The Ringer NBA Show - Is the West More Wide Open Than We Thought? Plus: NBA Media in L.A. | Heat Check

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

With one week in the books for the 2019-20 regular season, we share our takeaways from the first handful of games (2:16). Plus: Los Angeles is the center of the basketball universe and the center of the NBA media universe; is this the new normal (23:16)? Host: John Gonzalez Guests: Dan Devine, Haley O’Shaughnessy, Bryan Curtis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ringer NBA show is presented by State Farm, just like basketball. The game of life is unpredictable. Talk to a State Farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected and help you handle whatever life throws your way. Unpredictable basketball outcomes. I got to go to Golden State. Hey, look, DeAngela Russell was good in Brooklyn last year. I figured, okay, look, they don't have Clay, they don't have KD,

but at the very least they'll be able to compete, and they have not, Isaac Lee. They have not, indeed. they lost to the Clippers, but more concerningly, they lost to OKC. Blown out by OKC, unpredictable outcomes, absolutely crazy. We're going to get into that and just a little bit on the show. But get you a teammate who can help you navigate those unexpected outcomes. Talk to a State Farm agent today about combining your home and auto insurance. And now, heat check.

Welcome to heat check. I'm your host, John Gonzalez, joined as I am every week by my producer, Isaac Lee. Hey, we have basketball. It's happening. Basketball is back, and it is. very good. It was very good for you. It was very good for two games and the third game. Not so much. That is good. We'll get into that in a little bit. I want to thank everybody for listening. A reminder to please rate and review us. And don't forget to read all of our great NBA content on

the ringer.com. This is kind of NBA, but it's mostly geopolitical. Jordan Ritter Khan went to Hong Kong to report on the ongoing pro-democracy movement. Excellent piece. Highly recommend. Brian Phillips wrote about the confusing reunion between James Hardin and Russell Westbrook and what to make of it so far, and we had a fun staff post answering questions from the first almost week of the NBA season on winners and losers, so check that out. Coming up later in the show, Brian Curtis will join us to discuss how L.A. has become not just the center of the NBA universe, but the center of the NBA media universe. But first, let's go to our new regular contributors who will be with us each and every week, Dan and Haley.

Boom, Shackalaka. He's heating up. All right, one half is in the studio. One half is way across the country in our NYC-HQ. It's heat check coast to coast with our regulars, Haley and Dan. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Is that fat Albert or quai? It's quai. All right. I like it. Gang, lot of basketball happen. Basketball is back. We have almost a full week in the books. Let's get to it with our NBA instant replay. All right, before we get into actual basketbally stuff, I woke up this morning to the smell of smoke, and I saw one of my neighbors. on the west side of Los Angeles had been evacuated because of the Getty Fire in Los Angeles. LeBron James driving around in the middle of the morning displaced from his home.

So I hope that works out okay for him. Yeah, it's really scary. You can see the smoke everywhere here. Isaac, I'm sure you can too. And then he had that tweet where he said that he was driving around and he couldn't find a place to stay. It's real. My neighbor is. I really honestly believe that.

I don't know if people outside of L.A. believe that. But I'm here for you, LeBron. I believe that. My neighbor, her sister got evacuated, lives also near LeBron. and she has to go all the way down to Newport to find a place because it's apparently not just LeBron who can't find a place, also my neighbors.

So finally there's a good reason for me to not be in L.A. Geez, everybody stay safe. Please be careful. Everybody stay safe. We're rooting for all of you and for LeBron. And also, bad times for LeBron. LeBron's getting killed right now. On my drive-in today on NBA Sirius XM Radio,

Brian Custer and Rick Mahorn were killing LeBron for his hair kind of coming off against Utah. And I'm like, give the guy a break. He had to evacuate his home. It's really bad. I bring this up a lot, but I did that Barbara story a long time ago, and I hit up one of them, and they were like, there are things to do to prevent that. Number one, don't wear a headband.

Or shave your head. I mean, you're LeBron James. You don't need it. All right, let's get to basketball. There was an overtime thriller on Sunday. The Gris got past the nets, as everybody who listens to Heechek knows. Isaac Lee, our resident Heechak historian, what's the number one Grizzlies podcast on the Ringer NBA show feed?

I mean, it has to be He Check. There's no other show that would represent. the Memphis Grizzlies like that. Everybody talks about the Grizzlies here on this program. We love the Grizzlies. Jay Crowder hit his first bucket in overtime. And then his second bucket was the buzzer-beater to win the game on an assist from John Morant, who was a killer, Dan Devine, 30 points, nine assists.

He had the assist on the game winner. And he had a block on Kyrie to send it to overtime. I kept waiting for, I figured like it would take a second for Jha. It took, what, two games? Yeah, he's instantly an impact playmaker. And, I mean, with all the young bigs, they got there, all the talent, they was there. It's going to be an up and down year for them, but that he's already showing out is extremely exciting for Memphis. They're the new kings. They're this year's kings. Because the

kings are obviously not the kings anymore of last year. Now they're back to the kings. We'll get to the kings in just a second. Haley O'Shaughnessy, let's run through our undefeated teams. And we're going to start with your Atlanta Hawks who go 2 and 0 to begin this season. Trey Young, absolutely insane to start the year. You called this. Yeah, he's been fantastic. And I think it's really encouraging to see that his outside shooting has come along with all the rest of the exciting things he does. I think him and Luca are my favorite people to actually watch penetrate. Like, they know how to penetrate. Like, people have to learn how to give a speech. Dramatic pauses. That was a good job by you doing it just there.

High pitches, stopping, slowing. Like, it's very fun to watch. Dan, are you buying the Atlanta Hawks because neither of us had the Atlanta Hawks in the playoff picture? After two games, I'm way in on the Atlanta Hawks. They're so fun. I believe. Yeah, the young pieces fit together. You can see what the outline looked like. You know, we get our wings together with our point guard. We have the, you know, the bigs like John Collins and, you know, sort of it all kind of coheres together.

But we figured it would take a year, maybe two, to get everybody on board. If Trey Young is going to play like this, and he's not going to produce at this high level all season, but if he plays like this, at all comes together a lot faster, I think. And then they can certainly push for that eight-seat, if not higher. Fun team to watch. Similarly fun and undefeated to Philadelphia 76ers, everybody expected that. We'll just skip right over the Philadelphia 76ers being undefeated. Here's one that I did not expect.

The Timberwolves. Holy Hell, are they good? Holy hell is cat looking good. He had one of his worst games of the three, and it was just a monster line in the win over the heat. Andrew Wiggins also, by the way, it was fun to see Andrew Wiggins who gets, everybody, like, dumps on Andrew Wiggins.

He had 16 in the fourth quarter alone in the win over the heat on Sunday, and he got mobbed by his teammates. like all of a sudden Andrew Wiggins I don't know if Andrew Wiggins is ever going to realize the potential that you know got him that massive contract and people give him a lot of heat for that but it was nice to see nice things happen two and for Andrew Wiggins

and that's the point of all of this is that we're all rooting for Andrew Wiggins nobody thinks he's a bus nobody thinks he's not good the thing is that he has these stretches where he plays like this and we all want him to keep doing it and then all of a sudden he doesn't have the desire to do it anymore yeah there's a Jeff Green kind of vibe to that where it's like every once in a while he's a superhero and then for a long stretch of the time you completely forget he's out there

But that fourth quarter stretch, it's like, oh, right, this is maybe this is the light turning on. We've been there before with them, so you know, you've got to wait to see it more often before you believe it. But an encouraging sign that Ryan Saunders has them going in the right direction. Right. I was also going to say maybe Saunders will be the difference maker because he had that quote where he said, Andrew wasn't playing well. I took him out. And then Andrew also understood. This is not Tom Tibido anymore.

It seems like he really can get through to them. I think being a player coach is underrated. I'm in on the walls. We did our group post. And one of the things that I was most excited about, you know, we had the winner. and losers from the first week, and one of the questions was, which take are you reconsidering? I had thought that the wolves would be bad because the wolves are generally bad. And then I saw Carl Anthony Towns absolutely ruined Dan Devine's Brooklyn Nets in that opener with,

I'm just going to give you the entire city of New York. And now all of a sudden I'm in on the wolves. The nuggets, as expected, the nuggets are super deep. We're not going to spend a lot of time on them. I just want to throw this last, the last undefeated team, the Spurs. Dan Devine, I called it. I told you, don't doubt the San Antonio Spurs is. everybody who listens to Heat Check knows, I did that last year.

I'm not doing it this year, Dan. They're undefeated. They're going to go 82 and O because Popovich can't be stopped. The regression is coming. It's inevitable. Gons is the angel on the shoulder. I'm the devil here. Fade him.

Fade the spurs. All right. The defeated teams, teams who have not won yet, we mentioned the Kings, the Nicks, those aren't any surprise there. The massive surprise here. The massive surprise. The Warriors have looked horrendous. You don't think it is a surprise.

You expected them to be this bad? Excuse me. I took them as the eighth seed and only because I didn't want to get crushed. You did not expect them to be this bad. They lost to the Clippers is one thing. This is exactly what they were bad at is defense. And their defense is not just bad. It's awful.

They got blown out by the thunder, though. Okay, there's a big gap between losing to the Clippers and getting run off the floor by the thunder. I think it's a mix of us not giving the Thunder enough credit, though. I don't know. I think they get enough credit. Any credit at all is plenty of credit for the Thunder, I think. Yeah, 7037 at half is not the amount of. credit we should be giving the thunder and the amount of, I guess, I don't know, blame we should have

expected for the Warriors. Keep saying we. All right, fine. Haley can have this. But DeAngelo Russell, I think, was the smartest warrior of all. He got tossed from that game. Good for him. I would have wanted to get run too.

But Steve Kerr, after the loss to the Clippers, he kind of almost predicted this. He was asked about the game. You can see his body language during the game and the Clippers where it wasn't good. Clearly things weren't going well for them. And he said afterwards, he's like, this. This isn't a one-off. This is reality. And then the very next guy, I'm like, I was thinking, okay, he's been a little dramatic here.

They're going to be fine with the Warriors. They still have Steph Curry and Jarmond and, you know, DeAngelo. And then it gets, and then it falls off a cliff right fast. But he said that this is the reality. And he kind of predicted this with the Clippers. How worried now are we? And I'm going to go to Dan here. Dan, because Haley, obviously, is Nostradamus and predicted this.

How worried would you be about the Warriors? Were you the Warriors? Well, I think, yeah, the more relevant reality-related quote from them is Draymond Green saying the reality is we fucking suck right now. And, I mean, it is hard to argue with that assessment. I think you have real reason to be worried because once you get past those top three, it is just a slew of unproven guys. A lot of them young that don't know how to play NBA defense or haven't really shown they can. And that's not going to improve overnight. It's going to take time.

So I think the worry is real. And if you wind up behind the eight ball with a bunch of losses early in the season, that can really come back to bite you and make Haley look even smarter than we. We all know she is. She's incredibly bright. We all know that. All right. So we mentioned some other defeated teams. Two other ones here, kind of surprising.

At least one that's surprising to me, Dan is going to say it wasn't surprising to him. The Pacers haven't won a game. I like the Pacers. The Pacers are plucky. Dan said that they're not. I didn't say they're not plucky. He hates Indiana. I said they might not be all that good.

The offensive concern is real because of all they were losing with Olipa being out, you know, the other guys that they lost in free agency. The defense not being all that good to be. beginning is that's a real concern for them. They've got to hang their head on defense. And if they're not getting stops, they're going to be in a lot of trouble. Coastal elite, Dan Devine, hating on the middle of the country and our last defeated team. And we skipped over real quick the Kings. I mean, I mentioned the Kings, but poor Riley McAtee was already in our Slack saying that he was thinking about tanking and rebuilding. We're not even a full week into the season.

So all as well in Sacramento, we mentioned the next. The last one, though, Haley O'Shaughnessy. The Pelicans, everybody was super high on the Pelicans. Yes, they don't have Drew Holiday and Zion. not looking great. No, not looking great, but also does it matter? Exactly what you just said. They don't have Drew. They don't have Zion. So our expectations for them are not going to be what they were before when they were on the court.

Wanzah looks good. Ingram looks good. I think it matters a little bit. No, but that is actually a plus. These guys are figuring it out. They don't have the high expectations that they had on the Lakers. I think this is totally fine. Let's say they don't make the playoffs.

Is that really that bad? They still have this team for next year too. All right. Last one for our headline NBA Instant Replay section. We've got almost a full week of basketball for us. Let's go around the horn here. Give me one thing that surprised you from the almost full week to start the season. Dan Devon, you go first.

I think it's got to be the Sons, right? I mean, they're two and one. They blew out the Kings opening night. Their one loss was to Denver in overtime. Then they beat the Clippers. They look like a functional NBA team with some veterans in there. Devin Booker scoring pretty legit nine-man rotation, even with DeAndre Atenre Aten, and suspended. I think there's cause to be excited about that, and I wouldn't necessarily have expected that

heading into the start of the season. We're going to get to the Sons in just a second. and I think Isaac Lee's going to be excited about it. Helio, shown us a year surprise from the first week. I had a couple, but all of these are probably going to change really quickly. Mike Conley's shooting. Yeah, that first game. Markell Fultz technically has better percentages than Mike Conley right now.

Which mind-blowing and brings me to my surprise of the week. Markle Fultz, not great for Philadelphia 76ers fans, but he's a young dude who's trying to figure it out, so I'm happy for him. He's averaging right now 24 minutes per outing, 12 points, 4.5 assists, a rebound and a half, a steal. And here's the big one for me, gang. And we're going to talk about the gang stuff too later on in the program because our listeners have called me out for it, and I think it's hilarious.

But he's taking four and a half threes per game and making one. He's taking them, though, which is a big thing because he was so reluctant to do so in Philadelphia. I don't know if Mark Hellfoltz is, quote, back, but he's not the Markle Foltz we saw in Philadelphia, which he had just like disappeared, didn't want to shoot, was clearly like something was going on with him either physically or mentally. This is a good development for him. The hesitation going away is everything.

Hesitation going away. In Orlando where the expectations are actually not that high, even though they made the playoffs last year, they had an all-star last year. Figure it out in Orlando, this is very encouraging. And as a Sixers fan, I think you should just be happy for him. I'm happy for him as a human being. As a Sixers fan is something completely different. That was NBA instant replay.

Let's go to our main topic, which we're calling the main event. All right, here's what I want to know. After the first week or so of basketball, did we overreact to what's happening in We'll start with Isaac Lee's Los Angeles Clippers. After the first two games, I was ready to coronate them. This was it. It was a coronation. They were going to march to the NBA finals.

I tweeted at Isaac to clear his calendar for the first two weeks in June. And then Dan Devine, just refresh my memory. How to go against the Suns? Not great, Gans. Despite big games from Kauai Leonard and a couple other guys, Lou Williams, off the bench, they lost it to Phoenix. And the Suns, last I checked, were not the kind of team that's supposed to be beating the Clippers. No DeAndre Aidan and no.

handsome and talented Rick Rubio, and still the suns emerge, Victoria's, did we maybe sleep a little bit on the suns or the sun's slightly better than we thought or was it just one of those nights for the Clippers? I have something that's very unpopular to say. I don't think that Aiton being gone is really that bad for the suns.

Yeah, addition by subtraction? I just, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things to point out that maybe we've forgotten in the offseason that he really didn't do very well last season. I don't think he's bad by any means, but I think that now this gives room for Booker to just let it fly by himself. And I also think that he's going to take the step this year

from only being a bad team, good stats guy, to being someone who can actually affect change. That is a hot take for heat check. We love that. Go on the hottest take podcast, too, and do that one. Isaac Lee is our resident Clippers fan. How do you feel about your Clippers? They're super deep.

They don't have Paul George back yet. They look so good in those first two games. And then they looked, Dan, what's the opposite of so good against it's something else? So trash? So bad. Yeah, so bad. So trash. How do you feel, Isaac? First of all, I think this is a fluke game. The Suns. They have a good roster this year. Like, you know, we talked about this. Like, they got a bunch of veterans. Kelly Ubre is having, like, second half of the season last year and now with T.J. Warren gone. He looks good.

He looks good. Apparently, Aaron Baines is the next coming of Akima Lajuan. And the clippers are screwed and we're never going to win anything. The clippers have too many stable pieces for this to be anything more than a flea. It was one night. It was one night. They're so deep and so good and they're going to get PG back. I don't even know that they need PG. That's how good they are.

For the Lakers, we all panicked over the Lakers and that loss to the Clippers. Then they go out and as you mentioned, they shut down Mike Connolly or Mike Connolly shut himself down. They beat the Jazz. Then they beat the Hornets, which I have no idea what to me. I've watched like an odd amount of Hornets basketball, but they beat the Hornets. Dwight Howard, Dan Devine had 16 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks against Charlotte. Now the Lakers have the same exact record as the Clippers, which I guess makes them just as good. Did we overreact to the Lakers after that first game?

I mean, a little bit because you have the reality of going against another elite team, and you're not going to be doing that every night. But the concerns about how they defend and who else handles the ball are real. I think it was good to see Frank Vogel put in Alex Caruso get another creator on the court alongside LeBron. He doesn't have to just bring the ball up the court all the time. Dwight, if he's good, that is very valuable for them. Opponents are shooting 40% against him at the rim so far,

which is, you know, like, that's not going to stay that low. But if he's an impact player that can defend the rim, set screens, whatever, that's going to be useful for them. His sort of second coming in L.A. will be an interesting story. But, yeah, I mean, their concerns are all about can they defend and can other people do enough to let LeBron and A.D. shine. And if they get performances like they have the last couple of games, they should be off to the races. Maybe I'll regret saying this, but I am actually very encouraged by Dwight.

And I'm also encouraged by the fact that they have a real coach now. And real coaches adjust. So it's going to be a matter of, okay, maybe this isn't going to be. going super well. We still need a lot of things to work out at the beginning of the season. But this is what happens when you actually have coaches

who are going to adjust. And so I think that's very encouraging. And also kind of a dig at Luke Walton, which I think we should be taking more of. I want to see what happens with these two teams in L.A. And I'm excited that now that they have the same record and we don't have to automatically

write one of them off after three games. Quickly, how do we feel about the Western Conference playoff picture after one game? Damien Lillard and C.J. McCollum, basically said that the West is there for the taking. Who's going to challenge, let's say, the Phoenix Suns in the West, Dan? I think you have to like Denver as a, you know, we mentioned, you know, we know what they're

going to get offensively and they're super deep. I think you like them. You know, the LA teams are going to be there. I'm interested in Dallas, man, two and one to start. KP already looks good. Luca looks like he's going to be an MVP candidate. No shortage of potential contenders to that throne. The Mavs are very, very exciting.

I completely agree. I'm not writing off Utah yet. I'm not sorry. and then Denver and the LA teams. Absolutely. As you know, this is a Grizzlies and Spurs podcast. We'll throw them in the mix. And then, of course, Carly Anthony Towns can't be stopped.

I have no idea what's going on. The Western Conference has been fun to start. A lot of things that we didn't expect. Like I said, the Ascendant Phoenix Suns. That was the main event. All right, let's go to our favorite segment sweeping the nation. Good call, bad call to wrap up our segment with our two favorites, Haley and Dan.

And we'll begin with Jim Boylan going old school with the Chicago Bulls. I've also watched quite a bit of Chicago Bulls basketball, but this is interesting. He put a punch clock into the training facility to keep track of the hours for his players. Boylan had the clock custom made in red and white with the Chicago Bulls emblazoned on it and hung it up at the practice facility located near the weight room. This is from CBS Sports, by the way. The device serves as a way for players to punch in and out of work. I'm going to guess most, if not all of the players on the team have no idea what a punch clock is because, you know, This is like almost, we're almost in the 2020s now.

The players each have their own card with their name on it to use. I think this is hilarious. Haley O'Shaughnessy, G.C. or BC? G.C. If any team is going to bring it old school, it should be the Bulls. Dan Devine. BC, the job that I've had where I had to punch a card, I did not really give my all at. So I think that it's maybe sending the wrong message to the players.

My man, Isaac Lee. BC, what is this the best buy? Like, what's going on? Why that's to punch in and out of work? They're basketball. players. This is hilarious in the same way that it was hilarious last year when he made them run wind sprints and like do suicides and like had, he wanted to like have practice after a game or whatever. Yes, G.C. I love Jim Boylan. I hope he never changes. Another one in another clock news,

Dan, you mentioned this in our Slack. TNT for the TNT broadcast, they already have the shot clock bug in the Chiron, but they have now added a shot clock onto the court. They've superimposed it onto the court right around the free throw line. G.C. or BC to an extra shot clock on the court. G.C. It reminds me of like holograms in action movies where they're pulling it up to show like the plan and where the bad guy is. I love it. Dan Devine. B.C. This is maybe just because I'm too old. There's just too many things. Like let's see the basketball game and not have more stuff on it.

Just take your glasses off and it'll be fuzzling. That's a very old. That is a very old man take. It's too much stuff on my screen. Isaac Lee, you're a young man. What say you? G.C. I think it looks great. I like a new flavor onto the court. I'm going to stand with my man, Dan Devine. Oh, generational divine. BC, how much more stuff do I need on my court? I already saw the shock clock.

I got two shot clocks. Also get off my lawn. I'm shaking my fist at a cloud. It gets very complicated for me. All right, last one here for GC and BC. We got tweeted out here by a guy named Luke. He came up with a weekly ringer NBA show drinking game. And one of the things that he says here,

whenever Haleo, Shaughnessy references Louisville, whenever Kevin O'Connor mentions... Louisville. Excuse me. Whenever Kevin O'Connor mentions something obscure. And whenever I say, gang. So, G.C. or B.C., to the weekly Ringer NBA show drinking game. G.C., you know, Luke, you really remind me of Russ Smith. Just willing to fire away all the time.

I want to go push. G.C. because it's very fun. BC, because I can in good conscience, suggest that you drink this much. This is a very... It seems like a very bad idea for your general health and well-being. Isaac Lee, G.C. BC, we're all about liver health on the H.ECHEC podcast. We're the primary podcast of liver health. I'm going to say that this is a huge G.C. Although I do share Dan's concerns about how hammered people will be after listening to our podcast. Also, Haley O'Shaughnessy, don't you generally put together a drinking game on Twitter? I did last playoffs. I think that I might do just one-off. So I was thinking the other day it'd be fun to do every time somebody says, oh, it's still early.

because I feel like we just say that too much and too long into the season. Of course it's early, you know, like for stats and like worrying about teams, etc. So I think I'm going to do some one-offs. I really, I'm willing to partner up with Luke. This is a good idea. Luke and other heat check listeners, please tweet at Haleo something on Twitter. I got it right, right? At Haleo something.

And then we'll develop this drinking game further. You two are excellent. You've got to go and be fantastic writers for the ringer.com. Make sure to read both Haley and. Dan every week on the website. They're writing all the time. And also, they'll be back next week on heat check. Thanks, gang.

All right, before we bring in Brian Curtis, a quick word from our sponsors. The rear MBA show is presented by State Farm, just like basketball. The game of life is unpredictable. Talk to a State Farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected and help you handle whatever life throws your way. More unexpected unpredictable outcomes. The Phoenix Suns, as we mentioned. Two and one, atop their division after beating Isaac Lee's Los Angeles Clippers.

Yeah, I don't think anyone could have predicted that, especially without Ricky Rubio and D'Andre Aiton out of suspended, that they would be rolling like this, but they rolled all over my clippers. Valley of the Sun, get a teammate like Isaac Lee, who just helped me, who can help you navigate the unexpected talk to a State Farm agent today about combining your home and auto insurance. Today's show is also brought to you by Luminary, a podcast subscription service with some of the best content around. I'm excited about Luminary because it's the only place I can listen to the ringer's amazing new podcast. Sonic Boom, how Seattle lost its team, hosted by our very own Jordan Ritter Khan. If you're a fan of sports, great investigative journalism or both, this is definitely a podcast. You can't miss.

I was excited about it because I've always been fascinated by why and how the Sonics left Seattle. I was in Seattle recently. You still see people wearing Sonic's jerseys. It's a bummer that they don't have a team there. And you get all of this information in Sonic Boom. And along with Sonic Boom, Luminary offers about 40 podcasts that you can't find anywhere else, including two more from the ringer break stuff,

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After that, it's only 799 per month. That's Luminary.com slash ringer MBA for two months of free access. Luminary.com slash ringer MBA cancel any time. Terms apply. And now back to Hecheck. All right, joining me in the studio. He's an editor at large and one half of the excellent press box podcast, Brian Curtis. Great to see you.

Hi, buddy. You rescued me. I was getting a segment ready about Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi. So I cannot wait to talk about sports writers. This is different. This is something completely different. You wrote, speaking of sports writers, you wrote an excellent story about how LA has become the center of the NBA media universe, which proved prophetic. I saw you reporting some of this.

Saw you at work. And then for the very first game between the Clippers and the Lakers at State. Sample Center. Brian Curtis, 400 media credentials. That is banana tail. Even the upper press box. I mean, I did not go. I kind of avoided it conspicuously. Smart. That's a veteran move. Just imagining like correspondence just hanging out of that giant high press box. We can't see anything anyway. Yeah. And imagine, I mean, just getting to the ice cream machine was going to be awfully difficult. They'll be knife in each other. You don't want to get between a sports writer and the ice cream machine. But do you expect this circus to continue

all season because I think like once the season starts going, on the one hand, you know, it starts to thin out. But on the other hand, as you mentioned in your piece, pretty much anybody who's anybody in NBA media reporting now lives here. They do. They all live here. So we've got ESPN basically everybody lives here. It's our biggest concentration of NBA reporters. We've got us at the ringer and we're filling up those press rooms too. Sure. Then we got, you know, you got people from the New York Times, the Washington Post and USA Today. None of those newspapers are located in L.A.

Washington Post. It's in Washington. It is literally in Washington. They all three have correspondence here. You've got a half dozen athletic people here now. At least. I think you're underselling the athletic number. It's probably. They probably hired nine people since we started this podcast. We're a soccer writer here too now. Exactly. Right. But yeah, you've got all these people. And then you got people like Chris Haynes, who's up in Oakland, who told me, well, I'm going to be spending 60 to 70 percent of my time in L.A.

This year. Sam Amick, same deal. I mean, he's Sacramento area-ish. And then comes down all the time. I see him all the time. He basically lives here. Which, speaking of Sam Amick, he had a report about Anthony Davis saying that Anthony Davis will technically be a free agent at the end of the season.

Everybody expects him to resign with the Los Angeles Lakers. Amick had a report that said, they're in the driver's seat, but don't fuck this up, saying that there's still some wiggle room here, which I bring up Anthony Davis because for your point, for your story, he came from New Orleans. where there basically was no media infrastructure whatsoever. And we asked him about the differences of that at Media Day, where he goes from really not having to answer many questions from many reporters at all to just being inundated with media requests and questions on a daily basis.

That's got to be, at the very least, different and odd for him. Oh, absolutely. A New Orleans where a newspaper has closed since his last season there. No, I think that's right. And I think, I don't think he quite still understands what, it's going to be like after every game. And beyond that, and to your question a second ago, is this going to continue? Yes, it's going to continue because it's the Lakers. Yeah. It doesn't matter if they're the sixth seed. It doesn't matter if there are two seeds out of the playoffs.

There's going to be drama in that organization. Oh, always. The AD contract for starters. So this is just a, it's just something that feeds the media and it feeds a cycle. Jeannie is going to do something. A rambus is going to do something. Magic is going to come out of nowhere off the Pop rope. Magic's going to resign again. He's going to come back to the bowels of the arena and resign again. I'll hire him just to fire him. I mean, there was some,

Rob Polinka will have another, you know, hyphen literary reference that we don't get. Read us another Palo Coelho novel, right? That beat doesn't rely on the Lakers being good, which is kind of amazing. It's a little bit like the Yankees and the Cowboys in that respect. For sure. And the Knicks have probably tested that as much as we can because the Knicks is kind of

an irrelevant place now. Sure. But maybe like those other two teams, you don't need to be good. There's going to be a story every day. That's absolutely true. When I first moved out here from Philly, what, now, three years ago, the Lakers were not good then. They sucked. They sucked. And yet, the media contingent was akin to something you'd get on the East Coast where you'd be like, okay, it is the Nix or the Celtics or the Sixers, and like, you're just going to have a bunch of media show up because that's what happens.

I didn't expect that because they were so bad. And yet, as you mentioned, they're the Lakers. I'm interested, though, do you think it will hold for the Clippers? Because the Clippers are ostensibly the best team in the West, although, as we mentioned earlier in the program, Isaac, did they, how'd they do against the Sons? I don't want to talk about it. We think, though, that they're still going to be the best team. But there's still the Clippers, though,

and I wonder about, like, the media interest in that team. Do you think it will hold for them? It's a fascinating question. And none of the reporters I talked to quite new. And that was the question they were all asking themselves. My sense is that what's been happening with the Clippers all these years is people like Brian Winhorse and your average, ESPN Insider.

They come in to do the jump and they go to the Clippers because it's easier. Easier. It's easier to see the opposing team. So if there's somebody you want to interview, you go to the Clippers. You're not, as you say,

waiting through the hordes. I think a lot of that is just going to convert into Clippers coverage. They're going to go, but instead of going to the opposing locker room, they're going to stay in the Clippers locker room. Yeah. Now, it's never going to be the Lakers.

I just don't believe that. I think they could be cruising in number one seed halfway through the season, three-quarters way through the season, and it's just not going to be the same. I just don't think so. And I think another reason is Kauai, by the way. He's just not going to provide as much grist as LeBron does. LeBron feeds the media. Kauai doesn't feed the media. Conspicuously does not.

Beyond him not feeding the media, though, I'm still surprised that we don't get more, at least some like Kauai columns or Kauai think pieces about him. Because, I mean, he has done some fairly remarkable things, right? I mean, not just actual basketball on court winning a championship, being a two-time finals MVP, but the way that he sort of reconfigured the league over the summer and ended up in Los Angeles, but not what the Lakers, made the Lakers hold off,

got Paul George to the Clippers. I mean, that was some really nice Machiavellian maneuvering, and yet, as you mentioned, because he doesn't feed the media, we don't get as many Kauai pieces. And in our current NBA media environment, think how hard that is. Yeah.

To ward off think pieces. In L.A. Right. Russell Westbrook agrees to a couple of things a year, even he relents and he has no interest in it. James Harden agrees to a few things that he has little interest in it. You're the man for this job. I'm putting you on this.

On the Kawhibee? Wait, I'm supposed to unlock him? Yeah, I think you could do it. If anybody could get him to talk, I think it would be you. I'm also interested, though, as you mentioned in the piece, there's all these people who are either moved here or here frequently, and you have to figure out how somehow to zag when everybody else is zig. And that has become increasingly difficult, not just because of,

you know, these two teams and everybody being here to cover them, but just in the way that the media is handled with the NBA now, right? Increasingly, you get more scrum interview, more PAC interviews. There's fewer one-on-ones. You do have people who try to get the visiting team when they come through town. But the competition level between the reporters, I'm fascinated by, and you said something on the Press Box podcast, which I recommend everybody listens to, you said, a common condition among journalists is feeling like you're never given enough credit for how great you are. And as David Shoemaker might say, I think that's right. So what I want to know is like, how has that condition been exacerbated?

Like the competition level I'm going to guess will make everybody else feel like, hey, now you're not paying enough attention to me because there's so many more of us. I was delighted when you and I were at Lakers Media Day to see these small status moments among NBA inside. Oh, so many. This is the first time a lot of them are seeing the players. So there was the big hug. Oh, yeah. Right, that was like a big hug. Like, here we go.

This guy that I'm covering a big hug, we're reunited like it's a first day of school. Then there's the high five. Sure. You know, the remote shovel is more like the high five. Right. Hi, how you doing? Great to see you. There's other people kind of stand off in the corner and maybe pick their spots.

Yeah, you might get a head nod or maybe like a fist bump. Like, good to see you again. Yeah. Or, hey, it's you. Yeah. So I'm fascinated by that. I think to your point, it's interesting. There's going to be a ton of competition.

The Lakers beat is, to me, the most fascinating because it's almost carved into several different mini-beats. There's the LeBron beat. Sure. There's the genie beat. Yep. There's the kind of how the Lakers play on the court beat. AD was kind of his own mini-beat over the summer. I know as Chris Haynes, when he asked a question of LeBron at Lakers Media Day, he said,

AD told me. Yeah. Like, I have talked to, spoken to AD. Love that. Love the name drop. Yeah. Before we got here. But so that's always a cool when you can do that.

But then there's the kind of like Baxter Holmes after-action cleanup report. Where is it, here's all the stuff we didn't do. Sure. And I'm going to come in with a hammer at the end of the season. And I'm going to tell you like 10 things you didn't know about the Lakers and all the terrible stuff that happen with magic and Plinca and everybody else. So that I don't know another team that has distinctive beats within a single team. I don't know where else that exists. Well, they produce, as you mentioned, I mean, they're the Lakers.

they're constantly producing content, even when they're not good, and now we expect them to be good. So then there's the actual basketball component, too, that you add into all this off-court front-office drama. So you're right. I mean, they're helping feed a lot of reporters, and we're excited about that because we love the Lakers beat. We love all those guys. But I wonder, I want to ask you, too, because so we mentioned all these people who are here, who are covering these two teams, who are coming through L.A. L.A. is the center of the basketball and media universe.

If you're not here, can you count yourself as a big-time NBA reporter? or is there like massive foamo there? You want to, you want me to write off all these people? I don't want you to name any names. Manix pissed at me and Zach pissed at me and all these other people. Everybody would be pissed at everybody anyway. So what's the difference? But I wonder, no, I wonder like if you're not here, like how envious might you be?

Well, it's a total switch, isn't it? Because you and I are old enough to remember. We are. When to be a big reporter at anything, you had to be on the East Coast. East Coast. And even when Grantland opened in L.A., that felt sort of eccentric. Like, oh, what, you're doing a big thing from L.A.? Yeah.

I think the answer is you have to have a piece of it. And you have to have a presence here. And I think actually the jump is the best thing to happen to people. Because it's an excuse to come here for a few days, do a few television hits, make that 200-yard walk from the ESPN studio to Staples. Right. And then you're here. Yeah.

So you did it. Yeah, when ESPN put the jump out here, it was almost kind of like their little satellite outpost in the same way that, as you mentioned, Grant Lynn was, and now, We're here and all these people are never leaving. LA has gotten even more crowded. I didn't think that was possible, but it's true. While you're here, I want to discuss another issue that's been front and center for the NBA, for the ringer.

NBA and China, we just sent Jordan Ritter Khan. I highly recommend you read his story. He went to Hong Kong to report from the front lines of the continuing pro-democracy protests and movement there. But this has been a major issue for the NBA. Before the season started, Adam Silver gave an interview, a couple interviews, one at a time, on a panel, one to TMZ Sports, where he was basically saying, hey, it's going to be back to basketball. We all need to move on in with our lives. As it turns out, not so much. Hasn't really

happened. Thirty-five people rallied outside the arena in Houston before Saturday's Rockets game. The same group of people sat behind the basket for the Rockets game on Thursday with pro-Hong Kong signs. Last week, there was a Hong Kong flag that popped up in full view of the TNT cameras, which led to a conversation between Shaq and Barclay. A couple of nights later, Adam Silver was on the set to talk about this whole thing. This isn't going away, Brian, and I don't know, I don't really know how they get out of this. It's kind of like they're welcome to the NFL moment, right? This is what it was like to be the NFL a couple years ago.

And I think it's actually much harder than the NFL's problem because the NFL had and has a serious problem with what happened to Colin Kaepernick. He was blackballed. But what the NFL was able to do was sort of just eventually sort of waited out, talk to people, make a bunch of promises. peel off some of the people who were protesting and then eventually the issue kind of went away. Trump stopped attacking them and the issue essentially went away. Or at least like has, let's say not go away. Died down. Died down to a lower low. Sure. The NBA, the NBA cannot solve the Hong Kong China problem by itself. They cannot, they cannot deal with protesters in Hong Kong. So I think it is going to continue to happen. And I agree with you. I think Silver has been so eager to

get to the second level, even on the court before the Toronto, the, the leagues, season opener. He was saying basketball can bring people together. It's like, you know, we just saw that that is actually the opposite of the case. Yeah. Right. We don't need to go to homilies just yet because this is still a raging thing. I'm surprised too. When you mentioned the contrast or the comparison between the NFL and the NBA and how they deal with these things, the NFL, I feel like frequently will just bury its head in the sand and try to ignore these issues. Adam Silver has been front and center discussing these things up to and including putting himself on the inside the NBA TNT set and discussing it wild,

discussing it with Shaq and Barclay. After Mike Pence said that the NBA was a wholly owned subsidiary of an authoritarian regime with respect to this whole thing with China, Barkley, with Adam Silver on the set, said that Pence should shut the hell up. And then they talked about it, which is just like mind blowing to me. I went to one of their press events the other day, and Ernie Johnson told me when they do China segments, first of all, there's no command from higher-ups that you can only say X or Y. Which is to their credit, but also shocking.

Totally shocking. And that number two, and this was even more shocking to me, they don't talk about what they're going to say regarding China before the segment. Don't do the show before the show. So it's here's Shaq, and here's, and let's take him in his word. Here's Shaq. Here's Charles Barcl. Here's Kenny Smith. Don't forget him.

And you're pushing them out and you're saying, off the top of your head, you're going to go. in on a subject like the NBA in China. That's pretty incredible. That part of it from the TNT crew part of it is incredible. Also that Adam Silver would willingly say, yeah, sure, I'll make myself available to... Unimaginable with Roger Goodell. It would never have. And give Adam Silver credit for that.

I have been tough on him and you've been tough on him the last couple weeks. But to go out there and put yourself in that kind of free fire environment is pretty amazed. Full marks for that. But what do you make of it as a media strategy? Like, let's just take your media hat off. We're not reporters anymore. You're going to go into the league front office, and you're going to advise them on how to handle what has become an increasingly difficult and tricky situation to maneuver.

And you're going to tell him, Adam, this is how you should handle it. Would you tell him to do that? Obviously not. Well, I actually maybe would because I think that's how he's most comfortable handling things. I think he likes to talk things to death. Somebody who used to work for League told me this recently. He said, Adam is not an emotional person, but he kind of rules. rules with emotion. And he's able to, if he puts himself out there, he seems kindly and he seems

concerned. And I believe he often is, and most of the time probably is concerned and kindly and engaged with these issues on an intellectual level. So if you push him out, even if you don't agree with them, that kind of calms things down a little bit. Gidel would have the opposite impact. Goodell, he would seem so cold and his speech would seem so limited and he would not seem engaged with the issues at all and say, oh, well, any team can sign Colin Kaepernick. That would just, every time Goodell spoke, it made people matter. Remember, they hit him for like a year after the end of the end of the Cabrink thing? I think silver is the opposite strategy.

It's how much silver can we push out there? Can we get him on the ring or NBA show? Can we get him on slow news day? The answer is yes. That's always been their strategy. But I wonder, talking it to, I think you might be right. I think that's right. That maybe he does want to talk it to death, but that also comes with some baked

in danger, right? Because when you're doing that and you're talking it to death, you're also potentially going to further piss off the Chinese who have not been quiet about this. Yeah, though I think they feel, it seems like the NBA feels pretty good about that. And remember, Silver's not going to be pissing off the Chinese, right? Silver is going to be delivering. Right, try to walk that line. Yeah. And freedom of speech, but these are our partners and all that kind of stuff. And by the way, it was really interesting because between Barclay, Shaq and Kenny Smith and even Ernie Johnson, you had several, you had basically four different.

opinions about this. And they were allowed to say them on TV and the world did not end when they were said them on TV, which I was kind of impressed by. But yeah, no, I think Silver's going to keep talking. I think he's going to talk as much as he can about this. They're going to keep talking about it. We're going to have plenty of content on the ringer.com. Make sure to listen to Brian Curtis twice a week.

Whoa. So many times on the press box podcast with David Shoemaker. It's one of my favorites. You guys should listen. It's really good. Brian, thank you. Thanks, God. All right.

That was Brian Curtis. We thank him. We thank Dan Devine and Haley O'Shaughnessy. We thank Isaac Lee. And of course, we thank all of you. Please rate and review us if you would be so inclined. Read all of our content on the ringer.com and be sure to listen to the Ringer NBA show on the Ringer podcast network all week long. He Check will be back next week with our new roster.

Thanks, gang. Bye. Drink.