The Ringer NBA Show - NBA Salary Reductions, Completing the Regular Season, Momentum Toward a Return. Plus: More Mailbag Questions. | The Mismatch

Episode Date: May 15, 2020

News about the NBA’s potential return continues to trickle out. This week, we discuss whether NBA players would feel compelled to complete the regular season if it meant they'd make their full salaries, and the timeline for the league’s return (5:01). Then, we reach back into the mailbag to answer questions on Lonzo Ball’s basketball preference, our all-time 3-point shootout and dunk contest lineups, and our favorite seasons of covering the league (23:30). Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly, and welcome to the Ringer podcast network. The Ringer is launching a new podcast from the guys who brought you a Cespitous family barbecue called Baseball Barbecue. Hosted by Jake Mintz and Jordan Schusterman, they're bringing you the good, the bad, and the utterly bizarre corners of the baseball world and everything that makes it special. Throughout the off season, they'll dive into the rabbit hole on some of their favorite fascinations, from the home run derby to baseball brawls and much more. Once the season returns, they'll break down the latest MLB news. and developments. You can subscribe to baseball barbecue on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to The Ringer NBA show.

I'm Chris Vernon. And joining me as he does every Friday from the Ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor, a.k. Kevin O'Bomber, A.K. Kevin O'Bomberma, A.K. Kevin O'Brien, Kevin O'Brien, Kevin O'Conflict, Kevin O'Kandiland, Kevin O'Blessarian. Kevin! Berda! We were on Game of Zones. We were on Game of Zones. I got a tweet.

It's rather early yesterday morning, I guess, whenever the episode launched, and I was in absolute shock disbelief. Somebody tweeted me like a screencap, right? And that had me on there. And I was like, is that really me? Like, because I, you know, like, obviously it looked like me. And I'm like, there's no way. And then I went back and somebody very quickly.

showed me the clip, and then I went back and watched the whole episode, and I was in stunned disbelief. Number one, my voice, which was young face, old voice. Hilarious. Then, and they, da, darn, nah, that's how they made me sound. And then I get killed in like 10 seconds. Like, I make my debut. I have incredible excitement about, Oh my gosh, I'm really on this. And then they kill me in like 10 seconds, which the guys that create Game of Zones, Craig and Adam Malamette, they apologized for killing me so very quickly. And I'm hoping that, you know, much like Game of Thrones, maybe I'm not really dead

and that I could appear maybe, or maybe I appear as a ghost or something. Like, I hope that wasn't my only time ever that I'm going to be on there. And then obviously as I am, you know, sinking to my death into the abyss, as it were, I'm yelling, I told you. Of course. Of course. And why were you telling you? Why were you saying I told you so, Chris? Why was that?

Because I was killed by Russell Westbrook who has killer instinct, which I don't, I don't care. And I said he's not a threat. That's right. That's right. percent from outside. Absolutely perfect. And by our side, of course, was Zach Lowe.

That's right. And him and I met our fate from the former, you know, never utilized Nets mascot, the Swamp Dragon. And Zach was in disbelief. It was, dude, like this season, Adam and Craig,

I think this is the best season of Game of Zone so far. And the reason why is because this is original storytelling here. Usually, Game of Zones reflects the Game of Thrones story. A lot of the storylines is like the NBA version combined with Game of Thrones, but this is original storytelling. And it shows really some of their true capabilities here with what they can do when they're writing out the script.

And I'm just loving every episode. It's beyond a thrill to see me in there. I was there with Bill and Jackie McMullen, the first one, the next to you and Zach in this one. It's pretty wild. to see a cartoon version of yourself. Yeah, I was, I was bragging to my buddies yesterday. I'm like, I'm on Game of Zones. Like, don't talk to me.

I got, I got to get new friends and, you know, telling them all this stuff. And they were like, bro, you got killed in like 10 seconds. And I was like, all right, okay, all right. So I was humbled very quickly. But no, shout out to those guys for putting us in the episode, because that was the absolute coolest. What a thrill.

That really was. That was a career highlight. for sure. No doubt about it. To be a, to be a cartoon. And they nailed us. They did.

They nailed us. Like they, 100% nailed us in the sense. Right. I come out berating Ben Simmons and they just didn't have the beard. That's all. I guess it was too late to edit it in the beard.

That's all. They couldn't edit in the beard. All right. Well, look, Kevin, since we last spoke, even on Monday, it seems like all the news

has been rather positive about a possible return to the NBA. And you're never going to believe this, but it is in conjunction with paychecks being reduced. Surprise, surprise. As soon as there starts to be positive news and a lot of momentum towards something is the same time that May 15th, today,

these paychecks started to get reduced. And when you take, like, say for instance, Chris Paul's check today, it's going to be reduced by $400,000. Oh, boy. Russell Westbrook's check is going to be reduced by $200,000, right? And then there's the IOUs that have come in. There was an article from Bobby Marks that was talking about this temporary pay cut by 25%

and saying six of the NBA's top 10 earners, LeBron, Steph, John Wall, Blake Griffin, Kevin Durant and Paul George, They were already paid in full. And so now they're like going to have to do some IOUs where basically their check's going to be reduced next year. But this was the day where like that check comes in to direct deposit. And if you're Chris Paul, who's the head of the Players Association, all of a sudden you look at it, it's $400,000 less than what your normal check is. And that's for Chris Paul, who's made a bazillion dollars. the majority of the league does not. And so I am not surprised at all that there would start to become some level of consensus in, hey, let's really work this thing out.

I mean, this is incredible motivation when all of a sudden you look in your bank account. And that's when it got real today. Today's the first day. It really got real for a lot of guys. and I don't think it's a coincidence that this week we saw all types of positivity. Beyond the fact that other leagues seem to have got their stuff together and really starting to put together plans also, right? It was certainly in terms of news for potential of sports returning a positive week

with the news that came out. However, though, you mentioned salary reductions. I think you could also look at baseball. Former Syung winner Blake Snell. He had that rant on Twitch in which he said, I'm risking my life. And he talked about how much less he'd be getting paid this season because of the short and baseball season.

So I would, I would be willing to bet that there are a lot of NBA players who may feel the same. They're like, wait a minute, what exactly am I going to be making here if I return? And if I, is it actually worth it? And I,

and I'm sure that is probably a more pertinent question for some of the teams that wouldn't be making the postseason. Because if you have, you know, 15 or so games remaining in the regular season, and you end up only playing two or three or four or five after weeks or month plus of work to get back to the court, maybe to you it's not worth it,

like it may not be to Blake Snell to play a shortened MLB season. So while it has been positive overall with some of the reports out there and some of the news out there, really stemming back since last Friday, really this whole weekend, this past weekend, despite all that, I still do, you know, wonder how did the player vote go? I haven't heard any specifics about how the player vote went with the NBA Players Association texting each individual player for a yes or no answer in regards to their interests and coming back. Based off what I've heard prior to this, I would bet that it's probably overly resounding yes.

But there's been no clarification on what actually the results of that vote were. But overall, as you said, Chris, a positive week in terms of the potential of NBA games being played sometime this summer. And here's a little bit of news that we should comment on because I don't want to get this wrong. So let me pull this up. In the Bobby Mark's article, it said, and I was unaware of this, if the league cancels the remainder of the regular season and jumps right into the playoffs, players will likely see a 25% paycheck reduction increase as high as 40%. So if we're talking about motivation to get this thing right, it would seem that the players, you know, if we're just talking about the numbers and how this affects you financially,

you've got to imagine that the players are going to be on the side of, hey, not only do we want to finish this. We want to finish out the regular season too, because I think, I don't know, I was kind of tending towards, hey, they might just jump right into the playoffs. But if that means that there's a 40% reduction in salary possibly, if that's the way you go, instead of 25%, then that's a different deal, Kev, right? I mean, that is a significant amount of money that will not be made by the players. In fact, he cites if the league cancels the rest of the season, including the post, season, players are projected to lose more than $1 billion in total salary.

But if we're just talking about, hey, if they do come back and try to finish this and it feels like they're very motivated to finish this, like if I'm just laying it out, I'm saying, okay, if we just jumped straight to the playoffs, you could lose 40% of your salary. If we play out this regular season, you lose 25% of your salary if we're doing rough numbers, don't you think the players, you know, virtually unanimously are like, hey, let's try to figure a way to finish out the regular season. I mean, this is why you have guys like Jared Dudley tweeting about how he doesn't necessarily think that a lot of players understand the financial implications of not returning.

Guys do want to return, but the impact of not returning, of games being cut, whether it's just the regular season games, as Bobby Marks outlined, or. if it's the entire postseason, that would have an effect, not just in the short term, but possibly in the long term too, with the potential earnings for players down the line. And, you know, Bobby and his other article this week talking about the salary cap, and, you know, he's one of the best out there at understanding the NBA cap as a former guy who worked in the front office. And he put out some proposals with what teams or the league could do in order to keep salaries

high in a year next year when revenue would be lower because fans wouldn't be in arenas. And it's the type of thing here where there's no clear solution for anything here. But we do know that returning to play games is a positive for player earning, potential player earnings, which would naturally, as a result, impact the rest of the organization right down to the ball boys, right? with the amount of jobs that could potentially be lost up and down to the organization. This isn't just about the players. It's not just about making money here.

It's about the livelihoods of a lot of, a lot of people that work in organizations behind the scenes. And ultimately, though, we see it, you know, the front-facing story here is player salaries. And that's obviously incredibly important. But it goes beyond that as well. Yeah. Making money for the organization. and being able to get those national TV checks,

I mean, those are enormous, enormous checks that organizations get that, you know, it funds everything. And so they need to be able to get as many games as they can on national TV and hopefully be able to get that full amount of the national TV contract that they have. It's like this doesn't impact like Chris Paul. as much as an impact the 14th or 15th guy in the bench. Oh, well, look, look, Kiv, this is the way it works when we have lockouts too. You know, there's only an amount that guys want to sustain.

And when you have, we now have less of a middle class in the NBA than we have had maybe ever, right? Those guys that are in that middle window. It's why sometimes trades can be hard to make because there's not a lot of guys to add up to a number. You've got guys that have signed like really big contracts and then you've got guys that are on small contracts and not as many in that middle range of a player. And so yeah, you're right. Like with Chris Paul or whatever, but you have a high percentage of guys that don't make over $5 million or $4 million or maybe even $2 million. And when you're talking

about a massive reduction in salary, you know, this is where, especially with the youth of the league, I can only speak to myself. You know, I think that there's a lot of people that live to their means no matter how much money they make. And the bills don't stop, right? The paycheck gets a lot lower, but the bills remain the same when it comes time for this. You still bought that car and you still have that house and you still have all that stuff. And so now today is the first day that you're seeing a big reduction in salary that they are going to notice when they get those checks. And the same thing goes when we have like the lockouts.

There's only so much that a lot of the guys are able to withstand. And then they step up and they talk to their player representative. They're like, yo, man, I can't do this. Let's figure something out. nothing motivates like that check that you aren't getting yet those bills remain the same. And so I'd imagine that you're probably going to see us hurtling towards a plan rather quickly because when that direct deposit hits today, it's going to be a lot different. And you know, you mentioned the plan.

There was also the report this week from one of the main reporter dudes, Shams, Woj or Chris Haynes. I forget who it was. I'm sorry. But it was out there that in two to four weeks, Adam Silver could potentially have his plan out there for players. And before I reported my story last Friday, I had heard that June 15th was some sort of tentative deadline for the NBA

to have that actual beginning of training camp. You know, maybe it ends up being June 8th or June 10th or June 20th. but that's around the range of where the NBA would like training camp to begin. And the two to four week timeline for Adam Silver to unveil some sort of plan does coincide with that because right now we have teams opening up. It's around 20 out of 30 teams have opened up their facilities. We have players from around the world coming back to their facilities now. And that is all with the intention of moving towards getting training camps started.

And in all likelihood, that would probably start in each individual city where the teams play, before they would go to some neutral site or multiple neutral sites. And I have heard around early to mid-June is when that training camp could actually begin, which would put the NBA on some sort of track towards starting play in early July. So we'll see what happens. That was just something that came to mind this week after that two to four week timeline came out. Yeah, the other news since we last spoke, Chris Haynes got this story for Yahoo. You know, we've known what happened at a Players Association call with the commissioner.

We knew what happened with a Board of Governors call with the commissioner. But he found out that there was a private call amongst the players. And Chris Paul, who's the president of the Players Association, arranged a call that had LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, Janice, Kauai, Steph Curry, Damian Lillard, and Russell Westbrook. Ten of the most prominent figures

that we have in the NBA all on a call and that they were, you know, they were going to come to some, I guess, consensus and that that was going to hold significant weight

in the decision-making process when it's time to deliberate on whether to restart the season. And so those 10 guys, of course, you know, like with anything, that story gets reported. People are like, oh, no James Hardin, huh?

You know, right? Like, he's like the only like guy that's not on the call. And I suppose the excuse could be made that he had a teammate on the call. Or maybe he just didn't want to do it. It's all possible. He's like, can you guys take care of this?

I'm just going to sit back and hang. Yeah, but I mean, it's interesting that those guys all got together. because look, what they say goes. Yeah, and did you see Shams also had Dwight Powell, Jason Tatum, Kyle Lowry on that call as well. Some surprising names. Oh, my goodness. Well, I guess the whole...

You got to have Dwight Powell. You can't have James Hardin. You got to have Dwight Powell, though. What was that Sesame Street song? I mean, it's been a while since my kids have watched Sesame Street. But like, one of these things is not like the other. Oh, come on. These things had nothing at all.

Isn't that what it was? One of these things is not like the other. What the hell is. What is Dwight Powell doing in the house? What? You got like, I guess, I mean, Tatum's at least been to an all-star game. And he's a future star, I suppose.

But yeah. Boy, Paul is pretty good. Let's be fair here. Dwight Powell, great rim runner. One of the most of them. All right. Well, look, hey, let me go ahead. me go ahead and pile on Houston since you wanted them to blow it up a couple weeks ago anyway.

Bro, they called Dwight Powell. Hey, this is what we know. The best players in the league, they called Dwight Powell before they called James Hardin. So it ain't just us that it's sick of this guy. For what it's worth, I believe Dwight Powell is the Mavericks Players Association representative. And he's also an incredibly bright person. So I'm sure it made sense to have him on that call. to.

I have a Stanford. I have a Dwight Powell Bobblehead. Really? Yeah, I do.

A Mavericks or Stanford? It's Mavericks. Yeah. He's one of the rarities. So I've got a bunch of bobbleheads

like years ago, like 15 years ago, the guy that does the radio for the Grizzlies one of my dear friends, Eric Asselthine. And you're never

going to believe this, but for many, many years, bobblehead night in different arenas was always Grizzly's night because you had to find a way to get people to go to the games. And so they would give away bobbleheads regularly at Grizzly's Road games.

And so I would always have him grab me the bobbleheads. And I got some amazing ones out of it. I've got like a dual Dwight Howard, James Harden one. I've got a lot of stars, but then I've got these like ones that you just would not believe. I've got a Tyler Zeller Cavs. Tyler. Yes.

Dwight Powell, Mabs. Like, you wouldn't believe some of the bobbleheads that have been given away around the country. I've got some deep cuts. It's pretty good. Dwight Powell, in 2014 when Rondo was traded with Dwight Powell to the Mavericks for J. Crowder, first round pig, Brandon Wright, I think J.Mere Nelson might have been in that deal too. An executive, I mean, everybody at the time was talking about what Rondo could do for the Mavericks. And an executive said to me at the time, he said, this is going to go down

as the Dwight Powell trade. And I'm like, what are you talking? Hey, hey, hey. And it has. In fairness, he's the best player from the trade. In fairness, their season really flipped when he got hurt this year. Oh, I know. Dwight Powell's a good player, dude. He really is. He's, I mean, like I said, I'm dead assing he's one of the most efficient room runners in the league. And now you have them paired with Luca, but we're getting beside the point here. Dwight Paul was in that meeting because he's smart and he's the Mavericks representative for the Players Association. Shout out to Dwight Powell. Maybe he'll get on Game of Zones one day.

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I just wanted to make sure you're listening to podcasts on Spotify. Here's how you do it. First, search for your favorite podcast on Spotify's app. They have a library of over 750,000 pods at this point. So let's say you're searching for the rewatchables or the Dave Chang show or the ringer NBA show. Once you find them, click on the follow button. That's how you subscribe. Then click on those letters near the top of the app.

That's a podcast. All the pods you're following will pop up separated by episodes, downloads, and shows. Wait, it gets better. On Spotify, you can adjust the speed of the pods to seven different speeds. 0.5 times is the slowest. I actually sound drunk at 0.5. You can do 0.8 times, 1.2 times, which is my favorite. Everyone sounds like they just had a good cup of coffee.

and then there's 1.5 times, two times, and if you're completely insane, three times. Anyway, Spotify's app connects directly to many of the best automobiles in the world, even has a car play feature that's pretty cool. Best of all, it's free. Download Spotify on any device, and you're good to go. Should you be embarrassed that you're not listening to podcasts on Spotify?

Well, I don't want an app shame you, but the answer, unfortunately, is yes. Make the move. Listen to podcasts on Spotify. Back to yours. All right. Every Friday we've been doing a mailbag. We have listeners from all over the world that have been sending us tons of great questions. Bobby Wagner, what do we have this week? Anything good?

A couple good ones. A couple good ones, guys. It's going on. The first one comes from Ben. He wants to know you've had a lot of debates on big basketball topics since the start of the show and nearly always have opposing views. But for both of you, what big question have you found that the other person has changed your thinking the most on? Nothing. He's always wrong.

No, let me think. Let me think. Oh, for me, I'd say the Spurs. He was ahead of me. He was way ahead of me on that. He was. Interesting. Yeah, well, because I finally gave up.

I was going to hold on to, look, man, it's like 20-something years with rotating cast and whatever else, and they're just going to figure the thing out. And Kevin buried him a week into the season. so he was ahead of me on that one for sure i think for me it like we we've had a lot of blow it up debates and i still think blow it up as a very good strategy um but i would say chris's chris's arguments over the years when it comes to factoring in team management sometimes has sort of uh altered or tweaked my thinking when it comes to what strategies team should do. I mean, a blow-it-up strategy is fine or, you know, a go-for-it-all strategy is fine, too.

These all, it all can get you to the same place, but I think about Chris all his stories about the Memphis Grizzly sometimes under Chris Wallace. And I think about that with some of the mistakes the Phoenix Suns have made in recent years building around their young star and Devin Booker. And I think factoring in management and ownership weighs more heavily than it before, because sometimes I'll put myself until like, what would I do if I were the GM rather than assuming, you know, well, what would that guy actually do when they're in that chair, when they're making that decision, what should they do with ownership pressure? That has sort of tweaked my thinking a little bit.

I'm not sure if that's necessarily just our overall conversations and how it's developed or something you said, Chris, but that's just something that comes to mind as a response to that. Well, and part of that, honestly, because I've been thinking about this a lot. And some people are, you know, I know there are people out there that think it's goofy. But I've been doing this series on Fox TV here with Tony Allen, these gris rewinds, the greatest games that they played over the course of seven years in playoff games. And we go back and we rewatch them. And I see that arena.

And I see the numbers of the amount of people in Memphis that are watching these. And it's like that team, like they, made a Western Conference finals. That was the limit, right? But there were so many great moments and those guys are going to have their jerseys retired and statues. And people can laugh at that all they want, but those guys are heroes. And that is a, we look back at a time where they really took over an entire city and they're so beloved because, you know, it matters more in small markets when your team does something like that. But like there was, like, I get it. They didn't win a title, right? There was a limit to where they ended up, but I see how people react to them and I see how much those moments

meant to people. And that's why I get so, that's why I get so fired up about it because it's not, in the end, there's only one team that gets to win the title, right? And I think there's a whole lot of people that value those memories, as do myself, greatly, greatly, you know. And by the way, what you're touching on here, this is a change of topic from your original question, Ben, Um, it's not all about winning the championship. It's just, it's not all about that. Some of my fondest memories as a sports fans are from teams that fell short. And, you know, granted growing up, a Boston sports fan, I've been beyond spoiled, you know, as a kid.

I was 11 years old when the Patriots won their first Super Bowl. Spoiled brat. Um, but, you know, some of the fondest memories, like, I remember watching that 0,6, 07 Celtics team. When I lost, you know, 19 games in a row, I'm wanting them to tank. to get Greg Oden or Kevin Durant, and they didn't, and they failed to win the lottery. But I loved watching the development of that team, including Tony Allen before he tore his ACL that year, including a young Rajan Rondo, including Kendrick Perkins, who's now in sports media. I loved watching that young team.

It's not all about winning a championship. And that makes me think about the idea of an in-season tournament and how I understand people say, like, will fans care about it? will players care about it? I'm like, they damn sure well will care about it. Because during those years, if the Grizzlies had won the Stern Cup, right? You know, two years in a row, you would look back at that run and have really fond memories of that run during the midseason tournament. Maybe they never won an NBA finals during the big, big, big tournament at the end of the year.

But that would be part of your cherished memories that you have of that team as it would be for those players. And I hope at some point the league is able to have something like that. Because it's like with European soccer or soccer around the world, period. That model has been proven to work around the world. It just hasn't been used here in North America. But I would be willing to bet that it would be effective and that it would be a hit. And I hope fans and players and teams are able to have that other stage for something to strive towards, in addition to just the overall journey itself being the most reward.

experience, not just the ending. Well, one real quick one, too, just on that particular question that I thought of while you were talking is I also am with Kevin on Ben Simmons shooting with the wrong hand. Thank you. I mean, what's the point? He doesn't shoot with the other one. So I'm now, as much as we've goofed about the whole wrong hand thing with Kevin, I mean, what's the other option?

He doesn't shoot with the one he tries to. I mean, I'm starting from zero. If he could shoot it all with, if he could shoot it all with the other hand, it's a bonus. He uses his right hand on all shots over 70% of the time. Very rarely uses his left hand except for the occasional open. Just saying. All right. What else we got, Bobby?

All right, while we're in Kevin conspiracy corner, this one's not quite as much of a conspiracy, but this one comes from Richard. It's a deep cut. Kevin once wrote a pre-draft article about Lonzo Balls jump shot and brought up an interesting theory that during his time at UCLA, the Wilson balls used at all of Lonzo's home games may have had a positive impact

on his shooting. Oh. With the NBA switching from Spalding to Wilson starting in the 2021-2020 season, is it time to buy up all the Lonzo ball stock you can find? First of all, let me comment on this before you get into the Wilson and Spalding balls.

This dude has posted more workout videos than anyone during this quarantine and he looks jacked up old Lonzo. So if nothing else, the fact that he appears to be this incredible Hulk now maybe is why you should buy

some stock. And he had started to figure some things out before, you know, towards the end of the season anyway. But yeah, where did that come from? The whole Lanzo shot better because it was Wilson Balls. I never heard that. So at the time, this is during his college

season. An executive passed along a thought to me, and he said he believes Lonzo shot better with the Wilson balls because they had a softer grip, you know, some deeper ridges in the ball as well compared to any of the other balls used in college basketball. And I looked into it. And at UCLA, Lonzo shot 43% with Wilson balls compared to only 34% with Nike balls. And in total, it would be 43% with the Wilson balls. This is on jump shots compared to 32% with all other balls that weren't the Wilson balls. And so since that article went up a couple of years ago, I've had conversations with other executives. And I don't know why I haven't written about this, because there's just no proof to it necessarily.

but a lot of people believe that different conferences in college basketball using different brands of balls contributes to some of the streakiness that players experience in certain cross-conference matchups, which makes a lot of sense as anybody who's played pickup with their friends, you know, or whether it's in a rec league or whatever it is, a lot of the times you have a preference for a certain ball. Oh my God. Right? And ultimately, for Lonzel Ball, if you look up, pictures of him when he was a kid. The ball, the balls used was Wilson. They used a Wilson ball and this would be, oh, this is, this could be your ultimate. I told you I was way ahead of the game on this moment. If next year, Lonzo shoots like 42% from three. I mean, you should retweet that

article every day. Here's the thing. Here's the thing, though. In, in the article by Chris Haynes, when he reported that, he did note this, and this is important. He said, quote, the same leather and product specifications will be used to produce the new ball with the assistance from the NBA and NBPA, which will create a player advisory board to offer suggestions. Wilson Basketball engineers, product designers, and player insights specialists will work with the NBPA advisory board to create the new game balls, end quote. So that at least suggests to me that they're going to make it like the Spalding ball. will it be exactly like the spalling ball? I don't know.

We'll find out during the 2021, 2021, 2020 season. But the fact is, it's for Lonzo Ball and Lamello coming in. These guys must be really excited. Wilson Ball is back. Their shooting percentages are going to go up. Watch out for 2021, 2021, 2022 season. I'm stoked for the balls. No, that is absolutely positively unbelievable.

And I've always felt like the NBA ball is slippery. You know what I mean? Oh, I agree with you. I agree. I've never, I remember like, I remember like going to like sporting good stores when I was a kid, like to buy a basketball and I would feel the NBA spalling ball.

I'm like, why would anybody want to use this? That's right. I always had the Wilson NCAA ones or there was one. I remember a model. It was like a Wilson jet that was used. when I was a kid. That one was rather popular. And, of course, they've made that, you know, NCAA game ball.

But, like, I, there is no question. Wilson evolution. I think that's the one I had. Wilson evolution. Well, there's no question. I could, if you gave me, like, I can palm a ball. I can palm an NBA one. But a Wilson one versus, like, the NBA Spalding one, it's a different deal.

It is way more slippery. It is. That will, it's the leather. you know. And it is an adjustment. It's an adjustment for anybody to go from one ball to another ball. Like I said, pick up rec ball or NBA. And so for these guys that might be playing with one ball or anything but a spalling

their whole life, naturally there's going to be an adjustment the first time you pick that up and that's all you're shooting with for the rest of your career. And for some guys, maybe this is something to look into, you know, I'm not sure how the numbers would bear out here or if it would be. statistically significant, but I would be curious to know if there are any anecdotal cases of guys who just hate the small and ball. I've never even thought. But they have to learn to deal with it.

I've never even thought about this, you know what I mean? Because like now that I do think about it, right, Wilson, the baseball wise, those A-2000s were just like they were the most prominent of the gloves. So like if somebody had that glove, the A-2,000 glove, like you knew that that person was not just like screwing around. right like people that were not good baseball players rarely had like the 8 2000 so they know leather like whether i think about them i like the wilson products and i am very fascinated by this entire subject now i really am that's a great question who else likes wilson tom hanks tom hanks

loves wilson shut out kevin you got to let him have this this is a movie he's actually seen we should put chris vernon's head on tom hanks and cast to wear. No. No? Somebody will do it now. Somebody will do it now. The Wilson Evolution, incredible ball. The Baden Perfect ball.

Perfect ball. But Lonzo was definitely the dude that showed up to the pickup run with the Wilson wave. Either you guys remember the wave. Oh, of course. The triple threat technology wave that nobody wanted to play with. Lonzo was definitely like, I can only shoot with this one. They still make that. I know.

It's supposed to be like a training ball. That's right. All right. Let's move on. This comes from Josh. This is an old one, but I've been trying to shoehorn this one in for a little while. So if there were an all-time all-star weekend, who would you choose to be in the Dung contest and a three-point shootout? NBA history.

Okay. So how many are we talking? Okay. So let's start with three point because that's easy, right? So you got Curry and Thompson, obviously, right? And Ray Allen, Larry Bird. And Ray Allen and Larry Bird. Okay.

So we got those four. And then let's add two more that we want to put in there. Reggie Miller, good. How about what if we took like a... Oh, Jerry West. Jerry West. Yeah, well, that's what I mean. Like, what if we took an old school player who didn't have the three point line but could shoot?

And we stick him in. Jerry West. Yeah, let's go with Jerry West. That works for me. You know, he was the president of the Memphis Grizzlies for some amount of time. And I remember going over to the practice court one day and he was there. like after practice. And he was like 70 years old.

And he walked out and like a ball like rolled to him whatever. He picked that thing up. I swear to God the guy didn't miss. It was like he, it was like, you know how they say like riding a bike or something? He could just shoot the hell out of the ball. I'm sitting there watching it like, oh my God. If people saw this, they would be out of their minds. Jerry West could still shoot.

Like you put him out on a court right now. He banged down jump shot. Damn this thing I ever saw. It's old, too. Spot up three-point shooter for the Clippers next season, maybe. Oh, dunk. Put them in a corner. Yeah, dunk.

I mean, we got to put, I mean, again, we want stars, but also, like, these Levine and Gordon, you know you're going to get a good dunk contest out of them. Jordan and Dominique have to be there. I mean, those are the ones that you remember the most. And then I would put Vince Carter. So if we had four, I'd say Jordan, Dominique, Vince Carter. and then you pick the last one, Kev. Can we put LeBron in this theoretical

dunk contest since we never got it in reality? Perfect. Which is which by the way, that sucks. It's a shame we didn't get that, isn't it? Thank you, Skip Bayless. He was scared. He was scared to do it. He was scared of losing.

All right, what else we got, Bobby? Alex wants to know how do you think the delayed or canceled postseason will influence this year's free agency, if at all? And also, how does this change the bet you guys made over whether or not Andrew Wiggins would still be a warrior by next year? Well, Andrew Wiggins will still be a warrior. I would still make that bet. And in terms of how it'll change free agency, because the salary cap could drop next season, this is more due to coronavirus than the actual delayed canceled. season itself, but because the cap could not rise or could potentially drop, guys are more likely to opt in your Andre Drummond's, Gordon Haywards of the world. We'll probably see guys opt into

their contracts for the 2021 summer more likely than opt out and try to get a payday. There wasn't that many teams with money anyway. No, there was. A lot of the teams were non-playoff teams too. Yeah, we're really lucky this was not going to be a big free agency year. And obviously, look, with the reduction in. When you got Steph Curry on the books for $42 million, it's going to be essential for them to dump Wiggins. So I am made in the shade on that bet. Not necessarily.

I am made in the shade. That's what Bobby Marks wrote about earlier this weekend. Nobody knows what's going to happen with the cap next year. But the point was of Bobby Marks' article, what are the things they could potentially do? And maybe that's adding some sort of amnesty for one year. or maybe that's reducing the penalty for being in the tax. There's a number of possibilities here that the NBA could go with.

Here's what I know. Here's what I know, Kevin. It don't matter what that salary cap is. Paying Andrew Wiggins, that amount of money is ridiculous. And so for somebody that's already in the tax, punt, punt, he'll be out of there. Yeah, to who? I don't know, Charlotte. Atlanta.

I think Michael I think Michael Jordan considers winning making money Atlanta Atlanta ain't going to be able to spend their money right

they're not going to be able to spend their all that money they have they're not taking away just trade into it right what else we got Bobby on the subject of player movement

Jonathan wants to know looking at the landscape of the league in the current assets some teams have who are some high profile stars that could demand to trade in the next few seasons

and what teams are best set up now or could be to land one of those stars all right I say Devin Booker, I say Joel M. Bede or Ben Simmons, one of them. I say

another star that could demand, that would likely demand a trade. Those are the first two that come to mind. James Harden. Yeah, maybe James Hardin. If they hit a wall. I think that's about it in terms of stars.

You know what I mean? Like, I don't see yeah I don't see any of these Rudy Gobert Hey Gobert is a free agent No but I'm saying he's not going to have to demand anything They can get his ass out of there Oh as always Kyrie Irving

When him and Don't throw him in there Zach Levine He's not really a star But like a young star If Chicago doesn't keep winning Maybe maybe he's somebody That makes sense

Paul George always wants to get somewhere else. Nah, I don't think Paul George, but I don't know. I mean, there's, there's not a lot. I mean, like, you look at the market right now at the moment, there's not a lot of stars, but when projecting forward in a couple of years, we're, we're going to have another wave of guys. Oh, they're going to want out.

Try young. No. It's too young. All right. We'll see. We'll see. We will see. We'll see.

But, you know what is fascinating to think about, since you brought it up? What happens? Like, we haven't seen a guy in their rookie contract to man to trade. Like a star rookie contract player, like a Tray Young, like a Luca Dantrich. We haven't seen that type of guy to manor trade yet. But what happens? Yes, we have. Porzengis.

True, poor Zingis. I don't know. In my head, I don't, maybe I should, but in my head, with all the injuries, I sort of just put him down a level. All right. Because he's always hurt. He was a star. Yeah, poor, Porzengis.

does make sense. That's true. That's true. I worried when that happened that would lead to other guys doing it. But we'll see. We'll see. We will see. Any others, Bobby, that are good? Yeah, let's do a couple more. We'll do a couple more on the potential return for the playoffs because a lot of people wanted to know about this.

This comes from Michael. Last week, you said there wouldn't be any asterisk on this season's champion if and when they get back to the playoffs. But run through this hypothetical in the Eastern Conference finals between the Bucks and the Sixers, the honest test positive, and has to set out that series. Sixers advance to the finals and LeBron test positives.

The Sixers win at all. Isn't that a little bit of a tough one to go through? And then Trey wants to know if you're in charge of the league and we have a Lakers Bucks final and Janice, LeBron, and AD all test positive. Do you play on? Do you take a pause? What do you do?

I look at it, okay, obviously they've got to figure out the whole, you know, what we do if somebody does get coronavirus. And I'm not smart enough to give a great answer for that. on that first one, do you put an asterisk next to the the raptors? You put an asterisk because Kevin Durant wasn't there? I mean, I look at it no different than an injury. I'm sorry.

I just don't. Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, guys get injured. Yeah, history is altered by injury all the time. You put an asterisk next to the warriors getting there when Chris Paul was hurt. I mean, like, that happens. And so guys are going to be out. Sometimes they're injured.

Obviously, this time it could be for a, a, uh, a, uh, a, uh, a, uh, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a but we don't we don't go handing out of our world yeah it's part of the world like everybody's not totally healthy right when you time and and many times the most healthy team is the one that ends up winning and so no i don't like i guess you could come up with some kind of crazy hypotheticals where yes i would remember the bucks lost because they didn't have yonis but that doesn't take away same way i'll i will remember that the raptors didn't beat uh the Warriors with, you know, Kevin Durant and Clay Thompson,

but it is what it is, you know, I mean, that doesn't make them a unworthy champion in my estimation. And by the way, that's the only way the Sixers are winning the finals this year.

Damn, damn, damn. And to the second question from Trey, if all those star players test positive, which by the way is unlikely that we would get like all those guys test positive, We don't know. I mean, it's theoretically possible. But for the league, like I said last week with my report, my impression is that they are going to remain flexible with what the schedule looks like. So if all three of those guys test positive and among many others, the league could delay things by two weeks and trim more games if it's what's necessary. So maybe they would take a pause. But if one player, let's say everybody's at Disney World or everybody's at

Vegas at this neutral site and three guys test positive, but nobody else does. Those guys would be quarantined at a different site away from everything else for however long it's necessary before they can return if their team has not yet been eliminated by that point. So the whole operation doesn't need to shut down theoretically for them to resume playing games. Quick one to close it out here. This comes from Finn. For all the seasons you've been covering and following the NBA,

Which one is your favorite? This is, you know, when I talked about how there are times in your life that just stand out. And there's some kind of, there's sometimes, and you've gone through this with the tragedy in your own life over the course of the last year, Kev, that there's sometimes we're sports then coincide with something going on in your life and it ends up meaning more. So I would say honestly, like probably 2011 for me. My best friend passed away of cancer in 2011. And he died right during the first round of the NBA playoffs, which just so happened to be when the Grizzlies were an eight seed and knocked off the spurs. And that, if that would not have happened as a distraction for, I don't know what would have

I'm being dead serious. I don't know what it would have happened with me. It was the lowest moment of my life. And I had this other thing to focus on. I had this other thing to care about, to distract me from all the despair that I was feeling at the time. And so that one will always be the most special to me, just because I really feel like in some ways it kept my life on track. It saved me. And so when people, you know, that's why when people say it's just sports, like to me, it's just not. You know, I have so many great memories with my father. I have so many great memories with my friends. But that particular year, it just, it, like I'll always look back at that as, thank God that happened when it did. And I had something else going on.

that would just stop me from crying all day, every day. And so that would be the one, honestly, 2011, to me, just because it's the first time the Grizzies ever won a playoff series. I covered, you know, every playoff loss they had. They had never won a playoff game. They had the most consecutive playoff losses ever. And then all that happened. And they knocked off the number one seed.

And so that one to me, that'll just stand out forever. It was the first time I covered. a team that I truly fell in love with and it's just a moment at time you know for sure uh the first two that come to mind for me are you know recent years with the ringer my first year with the ringer the 2016 17 season um you know it's a thrill doing the show with you a thrill learning from you know chris ryan and danny chow my editors at the time uh working under bill simmons and you know just it was a great NBA season as well uh you know i covered playoff off games during the Celtics run with Isaiah Thomas having the big run he had and the story he had,

the loss he had of his sister, you know, having his big game against, big series against the Wizards. That was a memorable year, my first time going to the NBA finals. I'll never forget that. And then just really this past year after my dad got diagnosed with cancer and doing dunk on cancer, I'll never forget, you know, being in Toronto at that event that I organized and just after the event, the amount of people afterwards that came up to me and shared their own stories about, you know, someone that they lost or someone that they know that has cancer

or some other disease. And yeah, I just look back at that. And it's, it's really about the people that you connect with almost more so than the sport itself and how, and how it, you know, relates to the sport. But yeah, this past season would be number one in my eyes just because the amount of connections that I made and the, the emotions that I felt tied to the game, watching games with my dad and how it took on an even greater meaning, but also just meeting strangers and feeling a connection with them in Toronto and around the world. And again, it was also a great year of basketball, too. It was a great year of basketball heading from last year into this season before everything happened now. So yeah, the 16, 17 season, and then the 18, 19 season.

Perfect. Thank you, Bobby. Thank you, Kevin. Everybody stay safe out there and have a good weekend. Absolutely. We'll be back on Tuesday like we have been. And maybe, look, this stuff is, it's happening fast. And those paychecks got reduced today. So maybe by the next time we talk, we're talking about how there could be a plan very soon. We shall see. And everybody for next Friday as well, submit more questions for the mailbag at NBA Mailbag at Gmail. dot com me bobby and chris we'll take a look at those and pick out some good ones everybody stay safe out there we'll talk to you next week