The Ringer NBA Show - Does the NBA have a James Harden Problem? | The Answer

Episode Date: December 11, 2020

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan searches for solutions to the James Harden saga on the debut episode of “The Answer”. First, Chris is joined by Kirk Goldsberry (ESPN) to rank implausible-but-technically-possible Harden trades (07:00) and then Musa Okwonga (Stadio, Ringer FC) dials in to compare the rise of soccer-like transfer requests from NBA stars (36:00). Host: Chris Ryan Guest: Kirk Goldsberry and Musa Okwonga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody. Welcome to the Ringer NBA show. It's The Answer. And we're going to be coming to you every Friday, kind of doing a little bit of a week in review conversation with a couple of guests talking about the biggest storylines in the NBA, and there's only one storyline in the NBA right now. Well, there's obviously COVID and how the league is grappling with that

with a lot of positive tests impacting different training camps as preseason games start this weekend. But the other big story, the only big story really beyond that, is the James Hardensocket. Now, I had thought as I went to bed on Wednesday night, I was like, there can't possibly be any more chapters to this story until maybe he actually gets traded. And of course, I was wrong.

Shams Rani reported on Thursday that the list of Hardin's acceptable destinations and a trade has expanded to include the Milwaukee Bucks and the Miami Heat. And that's interesting. You know, it's interesting that Hardin is trying to essentially conduct a free agency from the pulpit of a guy under contract. It's like, who has leverage in this situation? And the other thing that's really affecting this entire conversation is this idea of player empowerment,

which I think we've heard a lot of people talk about the player empowerment era. And I think that that is at once accurate and not accurate way of describing this time that we're kind of going through in the NBA. One thing you see that is happening right now is something that really only applies to about 12 NBA players is being used to brush the entire league. This idea that anyone can decide at any given moment that they're not happy in their situation, so they want to be traded.

And not only they want to be traded, they want to be traded to this specific place. And that that is somehow undoing the competitive balance of the league, I think is a little bit of a fallacy. You know, we really only have a couple of examples of this happening over the last couple of years. He had Kwai Leonard, Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis, Jimmy Butler, Paul George, and now Hardin, you know, and I think that there's been

some free agency stuff. There's been pressure put in different places. But for the most part, I think you have to ask yourself, how many guys could actually call their shot like this? You know, like if Kyle Lowry walks in to Miss Nigeria's office and says, trade me right now, does that even make a sound? Do we have a week of conversation about Kyle Lowry trying to call his own shot, call his own destination and talk his way out of Toronto. For all we know, there has been situations like this before with mid-level players, with replacement players, with role players, with bench players, where these guys have been like, yeah, you know what, this isn't working for me.

I thought I was going to be getting about 25 minutes a game. I'm only getting 12. I'm not going to get a contract. You got to trade me somewhere. It's probably happened. You know, the player empowerment idea seems to mostly apply to all-MBA level of talent. And the idea that teams are on a class. clock that ticks faster than the player contract suggests it should. That somehow Milwaukee is on a

clock to please Janice. That Houston is on a clock to please Hardin. And I think what those teams would assume is, no, we have the full extent of this person's contract to work these things out. But maybe that's just not the case anymore. And maybe that's not a good thing. Maybe that's not a good thing for people who buy James Hardin jerseys. Maybe it's not a good thing for Houston Rockets fans. I'm sure if Joel Embed or Ben Simmons wanted out of Philadelphia, I would feel upset about it too, you know? But the question is, is like, would I be upset as Ben Simmons got traded for James Harden? Does it go both ways? Does that loyalty go both ways when it means your team can be improved? And does it apply to all the different parts of the NBA? If Darrell Mori says,

hey, things are going wrong here in Houston. Me and Tillman aren't getting along. Me and the owner, Tillman for a cheatier, are not getting along. I want to get out of here. I want a different challenge. And he says, I want to go spend time with my family. It's amicable. He leaves, and a short time later he winds up running the Philadelphia 76ers. A move I'm ecstatic about. Why is that okay? But James Harden saying, this is bullshit. I want out of here is somehow a knife in the heart of the Houston franchise.

Now, I get it. People care more about the guys on the court than the guys making phone calls in an office somewhere in the building. But I do think we have to be fair and say, like, look, it's 2020. People are going to say, hey, this is where I want to work. This is what I want to be doing with my life. I don't necessarily feel like I'm being treated the way I want to be treated. This project is going the way I wanted it to go.

And if that's the case, I think that Houston has every right to ask for the fair price for Hardin Services. And they have every right to make Hardin fulfill his contract. But it doesn't mean that Hardin can't ask. And I think it's kind of odd the way it's coming out. It's almost entirely through the media. There hasn't really been much from Hardin's camp at all in the official statements. I mean, his mom made a long post on Instagram, but that's really the extent of it. But I don't know.

I think that player empowerment only really seems to apply to like 1% of the NBA league of the players in the NBA. So it's a fascinating time. And I wanted to talk about it with a couple of really smart people today. So the first guest I have is Kirk Goldsbury, who I used to work with at ESPN when we were doing Grantland. And Kirk spent some time in the San Antonio Spurs front office and was there when Kauai Leonard made his trade. request and was eventually dealt to Toronto. So I talked to Kirk a little bit about what it's like to kind of be on the other side of this when this player, when a superstar player wants out from your franchise. And then we talked about some implausible destinations for Hardin and where maybe

we would like to see him go even if it's unlikely to be the final destination for Hardin. And then I brought on my buddy Muso Cuongo, who's a football podcast or soccer podcaster for the Ringer. He does the Stadio podcast with Ryan Hunt, which is on our Ringer FC feed. And I'm I talked to him a little bit about football transfers, which is essentially the trade market of European soccer. And the similarities and differences between the way trades work in the NBA and the way transfers work in Europe and maybe what the two sports and two industries could learn from one another and why, no matter what sport you're playing, trades never make everybody happy.

So first up, joining us on The Answer, it's Kirk Goldsbury from ESPN. I'm so happy to welcome as my first guest in my return to the ringer NBA show. One of my old Grantland running mates, Kirk Goldsbury, currently of ESPN, formerly of the San Antonio Spurs front office, Kirk, what's up? It's so good to see you. It is so good to see you, Chris, for those that don't know, we had a very intimate working relationship for a number of years at Grantland.com where you edited hundreds. I want to say hundreds of pieces. So thank you for that. It very well may be that, Betty. And many, I feel like we did at least like a dozen about Hardin and about the transformation of Houston Rockets under Moray Ball as they, and that was early on because we were at Grant. We were at Grantland when Hardin got traded to the Rockets and now we are talking as Hardin seems to be trying to get his way out of Houston. I wanted to come at this from a couple of different angles, but first I wanted to draw on your experience as someone who's worked in an NBA front office. And specifically as somebody who's worked in an NBA front office when a superstar player asks,

to leave that team. Now, I know you probably can't speak too specifically about Kauai and that whole thing, but I was curious whether you could paint a picture for what it's like when you are sitting in your cubicle, filling out your TPS reports, and it turns out that Kauai is no longer happy, or the superstar that you guys are kind of building your franchise around is no longer happy there. Yeah, well, every situation is different.

You know that, but I think one of the big challenges for the Rockets right now is that this front office is brand new too. And that hasn't been discussed very much. I sort of think it's like Soli Solenberger. This new GM takes off in the plane, and all of a sudden there's a bird in the engine, and we just got off the ground with this front office, and now we have this huge crisis on our hands.

It totally derails the long-term planning of the organization. James Hardin was going to retire a rocket. That was the vibe for years. that does not look like it's the vibe anymore. And so the first thing, Chris, is that you have to sort of look at all of your long-term plans and goals and realign them and reimagine them. And that disrupts a whole lot of already existing work. So I think the new front office led by Raphael Stone, I believe, has a huge challenge.

Now, the actual trade part is super stressful too. You're going to have so many phone calls to deal with. You don't know what's real. You don't know what's not real. And, you know, the thing that is analogous is James Harden is suggested he only wants to go to a few places. Well, too bad, dude. You have three years left on your deal. And if we get the best offer from, say, I don't know, Toronto, you're going to Toronto.

You're not going to pick your destination here. And he doesn't have that much leverage with the three years. left on his contract. And so I think that's another part that's been a little overplayed in the media. It's like James does not have a lot of say in where he goes. And Houston will take the best deal presented. And they're going to have a heck of a lot of options. So you do think that there's going to be a robust trade market for Hardin, even though the implication would be much like with Anthony Davis. If Hardin doesn't get the situation he wants, it's essentially a short-term rental. Yeah, but I think the three years isn't as short-term as Anthony's situation in New Orleans.

I believe is one year. I think that's a big distinction. I think a potential trade partner is going to be able to talk themselves into, well, you know, it's three years of James Harden, not a rental per se. Three years is a pretty long chunk of time, especially for a team that's already close, a contender that's already close. I think three years, I think we can convince them to stay here. I think that is a big part of this.

So I don't think it's analogous to the Anthony situation. any recent evidence of somebody going somewhere and the team convincing them to stay? You know what we did? It was Paul George in Oklahoma City. That's right. We thought we did, but we did. I mean, could anybody put together a better deck than the Toronto Raptors? And Kauai still left. He still went where we wanted to go. Great point. I was curious whether or not, you know, Hardin is such a unique talent, or I think that his talents have been made even more unique by the system he's played in.

So that when you see a guy and the entire team not only, I think, roster-wise, is built around extracting the most amount of value from his skill set. But also, I think, aesthetically and tactically, that team has been set up to maximize what he can give you as an offensive player and, frankly, cover up for what he can't give you as a defensive player. So when you're talking about the long-term planning, it must also be a pretty profound thing for Stephen Silas to have to have to, think about what's this team if it's not James Hardin and if it's players X, Y, and Z coming back, or if I'm not getting 100% of Hardin or if Hardin's just straight up not playing. I mean, like, this team probably has the highest ceiling and lowest floor of any team in the NBA at this very moment. I think that's a good way to look at it.

I think I keep hearing about the floor because James isn't going to be there. But, you know, they got to Marcus Cousins. They have John Wall. We don't know what John Wall is going to bring. That's a high ceiling, low floor situation all onto itself, man. But, you know, it's really interesting. And we wrote about Hardin a lot. I'm a hardinologist by trade.

I think this guy is offensive efficiency in a can. And similar to when we used to say, if you put LeBron James on any Eastern Conference team, they'd immediately be the Eastern Conference favorite. Remember when we used to say that? Yes. If you put James Hardin on any. team. I'm not saying they're going to the finals, like I would say, about LeBron, but they're probably a top 10 offense with maybe a few exceptions around the league. This guy, and it's unclear what we

just saw in Houston for the last number of years, how much is that Dan Tony, how much is that Hardin, how much is that Mori? But what is clear is that James Hardin is the best offensive player on planet Earth right now, period. Right. That's true. And any team that gets him, whether it's the Rockets or any other team, immediately becomes a contender. maybe not a finals contender, but a legit second round team. As somebody who's been through the wars, so to speak, a little bit, I would imagine that that makes you not cynical, but not certain, you probably aren't shocked by this development that Hardin has decided

for whatever reasons, whether it's because I didn't get the coach I wanted or because I assessed my surroundings and realized I'm going to spend the next five years coming up short in the second round or the first round of the Western Conference playoffs as long as the competition is like this. And he decides he wants to go. To you is that necessarily a huge problem for the NBA? Because I think the way that we've kind of heard people talking about it this week a lot and pods on this pod network, which I agree with and disagree with, have talked about

like this is a problem for the league, that the league might have to eventually get involved or they may need to legislate against actions like this going forward. Yeah, I think it is. And as a former member of a small market team, I think I like to cut it along big market, small market lines. Somebody a lot smarter than me, Chris once told me, like an NBA team really has three ways to build a good team, through the draft, through free agency, and through trades.

One of the things we're seeing right now is big market, big market teams can get that free agent. And the small market teams, with a few exceptions, can't. And if that's true, if team building is a sort of a three-legged stool in Los Angeles, in New York, in Oakland, San Francisco, but it's a two-legged stool in Oklahoma City or Orlando, that's not good. And what we're seeing in macro over the last few years, in my opinion, is more and more more of the league's most prestigious free agents going from small markets to big markets.

And I think that is a big issue if increasingly these prestige free agent targets are only really eager to play in eight or ten markets of the 30. I'm sorry, there's 29 markets, but you get my point. I know. I think that is a problem. And the small market teams should be a little concerned if they can only build their team through the draft and through trades. And in some cases, those trades don't really mean much

because the target of the trade will leave any couple years to go to Los Angeles or whatever. Yeah, I feel like it was former Pacers GM Leo Tolstoy once wrote all happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Like, I feel like no situation is exactly the same. And to play devil's advocate for this particular hardened scenario, I don't know, I think the buck stops with Tillman a little bit here.

know, like, I think that Dantone fled and Mori fled, and those things were okay. You know, those things were understandable almost. I mean, I don't think Daryl is getting nearly the same amount of flack for calling his own shot as James is for calling his seemingly to want to paint his own destiny. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I mean, that's a complicated situation. We have video of Tillman in the president's house making, you know, disparaging remarks about Darrell, and it seems like the relationship, I don't know them that well or their relationship,

at least. It seems like it could have frayed. But I do think you're on to something really important too, which is generally the most underrated characters in the NBA are the owners. And they create a culture from the top down. Right. And the previous Rockets ownership was so different and stable than the current Rockets ownership. And you can see that impact. Like this is a great case study in how ownership affects NBA organizations. If you want another one that went the other way, the LA Clippers saga from a few years ago, we've seen that franchise legitimately turn over a new leaf as soon as it went into Steve Ballmer's hands. And I think we're seeing sort of the opposite story, a slow motion car crash in Houston. And I think it just, again, owners are the least,

they're not fun to talk about, but they're super impactful. And they're sort of the least discussed most important people in the NBA. The other thing is that we ask a lot from NBA players. We ask them to be consistently amazing on a three times a week. When we tune in, we ask them to play through injuries. We ask them to give a shit

about what they're doing on a nightly basis to leave it all out on the floor. And I think we can ask the same of the front offices, too. I think it's a harder job to do, to be an NBA front office in a small market where you're not going to get a look in from a Jimmy Butler or a Kauai Leonard or Paul George or whoever in free agency.

But it's also up to you to build a team and to keep that team competitive enough to keep the talent that you do develop. And we're seeing that with Giannis right now. And I think we can all say, we can all backseat drive what happened with Bogdanovich. And we can talk about whether or not Milwaukee has made the right calls over the last couple of years with Brogden.

But just the fact that they are on this hypothetical list that Shams Sharani reported on on Thursday of Hardin's preferred destinations. I think is a significant, it's a sign that things are going well in Milwaukee to some extent. And it's an example of, if you're in a small market,

you shouldn't look at that as one-hand tie behind your back. It's just up to you to build a winning culture. Yeah, I mean, counterpoint, that team could have neither Hardin or Yannis. Yeah, that's true. Like, the Lakers were in terrible shape. And they were still on LeBron and AD's list. And, you know, I love the Lakers and talk about a great ownership family over generations.

The buses deserve a lot of credit for putting us on the map as a league. But yeah, like the Lakers don't have to worry about every nuanced move. Their place in the ecosystem is very secure. Right. They can mess up for seven years and LeBron James still wants to go there. If Milwaukee messes up for seven consecutive years, James Hardin isn't on that list. Sure. he's on that list because there's a young man from Greece who's pretty good, who's dominating the Eastern Conference, and that makes them a contender. And in the post-Jordan era, we're hunting rings. And that's another thing that's echoing through this hardened discourse right now, too,

Chris, is like, post-Jordan, like, you're nothing if you don't get a ring. And, you know, we've talked about that before. You don't have to love that. You don't have to hate that. But it's certain like this, James is like, looking at the next five years. It's like, how do I get this monkey off my back? How do I get a ring?

And, you know, that's part of this equation too. And Milwaukee's on the list because of that. So I kind of want to explore that a little bit because I think that that's true that there is a like replacement level media take of like you're nothing if you don't have a ring. But I don't know, man. I feel like basketball fans love all sorts of basketball players who never want a ring. You know, like, like, I mean, I personally, and maybe that's just because I'm a Sixers fan and because

the Sixers haven't won any a championship since 83, but I feel like I'm able to have like pretty nuanced relationships with all site torts types of basketball players. And I don't spend my nights being like, oh, no rings, get the fuck out. Like I think that sometimes, I'm sure it keeps hard and awake at night if he ever goes to sleep. But I don't know, like with the flip side, it's like Durant orchestrated to move to Golden State won two rings and bounced because he didn't find the level of happiness that he wanted.

Yeah, I mean, he's the most recent extreme example. But yeah, watch inside the NBA on any given night. At some point, Shaquille O'Neal will look over to Charles and make some reference to what do you know, you never won a championship. And I don't agree with that, but that is a major part of this sort of mythos of an eventual NBA career.

Right. Do you have, that box checked or not. Are you Tom Brady or are you Dan Marino? And right now, James Hardin is Dan Marino. Incredible offensive numbers, but he's not the goat. He's not the goat. You know, yeah. It's it's an oversimplification. Don't get me wrong. And we don't, we don't chase that as much. But geez, like, you hear it on Instagram comments and you see it on Twitter. It's a reality that these guys are living through. Do you have audio turned on for your Instagram comments? Are you hearing all of your Instagram comments? figured that one out yet, you know what I'm saying.

No, I do know what you're saying, but it's funny because at the same time, I'm like, I don't feel like, I don't feel like people are unfamiliar with who Dan Marino is. You know, I think people are like, Dan Marino is like one of the sickest quarterbacks I've ever seen. I wanted to ask you about whether or not Hardin is in his own way, um, kind of changing like the paradigm of how, of how this is done because clearly, um, and, you know, Shams has been reporting on this story since it kind of broke. he broke it, I believe.

And every day seems to have a new wrinkle to the story, whether it's here's the teams he wants, here's the new teams he wants, and now this sort of list has grown to about half a dozen squads that James would be willing to go to Milwaukee, Miami, Philly, Brooklyn, and, you know, I think that the L.A. teams are on

the list now, according to Shams. But is he trying to conduct basically a virtual Hampton's house, free agency, while still under contract? And, you know, I talked to Musa Oquango, who does this audio podcast for us later in the show. And we chatted about how this feels almost like a transfer. You know, it's almost like Hardin is trying to say,

I want a different project, I want to go somewhere else. Here are the teams that I'd be willing to go to find me the best deal. And then he still has that out in a couple of years with his contract being up so that if it doesn't work out in his next destination, he can go somewhere else. Is he trying to essentially have it both ways here? He can have free agency twice. almost? Yeah, but as I said earlier, it doesn't really matter. I think he is. But like one of the things the Rockets are looking at on the whiteboard and their front office is like, we don't care. If if if one of the teams not on his list calls with the best package, what's stopping them from executing that deal? The Houston Rockets don't give a crap. So you brought this up earlier.

Are these other suitors scared away? That's the really big question. Are. Are the other suitors that would normally be interested in James Harden worried that they would only get him or get him sort of half-assing it in some case, I don't know. Are they worried that they're not getting the real James Hardin and the chance to build around him for, say, five, ten years as opposed to just three years? So I think he is trying to do that. My counter is it doesn't matter what he's trying to do. This transaction is going to be governed by two front offices that don't factor that in. Well, let's, let's have, this transaction be governed by us. Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's,

let's, let's, some implausible James Hardin trades that we, that could still happen. Could technically still happen, but they're implausible for any number of reasons, whether or not, it's because Houston would never do it or because, uh, Hardin would never want to go there. I want to kind of power rank some of these. So here's what we're going to do. Um, we're just going to throw them out there and then we'll, we'll, we'll put them in order. Uh, Kirk, you're the visitor here. So you go first. What's your first implausible, but technically possible James Harden trade that you would love to see. Well, you've said implausible four times.

I'm just going to say it two more times. My first implausible trade of James Harden is the implausible trade of him to the Golden State Warriors. And I think you brought up the Hamptons house. This is a perfect echo of that. You know, the Hamptons where Stephen Curry and Clay Thompson and Steve Curgo and they extract Kevin Durant from a Western Conference rival. from a bitter playoff rival and bring them to Oakland. Well, now they're playing in San Francisco,

but I would say if the Warriors could send, say, James Wiseman, Andrew Wiggins, and some picks, you know, Golden State also has this 2021 first round pick from Minnesota that's unprotected, Chris. They have their own pick next year in the following year. If you package two or three of those picks with Wiggins and Wiseman, And that's a pretty good package for a disgruntled player. And then immediately Golden State becomes a finals contend. And then I think immediately the L.A. teams call Adam Silver

and try to have Houston excommunicated from the league. This is the crazy thing. It's like you said, man, Hardin gives you so much that he could instantaneously tilt power in the league. If Golden State were somehow to do that, that completely changes the end of LeBron James' career possibly. I mean, Harden Curry and Draymond, a healthy Draymond to me is an unstoppable offensive lineup. And that's without Clay Thompson, who, God bless them, I hope, comes back and plays at a high

level as soon as possible. Yeah. And there's a way that the Warriors could make a really attractive offer to Houston without including Clay Thompson. And that's Wiseman and these picks and the Wiggins money. And I think you're right. like that is implausible to go back to our sort of concede here but that's not a bad deal that's a lot of that's a lot of young talent um and for a disgruntled player like james you know houston might go the rebuilding route here because again the western conference is a bloodbath and if the rockets are losing james hardin they're essentially losing their main way to compete against lebron for the next couple years and against golden state against the clippers so Yeah, rebuilding might be the best thing for Houston, and they might go that route.

And if they do, Golden State, implausible, but could put together a nice package. You really sold that. That was beautifully done. I'm going to go with a team that is slowly creeping up the vagus odds as a possible destination for Hardin. And that's your old enemies in Toronto. A lot of people have basically said that Ben Simmons is the best that Houston could do for James Harden. that that's the young cornerstone player that you would trade for, and that would be the only acceptable return for somebody of Hardin's caliber.

I posit that that is actually Pascal Seacom. I would say that Pascal Seacom would actually work better in a lineup with John Wall, and that you could do this deal for Seaccom and Norm Powell, and that immediately puts Toronto, if you put Hardin with OG, Fred Van Vlee, Kyle Lowry, that whole situation there with the talent pipe, plan that they always seem to have in Toronto, then I think Toronto becomes, if not an Eastern conference, the Eastern Conference favorite, at least a contender with Milwaukee, Boston, and Miami, and Philly. For Houston, I think it's a good deal. I think Siakum is that kind of like multipurpose

player that they haven't actually had in a while. You know, they have not had somebody on the wing who plays like he does and is defensively minded like he is. And I think he compliments Wall a little bit better than Simmons would. And you're stuck with Wall for a little while. What do you think of that one? I think it's great. And I think Toronto is one of the best organizations in the NBA. And you didn't even mention probably their best asset right now is Nick Nurse, who might be the best coach in the entire league. But one of the things are scenarios that in common, I couldn't help but noticing is these are the two teams that successfully pulled off these major sort of coups.

That's not the right door, but these major trades in the last few years, Toronto obviously got Kauai Leonard. And then in free agency, Golden State got Kevin Durant. So I think it's coincidental, but noteworthy, that both of our implausible scenarios involved the people in the organizations that have pulled this off before. So I would not rule out Toronto because Maasai is, again, arguably the best executive in the league right now and could pull this off. He's done it before.

And I think like Mori has always expressed a desire for players of Hardin's caliber. That that is why you have like this constellation of young talent on that team in the first place is to put yourself in a position where you can go for somebody like Hardin in the first place. And that was always the Hinky doctor. Yeah. Yeah. What were you saying? There's rumors that they might not be done if they were to do something crazy like that.

Because next summer they're in the player for a max free agency slide. They have room for a max player next year, I think. Is that a Giannis rumor there? Hey, hey. Read between the lines, Chris. Okay. So, Kirk, the funny thing about this whole conversation is that I feel like the longer this story goes on, the more destinations start getting kicked around.

Like, it's not in the odds yet. Like, it's not in like among the top five or six destinations. but to me, I feel like New Orleans is in play here. I feel like New Orleans now very much got off of Drew and you'd think, okay, they're maybe dialing down a little bit about like playoffs or bus.

I think they would love to make it in the playoffs and the NBA would love to see them in the playoffs and get Zion in front of as many people as possible. But I think that there was a little bit of like maybe we're not ready yet and stands here and we're going to kind of slowly build this team up over the next two or three seasons and they re-sign Ingram.

but this team is loaded with assets, both young players that I think are really interesting and draft capital from the holiday trade and just accruing stuff over the seasons. And I do think, like, look, Ingram just signed the extension, so what does that mean? Like, he can't be traded for six months, correct? Yeah, there's a signing period where you cannot be traded, yeah.

So, I mean, is Ingram and a bunch of either younger players and draft picks? an attractive offer for Houston? Yeah, and that's it really is. And that's the reason why Houston might play this out a little bit, get into the deadline period and actually see all these, everybody's eligible to be traded at some point. And why act now when the market is smaller?

And the other thing I'd like to remind you, I think it was J.A. Donde, but pardon me if I misattribute the saying, but real trades travel in silence. Yeah. Real trades travel in silence. We might not know. This is the rule of Darren Williams. Yeah.

Yeah. And like I believe I was on the inside, but I think the Kauai trade sort of blindsided a lot of people. Yes, I was on the outside. It was very much a blind side. And so that was clearly where it was going to happen for a while and it did. But the outside world did not know that. And you got to wonder if a team like New Orleans could be really active on these phone calls right now. I think it also comes down to what is Houston's prime.

objective with this transaction. Is it a rebuilding transaction or is it a stay afloat transaction? And again, I go back to the owner. Does the owner want to be in the playoffs, even if it's six seed, seven seed, eight seed, or does the owner want to hit the restart button? I got a young coach. I got a young GM. Let's go into the draft and let's build from the bottom up. And if that's the answer, New Orleans becomes a really attractive trade partner. Why? They have a king's ransom of picks. So does Oklahoma City, who I think is off the table. Well, that would be The most implausible ever would be, thing ever would be Hardin's coming home. I had that in my notes, but I was like it would be, it would just be too weird.

That would be too weird. If that happened, I think Simmons and Zach Lowe would have to be put on like ice floes and sent out. And we would have to shoot arrows at them like in Game of Thrones because I think that would just end this entire era. If Harden went to train it back to Oklahoma City. Man, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing your insight, both from the front office and from just the media perspective. here. Anytime, Chris. It's good to be with you as always. Thank you for having. Talk to you soon, man. All right. Thanks so much to Kirk. You know, we talked about those implausible trade ideas at the end of that segment. And we didn't talk about the most plausible one, which is probably Philly. Because

for all the bad blood that there might be between Tillman Furtita and Darrell Mori about his exit, I still think, and most people think, Ben Simmons is the best return you're going to get for James Hart. Ben Simmons is a player who is under team control for whatever that's worth. And is that kind of young franchise player that you can build around? Now, I think that that, you know, you're talking about oil and water when you're talking about wall and Simmons together. That's two players on the floor who are subpar shooters if they're shooting at all. But I still think Simmons is the best player you can get back from Hard. The question that all Sixers fans have to ask themselves when they look in the mirrors,

and I really give up on Simmons and MP. And I think most people probably look at Sixers fans and they're just like, what's up with you, man? What's going on with you guys? Like, you know, most teams would kill to have James Harden. They would drive to Houston to pack up his stuff to drive him back to wherever their team is located. And I think Sixers fans are just weird about Simmons and B

because of what they represent, especially to Sixers fans who either had an emotional or intellectual or whatever investment throughout the process because these were the guys that were promised. These were the princes that were promised to Coach Game of Thrones. So I think that basically they're the dream come true. Now, part of Sam Hinkie's process plan

was always to put yourself in a position to get somebody like Hardin. That was always the goal of accumulating all of that, all of those assets were to put yourself in a position where you could get somebody as good as James Hardin if they ever became available so that you could take advantage of a situation exactly like this one.

But there is still a part of me that is hanging on to this hope that the Sixers could have basically a homegrown title contender. That the Sixers basically already have the two pieces that they need to compete for a title in Simmons and Embed. And that it was really just the tactical decision-making

of Brett Brown and the roster decision-making that was happening prior to Darrell Moore's involvement, that it was stopping them from real, their potential. That if you surround those guys with shooters, you're looking at a 55-61 team that can challenge Miami, Milwaukee, and Boston, and East. And I actually still believe that. And on a personal level, I just preferred Ben Simmons' game to James Harden. I may have a lizard brain, but that's it. It's hard for Sixers fans to let go. I am a Sixers fan. I'm also a Liverpool

fan, which is a little bit more rewarding than being a Sixers fan these days as Liverpool or defending Premier League champions. No, but I wanted to have Musa on so that we could talk a little bit about the similarities and differences between the European football transfer market and the NBA trade industrial complex and the free agency industrial complex.

And the way that these two things kind of speak to one another and disagree with one another. So let's get into my conversation with Musa. All right, I'm so happy to be joined by one of my favorite podcasters, one of my favorite writers, Muso Kwango from Stadio podcast, which you can find on the ringer FC feed

and a writer for the ringer.com. and various other venues, books, children's books. I mean, he's a gadfly. So, thank you so much for joining me. Oh, my pleasure. My pleasure, Chris. So it's not an obvious person to have on this podcast. I mean, you are a football podcaster, but you're a huge NBA fan.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I was also thinking to myself, you know, I am not particularly scandalized by this James Harden trade request. Right, right. I'm not particularly scandalized when any big player requests a trade for a variety. of reasons. And I think one of the reasons why that is is because I've grown so used to the European football transfer market. So for our NBA fans who maybe don't know, we can give a little bit of background about how transfers work, just briefly, which is essentially that

a player may decide that it's time for him to move on. Maybe he wants to move to warmer climates like Madrid. Maybe he wants to have a new challenge in a different league. Maybe he just wants to move on to a bigger club where he can play Champions League football more regularly. This player will make that be known either through his agent or by going to his manager or the director of football at a club. And basically what has to happen is two clubs agree to a transfer fee for that player. And then there are sundry other fees that get added on. The players' wages need to be decided on. There's now more than ever exorbitant agent fees that get added to a lot of transfers.

But it is essentially almost much more nakedly capitalist business than the NBA trade industry. Would you agree with that? Yeah, but then again, no, because everyone knows what contract sum you're on. Everyone knows that Paul George is in $136 million, Kauai's is on 141 with the play option in the fourth year. Everyone knows those numbers. I know them. I'm not even in the US.

Like, so it's funny. You know, Trout in baseball is on 330 and Bahamas is on, what, $4.50. But I even know how much they're guaranteed, like Jared Goff. Like, so for me, it's so weird how people are surprised by this because to me, it's like the NBA is what football is evolving towards in a funny way. Oh, interesting. The NFL and the NBA are like the final form of capitalism. Like for all the extreme nature of football and capitalism,

I'm not saying that, you know, football or soccer is better than, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying it's better than NBA in that sense. What I'm saying is you have NBA players who get traded during games. Yes. During games. NBA players who don't know which city they're going to. Or like, you know, you know, shy,

Gildes Alexander, basically like going, oh, see you at practice on Instagram, Chris Paul, actually no. The John Travolta emoji, you know, kind of looking around and there's no one in there. So the NBA to me is pure free market capitalism, or not pure,

because pure would be total freedom of contract for players, but the evolution towards that seems to be outraging people. I'm not quite sure why, Chris. Well, I think that there's something to the idea that there's an understanding, I think, football, especially in European football, that the transfer market is essentially the engine through which teams build their rosters. When you see Liverpool's starting 11, maybe one or

two guys have come through their academy system. If that. But for the most part, these are guys they bought from Southampton, from Hoffenheim, from Roma, from Hull, from wherever. When it comes to the NBA, you know, that's still a league that is. largely based on drafting players and retaining that talent because that's the most economically sort of beneficial way of building your team is having younger players on team-friendly

contracts. So I think that when it comes to somebody like Hardin who Houston traded a lot to get for in the fund, actually didn't trade as many people as you think that they should have when they traded for Oklahoma. But when they've spent a lot of their roster

capital building around Hardin over the years, that when he wants to leave, that's going to stay. Yes. That's fair. I personally, I think if Darryor Mory is allowed to leave Houston and go work somewhere else, I think James Hardin's at least allowed to ask. Houston's allowed to ask for the price that they want, but I'm not particularly scandalized by it.

I wonder whether or not it's got, like, what you're alluding to, which is these ideas that I think are very, very strong in the States and I imagine are pretty strong in Europe about club loyalty, franchise of loyalty. and about fan bases feeling abandoned by people that they invest in both economically and emotionally. Yeah, but then again, I think those player loyalty and franchise doughty, I mean, look, I look at Isaiah Thomas, and like Jalen Rose said, he cost himself $100 million. He left $100 million on the table because he forced his body to the point of ruin. And, you know, you see these players on big contracts, but you never hear about,

let me give a football example. In 2000, Rivaldo was negotiating with Barcelona for a contract extension. he asked for six million euros a year. And that fee from a confidential negotiation was all over the press and everyone hammered him and said how greedy he was. And no one said,

actually, the club can afford it. And he's one of the best players of all time, not just in the world. He deserves it. So Ravado has made good greed and then he came out with an absolutely game-changing argument, which is basically that he said, look, when I was growing up,

there was a club in Brazil I could not play for because they would not pay my bus fare, which was basically 20 pence return. So the equivalent of like 30 cents return there and back. So I had to walk round trip, 20 kilometres to training and back, just because this club would not pay my bus fare. So that's what I come from and negotiate this money. And I think it's very easy to scapegoat, identify, pick out players as the villains. Now, here's the thing as well. I'm not specifically defending James Harden here, because James Harden doesn't make himself particularly

easy to warm to. I think that's fair to say. But I think as an overall point, I think the content of player loyalty is somewhat overstated, actually. Overall, not necessarily in this case, but I think overall it's overstained. Yeah, but that's the interesting thing about this case, is that Hardin is forcing us to grapple with this on a more intellectual level because it's, for me, for instance, like I lived through Barclay and Iverson leaving the Sixers. And both of those players embodied, I think, the romantic notion of what Philadelphia sports fans like to see from their best players, you know,

just throwing your body on the line, having a ton of attitude, just kind of had the soul of the city on their back. And so it was very difficult to grapple with the idea that those players either might not want to play for Philadelphia anymore or that Philadelphia might not want them there anymore. That right there, bingo, that right there. Here's the thing. There are a load of fans who are secretly terrified, nervous, afraid

that their city is not an entirely desirable one to play in or play for and living. Because the rejection of the city is rejection of them. And so when a big player, when a marquee player leaves their city, there's a sense of inevitability. It was always going to happen to us. He's rejecting us. He's not moving for his career. He's moving because we weren't good enough.

And then it's the kind of, this is why it's so emotional because it's being jilted. In some cases, it's being jilted at the altar. And when you have players who kind of buy into it and like do the whole community thing and then they're like, you know, I want to be here forever, unnamed players saying they want to retire. You know, if you're franchised and they're gone the next year. that does create a very sour taste. Have you ever been hurt by a player requesting a transfer for a club that you like?

I haven't, but I've seen people very hurt by it. But then again, I've always had this perspective of football as a fundamentally people that start. Most people are start out working class, trying to feed their families. That's their first priority. And so my view on it has always been a little bit detached. We've been like, well, fundamentally, it's a short career.

You could break a leg and lose it all tomorrow. So I'm a bit detached. But having said, there's a Manchester night down. When when Rooney wanted to leave, I saw close friends of mine who are normally quite sanguine about things in life, generally not just football, absolutely lose their minds. Because Rooney asked to leave, which you don't ask to leave Manchester Night. It's not a done thing. And then he also wanted, he was interested to go into Manchester City, which is the ultimate sin. Ultimate sin. It's like going from the Celtics to Lakers with no break in between. So it was unheard of. So I've seen that pain before at close range.

Yeah, and that was when city was ascendant, was splashing around cash. I mean, they still are. But, you know, they were the new kids on the block, and this would be, I don't even know if it's possible to explain. It would be like transferring from Alabama to Auburn or something. I mean, I can't even explain the level of acrimony. It would have been like at the height of the East Coast, West Coast beef, Newpack going and doing tracks, Tupac recording a record in Bedstay. Yeah, joining Mobb Deep.

Yeah, two pack joining Mobb Deep. Yeah, exactly. it would have been like that. One of the reasons I wanted to have a conversation with you about this sort of transatlantic sports dialogue here is that in football, I think we've seen something recently, which is a little bit of a mirror image of the heartened situation, and that's Lionel Messi's transfer request

that happened a couple of months ago. So coming out of a very disappointing Champions League run that was obviously a very strange Champions League over the summer, and Messi looked at his team, he looked at what Barcelona had sort of become. And I think he sent it, what's it called, a bureau fax? Amazing. A bureau fax incredible, yeah.

I need to start sending, I'm going to send Bill a bureau fax if I ever leave the ringer. He officially notified Barcelona via this fax that he would just not be resigning with them. So, and that he would like to leave this season. Barcelona was able to, I don't know, mend things enough so that he is playing now, although this is one of the worst Barcelona seasons, I think, in my memory. Yeah, it's terrible, terrible. And it's increasingly looking like,

not only will Messi leave for his own sporting reasons, but that Barcelona might have to sell him for financial reasons, that the club is starting to feel the real debt crunch. But the thing that was really interesting about it, was when Messi made this request, I think there was some social media stuff that was like, oh, Messi, you're stabbing us in the heart. But for the most part, I think people thought,

this is a guy who's seen the better part of his late prime wasted in European competitions by a club that hasn't been able to appropriately build around him and give him like a stable sporting environment. Why is it different for Messi and not for Hardin? Because Messi's given more. Messi's given more to Barcelona. He's delivered so much. Our Champions League is given at last major titles. Messi's brought three Champions League to Barcelona. and did that all by 2015. For the last five years, he's been the equivalent of, I won't name an NBA franchise

and I want to prejudice them. But imagine Peak Jordan playing for a vastly subpar, modern NBA franchise. And I won't name names and all upset, like NBA fans listen to this. And it's not about individual teams. Yeah, but we know that we know. We know who we're talking about. We know who this is.

We know who this is. So I think with Messi is different because also Messi doesn't have those external things that Messi's loyalty to Barso and his love for Barso has never been questioned. and Messi has always been team first. He is a past first superstar. Messi only scores against the numbers he gets.

Actually, Messi's more like LeBron. Messi's not actually a natural score. He's a great goal scorer, as LeBron is a great point score, but he's not someone who looks to score first. He does it because he has to. Now, LeBron is quite happy to go into tennis system again over the course of season against 27 points, or 25 points, whatever it was,

because he's like, Davis can handle that. And Messi has always reluctantly assumed the burden of doing everything. Whereas James Harden, I think, has much more been some of people look at as, I'm a me first superstar. And the reason why that reputation matters, because when it comes to negotiation,

these things come into play. It's like, well, you're always up yourself. To be honest, having said that, even being a past first superstars doesn't help because when LeBron wanted to leave Cleveland, he got an astonishing amount of hate. So I think actually, I think with Messi, it's almost because,

I think he's a one-off, to be honest, Chris. I think because everyone knows that football has failed messy in a way that football hasn't failed, in a way that basketball hasn't failed Hardin. That makes sense. No, it does make sense. I mean, I thought about how, you know, the Rockets and Barcelona both are clubs

that are going through a lot of institutional turmoil. There's instability. Obviously, Houston had Darry and Mike Dantoni leave shortly after the bubble. They brought in Stephen Silence and Raphael Stone. It sounds like Hardin wanted Ty Loo to be the coach there was like a compromise between Hardin wanted Tail-Lew

Tillman Furtino wanted Jeff Fann Gandhi they wound up with Stephen Silas that's obviously been disappointing there's a lot of reporting about what was going on with Houston in the bubble and going into the bubble and whether or not there were enough precautions being taken around COVID and all this other stuff it sounds like it was a mess

and it sounds like it was a mess now not in the same ways that Barcelona was a mess too and I'm interested in the idea basically that Hardin is somehow almost breaking some sort of social contract beyond his NBA contract by requesting a trade and then having the kind of temerity to call his own shot as to two, three places that he would like to go play. There is a social contract.

I mean, to use an NBA phrase, Hardin doesn't want to run it back. And if you consider how close the rockets came, they were the only team in the modern era that had a shot of really beating the warriors before they ascended. They were crisp all injury away from doing it. Yeah. And I think a lot of Rockets fans, that's so recent in the memory, they're like, oh, my God, the dream is really over.

This is what this is really about. When Harden goes, there's no real remnant of that, that team that could have had it all. And there's almost a kind of like, there's a fear that this day would come. That's what this is. It's a collective trauma, a collective fear, the day they feared has finally come. You know, and getting Westbrook, and the thing about basketball is because basketball is such a kind of like deep data sport, everyone knowing the Westbrook trade wasn't going to work. They just chemistry wasn't.

They knew that not that there wasn't chemistry, but they knew the fit in terms of what the rocket's need wasn't going to work. It was like watching a meteor approach very, very slowly across the sky. And now the meteor is here. You know, I think that because of the trade market, miracles can sometimes happen. You know, Paul George can get traded to Oklahoma City. And, you know, these sort of weird adjacent moves can sometimes happen.

do you ever long for something like that in football where a messy could go play for Everton, you know, or a Messi could go play for Dortmund? Well, we had Hamas Rodriguez going to Everton, which is pretty amazing. That's true. Yeah, like, pretty incredible. And when you see a trade like that happens, a trade that kind of breaks the market because it's not meant to happen.

Like, you know, like, actually, to be honest, Kauai going to Toronto was like that. Yeah, that's a perfect example. It broke the league because all of a sudden it was like, hang on a minute. we've got an actual T-Rex in the East, all of a sudden, we actually have an actual RETA in the East,

like, you know. Yeah. So I do long for that in football because those, but those trades, they happen so rarely in football, I think, because football is paradoxically, because football's more of a free market,

and in basketball, like, it's much more weighted. Like, each team's got like two stars. Each team's kind of got its quota. So, you know, you look across all the big teams, have kind of got their two and maybe a three, but most of them now it's a two. I mean, in football,

the problem is there's always that set number of clubs at the very top that who've rocked the players. What's interesting now in football, fun enough, is that now, for the first time in my life, Rail Madrid and Barcelona are not naturally the two most desirable clubs to go to. That's a game changer. So I suppose that the parallel we could draw

was the fact that the Celtics for a while and the Lakers, I mean, that's actually shout to LeBron to restore the Lakers, but for this weird period in basketball, the Celtics and the Lakers were not the automatic first choice. Right. Now it's probably more Paris and city or something like that. I mean, at least economically, that would be what you were looking at.

You know, and I do think that this is where the salary cap comes into play. It's like this idea basically that, you know, I think that there's this fear of super teams being built by players in backrooms that, you know, fans and front offices have no control over. But the reality of it is is that there's only so much money in a salary cap. So while Hardin could theoretically go to the nets, I actually think it would be hilarious if he did.

I mean, I think it would be hilarious because it would essentially be Harden Irving Durant and like eight guys that they find off the street. You know what I mean? Like there's not a lot of more like pie to cut up there for other NBA players. I mean, you could get guys on veteran minimums. That's happened before.

But, you know, this isn't European football where Chelsea can have 30 other players on their books just whiling their way away in other leagues in Europe. Like, it would almost be mind-blowing if basketball was like that. But the salary cap winds up being the competitive balance. I love the salary cap for that reason. I mean, it was really hilarious, wasn't it? When the Lakers had, they based at one point, just had LeBron and Anthony Davis.

It was like no one else in the roster. And they were thinking of getting Kauai. And my first thought was, that's a terrible idea. Get the balance. Get the balance. And they did. Yeah, absolutely. They really did.

And I think, you know, I think Harden going to the nets unless they plan to play with three basketballs. I don't see that working as a trade in terms of chemistry. But yeah, I think the greatest thing about the NBA, I think in relation to the players is the salary cap. I think it's really great because no one doesn't make for great. I mean, I love the Rochebon like so many big fans, but I love the fact that it forces a good GM to be creative.

And I really like, you know, what I love about basketball, you don't see much in football. You see it a little bit in football, but the way the executive, the front office is really respected so much. You will know the names of front office execs. You'll know that the fact there's an award for it, executive of the year. The fact, we don't have that in football. No. Because it's not a thing that's respected or revered because you've got money that you can burn.

You can't really burn money. So, well, money is burned in the NBA because some of those conduct people. But generally speaking, we've got to be better with your money. That's why people were so enamored with arson finger, right? was because he effectively spent on a budget throughout his time in Arsenal, even managing the move from Highbury to the Emirates, where they were basically, you know, operating in the red, and he was buying, you know, like 6 million pound players

and turning them into 50 or 60 million pound players. Well, I love that you mentioned, Banger, because Venger's actually the person that predicted the end of the transfer fee in football and perhaps a transition towards an American-star system where you have the contracts now, and maybe that being some form of salary cap at some point. So Venger is such a visionary. And I think we said before in different contexts

that there are some ways in which football is evolving towards basketball, certainly in relation to the way the basketball players are more outspoken on political issues, social issues. I don't. And that's a coincidence that players have more empowerment, to use the phrase that Rob Mahoney used in this excellent article in the ring in recent, I was just reading it. You know, the player empowerment has the benefit that players speak on issues.

They are fundamentally more of a brand, both in terms of commerce, social justice. And maybe as we see greater player power in football, we see the being more outspoken. You can see that out of Marcus Rashford, Claire Mbapé. And everyone always says like,

well, why don't football to speak out like basketball players? I was like, well, to my mind, they're just not as free, actually. What LeBron did in Miami and then in Los Angeles was incredibly progressive in terms of what a player can do. What Kauai did in L.A. again, was extremely progressive in that sense. And I think the question is trying to find that balance, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's the same thing where it's been fascinating to watch a little bit of the messy hot stove stuff. Right. You know, the speculation about where he could go, because he could really only go two places. Right, absolutely. There's only two clubs in the world who could afford it. It's either Paris or Manchester City. I wonder whether the NBA is in danger of becoming a league where there are only five attractive

destinations for whatever reason. and the two LA teams in Miami and Golden State and, you know, and that's it. I don't think so. You still think that there's all NBA teams have an ability to attract talent. Oh yeah, of course. Who wouldn't want to play with the nuggets?

Look, this is the beauty of the NBA, right? This is the beauty of the NBA, a beautifully coached team in a great city. By the end, this is the thing about America. I've got a lot of relatives there. What I love about America, for all its challenges as a country, America is a universe within a nation.

you have all these different cities, all these different climates, cuisines, habitats. I mean, it's incredible. Like, you're a college player

and you're about to get drafted and you watch, you watch Denver go on a deep run in the NBA, in the final, you know, towards the finals and the playoffs. That reminds you of like

your kind of Cinderella moment in the March Madness. You're like, you know what? Yeah. I've got the Nuggets energy. Or you watch Memphis like, you know,

look, Jarman, putting a team on his back. And you see that. Or you see, I think it's so exciting. What's exciting now is, it's only just beginning. Nick Nurse comes from like,

comes out of a small league and just goes, it goes big. So the NBA is now, and then you look at how well European players are doing now. You can come into the league and just light things up at Dallas from nowhere. Like I think it's, the NBA's never been a more exciting place

to go in the client or stamp. And I think, look, there's an NBA player coming from Europe or from college going, I want to put Memphis on the map. I wouldn't, Look at some like Dame Lillard. This is the thing in the NBA.

You're always going to have Dame Lillard's. You're always going to have players of exceptional quality. You'll go to maybe smaller markets or smaller cities, no disrespect to policy. And stay there. So I'm not really worried about the supertiping the NBA. To be honest, the NBA for me, it's more exciting than ever.

I wish that other. I mean, there was a generally point in the playoffs when I could not tell you who was even going to be in the finals. I had no idea night to night. I watched like most of the stretches. I watched quite a few of the games in the round. the playoffs and actually quite a bit the finals themselves. And I'm like, now that is a league.

This is as wide open as it's felt maybe in the Ron era. It's so exciting. You're an NBA romantic. I have no idea who's going to win this year. I have no idea. I have no idea. Yeah, yeah. I guess we'll have to have this podcast again when Janus requests to train.

Oh my goodness. Musa, thank you so much for joining me. You can hear Musa twice a week on Stadio on the Ringer FCFeeb for some brilliant football. commentary is also a frequent, makes frequent appearances on the Ritey's house, which is also on the Ringer FC feed. And you can read his writing on Ringer.com slash soccer. Musa, thank you so much for joining me. My absolute pleasure. Thank you so much, Chris. Thank you so much to Musa. Thank you so much to him for talking to me about somewhat of a tenuous connection, but a really interesting connection between the NBA trade world and the European football

transfer world. So to close the episode, we're going to do something we call the Philly Special. This is my personal private time that you can join me on where we talk about the Philadelphia of the 76ers. I understand Celtics fans. I understand Lakers fans. I understand Rockets fans, even, if you guys want to excuse yourself right now. This is my personal private time. I have to say that from an outsider looking in, I noticed this phenomenon before, but I'd never truly appreciated what it meant. And that is the Doc Rivers overpraising thing. like this habit he has of really building up his players. It's a beautiful thing to be a part of on the inside.

Let me tell you that. Let me tell you what it feels like to have Doc Rivers say that he was, quote, stunned by Danny Green's first practice, that Danny Green was unbelievable. If you read this article that I'm looking at on CBS Sports.com, you think Danny Green is Clay Thompson and that he is just shooting the lights out in Camden for the Sixers at their training camp. He has already started to talk about Shake Milton

as if he's Pistol Pete Marevich. I think that this is kind of what you get when you get Doc. He's come up short in the playoffs. There are some people who think that his game management, his in-game management costs his team some playoff games here and there. I can't wait to report back on that and tell you all about the gray hairs he gives me. But here's the plus side of what Doc does. I think he maximizes what he's got on hand by building up the confidence in dudes like Shake

Milton and dudes like Danny Green. Danny Green's got rings. He doesn't really need Doc Rivers to throw his arm around him. But Danny Green has had like a kind of weird offseason. There was a few minutes there when he was an Oklahoma City Thunder player. Now he's in Philly. It's probably been a hectic time for him moving his stuff across the country with COVID. And Doc's here to tell him, you look out of sight, man. And so while at last, I'm all for the Doc Rivers' daily affirmation. And that is the Philly special for this week of the answer. for joining us. You can listen to all of our Ringer MBA content throughout the week. We got real ones twice a week. We've got group chat. We got KOC and Verno over on the mismatch feed. And of course, Bill and Ryan talking about NBA on and off throughout the year. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you next week.