The Ringer NBA Show - Big League Changes, the Spurs' Surprise Victory, and Crazy Jersey Choices | Heat Check

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

Instant Replay: The Spurs and the Bulls pull one out of the hat, along with Jimmy Butler returning to Philly to an irate crowd! (03:43). The Main Event: Zach Kram breaks down new changes to the NBA that could have a drastic effect on the playoffs, finals, and beyond (17:21). Good Call/Bad Call: More Jersey redesigns even wilder than the last (29:20).   Host: John Gonzalez Guests: Haley O’Shaughnessy, Dan Devine, Zach Kram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the NBA show, Heat Check on the Ringer podcast network, is brought to you by State Farm, just like basketball. The game of life is unpredictable. Talk to a state farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected and help you handle whatever life throws your way. For example, imagine if you're Jimmy Butler, a man who says all he wants to do is win and he goes back to Philadelphia and he super does not win. In fact, he loses by a lot. He gets killed. He gets booed. It's an abject defeat for our man, Jimmy Butler.

If you're Jimmy Butler or say not from Philadelphia, you might consider that an unpredictable outcome. Get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Talk to a state farm agent today about combining your home and auto insurance. And now, Heechek. Welcome to Heech. I'm your host, John Gonzalez. And normally I would be joined by my producer, Isaac Lee.

Alas, he has died and gone to the big podcasting studio in the sky, RIP, Isaac Lee. And we welcome in New Isaac. Steve Allman. You'll be here each and every week now. Yes, I will. Rest in peace, Isaac. Yes, RIP, Isaac. He was fine. But you, we're very excited to have you. We don't have to talk about the clippers anymore. You're from Chicago.

Yes. Where it's very cold there now, but you live in L.A. And you're enjoying the warmth, and you can watch the Bulls, because we have television here. You can watch the Bulls from afar. I could watch that disappointment from so many miles away. Although we're going to talk about the Bulls a little bit later in the show. Zach Levine had a heater. I mean, yeah.

I mean, well, it's, that's the thing. We've been, we've been hitting the snooze bar on the Bulls for many years back in Chicago. And the other night, it was just more of like a, huh? Yeah. Okay, okay. They nodded you. We'll see. We'll see.

We'll see. So Steve will be here. Each and every week, we'll talk all kinds of Bulls now because he's on the program. We're excited to have him. Happy almost Thanksgiving to all of you. Thank you for listening. A reminder to please rate and review us. And don't forget about all the great NBA content on the ringer.com.

Dan wrote about PG and the clippers joining his five most interesting teams of the week. Young Palo Esco blog debuted his new column, the biggest questions of the week, which will run every Monday. Young Haley O'Shaughnessy broke down the five plays that explain Trey Young's killer skill set. And Zach Cram, he wrote about the Warriors and how they're chasing history again

for all the wrong reasons. By the way, coming up later in the show, Zach Cram joins us. We haven't had him on in a little bit. He's going to join us to discuss the sweeping changes that could be coming to the NBA very soon. But first, let's review the latest news from around the league and bring in our regular contributors, Dan and Haley.

Boom, Shakalaka. He's heating up. One of them is in studio. One is way across the country in our NYCCHQ. It's He Check coast to coast with Haley and Dan. Double D Dan is back. And Haley, I thought it was a power move, quite the flex for Dan basically to call out on Isaac's last day. Well, you know, giving him the send off he deserves.

Dan, you were just like, yeah, I'm not coming to work. Screw Isaac. Well, I feel like it's important to make a hard break between the past of the show and the future of the show. And I think we can all agree that Isaac is the past. And we collectively with Steve are the future. Yeah. Old Isaac is dead. All hail New Isaac.

Shouts to New Isaac. Shouts to New Isaac. Let's go to the headlines from around the league with NBA instant replay. All right. So, hey, congratulations to the San Antonio. O Spurs. They won a game. They beat Dan Devine's mighty New York Knicks, which by the way, you see Richard Jefferson said that he knew it was time to retire when the Knicks offered him a job. Amazing. The Spurs were up as many as 28 points. But before that, they lost eight

in a row, which was the most ever under Pop. 538 gives them less than a 1% chance to make the playoffs, which is the same as the Knicks and the Hornets. They made the playoffs for 22 straight years. Gang, our first gang of the program. Dan, you're first. because you're rejoining us. You were against the Spurs all season long. I finally got on the Spurs because I said, you know, I spent all of last year doubting them. And once again, I am wrong and you were right.

Fade the Spurs, ladies and gentlemen. If you can't stop anybody to save your friggin' life, you're not going to be able to make the playoffs. And as of right now, the San Antonio Spurs can't stop anybody except for the New York Knicks. And those leads that you have like a 28-point lead against the Knicks, that's like a dog year's. kind of lead. It's like a four point lead against any other team. The Spurs can't stop anybody to save their lives. And if that's going to continue for them, they're not going to

be able to compete no matter how good their offense is. We've seen this time and time again under Greg Popovich, like the team, they place the talent of his best players, but right now none of his best players can really play defense all that well. And you're starting to see the cracks in the foundation. Haley, a reporter implied to Greg Popovich that the Spurs were struggling, to which Pop replied, that's bullshit. We're kicking ass. which, God bless them. What's the chance that they recover here? Because don't forget, last year they started off slow, too,

which is when I wrote the obit. And then they immediately became like the best team in the NBA and, you know, marched on to yet another playoff appearance. So what's the chance that they get this thing going again? I think that they deserve a handicap because if any coach could fix something and turn it around and understand how to use these players in a better way, it's Popovich. But even there's silver linings right now,

like Patty Mills is having a great, season, a career season, honestly this late in his career, are kind of bad. Like, he looks terrible on defense, but they need him on the court. I'm not ready to count them out yet. I know that Dan Devine hates all the teams in the middle of the country because he's a coastal elite. He hates the San Antonio Spurs. I'm not going to do it yet.

I'm going to ride with pop and the gang. I think that they're going to turn it around. All right. So a clash of NBA Eastern Conference foes. Jimmy Butler returned to Philadelphia. Sixers versus the heat. And 10-9-8-76ers, they throttled Miami by 20. they booed the living shit out of Jimmy Butler

who, you know, he said all he wants to do is just win gang and he did not win. There were reports from Philadelphia from my friend Enrico at the 700 level that there was a 10 year old in his section screaming, Jimmy Butler sucks. I love all of this. How do you guys as non-Philadelphians feel about booing Jimmy Butler upon his return to the city of Brotherhood? I think it's so bratty. I'm sorry, I'm sure like a lot of Sixers fans listen to this, but I don't understand why he got traded

there. He saved you guys in a playoff series. What obligation does he have? He doesn't have the hometown obligation to resign. Spoken like a non-Philadelphian. We discount your idea there. Dan Devine, what do you think about this? I think booing Jimmy Butler is something that Jimmy Butler would appreciate. He's sort of like a great wrestling heel, right? Like Rick Flair doesn't want you to cheer for him. He wants you to like let to acknowledge what he's doing and then respond in kind. And I feel like Jimmy Butler of any of any NBA player, except for maybe MB'd, which is maybe why they get along so well, wants to have that from a crowd.

If you're not with him, then you're against him, and he's completely fine with it. I feel like everybody involved there is doing exactly what they're supposed to do for the greater, broader narrative. This is the proper take, Haleo Shonnessy. It's my God-Given right as a Philadelphiaan taboo, and I shall boo. So obviously, it's just one game. But how do we feel here about the heat? They go to 11 and 4.

They were having a good season until the Sixers reminded them that they're not very good, that they're not the Sixers. But do you buy the heat this season long-term, Haleo Shonness? I do against the Sixers. One of their season long flaws came out, turnovers. But also against the Sixers, it was unusual how poorly they shot the three. And that's something that they've really been doing well all season. And they've been shooting well overall.

Their passing is better. Their young guys look really good. Even their rookies. I think there's a lot to be excited about the heat. And I do think that we should take them seriously. Dan, while you were away, we had other Dan, Dan, Fifer on last week. And he implored Ben Simmons to shoot the corner three. Guess what happened?

The other Dan pulled it off. Obviously, Ben Simmons listens to Hecheck. Ben Simmons took a three and made a three. How excited were you? You were so excited. You probably didn't even sleep that night. I didn't sleep because I was apoplectic that the Knicks were the team that gave it up. I think it was Derek Bodner of the Athletic had the right take on this.

Just as we shouldn't have gotten too far ahead of ourselves when he hit it against that Chinese team in preseason, we also probably shouldn't get too far ahead of ourselves for him doing it against the Knicks during the season. But yeah, I mean, I think really the main takeaway for me is that you just have like a laundry list of other Dan's that can come in here and outperform me on the podcast, which really makes me feel good about my role on the program. So many Danz that we've got in line. But only one Haley. There's only one.

Only one. But only one Haley. All right, we go to Chicago and New Isaac's favorite team. The Bulls. Oh, boy. Zach Levine went off. They were down eight with 40 seconds left in Charlotte. Zach Lavin had a last second stealing.

He made a mad dash to turn around game winning three-pointer. Later on, afterwards, he was asked about. it, he said, I pretty much said, fuck it, I'm going for the game. He finished with 49 points and 13 threes and a one point win against those Hornets. It's the second most threes and a game in NBA history behind just Clay Thompson that tied him with Steph Curry. That's courtesy of our very own Zach Cram, who will be joining us a little later in the program. But I bring this up because it's kind of a take that Jim Boylan move, because before that, in a loss to the heat, uh, Jim Boylan basically sat down Zach Levine early on. And, uh, Zach was asked

about it after the game. He said, you know, like, why do you think he yanked him? He said, well, if he doesn't trust me, it's hard to trust someone who doesn't trust you. Danger, Haley. How do you feel about this potential conflict in Chicago? I wouldn't say that Bolin inspired him. I don't want to, like, create that narrative. I think that this is going to end up like coming to a head like so many different occasions have in Chicago in the past. And this is just kind of his nature. We've seen this like a million times out of gym. Even like last week, he said after the net, he was like, I can't go out and play for them. So him speaking out is going to continue to happen because the bulls are going to continue to lose.

And maybe it fueled Zach Levine, but eventually it's just going to annoy him. Dan, afterwards, Boylan said, I just pulled him. It wasn't combative. Guys know Zach Levine and Laurie Markin and our starters got to play better for us to become what we can become. Who's right here? Does Boylan have a point? Because I also think it's kind of hard to play better if you're not, you know, playing. But the problem with that is like Zach Levine is also actively not playing on half of the

most of the time. Fair. So, you know, Jim Boylan is, you know, you're sort of an essential hard-ass old-school kind of coach who are, if you're not giving effort on defense, you're not, if you're breaking plays, you're not going to play. And Zach Levine kind of admitted that. He's like, you know, he wanted me to, you know, to do X, Y, and Z on the pick and roll, and I kind of didn't do that.

That, the one thing coaches can control is playing time. And they can't mandate effort, but they can say, if you're not going to do what we want you to do, you're not going to play. Now, is playing, is not playing Zach Levine counterproductive to what the Bulls are trying to make, put together, probably. but it doesn't seem like it's out of the realm of possibility for Jim Boylan to have been in the right on that thing and still sort of be wrong in the bigger picture. I feel like Haley's right.

This feels like a precursor to a blowup, but I'm not really sure who's going to be at fault when it happens, and it might just be that there's blame on both sides of the table. New Isaac, Steve, where do you fall on this? Are you with a cranky old man, Jim Boylan, or are you with fun, take a lot of three-pointers, Zach Levine? I don't know. I mean, waking up from this very long slumber of Bulls' fandom, just to say, just to wait a in on something like this? I don't know. I would be like, all I've been saying what we've all

have been saying the city of Chicago is, we'll see. We'll see. That's all that it's been. That's a perfect T-check take right on the fence. We love New Isaac. Let's go you're fitting right in. Haley loves that kind of thing. Let's go to the Pelicans. So apparently

Josh Hart has a podcast. I did not know this. It's called Wait for it. The Lighthearted Podcast, because of course it is. And he had one Lonzo Ball on to discuss visiting his brothers in Lithuania during this podcast. This is all via ESPN. So Lonzo on this podcast said Lithuania was very depressing.

I went there to visit my brothers. I wouldn't do it again. It's like hella gloomy. Nobody smiles. It's like everybody just hates that they're there. Did I do that? Well, I'm channeling Lonzo and the kids. I'm like, damn, I had to get out of there, bro.

And Hart responded, sounds like L.A. No, I'm not talking about the city. And Ball responded. I don't know what he's talking about their next question. Let's cut that part out. Now, at that point, the producer of the podcast, and new Isaac, Steve, would never do this. He would actually cut this out.

But the producer says, yeah, we're going to edit this part out, so you might as well just tell us about it. And Hart laughs and says, I was going to say the Lakers organization. And then obviously, they did not cut that part out, which prompted Josh Hart to then call the Lakers, members of the Lakers organization in front office. Haley is gobsmacked here.

All of the smacks have been gobbed, to call various parts. of the Lakers organization and apologize for doing this. One, do you believe that this was an accident that they didn't cut it out, Hale, O'Shaughnessy? And two, did he need to call it and apologize? Who is this producer? What a betrayal.

He should be calling him out before even calling the Lakers organization. I cannot believe that. Look at me in the eyes, New Isaac. If you ever pull some shit like that, I swear. I will jump over. this table. These bikes are too hot. Too hot.

Dan Devon, did he need to call and apologize? Look me in my eyes, New Isaac. I'm not, I'm not going to turn the laptop around. Right. No, I'm not going to do that too.

Haley's frightening enough on her own. I think, I don't know if he needed to call to apologize. I mean, the guys that got on the business end of that Anthony Davis trade were basically like walking on eggshells for a year, right? Or for six months or however long it took 15 years for that whole Anthony Davis

goddamn situation to fall out. All those guys were like, You're in the trade, you're out of the trade, you're in the trade, you're out of the trade. And then they wind up, you know, being shipped out. Like, I don't think they really owe the Lakers organization anything. I think it's more covering your ass after the fact, which, again, that's probably not their fault. Their producer probably should have taken care of him on that one. Magic Johnson quit on television before telling Jeannie Bus.

This is what did it? Tell me about the lie here. Like, what is he worried about people finding out that the Lakers organization was previously, it might still be, but definitely was previously a shit show? Yeah, both sides are happy too. It's fine. All right. Last one for you.

There was another fan run in. This time it was with the Celtics while they were in Denver. Marcus Smart got his foot stuck in a chair. And while his foot was stuck in a chair, he said that the guy that was next to him said, that's right. Stay on the ground. Get on your knees. Smart pointed it out to Nugget Security who did nothing.

A league spokesman said that the league was investigating the matter. Now, you may remember from listening to Hecheck that the NBA instituted a new Fan zero tolerance policy. Back in October, the NBA executive vice president and chief security officer Jerome Pickett said that we've added any sexist language or LGBT language or any denigrating language in any way, anything that is non-basketball related. This was non-basketball related. And yet, the guy stayed in the arena. How do we feel about this, Haley, that the NBA is not exactly acting on its new zero tolerance policy?

It's sad. I mean, this is the only way to. prevent these things in the future is to have a zero tolerance policy and actually enforce it. And I especially think that you should probably do it when it comes to Marcus Smart. If there's like top five people in the NBA you don't want to fuck with, he's probably a number. Also a great dude. He's one or two and he's not two. He's also a great dude.

Dan, how do you feel about the zero intolerance policy that actually evidently has some tolerance? Yeah, I think this is always where the NBA was going to find themselves on this because they want to be like, give fans a wide berth for being able to heckle and you buy your ticket and you get the opportunity to say what you want to say. But also like the players need to be protected. The players need to not be rated and slandered and whatever else while it's happening. And the players don't feel protected. This was what really got back to the heart of what Tyler Times wrote when he sort of covered that last season after the Russell Westbrook incident in Utah. Players don't feel protected. They feel like they're, you know, like animals in a zoo behind bars or behind glass. And like there's not even that

separation anymore because a guy can just get it right in Marcus Smart's face about it. it. So I don't know. I feel like the league, in order for this to actually matter, the league has to have some teeth in the policy. And this is like a bummer, but not surprising at all that they don't. If there's anything that was good that came out of that it was Rick Petino's tweet, he tweeted out, I see another dumb fan got into it with Marcus Smart. I encourage any player sick of that nonsense to come play for Panathanaikos. You can go through the Euro League and not understand any words, crying, laughing emoji. My guy, Rick Petino back in Greece, also killing it on Twitter.

Petino forever. You did the level mention for me this time. That's right. There we go. That was NBA instant replay. And now it's time to bring in our guest for the main event. All right. Joining us on the line, he's a staff writer. You can catch his daily NBA facts. We call them Zach's on Twitter. He's instantly the smartest person on this show, which drops me to the fifth smartest. He's Zach Cram. Hello. Nice to be here. Hi, buddy. Today's act was fun. The Warriors have zero healthy above average players on the roster.

Well, fun if you're for the other 2019. Right, right. Sucks for Golden State. So we brought you on because we thought you'd be a good person to talk about this. There's a lot of potential changes to the NBA and the way that they're going to handle their season. According to Woge and the other Zach, Zach Lowe, these could be enacted as soon as the 20-21 season, the league's 75th anniversary. They're proposing a minimum 78 game regular season. And we'll go through.

We'll tick through each of these. There's four major changes. The first one is a mid-season tournament. This is something that's long been a pet project of Adam Silver, who loves the idea of a soccer-style tournament. It would involve all 30 teams. It would start post-th Thanksgiving and run through mid-December. There would be a divisional group stage,

and then a pre-knockout regular season games would count towards that. And then eight teams would graduate to a knockout round with financial incentives for players and coaches. Zach Cram, our guest. We'll start with you. How do you feel about this? I feel like this might be the most controversial of the proposed changes, at least from what I've seen in the initial reactions online. But I think I'm encouraged by it from two perspectives.

The big problem, of course, is the question of stakes, right? What does this tournament mean when you already have the NBA championship? We're seeing more and more load management. So why would the Clippers, for instance, burn Kauai Leonard and Paul George in these games when really the first 50-plus years of NBA history have pushed toward wanting to be healthy in June, not necessarily in this tournament around Thanksgiving. But I think there are two encouraging factors here. Number one is that single elimination games just rule in general. And the fact that this would be a single elimination tournament, once you get to the quarterfinals, artificially amplifies the stakes there, think about why the NCAA tournament

is so popular, why the wild card game in baseball is so great, even if it's not necessarily the most fair structure to determine a winner, it's the most entertaining. And, number two is from a long-term perspective. I think in the short-term, certainly there will be fewer stakes just because this tournament has no history. It doesn't mean as much. When you go to a player's basketball reference page, you're going to see the number of trophies in the top right corner, not necessarily the number of mid-season tournament trophies. But over the long-term, these things can change. And you have to have a first step. Looking at the NCAA tournament, for instance, the NIT was a more prestigious, glamorous, popular tournament for the first two decades

or so of the NCAA and NIT tournament's existences. But over time, that changed as the NCAA tournament grew in popularity. And I'm certainly not suggesting that this midseason tournament will eventually usurp the actual NBA finals in June. But like, it's possible that these things can grow in importance. And especially for teams like the Wizards, the Wizards have a great offense, could they get hot over three games and compete in a single elimination tournament? I think all of these things are possible, and that's why over the long run, it could end up at it. I wonder, you know, you bring up a good point about why the Clippers would potentially say

burn a Kauai when they're load managing, but I wonder with the financial incentives in place, like, do you have to play to get some of that, or is it like spread out evenly? I wonder, but Haley, you said previously that you would have a differing opinion from one, Zach Cram, do tell. I think maybe on the other things that we've talked about. Apparently he's totally forgotten about because conversations with me mean nothing. I miss you too, Zach. No, I actually agree with him here. And I think the entire thing has to be about fun. If this is truly going to mimic soccer and the soccer tournaments that we've been talking about, I actually think that we're completely overlooking something, which is that you shouldn't limit it to the NBA. This should be something where we incorporate G League and Euroleaks and different things. because that is what happens with these mid-season tournaments in soccer. So you just want to fold everybody in? I mean, it doesn't have to be that messy,

but I think this should be a chance to incorporate something just outside of the NBA. Dan, other changes that are happening here, one of the ones that they propose, a play-in for the postseason where 7, 8, 9, and 10 seeds would get into it. I kind of like this one. What do you think? Yeah, I think that's fine. I mean, I don't know. The idea of changing all this stuff for the purposes of finding new,

ways to re-engage fan bases who don't feel like they have a chance to win the championship is reasonable. I mean, the point Adam Silver's made throughout this is like organization. I think it was a quote that he gave to Mark Stein of the Times. Organizations have the opportunity to make new traditions. And this, making the tradition and then fostering it over time is going to be like sort of an uphill climb. But you have, I mean, all of this idea of like you have to get more teams to be on board for more different changes and you have to figure out a way that it makes sense for them. it comes back to like, is this going to make more money for people? And if it is going to make more money for people or at least be revenue neutral while

potentially reducing workload, then people will be on board for it. But as of right now, it still seems really unclear that like any of it would make more money while decreasing workload in a season that's already pretty long as it is. Zach, I suspect that you have studied the potential ramifications and implications here of them having a play in for the postseason. But where do you fall on this one? I just want to first say that it's sad that over here, I'm, I'm focusing on what would be the most entertaining

and then Dan is being the damper of oh, well, it's got to be revenue neutral and make money. Just think about the fun end. Welcome to heat check. Dan has to put on his dad hat. And John, we are wearing the same dad hat today, by the way. We are in the camera. But you're only one of us is shaking his fist at a cloud, Dan.

Danny Downer. That's true. The reality of it is, I would love it if it's more entertaining and more interesting, but I think that we have to differentiate it in an important way. So if the tournaments are going to be in some way different than the regular run of NBA basketball, like, I don't know, only players under 25 can play. Only players in their first three years can play.

You know, if you were part of a playoff team the year before, like, you know, you're not going to be or whatever. There needs to be some kind of differentiation because otherwise it's just sort of reorganizing something we already have. And like, I don't know that that necessarily just putting that in the context of a single elimination tournament with no pedigree makes it much more exciting in the here and now. But I'm open to the possibility of being wrong. that. I just feel like if you're going to introduce something new, there needs to be more

new about it. Zach, just to summarize here, Dan hates, Dan hates fun and you and I are pro fun. We like fun. This sounds like fun to me. What about you? Well, I think both proposed playoff changes, this one and the idea that once you reach the semifinals in the last four teams, you would reseed them to, you know, prevent like two Western powerhouses going up in the semifinal. instead of the finals. But I think both of those seem like half measures. Like if you're going to reseed once you get to the semifinals, why not just reseed the whole thing?

And if we're going to allow the ninth and tenth place teams to play in, usually those ninth and tenth place teams are not that much better than the 11th or 12th place teams. So why not just extend it to every team? And I think that is where I'm a little confused about the purpose of expanding it a little bit, but not just going full bore because like, I don't know, in the Eastern Conference, the 10th seed usually wins about 36 games.

Are they going to be much more competitive than an Eastern Conference team that wins 32 games? Probably not, especially over a small sample. So I think I would prefer these to be expanded because, again, single elimination games rule. We saw a sort of pseudo-play-in game a pseudo-in game a couple years ago when Denver and Minnesota played for the eighth seed on the last night of the regular season. And that game was awesome. And I think figuring out more ways to add stakes, especially at the beginning of the playoffs, where the first round is usually kind of a bummer is a smart idea.

I'm just not sure if this is the right smart. Haley, they're taking steps here. As Zach mentioned, this last one would recede so that potentially you could have two teams from the West or even in a bizarre alternate universe, two teams from the East playing for the finals. Do you like, yes, it's sort of a half measure here, but at least it's an attempt to change the format of the NBA, which is, you know, kind of grown a little stale here. Do you like this final proposed change?

I think that if there's any argument that it hasn't grown stale, its last season, the Raptors upset the Warriors. That's like the craziest thing to happen in the last five years. Well, other than the three in one come back. But no, actually, I think it's wilder that they won. But like Zach was saying, these things are probably going to need to be gradual to ever be incorporated. But I think they need to be overwhelming changes to matter.

And I also think the owners won't go for that. I, however, would like to see it. This is my problem with these changes. I like the idea that they're attempting to shake it up a little bit. But my whole thing here, and Dan knows because we were on the road for the playoffs last year together for, I think we just got back. The season, the regular season is really fucking long. And then the playoffs are two months long. And they're going to, in this scenario, there's a potential chance where a team could play as many as 83 regular season games.

So on the one hand, they're saying, you know, 78 regular season games at a minimum in an attempt to reduce. But once you add in the midseason tournament and the reconfigurations with the play-in games, you can potentially have more games. Like, Zach, check my math here. You're the math guy. Wouldn't that be more games? Are we supposed to have fewer games here? Indeed, 83 is greater than 82. It's more than 82, yes.

I'm glad you invited me onto the pod to work with this advanced calculus. But I think this is where, as I was making. making fun of Dan earlier, I agree that the money will end up playing a role because like my idea for shortening of the regular season, if we're going to stay with 30 teams, is if you play every team twice and then every team in your conference a third time, that works out to 72 games, which sounds ideal. When you're load managing guys like Kauai and maybe LeBron, they're probably going to end up playing around 70 to 72 games. And that seems like an ideal scenario. You would have more balance in the schedule, but that would require losing revenue for five home games. And maybe over time adding in a mid-season tournament could account for that gap. But you're right. It seems like you're almost adding more games or at least not getting rid of games when even Adam Silver has admitted that's kind of the goal he has. Zach, I'd like to note for the record that you were talking cash shit earlier about my lack of

excitement and my Debbie Downerness and all those sorts of things. And then by five minutes later, you came right around to my point of view, my man. This is growing up. That's what this is. That's what happens here on the on the heat check podcast. No, I mean, this is exactly right. If we're going to do fewer games, do fucking fewer games. Don't do four fewer games.

Do 10, do 15, do 16 fewer games, whatever. And then make these, they put time around these, like the international breaks they have in soccer or something like that. Yes. To be able to build in the time around it. They lengthened the season a couple years ago to expand more time. They wanted to put more time into the All-Star break so that players aren't getting run into the ground.

We can't just fill in those gaps with new shit because we think it'll sell better. The whole point is to make all of it matter more, and scarcity is the answer for that. I propose just canceling March. Just like, let's cancel March. We'll all take a time out and in an app before April rolls around and there's the playoffs. Zach Cramm, this was hugely helpful. I could not have figured out 83 is more than 82. Without you, go read all of Zach's stuff.

He's very, very good. Thanks for joining us, buddy. Thank you so much. All right, that was Zach Cram. We love Zach Cram. And now it's time for a segment that we also love. Good Call, bad call. What a bold call here.

All right, so we've done sort of like a little bit on this show where we've reviewed jerseys. And because listeners at home can see these things if they go and pull them up on their own. But we're going to do an all jersey edition of Good Call, Bad Call because we can't help ourselves. So we'll start first. Dan, you missed this last week. I made the mistake. Isaac joined us for the entire show. And I made the mistake of Threat.

growing to Isaac first for one of the good call, bad calls. And Haley yelled at me. She said, I always start. What are you doing? Sexist. So we're going to go to Haley O'Shaughnessy first. Hey, Haley, what do you think about the Nets, Bed-Stuy jersey? I don't like them.

I just don't like the font. I think that a lot of these city jerseys, the problem is that the idea behind it might be good, but the execution, the actual font, the colors, everything. It's bad. So, B.C. B.C. from Haley O'Shaughnessy. Dan Devine, our resident Brooklyn expert. What do you say about the Nets Bedstay jerseys?

It's still a B.C. for me. I mean, it's the same idea as like why the other ones, the other sort of graffiti font jerseys didn't work for me. The Fahia, Haley's right with the font. I do like the kind of Kooji piping on it, the Kudji sweater color. But like there's a little bit of like the Nets are playing kind of biggie karaoke at this point. And I feel like it's a little bit of, it's a little bit much. But I'm open to more neighborhoods in the future.

If there's a flatbush one, perhaps where I live, I will buy that at some point. But right now, we're going to go with the BC. New Isaac, BC or GC on the Nets-Bed-Sy jersey? BC. All these new jerseys have been looking like whiling out jerseys anyway. So we got three BCs. You guys don't know fashion. I'm a G-C. I love these.

I think they're excellent. It's fun. I like the Nets stuff. That's good stuff. All right. What about the Celtics? The Celtics have a Boston Gaelic. font as somebody described on our Slack.

It's a font that just ordered a round of fireball shots and got into a bar fight. Helio Shaughnessy, uh, what say you? I can't believe that you say, I don't know fashion when I'm in this outfit. Fair enough.

You have clearly, clearly a great outfit. Look, but it stopped there. I mean, the nets, bedstyes. I'm all on board for anything biggie go. I feel like as an Irish person,

this should be a G. But it's a BC because this looks like the O'Hara's pub that is on every college campus ever. Yeah. And who has good memories from that pub? It's a BC for you. It's a BC for me, especially because all of the players that the Celtics had sort of posing in this,

Kemble Walker, Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, and Gordon Hayward look like deeply uncomfortable to be associated with that kind of bar. Like, you know, somebody's about to get thrown through a plate glass window after screaming for 45 minutes. And I'd feel like nobody really wants to be there, let alone in that, like, living inside of it. So I think it's a BC all the way around for me. New Isaac. BC as well. I would have preferred the font from Cheers. Yeah.

Sweep it up. I'm a BC as well. Contractually obligated since I'm a Philadelphia. We go to the Grizzlies. The Grizzlies brought out their big country throwbacks from the Vancouver era. Haley O'Shaughnessy Grizzlies throwbacks. Jonas kind of looked by the way, like I'm going to guess you don't remember big country. Dan Devon, you remember big country.

Jonas kind of looked like big country in those jerseys. Did he not? Oh, minus the flat top. That's that's really what you're missing with Brian. out a little bit. Halee O'Shaughnessy. These are beautiful. As somebody who has bought a lot of Vancouver gear, just because I liked how it looked. Yeah, I'm all for these.

G.C. Dan Devine. Also, G.C. Something about that, that's sort of like the teal really pops now. It might have been a bit too much at the time, especially when on the back of a Mike Bibby, but now it's really coming around. New Isaac. Extremely G. G.C. Very clean. I like this. I hated them back in the day,

and I friggin love them now. They should only wear these. They're beautiful. Sweep it up, G. see. Last one for you, we're going to do these together. The Kings brought out a Sacktown jersey, and the Bucks have a Cream City jersey, which led Trey Kirby to tweet. I can't wait for Sacktown versus Cream City. Let's go on the tweet there. Haley O'Shaughnessy, Trey Kirby's Sacktown versus Cream City tweet, G.CBC. I can't say anything. You have to bleep it all. Just move on. Dan Devine. Trey

Fine, G.C. Trey was my old boss and my previous job, a longtime internet friend, but also what are we doing here, guys? Come on. What are we doing here? New Isaac.

I can't believe that they're just doing this and not thinking that the internet's going to just jump on them. Extremely BC. Extremely G.C. For the exact same reason. Shouts to Trey Kirby for putting those... Cream City, are you kidding? For putting those two things together.

I saw Trey's tweet and I laughed for... I'm still laughing. We're talking about it on the show. last one, the Heat Check podcast talking about jerseys when people can't see them, Haley O'Shaughnessy. G.C. because Isaac's not here to stop us anymore. That's true. Shouts to Isaac. Dan Devine.

G.C. We'll see you with the crossroads, old Isaac. New Isaac. G.C. because I'm the new Isaac. Sweep it up, G.C. I want to thank everybody who was on the program. Zach Cram was excellent. New Isaac killed it. R.I.P. Old Isaac. Dan Devine and Halee O'Sonnessy. Thank you. and thank all of you for listening. Please rate and review us.

Read all of our content on the ringer.com. Listen to the Ringer NBA show on the Ringer podcast network. Heat Check will be back next week. Happy Thanksgiving, gang. Bye.