school QBee.

How good is Dia Bell? He's better than I could ever be. He's incredible. He's going to Texas. There's right. There's right. The nephew of the real ones pod is incredible. And I look at his highlight tape, and I'm just like,

y'all, this dude is nuts. And it's crazy to just see him grow. I remember he was like, when I first met Raja, he was like, yeah, man, I got this eighth grader. He's cool. And I'm like, is he going to be good? Like, the eighth grader, okay, how good could he be? He was winning varsity at like eighth grade, like ninth grade. So, and he might not even be the best bell kid.

Ty Bell is averaging 33 points a game as a sophomore. He's a score, I think he just scored like 50 points in a game, like last week or something like that. I could be wrong, but he had a high score. He might be the next one that is, he might be taking the one everybody by storm. And that's saying a lot, but Ty Bell is good, too. We'll get him to Texas too. That sounds great. Oh, yeah.

Take the whole, we'll take everybody. We got the Mannings. Now we take the bells. That's fantastic. I'm so happy. No, actually, you know why I don't want that to happen? Because, like, Texas don't never come to the West Coast. I'm looking for Texas football to get tickets so they can come to the West Coast.

Maybe, like, the Rose Bowl they'll go to. But, like, I've been looking and I'm like, there's no way I can see Dia play live unless like go to Austin. Well, that's, we're just going to have to do that. We're all going. Let's go. Let's go to Austin. You want to go to Austin, Joel?

No. Not really. Good enough. I love it. All right. Logan Murdoch. This has been so much fun to do this. I'm so glad we got to do this in person.

Thanks for coming on the press box. He's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic. Ooh, that sounded weird. By Bruce Baldwin and Isaiah Blakely. Coming up next week, Shoemakers on Tuesday, Joel's on Thursday.

Joe will have more lukewarm. about the media. Can't wait to share them with you. Sure will.