The Ringer NBA Show - Has the NBA Found the Solution to Tanking? | Real Ones

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

Logan Murdock, Raja Bell, and Howard Beck are back with another edition of Real Ones and discuss the NBA Board of Governors meeting that touched on a variety of hot-button issues throughout the NBA. The NBA has proposed a few draft-lottery methods to circumvent tanking, but will any of the proposed methods work? Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks are at odds as the star forward would like to resume playing, but the team is preventing him from doing so. How should the NBA be handling his situation? Plus, Real One of the Week! (00:00) Intro (1:27) The NBA’s Anti-Tanking Proposal (18:25) Adam Silver Addresses Numerous Topics in NBA Board of Governors Meeting (20:46) Men’s Wearhouse ad break (21:22) NBPA Chastises Bucks Over Giannis's Playing Status (48:32) Real One of the Week Hosts: Logan Murdock, Raja Bell, and Howard Beck Producers: Victoria Valencia and Clifford Augustin Additional Production Support: Ben Cruz and Conor Nevins Hit the mailbag! [e-mail] When you need your fit to deliver, we’ve got you. Shop Men's Wearhouse.  The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out rg-help.com to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bobbin. Real ones. Logan Murdoch here. Roger Bell and Howard Beck in a few. We talked a lot about Adam Silver's comments following the Board of Governors' meetings. Howard Beck was in the crowd, so we talked about expansion, talked a little bit about tanking reform. Is that even a thing? And then we talked about how the latest news in the Janus impasse is going to affect how the bucks are reputationalally around the league.

And how important that is for teams that treat their current players, How important is that for how they're going to treat future players And future free agents? How are they going to look at a team that, you know, is in an impasse with a generational talent? All that and more on real ones. But first, Cliff play the theme music. It's popping.

Real ones. Logan Murdoch here. Howard Beck there, Roger Bell over there. Man, I need some coffee, dog. I'm out here. I'm not in my normal self. Let me get, let me take a sip before we get to the shits. Everybody good?

We good? Are you good, Logan? Yeah, travel week for you. I know it's like it's wrecking your whole schedule, your sleep, your bio rhythm. You do it all right? Yeah, I'm all right, bro. I don't know how NBA players do back to backs and all that shit. Anyways, let's get right to it.

I have no transition here. Shams Sharania just put out a tweet before we got on the pod. Talking about tanking in the board of governors meeting. And we'll get all into the board of governors meeting. meeting and talk about Howard's experiences being there. But first, the Sham Sorani tweet, the NBA presented three comprehensive anti-tanking concepts to its board of governors on Wednesday

with modifications expected before a formal vote in May. Here's one of them. 18 teams in draft lottery seeds 7 through 15 in each conference will have flattened odds with bottom 10 teams having an 8% chance in the remaining 20% odds distributed in decreasing order for 11 through 18 and a lottery drawing for all 18 picks. That's number one. Number two, 22 teams and lottery using two-year records. Lottery teams would reach a minimum win total floor each season such as 25 wins. If a team falls short of the floor, it gets slotted to meet the floor. Top four drawn as part of the lottery as is currently. 18 teams in a

five by five lottery. Bottom five teams have equal odds for the top pick with lottery form for picks one through five. Bottom five teams have a floor at ten and those fall flat out of the top five get sorted in a separate drawing. Howard, have we fixed

tanking? Which one of these are going to fix tanking? Oh my God. The lottery reform is going the way of the CBA, the collective bargaining agreement, which is that every solution creates two things. A much thicker set of policies that are impenetrable to anybody

except for like lawyers and NBA officials. And secondly, uh, makes it so complicated that, that none of us will ever understand it. Maybe that's the point. Maybe it's, maybe this is just all to confuse us all. Hey, look, we did this thing and you can't possibly understand it, but there'll be some results and those results might fix tanking and don't worry about the details. I mean, these are proposals. Let's be clear. These are proposals only at the moment. It is late March. They are going to meet in May because Adam Silver, as he mentioned the other day at his press conference, they consider this to be a pretty urgent matter. They're holding a special board of governors meeting in May just to do this because tanking is that big of a concern right now.

And it's that big of just a blight on the league and a big PR problem for them. Listen, These proposals that ESPN reported were just reported out within the last hour before we got on. I haven't had time to fully digest it. They are confusing. And if you just scroll social media, that is the first response from everybody. Like, what the fuck? Like, maybe this works. Maybe it doesn't.

It will probably create new hazards within the standings instead of the ones we currently have. Will it fix tanking? Who the hell knows? I'll be curious to see when we get to May, whether they actually adopt any of the these three or whether it's some other combination or something else entirely and to hear their explanation. There are very smart people at the league office, all the glibness aside, Evan Wash, Adam Silver, their army of lawyers. They've got whatever they come up with, I'm sure there will be some sound rationale behind it. But I'm going to actually need them to walk me through it, to be

honest, and digesting this on the fly and try to judge whether this is going to work. I'm not ready to go there. We definitely need cold cushion to dissect this. This is a lot. And I think that's another thing that we're having to do a lot with all the new reforms from the NBA, whether it's the playing, whether it's the All-Star game. Everything has become a homework assignment with the NBA in general. I just, Roger, what are your thoughts on this?

You were just as confused as I was as I was reading it. I feel really, really good about what Howard said. because I was feeling alone in that I didn't understand 97% of what you said, Logan, like there were a few words that I understood. But you had to carry the six, you know, I could not figure out, you lost me within the first seven seconds of reading that shit. And it does,

misery loves company, it makes me feel fucking better because I haven't been all over socials this morning. I've been a little busy. So I didn't know how the general public was reacting to that shit. I have no fucking idea what you just said. I have none. I couldn't comprehend any of it. Like I think I got a little piece of, you know,

the flattened odds with with some shit in there. But like, look. Yeah. Go ahead, Howard. I don't even know what to say to that. I couldn't even, I don't know. I'm going to do my best to like simplify it a little bit for all of us and for the purpose of this discussion.

Like, again, I think it takes a lot more than reacting on the fly for us to intelligently dissect or digest this and interpret it. But I will just say the broad strokes are this. They're going to make the lottery involve more teams. All of these proposals end up essentially extending it, right? So instead of it just being every team that missed the playoffs is in the lottery, now it will be the teams that miss the playoffs still in the lottery. Teams that make the play in under some of these proposals also make the lottery if they

miss the playoffs. And in some of these proposals, you also get teams that got eliminated in the first round. And the broad explanation for this would be, rather than have this complete race to the bottom, if you involve teams that actually made the playoffs or even got into the first round and lost in the playoffs, those are teams that A, obviously aren't good enough to win playoff rounds. So you could argue that they are still teams in need of talent.

So it's justifiable to have them in the lottery with the possibility moving up. And secondly, instead of saying, oh, we're not making the playoffs. Pull the plug. Bench everybody. Screw the season. Screw whatever. We'll take the fines. We're just shutting everybody down. Instead of that, if you know you could still be in the lottery while making the play in or the playoffs, that starts to work toward disincentivizing the intentional losing and pulling the plug, right?

Because now it's like, oh, we can try to be good and still get a chance to add another piece. that's that's the best explanation I can I can give us all for the purposes of of this discussion right so like I think there's some merit to that but then you know you start moving toward why not just have everybody in the lottery right or just why why not have you know and we're getting close right it's this is some of these proposals or I think all of them are like 18 teams basically um but then you flatten the odds also the downside of that is if you're a team that truly just hurting, had no talent, whether by design or just because, you're in a rebuild. You're, you, you, you had stars. They all retired. They all got injured.

If the lot of the, the, the flatter of the lottery odds are, the less likely it is that the teams that most need the talent can get the high level talent in the system. So, but this is the balancing act. They've always been trying to navigate. There's always, look, they're got, I'm holding on to there people out there like me that just, yeah. We're not smart enough. Sorry. I don't know. I mean, like, I'm not going to apologize for, I can't do that.

Here's what I, here's what I will boil it down to and simplify it and try to draw an analogy to. When I started coaching and like my kids were in the second and first grade and you play in these like rec leagues and they put in these rules that you can't come outside the three point line to play defense. And everybody was like, yeah, that's, that's a good idea because we don't want these kids to be like, you know, having the ball pressure. and stuff like that. And then what happened was, you know, one asshole would figure out he'd be winning by four points with two minutes to go and you couldn't come outside the three point line to guard him. So now he's holding the ball.

So now you're going back in and you're like, you're like, hey, man, well, now we got to put in another rule because like now there's no, it just creates something else. And there's all, you know, so like, while I'm not smart enough to digest everything that said their history and everything I've learned in my life is you're going to put in all of these rules and it's going to cause an effect, make full. and more rules that need to be made because someone's going to figure out how to take advantage of those. That's my life experience. Maybe I'm wrong. So like I'm glad they're trying to fix it because I do.

I've said before I don't love incentivized tanking. I agree, Howard, with the points that you've always made about that being the vehicle that some teams under the current structure need to use to get a star that could change the complexion of their franchise. But any way you could go about as a league trying to, you know, trying to fix that and correct that, I'm okay with that. Not smart enough to understand everything that was said. I appreciate you trying to dumb it down for me, Howard. Shit, man. Like, we're kind of cooked even if Howard can't get it, huh, Roger?

Like, we're kind of cooked as a podcast. I'm getting cooked, bro. As soon as I saw the rundown, as soon as I saw the rundown, I'm like, you don't need me. Like, why? Why am I here today? I think the hard part with this guys is like nobody can really, even the league like the league probably has models right where they're going to game this out right turn it over to some computer model some algorithm and have it play out like or you could just sit down

and like go well okay now the teams that were like on the fringes of the play in okay cool they're incentivized to keep winning oh but the teams that are like a little further back are they more instead like you're usually you're just moving the trigger point for when to lean into losing or maybe lean into winning i'm not smart enough to know exactly the the ripple effects of all of this Again, I will be curious to hear whenever they adopt whatever it is for them to then explain it. But there's always unintended consequences. And this goes back to the CBA. It goes back to Raj's Youth League basketball analogy.

There's always unintended consequences when you apply what seems like this easy fix. Oh, we just don't want this to happen anymore. Well, there's always a reaction. And teams are going to always try to find ways, find loopholes or find other ways to get where they want to go. I'm not sure about these. I'm just not sure. I think the reality is there's an elephant in the room here that I don't think a lot of

people are talking about when it comes into tanking. You just alluded to it, Howard. But with this new CBA, it's really hard to be, to get good if you don't tank. And that's how it's been legislated within the CBA. Like, because we have such a hard cap, it's really hard to make trades and get players. And if you don't want to tank, you know, back, like, back in Rogers Day or back in the day, like, you can, you know, make a deal and you can change without being, without incentivized to go to the draft, you can go make a deal to get another type of either superstar or a really high level player here. If you try for a superstar and you try for picks, it's crippling your franchise for the next few years. And the way that owners described it before we got to the CBA was, hey, we need parity, we need parity.

reason was, hey, we're not trying to spend so much money in luxury tax. I mean, we're not trying to, we're not trying to spend so much money to have all these franchises and we want to do a cheaper way of winning. That's literally how it was. And that's how it always tends to be. But I think that brings an elephant in the room where it's like, we don't talk about that aspect of it. We're just like, we have put it together a set of conditions where tanking is the way that we can, the only way we can get better and it incentivizes that. But we're really not trying to look at the reasons why we're at this impasse, which is we have a hard cap.

It's really hard to put together teams other than through the draft. Yeah, that puts that, that, that, that, uh, brings parity to a certain extent. But like, also that goes against, and I've said this time and time again on this podcast, that goes against the history of success that we, the reason behind the history of the success that we have had as a league, which is dynasties, right? Remember when the games were on tape delay? That's when they had real parity. That was real parity in the 70s.

And then, you know, then the 80s come around. You have magic and then you have the Celtics. And you have these dynasties that are in the bulls. You have these dynasties. Guess what happened? Ratings. You knew these teams. You had these stars.

And now we're kind of incentivized not to do that. And that's a whole bunch of reasons. is the biggest thing Howard I'm saying is, I don't think the league is from a league standpoint, or at least Adam Silver, and he's stuck between a rock and a hard place because he works for these owners, right? But we're not looking, I think,

even at the real problem here, which is the CBA makes it really prohibitive to get better if you're not going about it through the draft. And the way you go through the draft is picks, and the way you get picks is if you, good picks, is if you take. Like, I think this is a really extreme thing.

But they were saying, hey, man, even the lottery odds could extend to the first round of the playoffs. What if a team just gets to the first round of the playoffs is like, damn, we're overmatched. Like, extremely overmatched. And they get down 3-0, right? Like, you can't legislate out, like, competitiveness. Like, you know what I'm saying? And like, oh, hey, shit, we might need this pick. That's a really extreme example, but that's there, even if you do that, right?

Taking isn't going to go away if you legislate it out. You're not going to legislate out of mindset. I just don't know that goes back to your point Howard like this is a really hard thing but I just don't feel like the league is fully looking in the mirror about the reasons behind the problems that they have created.

There's a lot there. I'll just say this. There's a case to be made and some people will make it. I won't make it as strongly as others will but it's worth considering that you don't need to tank to become a really good team necessarily.

You don't need a tank to get great talent necessarily because if we look at the last several MVP's, Shea Gilles, Alexander, not a top 10 pick. Nicol Yochukic, second round pick. Joel Embed was top three. But before that, it's Yokic again. It's Janus, who was 15th. And then before that, it's more traditional, right? James Harden was a top five pick.

Westbrook was, I think, top five, Steph, KD, LeBron. But the recent trend has been teams are finding a lot of elite talent later in the draft. Either, you know, mid-lottery to late lottery, second round. Now, that's a lot harder task, right? The easiest path to prosperity is be really bad in the year that Wembe is available or that Cooper Flag is available or that this year's class that we think has three or four absolute studs is available. that still seems like the easiest path, the most obvious path and the most attractive one to teams,

which is why tanking still happens. But there's a counter case to be made that if you just play hard, put a competent team out there, be respectable, and draft well, scout well, develop well, maybe you get the next Shea or the next Nicola Yokic in the second round, whatever. Listen, I think that's a much steeper odds. I'm not going to pretend that that's as viable as just being bad for a couple of years and going and getting a Wembe or a Tim Duncan. But it's a case.

I get it. I think the real issue is not so much about the salary cap or the second apron or everything else, Logan. To me, it's just simply that there are five to 10 franchises that are destination franchises that guys want to go to. And if they are free agents, mid-career, they can pick those places. They can force trades to those places. And then there's everybody else,

and especially like the bottom 10, the least attractive cities to NBA players. I'm not judging these cities, but like they're either cold or they're small or they're small and they're cold. And if you are in those, I think that's all. If you're in those markets,

you can't attract those guys. And so the draft is your, is your only outlet. I can push back on that a little bit. because like one, that's always going to be there, right? Like the destination, the five things is all five places. That's why you need the draft. That's why Utah wants to tank because we can't, if we are the Utah Jazz, we can't get guys to come here. We have to be super bad so that we can draft them and have them for at least seven years.

Yeah, I get that. One thing that I do have for you, Howard, you were at the Board of Governors Media availability where, you know, Adam Silver talked about the tanking issues. he talked about a 65 game rule that has been put into effect. He talked about Janice Adetakumbo, which we'll talk about in a second and get Raja back into the fold here. But what was your biggest impression of Adam Silver during this press conference? And what do you think that says about him in this current moment? I mean, it was a 39-minute presser.

I timed it. A lot of filibustering. He does that. With Adam, it's like sometimes part filibustering, part just, just just rambling. He finds himself on mental tangents and he takes pretty much all of those tangents. So sometimes the answers are are a little longer than necessary because it, you know, something else pops in his head and suddenly he's talking about tanking when I actually asked about something else. Thirty-nine minutes is great. That's one of the longer pressures

we've had from Adam. But there was a lot to discuss, right? And it speaks to this moment, which, you know, we talked about this on the pot a month or so ago. There's so much for the league to try to figure out right now. So they announced the exploration of expansion, not actual expansion, just an exploration. We might go to Seattle and Vegas. Yeah, we might not. So there was a lot to talk about on the expansion front. And in addition to that, still had to come back to tanking, still had to come back to the 65 game rule. There were questions about the WMBA and Kathy Engelbert's commissionership and just the, you know, the CBA having been finally resolved there. There were questions, huge contingent from the Pacific Northwest came out. Shout-out.

to all the reporters from Portland and Seattle coming out to ask about the Blazers and the upgrades they need to the arena there. There's a bunch of public money going in. Silver had just visited Portland, but did not speak to the local media for some reason while he was there. So they all had to fly to New York to talk to him the other day. To his credit, he gave them a lot of time after the press conference was over. I appreciated seeing that. But there was just a lot on the table. My walk away impression, Logan, there's just a lot on the table there. And I don't know that we got a lot of real definitive answers. Yeah, Adam Silver at this moment and this league at this moment have a lot to figure out.

All right, let's take a quick break. We're going to talk about Janus Adetakumbo. This episode is brought you by Ben's Warehouse. What you wear depends on the occasion. Like, are we talking awards, court side seats, or just watching the game at home? At Men's Warehouse, they've got you covered with a huge variety of clothing and styles. From clothing like suits, sport coach, dress shirts, tuxes for more formal events. to casual clothing like polo, shirts, shorts, and jeans for everyday wear.

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The National Basketball of Players Association rebuked the Bucs over their dispute with Janice Adetakumbo implying that Milwaukee is tanking and damaging the NBA's credibility by wanting to shut down the all-star for the rest of the season. Sources told ESPN last week that Adetakumbo refused the Buc's interest, the Bucks request to sit out, excuse me, for the rest of the season. The two-time NBA MVP has remained adamant on return. to the court believing he is not risking any further injury. I mean, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, Raj and Howard brought up that this

was going to happen. I just don't, I don't know where the, you know, the bucks and Janus go from here necessarily. But this is getting ugly, right? Like, this seems to be getting ugly. And I don't know, is it is just, are they at a point where of no return at this point, Roger, do you think, based on, you know, the union's starting to get involved in releasing a statement and then now that it seems there's going to be some sort of flat. Yeah, I mean, I told you last week. Like once we even got to the point we were then, your relationship is never the same.

There's no coming back from that. You've, it's been fractured. How they have to play the end of it out, you know, whether that's a trade or what happened. like I don't know, but that relationship is severed. It's a rat. It's unfortunate that we're here. I just, you know, I'll double down on what I said. You don't have the right as an organization to do that.

You don't, in my estimation. Now, legally speaking, maybe they do. But like, I don't think we can, we can, I laid it out. I don't, I'm not going to do it again. I laid it out. You want players to play all the time. You want them to do what you need them to do to try to win championships. you'd rather than play through shit that and no one can say that out loud that's all said behind

closed doors it's hush hush but like i'm in i'm in those meetings like i know when we're like hey that motherfucker could probably play man that's just a tweaked ankle let's go tape it up let's go we have all those conversations when that suits us as an organization or a fan base and then when it suits us as an organization or a fan base we want a warrior to say he ain't going to play and give up whatever portion of his career that is, right? Because you got a finite amount of games that you play in a career. And I'm going to give those away and not play because it suits the fan base and the team. I just, I think that's shitty and I don't think they have a right to do that. And so I'll stand on that. I was there last week and I'm still there. Do you think that from a player

relations standpoint, Howard, at least that, you know, teams can do a better job? Is there a way to get to this point where we can find some level of balance here? I mean, because it feels like it's pretty cut or dry, like, you're going to let me play or you're not. Like, and there's going to be ramifications on each way. Is there a way that there can be some soothing other relationships between this and maybe some human aspect element of this? Because this is basically human beings going up with corporations' interests. There have been a lot of instances in the past.

I'm trying to remember, I think, like, I'm thinking about like John Wall with Houston where I think there was like kind of a mutual decision. if I'm remembering that one correctly, we've had all kinds of players this season, right? Jaron Jackson Jr. opts for season-ending surgery and Yusuf Nerkichops for season-ending nose surgery. There are examples we can cite every single year,

partially for tanking reasons and partially to preserve a guy, where it is mutual, where the player is saying, yeah, this season's toast anyway, I might as well get healthy. I might as well have this surgery that I was putting off. No, I don't have to have it now, but it's a, you know, I might as well get

rehabbing sooner than later. So you, you often have this be a cooperative arrangement where a player stops playing because the team wants them, you know, they have other priorities in mind and it suits the players' interests too. That's fine. In those cases, the union's not getting involved and the league does not have to insert itself. When you see the union issuing a statement the other day about Janus and the Bucks, it's because and trust me on this people. Because a lot of people coming back at me on this on Blue Sky the other day, like,

trying to like say like, this is all just bullshit. The union's not doing this out of the blue, folks. They're in consultation with the player and his representation before they make this a public stink to say that the Bucks are at fault here, that the Bucks are keeping him from playing against his will. This is unusual. We don't see this happen very often.

and for the union to actually speak up on it indicates that this is not to Janus's uh he's he's not approving of this so um we're in for them for them to speak on that Howard sorry but for them for them to come out and have to do that it's so much messier than you know behind closed doors like it is an absolute shit show behind closed doors if the union has to get involved in the capacity that they're involved in now what's the what's the stages of like like what is the tier of, oh shit that this could be, right? Like, where, how do we get from like, just normal player, just like, man, this is some bullshit to, you know,

maybe communicating with the team to like, no, now I got to get the union involved? Like, what is the step by step process from, from just dispute of like, oh, they got me fucked up to now I got to get the union involved? Well, I think the first step is like he's injured, um, as a team. You know, hopefully he's out the rest of the season, right? There's hopefulness.

Then there's conversations, you know, as a player's responsibility is to try to rehab his injury, the same way he would if you were in the middle of a championship quest, right? So like he's doing that. Then it becomes like, hey, I'm feeling good. I want to play. Hey, well, uh-oh, we got let's reconvene it as a front office. Hey, he says he wants to play in the next few games. Do we want that?

We don't want that. Go back to the player. Hey, we don't think it's that. We've gone back to the player. The player, hey, listen, we think it's in our best interest and your best interest not to play. I'm going back to my camp as the player now. Hey, they told me they don't want me to play, but like, I feel good. I want to play.

My agent's now involved in that. So my agent, because this is now not me. Now I got legal representation. Hey, what's going on with this shit, man? You know, Janus is ready to play. He's telling us that you guys are telling him we don't want to play. This is another negotiation, basically. I mean, and you've reached a point, and this is why I said last week, where it's an impasse.

Like, we've agreed to disagree on this shit. You see it one way? I see it one way. Neither one of us is able to really, even if we can appreciate each other's perspective, we're really not interested in it. And that's where you're at. And so what that looks like day to day behind closed doors,

I mean, it could be people not speaking anymore. It could be passive aggressive, like, hey, I'm not attending that shit. Like, I don't know. I'm not there. I've been privy to some iteration of this in the past. I was involved in one of them. It's just not a healthy thing for a locker room. And once you get that way with the team, it's over.

It's just a matter of time on how you can dissolve the relationship. But it is a rap. And I would say again, I don't know if I clearly painted the picture of the way that works behind closed doors. But once it's gotten to this point that we've agreed to disagree and neither one of us is going to seed, like we have to get the next level of representation involved. which is the players union and that's not a good look that's not a good look for Milwaukee it's not i don't i don't care what you know fan of the bucks thinks that that's what they need to do and all of

that can be true this is not a good look from players side from potential like employees looking at the bucks doing this it's not to howard's point there are plenty of times where this is a mutually agreed upon thing hey dude you're going to shut it down yeah dude i'll shut it down i don't go shit like this shit is over that works out that's a easy money. That's usually the way it works. But if you come up against somebody who's basically saying, hey, everything you've ever asked me to do that I did, I'm now going to continue to do it. And it's not in your favor now. Like this doesn't benefit you in any way. And it's not your right to ask me to change the way I've approached this when it was to your benefit. That's essentially what

he's doing. That's what this boils down to. I'm conducting myself the same way I've always conducted myself as a Milwaukee Buck. It just happened to be in your interest as a Buck's franchise. And now it's not. And you're asking me to change that. And I'm not with it. That's a terrible look for the Bucks. What wins out here, Howard? Because, I mean, say if they go to litigation, and we don't have that much time left in the season, but say if they go in a litigation and Yannis wins, that he suits up, it's going to be awkward, right? Like, it's, you know, he's going to be representing the Milwaukee Bucks, but he's going to be pissed off at them. even more so than he's been pissed off at them all season behind the scenes.

Where do we go from here? I don't think in my memory, and sometimes I forget, I don't think there's been a case like this where a player really wanted to play and the team just said no. And like, listen, we don't mean like the 12th man who's just, I mean there are plenty of cases of that. There's levels here. There's levels. Sonjean, you just ain't good enough to play, folks. That is not... Hey, man, you know, like, I know we said that, you know,

let's talk this out, guys. You know, I know that, like, I just... I'm on a two-way here, but like, hey, man, can we just like negotiate me getting back on the court? I don't think the two-way guys is going to be able to succeed on a grievance. You better chill out for I get the union involved, coach. This is, this is the honest, though.

This is a little different. It was nine days ago now, I think eight days ago, that there were twin stories in the athletic and ESPN, both saying that there's a tension between the Bucks and Yannes over whether he should play and that the Bucks wanted him to sit out the last, you know, several weeks and that Yannis still wants to play. But the Bucks's defense so far has been, and this was in those stories, he's not cleared yet. He's not medically cleared. So where we're headed here is with the union now having this, you know, firing off this statement the other day, making this, it was already put.

public, but they've now made it a union issue. Are they going to follow up with a grievance? Because then there's a process. Adam Silver, when he was presented with this the other day, said, I wasn't aware of it until the union statement, which is silly. Like, I don't understand Adam's response there at all. Like, the stories about this were written in two major publications a week ago. And the league didn't know about this is Luke.

Before stuff gets written, it's known for weeks. I'm just, I'm being real. That's a lot of cases. Like, it's known in league circles for weeks. Also, by the way, by the way, I will say this with, extreme confidence. I have no doubt in my mind that the union let the league know

that they were going to issue with the statement before they do it. They don't just blindside the league. I'm sure the league knew. Adam playing dumb on this was weird. But there's no, unless the union actually files a grievance, I don't know if there's any process that the league has to respond to. They can simply wait for the bucks

to either clear him or not. And if he's clear to not, that's when it becomes an issue regarding tanking regarding player rights to play however you want to frame that i don't know if we're there yet because so far there's still no indication that he's been medically cleared now are they dragging their feet on medically clearing him that's the question and again that goes back to whether the union has something to act on yeah which is unprovable but you know it's unprovable it's unprovable for us but you know somewhere between, you know, the league, the union and the bucks and Janus, I'm sure they can find a way to

make a determination that everybody would consider objective. What's, what's his injury? Hyperionage. Yeah, see, that's one of those weird ones. Even after he has a calf injury. But the legality of it in terms of whether or not you're clearing him or not, right? Like, your doctor may say yes, his doctor, I mean, your doctor may say no, his doctor may say yes, right? I mean, if he's, if universally every doctor is like, hey, brother, look at that.

That's torn. He can't play. Then this is moot. But if it's one of those situations where, again, there is a threshold of pain that most dudes get used to playing with. Now, everyone's different. But, you know, you can find a doctor to either clear you or rule you out. Professional athletes do this all the time. I think you guys understand what I'm saying here, right?

Like if you want to get cleared and there's no real tear in your knee, you find a motherfucker to clear you. So, you know, that becomes interesting to me too, right? Like if it's a thing of like, hey, I have doctors that say I'm clear and I can play basketball, but the Bucks doctor is the only one that won't clear me. Again, I don't know. It's just messy. And I do think it's a poor look for the Milwaukee Bucks.

Like I don't think anyone looking at them at from the players perspective is going to look at that and and while it might not ultimately stop them from going there, it's not attractive to them. Yeah, I think one of the things you're alluding to, Roger, like, and this is, you're ready, you're ready to just stretch out and just talk some shit? Like, just about just like, just wax poetic. No, my thing is it's like, you make up a great, you put up a great point in terms of what you're alluding to, which is teams are always not just, whatever actions that they do

don't just affect the player that they're, you know, in an impasse with. It's an audition for the rest of the league, right? Especially like considering that they're going to trade Janus at some point. He's not going to be a Milwaukee next year for all intents and purposes. It doesn't seem like it at least. And so they're about to get to the post-Yonis era. And, you know, they have a bit more power over the players that they draft.

But the players that they come in are all looking at this. They're all seeing what's going on now. and the fact that how they treat their play how this team treats its players do teams realize in the moment the ramifications of their actions going you know years good teams down the line okay good teams good teams do like um or maybe good front offices because that well teams aren't always good yeah sorry that's a better way to put it you're absolutely right well run organizations do yeah right they understand the, you know, the kind of holistic type of the whole thing. Basketball, we've got the, you know, all the things behind closed doors in terms of

taking care of you and your family and, you know, all these things go into when I'm looking at you and I'm on that tour as a free agent to try to figure out if this is where I want my wife and my kids hanging out when I'm playing games. Like all the, it's, it's, we're taking a holistic view of your operation here. Do you know what I mean? And so certainly the way you treat maybe. I mean, would you say Oscar Robinson is the best, Oscar Robertson's the best buck of all time, right?

Or, or Kareem. But like, Janus is top three, no? He's in that conversation. You could argue he's the, I actually made his argument once, that he's the best. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Part because of his longevity with them, too. Yeah, so either way, I'm fine with that too, Howard.

But I guess my point is if, if you were treating someone like that this way, at the end of the relationship, yeah, man, that is not going to speak to people who have opportunities elsewhere, everything else being equal. Now, again, I would say there are situations where the money that Milwaukee is throwing around is not equal to the money that Chicago is throwing around, just using another city. And so, therefore, some of these things might not come into play in the same way, right? Because we're not doing a complete checklist because you've already given me the premium on the money side of it.

But apples to apples, that's not a good look for them. And if we're being honest, Howard was talking last segment about some of those cities that were cold and people, you know, historically don't necessarily see that is where I want to sign. You can't afford to do that.

And so, again, I don't want to, I'm not all upset about it. I just don't think it's a good look. I don't think this one's that hard. Especially given the fact, Howard, that you made the point that when he plays, they're still not good. This is not hard.

I think the other thing, and we've seen this throughout this season, there's been examples of teams doing this wrong. Before this, it was the Clippers, right? And I think your point, and the Clippers have, you know, are in a similar vein in this, you're talking about the greatest player,

arguably in your franchise history. if you treat him like whatever you treat him like other stars are going to see that right like this example is more for the clippers because they are trying to be more in the star hunting business because the fact of the matter is Milwaukee is going to try to draft their next star and are kind of him pecked by the fact that they are in Milwaukee um but i think it's still the same right because as you were talking raja i'm thinking about the spurs are the spurs necessarily in a desirable place to live. I mean, for me, I'll fuck with San Antonio.

I like San Antonio. I like San Antonio. But when you compare it to the other potential huge markets. I'm talking about for young millionaires. I'm talking about young millionaires. I'm not talking about, you know, for. You ain't said nothing wrong. Yeah.

You ain't said nothing the wrong. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I'm from California and, you know, feels some type of way. Texas will feel some type of way about this shit I say that day. But the reason why they have been good for so long and a,

deemed a great front office. is because they have the history of treating teams or treating players good and having that type of front office that is welcoming to people because you need that on that level, right? Like, I'll say one thing, Utah doesn't necessarily have that track record over the last few decades in treating players, right? Like they've drafted well, but they don't necessarily have that sterling reputation. You need that when you have that. The clippers are in a big market, but need some type of anecdote to the Lakers in that

market. Now, are they going to have it? Not necessarily, but they need to strive for that. You know, they have the best facilities, but they need, you know, probably a little bit more help on the people side of it. But that's what you need in this balance, right? And I think that that's the disappointing aspect of what's going on in Milwaukee. But that's really so important. I think we'd be losing the plot on, you know, especially in the analytics era, the human element of all these things, right? Because like, a few years ago, everybody was talking shit about the Lakers, about how, why, you sign Kobe to that monstrous deal and he can't really, you know, he can't make good on that. You're not going to compete for a championship.

The reason, and the Lakers reasoning, and I think that that speaks to where we're at right now, it's because, one, he's Kobe fucking Bryant. And two, we want to show the rest of the league, we take care of our stars. So even though they sucked, LeBron sees that and is like, oh, huh. That's how they treat their stars. Yeah, they called that a legacy deal for Kobe. It's a legacy deal for the Lakers. too.

Yeah. Because forever, a star will look at them to your point and be like, they'll take care of me. They'll do it the right way. And even if you're telling me like, Logan, that's just a liquor, shut up. Point taken. Guess what the Portland Trailblazers did with Damien Lillard. They were like, oh, man, this sucks, man. Like, we can't really win with you anymore.

We're going to try to give you a chance to win. We'll send you to Milwaukee to go play with Janus Adetakumbo, right? And that doesn't work out. He goes back to, you know, he goes back to Portland. and it's all gravy and they treat him like a deity that he's supposed to be treated like, right? And we just, we need to get more of that. Like, it's not going to be wins and losses all of the time, but it does have to have the human element in the face of analytics or in the face of just corporate everything and

the queer corporate bottom line. It has to be some human element there too. Yeah, I want you to get in, Howard, but I'd just say this, especially if we're not, if we're not talking about a star that throughout his, his, you know, career with you has been difficult to deal with has been has been holding you hostage for certain things we're talking about you know guys like they were good soldiers for your organization for a long time you know and when you're talking about those guys you know Damian Lillard could have asked out of Portland you know years and years and years before it happened when though when you when you've been there with that guy and

you've seen the efforts that he's put in and you guys have lived the frustration and the disappointment together over the course of his career the hope would be that at the end of that you do treat them right now. If he was a butt head the whole time and making life miserable and stuff like that, look, we're all humans. You know, sometimes, like I was told by a general manager when they ship Darren Williams out. Sometimes you get what you deserve.

I didn't think Darren deserved it. That's what he told me, right? So, like, there are human elements in that sometimes when people aren't getting along. But when you've gotten along and it's been all good, I think you're supposed to treat them with a modicum of respect and professionalism. Just as, you know, gratitude for the time that was. given and the work that was put in. He passed in a ball to you, Howard. There you go. Now, just last thought is that Janus is almost certainly going to be somewhere else next season,

and the bucks are going to have to deal with whatever the reputation and standing is in the wake of that, right? Did you treat him well on the way out with the trade itself? Some people may judge based on, hey, did you send him where he wanted to go? Did you just send him to where you got the best deal? You hope that that's the same thing. Did you, you know, how did he leave? Did he leave on good terms. And right now, it looks really messy and really, you know, tense. Because of that, yeah, to Roger's point, it may cause, maybe cause for concern for agents and players when they're considering Milwaukee at a time when it's going to be the most important for them to make themselves attractive because you will no longer have that anchor superstar and you're,

you're back to rebuilding. And so, you know, there may be a price to be paid for this later. That said, the system is so tight right now, you know, the finances of all the salary cap situations across the league that in any given summer, if you want to get paid, you either have to, you know, find a way to get traded somewhere and then get paid later or get your extension first, then get traded. Or you go to the teams that have cap room. And if Milwaukee is one of the handful of teams that has cap room in a given summer, then suddenly all the, you know, stuff we're talking about goes out the window because it's like, well, they're the ones that can give me 30 million a year. Yeah, that's enough money. Chicago's a little bit as closer than I thought it was. We'll figure it out. It's fine.

One thing before we get through one of the week, for the last two weeks, Cliff has been howled to me to ask you this, Roger. What do you think of Darius at Cliff, Jr., from Arkansas? Yeah, I didn't have a great game last night. But he's the real deal, man. He's a tough three-level scoring goals. guard. Like, he's, he's the real deal. I haven't, like, dissected or broke down his game, but my son, Ty really likes to watch him and likes Arkansas. So, like, I've, I've watched him play a few times now.

I mean, really good first step. Efficient score can really set you up. But he's, he's a lead guard. He's an NBA high-level lead guard, for sure. He does a lot of, a lot of stuff that would impact winning. because a lot of these guards now have to have the ball for so long to get into their respective bags or whatever. Like he's right at you like pop, pop, pop, and he's in your paint and he's on the rim. He's got a little AIness to him in regards to his ability to finish at the size in the paint the way he does,

but also a really proficient and efficient shooter. I like him a lot. Like he's going to be a really good, but top, you know, top. In this draft, what do you think he is? Or are you thinking he is in this draft? I'm just going through the top three are going to be, though, you know, the bands that Peterson, Cam, Caleb Wilson's going to be in there somewhere. I don't know.

I think he's the first guard probably. For sure. He's like the perfect. I think he's the first PG. Sorry. He's the perfect caliperia archetype in terms of point guards, right? Just get to the rim. His compact, just knows what he wants to do.

I'm doing a story. I'm not going to say what it is until it comes out. But I was, I was interviewing a lot of people around a player. and they were just talking about like when you're in the league you the biggest thing that you need to do is one find a way to get to your spots and get to your spots efficiently right like anytime you get it you can get away with

you know just like dribbling and you know the step back and just like fucking around in the shot clock when you're in in college or even in high school but once you're in a league you have to be decisive right you don't have that much time because everybody's so athletic and everybody is so good. And just watching him play, it seems like he just figures that out, especially as a guard. Yeah, he's going to be really good in the league, too, because, like, last night, I say he struggled a bit. What you can do in college basketball is you take Arizona that's massive and they're huge.

And there's no defensive, like, three seconds rules. They can just pack the paint and make it really, really difficult. With space, and the NBA has, like, you know, legislated space into their game. he's going to be a problem. For sure, for sure. You got anything, Howard? Anything for college now? As I always say, I don't pay attention to the minor leagues. Oh, shit.

That ain't minor leagues no more. Boy's getting paid millions of dollars and let's not minor leagues. Howard's like, I'll see you when you get here. I'll see you when you get here. That line worked really well for most of the last 30 years. And suddenly it's like with the money going into college basketball, Well, maybe that is the pros too. So, uh, and still, but like, you know, hey, in baseball, the minor leagues are pros.

They're just not, they're not MLB. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. Fair enough. Yeah, yeah. I'll deal with them when they get here.

Yeah. Let's get to the real one of the week. Howard Beck, who's the real one of the week? I mean, we've already alluded to it. Um, but there was, it was, it was double-barreled, so I'm still going to do it. Uh, my real one of the week is the, NBPA, the Players Association. Andrea Godala, who's now winding down his term as executive director, David Kelly,

is coming in to succeed him in a couple of months, whether it was either of them or, you know, the lawyers, PR, whoever decided on this double-barreled assault on the league, I'm all for it. Not because I'm taking sides here at all on the Janus front or on the 65 game front. We didn't discuss this one, but, you know, they also issued a statement. about Cade Cunningham and the collapsed lung wiping out probably the rest of his regular season, which would then knock him out of contention for MVP, for all NBA, for everything because of the 65 game rule. And this is one where I think I'm on the record. I was always against the 65 game

rule. And I agree with the union on this one. I just real one of the week to the union because we've had many, many years here of labor peace, which is a good thing on balance. But I do feel like we don't hear from the union that often these days. There was a time when I feel that I feel feel like they were a little bit more consistently vocal and pushing back on the league on various player rights issues or various concerns of the course of the season. When they issued both of these in quick succession the other day on the same day within like 10 minutes of each other, I just thought that's good. It's healthy. It's healthy for the league to get some pushback and for the union to be weighing in on these issues. I had been poking

around about the 65 game thing for the last couple of weeks. And at the time, that I did, nobody was really ready to, like, say on behalf of the agents, the union, whoever, that they were ready to start really going after this. But then like five more things happen, including Cade. And suddenly now there's like this avalanche of statements coming out. And I have a feeling it's going to lead to change eventually. But we'll see. In any case, good to hear from the union the other day. Fuckerun to find out, huh, Raj? Yes, sir. You go, amigo. You go. Okay, so I was trying to look up like Big Ten like standings from the from the regular season. I don't have them in front of me so I'm not going to.

But I'm going to give real one of the week to Ben McCullum, the head coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes, as they advanced to the elite eight last night knocking off Nebraska in what was a really, really entertaining game. I mean, it was tied, I think with like three or four minutes to go, I was flipping back and forth between that and Texas Purdue. But I'm giving him real one of the week because they knocked off Florida last week, which you know, not many people saw coming. And the way they did it, I thought was pretty cool. It was kind of near and dear to my heart.

Like Florida is a big physical, like knock you in the mouth type of team. And it was clear from the jump that Iowa was there to punch the bully, so to speak, in the mouth. And they were able to win that, advance to the Sweet 16, win again last night. They're in the elite eight. And when you look at their roster, it's not all the five. five-star, like, number one or two players in the country littered across it. You know, it's a team that he built. Some of it through the portal, you know, some of it through talent evaluation that may

have went under the radar, like Iowa, probably like Milwaukee or some of the teams Howard was referring to. You know, they've had a rich basketball history, but like, I don't think when you say that to your average recruit in Florida or in North Carolina, I don't think Iowa's going to be like their dream school, if you will. Do you know what I mean? And like he's put together something really cool. I love the way they play. Like they got good actions. That ball's moving around. They shoot it. And so I got to give him a lot of credit, man. That's my real one of the week. Ben McCollum, Iowa Hawkeyes, Elite 8. There you go. I'm going to go with the Charlotte Hornets.

Who went into the garden and just ran rough shot over Venn's Knicks. They're going to, they're going to, they're going to, they're going to, and one mixtape shit. I love it. When it works, it's pretty great. You know, like, it's pretty awesome. And they're playing right now with, like, just so free. And of the playing teams are the one that I want to see, I want to watch play. But if I'm the Pistons, if I am, it can also get into, and probably the, there's a chance that the Hornets can play themselves out of the plane.

Now, it's a lot, a lot has to happen there. But the Raptors are playing like shit, having playing like shit over the, last few weeks. The magic, yuck. I think Mosley's going to be out as head coach soon. The Sixers, sorry, Cliff, are trending downwards. If the Hornets get to like six, we are cooking with grease. Charlotte Hornets, Rogers' favorite team from just OG status just for years now. He always saw it in them.

And now we're all seeing them as an NBA community. But shout to the Charlotte Hornets, real one of the week. We'll see you guys next week. Real ones, we're cooking. That's all I really got. Real onesmail back at gmail.com. Real onesmail back at gmail.com. Real onesmail back at gmail.com would be answering your questions.

Real one of the week to Rajabelle for getting through this. Ah, uh, all the shits. Bye. Must be 21 years and older and present in select states. For Kansas, an affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and older and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem called 1-800 gambler. or 1-800, My Reset.

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