The Ringer NBA Show - Notes From the NBPA’s Call With Adam Silver. Plus: ‘The Last Dance’ Episodes 7-8. | The Mismatch

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

We go through the news leaking out of the conference call between the National Basketball Players Association and commissioner Adam Silver (1:17). Kevin shares his insights and reporting into the return ideas the NBA thinks are most feasible. Then, we discuss the emotional impact of episodes 7-8 of ESPN’s ‘The Last Dance,’ the only stain on Scottie Pippen’s career, and Jordan as a baseball player (37:04). 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. We're excited to announce our latest podcast launching this week called Behind the Billions. Coming from the two co-creators of Billions, Brian Koppelman and David Levine give a behind-the-scenes look into Billions Season 5. Following each episode's airing on Showtime, the podcast will impact the writing of the script, exclusive stories from production, interviews with casting crew, and much more. The first episode is out now, so make sure to subscribe to Behind The Showtime. the billions on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to The Ringer NBA show. I'm Chris Vernon. Join him as he does every Tuesday from the Ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor,

a.k. Kevin O. Obama, aka Kevin O. Climer, aka Kevin O. Climplict. Kevin O. Candyland. Kevin O. Kevin O. Berno. How are you doing this Tuesday, buddy? Well, I'm doing well considering. And given what has taken place over the course of the last few days. We have a lot to get to because we did a podcast on Friday morning and we acknowledged that there was going to be a call on Friday afternoon with the Players and Adam Silver, the Players Association and Adam Silver. And there was a lot of news that came out of that call. I joked that Adrian Wojianowski and Shams and the rest would all probably be on the call.

I sense that they weren't. I sense that they weren't on the call, but within an hour, according to audio obtained. So somebody just recorded the call and gave it to him. But we had a ton of stuff that came out. We were obviously going to be incredibly interested in what the commissioner had to say. It's different when he's talking to the public and the fans and the media and when he is talking to the players.

And so a couple of majors. One major thing was he pretty quickly lowered the bar on testing. You know, there was this edict out there that the NBA for optics and PR more than anything did not want to be have the full testing that would be required for them to resume play without there being widespread testing amongst the American. and public. And yet when this call took place, the bar was significantly lowered to frontline workers, frontline health workers in America, which is a much, much, much, much, much different bar, as we know, than the general public. And so regarding testing, and I think he estimated 15,000 tests is what would be required. And clearly the NBA can get those. from private companies if they wanted to,

but what is the level of PR hit? And that's what you're trying to gauge in all of this. So the first one is kind of public relations related. It was very significant that at one point he had said where basically everybody in America can get a test to now where frontline workers in American health care can get a test. And so that at least now, like if we're talking about, can this? I think there's probably, don't you feel like the realization, like, yo, you ain't

getting to that point. All right. You're not getting to the point where everybody in America is going to be able to get a test if that's what you're going to be comfortable with. It sounded like they are at least comfortable with the idea that, hey, we can't be playing if frontline health care workers in America can't get it, but that they, that's kind of the bar now. Sure. And one of the other parts in that call as well was about how if one player were to test positive, that player would be removed. It's not that the entire operation would get shut down if one player were to get it or even if two players or three players were to get it. That player would end up being a DNP coronavirus for two weeks or three weeks or until that player,

it no longer has the virus. And that's a big thing moving forward for for players to accept that level of risk that will be involved for some period of time for the NBA, which is also true for us in society as, you know, states right or wrong do start to reopen businesses. It's about accepting some level of risk, you know, wearing masks, taking safety precautions for us, just as it is for the NBA. So for them, you know, as you said, Chris, it's interesting. that they did seem to lower the bar in terms of like acquiring those tests. A lot of it does have to do with PR and you know a lot of that is to do with timing as well for the NBA by the time they do return to action or they hope to return the action and I'll be this week is supposed to unveil their plan according to multiple reports last week.

That's supposed to be out there some maybe today who knows by you know NFL already released their schedule BGA tour will be back. NBA will already have some other sports leagues that started or is about to start before they do. So that PR hit probably won't be there quite as much for them. Yeah. And more importantly, though, hopefully testing is more widespread at that point for lots and lots of people across the country. And the NBA could also, if they want to, they could buy test for people too in

addition to doing it for their own players. I haven't seen that, you know, as an actual option. Others have thrown that out there as an idea. but that's something the NBA could do through, you know, NBA cares program in the coronavirus pandemic. Well, and it's obviously going to be selective outrage. Have you, when you're dealing with any of this stuff, have you seen a lot of people bitching about how the UFC did their thing or how WWWE is continuing? I mean, I'm sure it's out there. It's not widespread, right?

I think everybody could freely admit you're not sitting there reading something. kind of massive controversy about how these leagues are doing it. People are happy that they are having live sporting events on. They're not sitting around bitching about how these guys got tested. At some point, you just need to stop caring what Twitter thinks. Right. Twitter is such a small percentage of society. Clearly.

And there is a, I mean, when it comes to stuff like this, the Twitter opinion obviously matters in the sense that from the NBA, perspective on strictly talking or from any you know sporting sports league it matters in the sense that that thought process that happens on twitter can you know snowball into the mainstream you know consciousness and that's what the NBA and you know UFC and MLB they would want to avoid happening but the fact is it didn't happen with UFC it's not happening with baseball's plan it's not going to happen probably for anything it's just a concern for these leagues to have in the back of their mind.

It's probably not going to happen. But even then, at some point, you just need to stop caring about what Twitter things and do what you think is best for your family or for your business or for your sports league. Well, and here's the deal. There was the health stuff, which was the testing and how that could take place. And then he did outline the two different places that we have talked about a lot, Orlando and Las Vegas.

as to potential places where they would be able to put on the games. And then you get into what really matters, which is this statement of him saying, we have two years of collective bargaining to do in two months because so many things are going to have to be agreed upon. And I think when you look at all of the things that have to be agreed upon, most importantly, what the salary cap is going to look like, how money gets dispersed over the course of the next, you know, year and a half and setting a number for next year and all of this collective bargaining that has to be done. I think it's fair for anybody to sit back and say, this is insanely daunting.

I wish this upon nobody. He tried to outline from the beginning, hey, 40%, and he put a number on it, 40% basically of our revenue comes from gate receipts, concessions, game night receipts, all of that constitutes about 40%. And he went on to say, obviously the collective bargaining agreement is put together

in reference to kind of what we, made one year and then projecting forward to what we make the next year. Well, good luck with that. I mean, how the hell are you supposed to, you know, like, and he's saying, and who knows? Because we don't know if we're going to be able to have fans. We don't know if there's going to be a second wave of this. And so how do you project what you are going to make revenue wise? I mean, he says in the call, the collective bargaining agreement was not built for an extended pandemic. And now that's why all of this has to be bargained. And so if you're, it's a very simple formula. Typically, here's what we brought in. So like, let's roughly say

$8 billion is what we would have brought in. Instead, we're going to bring in about six. So now we need to recalibrate everything. But how the hell can we know what we're going to make next year? If we, if we say 40% is from Gates and, and, and, and things related to people going to live games and we have no idea when that would be available to us. Like, how can you, how can you know a number? You can't. You can't. So how do you bargain this? That's what I'm saying. It's like, oh, my God. You just can't. And that's what's going to make what they do with the salary cap so fascinating

to see whether they keep, they have an artificial number and, you know, do what they're doing now with, you know, a certain percentage of player salaries being kept depending on how much lower revenue is. Who really knows what's going to end up happening? The fact that what we do know is, as Adam Silver said, the league and the collective bargaining agreement wasn't built for a pandemic. And we don't know what the league is going to look like moving forward, which is why as certain players, especially, I believe it was Jared Dudley over the weekend, you know, tweeted about and, you know, and posted on Instagram about, this is why there's urgency to get back because if they just wait until there's a, until it's a vaccine, at that point, there's still no guarantee. He pretty well took that off the table. Yes.

And it's just not happening. It's just not happening, right? It's not even in consideration. They're going to do everything they can to try to get games back because of the fact that if they don't do that, the league, you know, it's not going to end. It's not like it's not like the NBA is not going to cease to exist if they were to take that path. But it would have a long-term detrimental effect to the league and to the livelihood of many players to like down to the ball boys. and a lot of jobs would be lost. A lot of jobs could be lost as is.

Salaries can be lowered significantly as is, but the effects of waiting that long would be even more detrimental to the league. For the players, like I said, all the way down through the organization. And that's why there's an urgency to get back. It's not just for the players or not just for money. It's about livelihoods of people out there

that are all involved and connected to this game. game. Yeah. And so now, like, I heard Bobby Marks, who's obviously tremendous on all cap related things from ESPN. And he was kind of outlying in an interview that he did that, you know, if we say the cap was whatever, $119 million or something. And he was using those rough numbers. He said, let's say it's $8 billion, but then it ends up being $6 billion. So your cap goes from what was projected to be $115, $119, whatever, to like $95. Well, so now, how do those salaries all fit into this? What is the luxury tax number?

You need that luxury tax number in order. I mean, honestly, the way the NBA works, those luxury tax numbers, in many cases, subsidize some of the smaller markets. If you're not, if you do it, you know, the luxury tax number, if you lowered the cap, that amount for somebody like a Warriors is absolutely punitive. Like there's just no way that that could be the case. And so he threw out some different ideas and I thought they were pretty fascinating. Like one was let's say Steph Curry is supposed to make $42 million next year, right? That if you do lower the cap to say 95, well, then Steph Curry actually counts against the cap the same percentage as he would have. Right.

Like so the percentage is the same. But with the cap going down, his number on the cap. is like $35 million instead of $42. And so your guys are still getting paid, what they were going to get paid with the cap going down in terms of when we're doing this for luxury tax. When we're doing it for luxury tax, those guys still get what percentage of the salary cap they were going to get.

But their number against the new cap is obviously not as high as what they will actually be getting paid. That would enable teams to be able to function through the draft for. agency and whatever else. But I mean, these are all the kind of things that are, I mean, there's a, there's a million things to work out, Kevin. And it just, my God, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't wish this upon anybody because these are really, really hard decisions. And what you hope is that there's not some kind of terrible, like bad blood that comes from this. Because many times, whenever there's collective bargaining in any of the leagues, you have a

great risk of tremendous bad blood that comes out with it. And they ain't got time for that, right? They don't have time to fight all that much about this kind of stuff. And so I guess we'll see, but I mean, you're talking about a big, you got a lot of smart people there. Maybe they can figure it out. Yeah, I mean, hopefully we can all figure it out. I mean, there's no, there's no right solution here with everything that's happening. For every good thing that can come from one plan, there's a bad potential outcome that can also come from it. So, you know, for all of us, that everything you just said applies. What do you, all right, what do you think about the whole?

Because you've done, you did a lot of reporting on this. And we talked about on Friday. The idea that teams that are like towards the bottom, like, what are they coming back for? Like, if we're playing X number of regular season games at the end. And they really don't have a chance to make the playoffs. And so you can, you can preach the great. or good of the league or whatever else. But what are they really coming back for?

And I also thought it was fascinating because you and I talked about this after your article came out. He left that play in tournament thing on. And I think that on the table. And I do wonder because, you know, you would broach this in an earlier article that like they were, they've been talking about this and maybe as soon as next year putting in a play in tournament anyway. and I know when you had talked to someone, they said they don't really want to change on the fly.

But if you're already, if you're already really like, you know, discussing that and thinking about it coming about a year from now, then maybe you do. I mean, I don't, it's obviously, listen, something's going to be unfair to somebody. That's just the necessary evil of all of this. But the idea of, you know, I don't know what, through 12 maybe? like, you know, 8 through 12 or, you know, 7 through 12 or something like that, you know, or playing some kind of a tournament for the playoff spots. I don't know. What do you think?

Do you still think that could be off the table? I mean, he, I mean, it's got to be bargained, you know. I mean, to get back to your original point, if, you know, the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Atlanta Hawks, Timberwolves, you know, are asked to play games because there's, you know, not asked to play games, told to play games, because they do have the ability to either finish the regular season or finish the majority of it. Well, that's what it is.

You're finishing the games you're obligated to play. Maybe you can argue whether it's worth it, whether you should, but that would be true during a normal year and mid, mid to late March and April, as it would be if those games take place in July. Well, I guess your motivation is, hey, we'll send, yeah, right, we'll send you your check. Otherwise, we won't send you your check. I guess that could be the motivation. But are you playing, are you playing Steph Curry?

I mean, really? You playing Steph Curry? Does he have an injury? I mean, I don't know. I mean, last we saw, no, he wasn't hurt. But I mean, like, who knows? This is what's going to end up happening where, like, let's say all 30 teams can return. It would not shock me at all if certain guys are like, I don't want to play.

I don't want to play. I want to stay home and, you know, be with my family. I want to stay home and not risk this. That could happen. That would not shock anybody if one or two guys or multiple guys wanted to sit out. I mean,

we'll see what happens in that regard. But, you know, to answer your question, like just finishing the games or getting your paycheck would be the incentive for going back to play. And, you know, for a lot of guys,

and then for other guys, like I said, I talked to Lairnance, I talked to all the players about it, this. a lot of guys want to come back. A lot of guys want to get going. Maybe it's split like 60%, 70% of guys want to get back and play.

Some are ready for their summer vacations, which is not that great of a summer vacation because of everything happening. But some guys are ready just to move on and turn the page to next year. But for the most part, though, guys do want to get back, even guys on some bad teams with no hope of making the playoffs. And maybe, you know what? Maybe as you said, a playoff plan tournament.

is the way to incentivize those teams to get back. Maybe that does end up happening. What I heard last week from a number of sources is that it is a less of a likelihood than perhaps it may have been when discussions started up around mid-March. And I tend to subscribe to the side that would not want it this summer based on the fairness. I would love to see it as an experimentation. I would love to see a trial here because I think it's a win-win in the sense that you get to try something new. And if it works, it is an easier push for implementing it in the future.

And if it stinks, if you know what, maybe even coming from someone like me who loves the idea of it, if it sucks, maybe maybe then you realize, you know what, maybe this isn't right for the NBA. So I would love to see it in that sense. but for the in the act of fairness, I don't think it's totally fair. But as you correctly did say, Chris, this isn't necessarily fair for anybody. And this is,

you know, like, I'm curious, you know, from a grizzly's perspective, like you know, Memphis right now is three and a half up on Portland,

New Orleans, and Sacramento. But if they're not finishing the last 15 to 20 games of the season for every team, it's not, it's clearly not fair for anybody. not to get the full amount of game. So maybe the middle ground would be a tournament

to decide to playoff teams. I don't know. What are your thoughts from a Grizzly's perspective? I would think that you should get some kind of advantage in said tournament. That's what I would do. Yeah. You need to get it.

Because that is wildly unfair. You know, look, they outperformed them for 65 games. You know what I'm saying? Over the course of 65 games, they developed a three and a half game lead. So what's fair here now, right? Like now we don't get, we don't get to go in that on even on, you know, some kind of where we're all even because we weren't all even.

So it's we don't all start from zero here. Like there has to be some kind of advantage whether that means a buy, you know, to move on to the next round. So you don't have to win as many games as some of the teams ranked lower than you if you're having some kind of a tournament like that. The other thing is this, he did say, which I thought was fascinating, he wants to have a full-on playoffs. He wants to have the full seven-game playoff series all the way from the jump. Well, if that is so, and we are ruling out the best three out of five, which I am in favor of the three-a-five. We're not ruling that out, though. We're not ruling that out because as I reported last week, the plan A is to finish the entire regular season and finish the entire postseason with full seven.

a game series, but they have the ability and the flexibility to adapt and start cutting and trimming games or cutting and trimming series if necessary. So of course, that's their number one plan. And that's what they want to do. It doesn't mean that's what they'll end up doing. You're clearly against a clock. Yeah, you are. You're against a clock on this, right? So they may have to end up completing a postseason within a 30-day window. And if that's the case, then you've got to start trimming games. Which is better to you, though. We don't know. You know what I mean?

Finishing as planned with like the whole season and postseason, of course. No, no, no, no, no. Of course that's the best option. But I'm saying if those options, would you rather have everybody play some regular season games and then have a shortened beginning of the playoffs or just jump into the playoffs and have a full on playoffs? Because one of the things, and I thought this was a little bit persuasive, was in order to establish. you know, the champion, right? The champion did what the other teams did, which was win full-on playoff series. Like, no asterisk next to this.

Like, yes, there was this global pandemic and yes, there was a shortened season. But they went through the playoffs just like every, all of their other champion predecessors had before. I don't know, you know, which is, which is better. Somebody that has to do what every other champion has had to do. or going out and playing X number of regular season games if it means shortening up the first couple of rounds. I don't know what the great answer is on that, by the way. And I don't have some kind of massively strong opinion on it.

I don't know. I mean, I don't either. And as we talked about on Friday, and that's what the league has to weigh when it comes to what is more financially beneficial? Is it about having teams finish more of their RSN games for the regional sports network? or is it about having more than the national TV games

and the postseason? So that's the financial side. But then what has, is it worth the greater health risk of having more teams playing games? I don't know the answers to these questions and I'm not sure anybody does.

Well, and obviously, look, so the way they will see. The reason they went to the seven in the first place is to not get a wonky, you know, a team in there, right? that they look back and they say, oh, geez, well, if it would have been best four out of seven,

you know, the best team usually prevails amongst that, whereas you at least open the door more when you only have to win three games. And so clearly what they would not want to happen is they have a three game series and whoever, you know, the nets knock off whoever the two seat is right now, Toronto or whoever or like you're knocking out some really good teams at the beginning where you might not have if it was best four out of seven but you did when it's three out of five. I mean, this is what happened in the in the strike season, right? The Knicks were the eighth seed and ended up going to the NBA finals. And look, like in the end, that was a small, that wasn't some small market team that made

it to the end. So it wasn't a massive disappointment that the Knicks made it. But it was, the idea was, oh, well, what if you would have played four out of, you got to win four out of seven the whole way, you know, would this have happened? And then you had other teams that, you know, when the Nuggets won with Mutombo, holding the ball over his head and whatnot, you saw more upsets at least. And so you've already got this shortened season. And we have no idea how any of these guys are going to look or perform when they come back. Like, we're already set up for greater variance in competition, wouldn't you say? Whatever the competition was going to be, if this was normal and just played itself out,

is going to be radically different after everybody's been sitting around for two and a half months. Sure. There's likely more variants in this postseason. So how do you get, how do you at least get the most rightful champion? that you can. And I think that's probably the interest in having a full and robust playoffs. Beyond that, the money and the TV deal and that the playoffs matter a great deal towards that television deal.

Yeah. And you'll try to do right by that. We'll see what's possible. I mean, what's planned, like I said, it goes without saying that completing the regular season and the postseason would be plan A.

We'll see what ends up happening for the NBA. But I will add this. I mean, you have Major League Baseball talking about an 82 game schedule. That's correct, right, Bobby? Like, that seems to be what might end up happening for baseball, right? Yeah, I think like around 80 games or so. Although that idea has been changed just in what they've leaked to the press or what's been discussed to reporters has been changed three or four times in the last three weeks.

Like, it doesn't really seem like they're narrowing in the way that the NBA might feel like they can at this point because they already have the benefit of having played 65 games. Exactly. And now that's the point I'm getting to, you know, for NBA, it is a far less steep of a challenge here to complete a season than it would be for baseball. And if baseball is able to get 82 games, granted, that's a far different sport, you know, less contact, you know, everything that goes without saying comparing baseball and basketball, it is a greater challenge for those sports leagues that have,

begun their seasons than it is for the NBA to complete theirs. So you're pairing apples and oranges here, but for the NBA, if they can complete, if MLB can get an 82 game season in, then NBA probably can complete their regular season. But we'll see what happens moving forward. But I am cautiously optimistic that we will see some type of basketball over the summer. And if not, they're going to do everything in their power to try to get games to happen. I think that's true also. And once everybody makes their plans and sports start again, it's going to make it so much easier.

You do feel like the NBA cares more about what people think than the other leagues do. Certainly more than the NFL. They don't give a damn. They don't care what you think, right? They're just trucking. Like, you don't see all these questions regarding how are they going to do it? Like, it's just this understanding that football's happening. I mean, I mean, the thing is, like, maybe those, I mean, maybe those questions should be asked.

No. I mean, they are asked in a fair. It's certainly a totally justifiable argument for, for safety of society. I mean, we like the fact is, is we just, I've said this 100 times, but we just don't know what the right solution is here moving forward. There's no clear cut best plan because of the ripple effects of shutting down or, you know, the amount of best that could occur by opening up. I mean, this all sucks, man. It all sucks. I agree with you.

Hey, what does not suck is the last dance? We had episodes seven and eight. That took place on Sunday night since we last spoke. And Kevin, I told you I loved five and six. I thought they were the best so far. Seven and eight took it to a whole other level. I'm with you. I'm with you.

These are the best, too. They were so good. So good. They dealt with everything from his father's death to the finals that they won the first time around 93. And then when he walks away. And that to me, this one was obviously close to my heart because as I'm watching that all play out. And that night at the White Sox game when that story broke. That was during the Major League Baseball playoffs. And that story. broke, that there was going to be a press conference and that the expectation is this is going to be Michael Jordan's retirement. And then it became, oh, my God, Michael Jordan is retiring. That was my 15th birthday. No like. Wow. In 1993, the night of that game, the baseball game. And I remember being absolutely devastated. I mean, it's all anybody talked about. I mean, it was, it almost, like, the best justice it could give the situation was seeing those people, like, in schools watching the press conference and, like, people that were like Tom Brokall and everybody in the world being there.

Tom Burkaw. It's like, what? Yeah, I know, right? Like, this is the guy from NBC Nightly News. Everybody, it was. And then Connie Chung's doing all these reports over and everything. I mean, it was, it wasn't like, it wasn't sports news. This was like world news that took place.

And Michael Jordan was the biggest athlete to everybody around my age. It wasn't even close. And he was probably the most popular person in the world when he announced his retirement. And so you kind of got this outline and there's been this buildup to it all. The relationship with his father, his father's devastating passing that takes place. And then you have all of the. Just being overwhelmed by all of the celebrity, being overwhelmed by people jumping him for the gambling stuff and trying to tear him down and whatever else. And then you have this walking away.

I thought it was pretty persuasive the whole I've got to play in the Olympics and Magic and Larry never won three in a row. So I've got to do that. And so that's what I'm chasing. Like that was kind of the carrot out there. I don't know. There's always been the conspiracy theories and everything else about why he walked away. I thought that I thought the way they all, they outlined it all was rather persuasive. As you were watching it, were you persuaded by the fact that it was what seemed so intensely abnormal was normalized through the dock?

It felt, I mean, if you, let's say you went into this without knowing any of those conspiracy theories. Yeah. That you're touching on. I think you would have watched this have been like, no, duh. Right. Of course he walked away. Yeah, I don't think it would even have been a question had you not known about any of that going in. So, I mean, for me, like, I've never necessarily had strong feelings about some of those conspiracy theories involving Jordan leaving the game.

It just never made sense for the reason I believe David Stern or somebody said in that documentary, why would you? you why would you get rid of the guy who's a cash cow for your game is one of it is the primary reason the game was growing so much so rapidly globally not to mention that if that were the case had he been you know banished from the game for 18 months because of gambling why would you let him buy a team it just never made any sense to me but anyway i mean i am i i was i'm persuaded a lot and i've talked a lot about the the father stuff that's been within this documentary that, you know, when trauma takes place and it's not just that he lost his dad, it's the manner in which, I mean, it was absolutely positively devastating.

And then you see how close they were and how he was always by his side. I can see somebody making a decision that they wouldn't normally make, right, when in after tragedy. People do this all the time. People end up getting divorced. People end up changing their jobs. People end up doing all manner of things. When some kind of real tragedy takes place in their life, you know, that they all of a sudden make different decisions than maybe they normally would. And I think they're, I think they've made a pretty, I thought it was well outlined watching it how, look at all these things and the kind of adding up of all of it. And then beyond all of it, the whole my dad saw my last game and then his father's

tragic passing. When you team that up with all the other stuff that just felt like it was all too much for him to deal with, it makes a lot more sense. At the time, it made no sense to me as a kid. It made absolutely no sense. I don't know about all this stuff going on. I didn't even care. I didn't even know or care about the gambling.

I mean, you were 15 years old. You don't care about none of that stuff. He's just the best basketball player in the world. And he's on every commercial and you love him. And that was just devastating for him to walk away when he did, you know. I thought they did a really good job with that. The uncut video of him crying on the floor after winning his fourth championship, that was, I mean, that was unbelievable.

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Go to get roman.com slash ringer NBA for a free online visit and start your new skincare routine today. That's get roman.com slash ringer NBA. Eligibility requirements and additional terms do apply. Now back to the mismatch. I know a lot of people have done deep dives on all of this, so we're not going to go through every little part, but just a couple other significant portions, and I want to add,

I want you to add yours. Scotty Pippin is like, he's just being defiant at this point. And I almost wondered if he's watching the documentary, if he's just going to stand by that forever. But they chronicled him not going into the game, which you can, I mean, could you fathom if that happened now, Kevin?

Oh, my God. If that happened now. It was a bad look. Oh, but imagine if it happened now. Oh, I know. Like, everybody wasn't talking to everybody. And everybody didn't have an, you know, everybody didn't have an opinion that you knew of, you know, way back when. You know, it was kind of that you talked to the people you talk to and there was the newspaper and there was very, very, very sparse amounts of even like sports radio or anything.

there were no like hardcore opinion shows outside of like you know you would tune in on sunday mornings and maybe see like the collection of newspaper writers the sports reporters they kind of like were the only guys that had like opinions on things really the rest of it was pretty well just quote journalism as it were um but him did to this day saying i wouldn't change anything is such BS bro stop it's the only it's the only stain on anything for him. There is nothing bad to say about Scotty Pippin

unless you want to shit on him for the migraine game. Or the delayed surgery because he didn't want to lose a summer. But what I'm saying is... And demanding a trade from a championship contender. An older, hardcore segment of basketball fans, like the Bill Simmons of the world, right?

That are aware of everything and have read every book about everything. They're aware of that. Most people don't even know that. And let's say he watched this documentary. They don't even remember that. It was not, again, with the way news was covered, it wasn't the deal it would be like now when somebody does that.

That being said, I cannot believe that him at his age now sits there and looks in the camera and says he wouldn't do it back. When you're sitting there having to talk about it 25 years later, for God's sakes. You know, like what? Like if there was one thing, you would do differently. That would be it. You know?

Like if I just said, you could take anything back, you could change anything. What would you change? Of course you would change that. It just feels like people have been crapping on him for so many years that now he's just defiant about it. But I just,

you couldn't believe either. I cannot believe in good conscience that he would not change that moment. I mean, poor Bill Cartwright was crying in the locker room. Come on. I mean, he, I mean, I mean, it was a sour puss move at the time for him for him to do that. And now it's as he said, he's just being defiant.

He's just being stubborn. He's not willing to admit his wrongs, which is true. So many people are unwilling to admit their faults or when they're wrong, when they should have done something differently. It's just human nature for a lot of people. It's hard to admit your own wrongs. And for Scotty Pippick, clearly that's something he looks back on. and feel and maybe maybe deep down inside he knows he was wrong in that moment but he's not going

to tell us that which is unfortunate uh because it was a dirty move to do that i mean tony cooch as they outlined in that documentary was a go-to guy down the stretch for large portions of the season and i mean fact is is scotty pippen like he's one of the greatest players of all time for reasons beyond scoring tony cooge is not but every guy has a role that can contributes to winning. And that's what makes an unfortunate moment for me to look back at. And yet, despite all that, they won six championships together. They are the greatest dynasty of NBA history, post-50s, 60s, Celtics, you know,

in the modern era. Despite these issues, as you said, imagine if that happened today. I do wonder if with all the media attention today, things would have been different for that team. However, I still think back to one of the earlier episodes. I forget if it was after episode, I forget which episode it was, but after winning their fifth championship, when they're at the podium, you know, being questioned about will Michael Jordan come back? Will he retire at the podium after winning the NBA finals? There still was a lot of media attention at the time. it was just different.

It wasn't virtual. It wasn't online like it is today. But players still felt the attention as they do today. Maybe no differently except for the fact that it's not in your face or in your phone. You're not getting live feedback instead you're reading the newspapers. So maybe it was the same in the sense that it was relative to the times as it would be today. Granted technological innovations with cell phones and everything have been a game changer. Um, people can met like, we see it with Kevin Durant.

Would Michael Jordan have had a burner account with Scotty Pippin? I bet Scotty Pippen would have had a burner account. Well, and you know what, you know what? Maybe he does. You know, you know, it's crazy. I have, uh, I have a guy that works with me every single day, um, who's, I, I think he's around 24, 25, something like that. He had no idea that Pippin thing had happened.

None. He'd never heard that. with him not going into the game. Yeah, massive basketball fan, massive NBA fan. He had never heard that story. That's why I say, dude,

there's no way you don't regret that. Like, there's 25-year-olds that, like, just know Scottie Pippen as an unbelievable Jordan and Pippen, you know,

sidekick, Hall of Famer in his own right? He had never heard that story until the last day. There's people who know him just as an ESPN commentator. I guess, I guess. I mean,

he's well aware of it. his NBA career, but until the last dance had never heard that story. And I think that's true of a lot of people from the younger generation. You know what I mean? You're watching that and you're like, what the hell? And so to say, I mean, God, there's more people that became aware of it last night than we're aware of it at the time, probably.

By the way, I'm glad that the documentary has done a good, people have talked about like, is this good journalism? You know, because Michael Jordan has control. I don't care about that. I'm just, that's what had a happened for the documentary to be made. But what I'm happy about is they have taken a fair, well-rounded look at a lot of these guys. We are seeing some of the bad side of Scotty Pippen that we just talked about. We have seen the stuff with Michael Jordan ripping it into his teammates.

We heard about the Steve Kerr fight. We saw Jordan sort of break down at the end of episode seven. I mean, I'm glad we're seeing all this. Two things. Number one, I'll just cover the Kerr fight briefly. The first thing that stands out about the story about the curb fight, to me, is, bro, he didn't have his phone number. Yes.

I didn't see anybody mentioning that. I was hoping you said that. I didn't see anybody tweeting about that. I didn't see anybody mention that, but I'm like, that just got glossed over the fact that he freely admits I had to holler at somebody to get his number.

And I'm like, holy crap. And then that is a very important moment in the documentary because I do think it adds another dimension to Jordan that does help him in a way. He was worried that people are going to watch this stuff and not like him. That's clearly not a great story. But when you hear him saying, I felt terrible about it. I just beat up the littlest guy on the team, right? I called him. I apologize.

I apologize to Phil whatever. It gives you this other dimension. It gives the, quote, tyrant, as he phrased himself, this other dimension that he is not, you know, cold-hearted to the bone. You know what I'm saying? Like, he is not without remorse when he does wrong or when his competitiveness or whatever it may be sends him off the hook. He has an awareness. There clearly is a line, right? And beating your teammates' ass is a line.

you know, that he knew he crossed. You know what I'm saying? Instead of in the, for the sake of the competition and this way it's going to be, and if you want to punch me, I'm going to punch you back. He felt bad about that. Like, I thought he legitimately felt bad about that. And I think that's why when people watch this, they don't come away thinking, what a raging a-hole this guy was.

Because if you defended punching Steve Kerr in his head, there would of course be, there's going to be the bros out there. Like, yeah, you showed him, you know, that's what you get for messing. That's what you get for messing with my bitch, you know, that kind of stuff. On the other hand, him showing remorse about it makes him that much more likable, don't you think? I thought that was important. I'm with you. I'm with you.

I mean, like what Michael Jordan did wasn't bullying, you know, bullying has malicious intent. Bullying, bullying is trying to tear down some. and often is a reflection of your own insecurities if you're a bully. Jordan took a very harsh approach, should be fair, which is why he got emotional about talking about it. But ultimately, he was just trying to get his teammates on the same place that he was as a competitor. And after the failures that he experienced,

he touched on how when he came back, the guys on this new look Bulls team hadn't been there with him through the trials and tribulations, the ups and the downs that he had experienced throughout his career since being drafted. And he was just trying to get those guys that same place where he was as a competitor. And I'm sure for him, it is, clearly,

it is hard looking back at some of the things that he said and the choices that he made. But it wasn't with malicious intent necessarily. Things just, things just happened to happen, including the fight with Steve Kerr. So the other thing that you mentioned was the end of episode seven, which is as good a two and a half minutes as you could see and anything.

And he gets very emotional during his conversation with the directors in talking about his treatment of his teammates. And so I saw an interview that was done by the director of this.

And he said he was talking about that very moment. And he said that moment that we saw at the end of episode 7 where he chokes up and he's talking about the way he plays. And if you don't to play that way, okay? And then he stops him. He said he had 11 pages of questions for Jordan. And that particular moment took place 45 minutes into the first interview they ever did,

45 minutes in. And he said, he said, what I came to notice from all of these questions and all of this time we spent with him and all that time on camera. And there's only a few times that he asked to break or he got emotional. He said there were two things. There was the family stuff when his family comes up and talking about his family and his mother reading that letter from home and that kind of stuff. And he said, the other one is his philosophy on life and how to play and defending that and feeling like he has to defend that.

It makes him emotional every time, like when he gets to talking about it. And those are the only two things. Like he could talk about anything all the time. But the only times that we were ever asked to stop or that he would get emotional about something, we're either defending his philosophy on life or something to do with his family. And he also, this was great. He, in the interview says, this was the question he asked him. Because we just see the clip.

We don't see the question, right? Is all the intensity and all that success you've achieved worth the cost of being perceived as a nice guy? That's what he asked him. That elicited that answer that he gives at the end of episode seven. And when somebody gets emotional like that on camera, it is, Kev, I mean, that is something a documentary can do that no movie with actors can pull off. I will never forget years ago, there was a documentary that came out, which during quarantine, if people are looking for something to watch, it won the Oscar for the best documentary. It was filmed in Memphis. It's called Undefeated. And it's about a high school football team. And it's one of the best things you'll ever watch in your life. I promise you. Undefeated is the name of it. I don't know if it's on Netflix or whatever. I went to the premiere of this documentary. And there's a scene in the movie where a kid cries and there's a tight shot on the kid. And there's a single tier that runs down and you see it welling up in his eye and it runs down his face. And everybody in the entire theater is just bawling their eyes out, just bawling.

And I am sitting by one of my friends who, here's a great name drop, movie director Craig Brewer. He's done like hustle and flow, black snake moan. He just did Dolomite on Netflix. He's actually doing coming to America too. And you know what he told me? He got the entire cast. Eddie Murphy, James Earl Jones, Arsenio Hall, everybody. They're filming that right now.

But Craig's sitting next to me at this documentary. And I look over at him, he looked at me, we're both bawling. We get done with the movie and he said, Chris, I could make a thousand movies with the best actors in the world. And I can never get that moment ever. You cannot, you can't recreate that. You can't. And it's like that moment in time in a documentary. where it's just so raw and it's so real.

And we got that, man. I would, I tell you this, Kevin, this is God's honest, I paused at the end of seven. I was like, I can't go straight into eight. I cannot go straight into the second episode. Like, I need a minute. Like, I was so, like, I was so overwhelmed by that. I was so overwhelmed by that.

Really? It was just incredible. And for that to be the way that episode ends. Oh, my God. that's as good at TV as I've seen in forever, seriously. You have me thinking about just the raw, the rawness of documentaries. And for some reason,

what comes to mind is this doc called Dear Zachary, a letter to a son about his father. Have you ever seen that? No. That's a tearjerker. I love documentaries. I've watched, that's what I like the most.

I like nonfiction books. and I like documentaries. I do. I like real stuff. You should check out, Dear Zachary, I forget, I mean,

it's been probably maybe 10 years since I saw that, maybe longer, but I don't remember every, yeah, I mean, it's a really,

really, really emotional movie. Gotcha. Is there, is there a good, there must be a 30 for 30 or a documentary about Jordan's baseball,

uh, ex, uh, time playing baseball because there is. yeah there i mean yeah there has to be multiple probably you didn't see it no i haven't no oh there was a it was the it was the whole birmingham story yeah it's called jordan rides the bus yeah jordan rides the bus i have not seen that so i need to watch that because i loved the portion with him playing baseball for multiple reasons one of them being that i'm glad that it was spun as

success for him because to go play professional baseball after 14, 15 years of not picking up a bat competitively and to hit over 200 in double A, then hit over 250 in the fall league is a remarkable athletic achievement. Baseball is freaking hard, man. Oh, you can speak to this better than I can too. I was, I was glad that it was told in that way because it's a heck of, an achievement for him to do that. I can speak to this on the most embarrassing of levels. So about four or five years ago, my buddy has, he has a baseball team here at town that like,

when college kids come back in town, like during the summer like college baseball players, they all like, they play in this league, right? Or guys that played in college, but still want to keep on playing. It's like a men's league except it's young men, right? And some of the kids are like just getting some at-bats in and whatever and then they're going to go back to school. And so he's like, hey, I'm down a player. Can you come play? I'm like, bro, I haven't played baseball in like forever. Like, it's forever.

I mean, I've been to a batting cage. That's about it. And I was like, yeah, I don't know about all that. So he's like, you'll play right field. And he's like, you don't even have to do anything. He's like, I need a player. I was like, whatever. So I show up, right?

Of course, I'm like playing right field. I'm batting last, whatever. I get up there. I see this kid on the mound pitching. And I'm like, what the hell is going on here? I thought you told me that this was like a men's league or something. It's a kid who's like one of the starters at Middle Tennessee State University. He is throwing so hard, Kevin.

Like, he's in the 90s, right? All right. So I, much less I haven't played baseball in 100 years. I stand up at the, it might have been the most embarrassing moment of my life. I stood up in the box. Number one, I'm terrified because I'm like, I'm not going to be able to react in time if this ball comes at my head. dude, I heard the ball hit the mitt before I swung. Like, I heard it.

That's how I had absolutely no chance. None. None. And I mean, I've been to a batting cage or whatever. Like, and this was, this is just a college, this is a college pitcher. And this is probably, I don't know, five, six years ago. I didn't even see the ball. I'm not kidding.

I didn't see it at all. And then I heard it in the mitt and then I swung. I mean, it was like something out of a cartoon or something. It was horrible. And so when I see something. And this guy is obviously like the best athlete in the world at the time, Jordan. But I would encourage anybody. Like, stand in there one time with somebody that's like currently a real pitcher.

It is the hardest shit I ever done. I didn't even see it. And you're talking fast. You're talking fastballs too. I mean, never mind when they start to break a balls at you. which is what happened to Jordan during that season. He had 12 game hitting streak to start the year. Then they start throwing breaking ball after breaking ball after breaking ball at him.

But in Fall League, he did start hitting those breaking balls better. And I like one of the greatest sliding doors moments. And to take a Bill Simmons line in history is had they're not been a baseball strike, would Jordan have continued playing baseball with the improvement he experienced with the push possibly for to get to the majors, would he have kept playing? The answer is probably yes. And he would have. Well, and I did watch that 30 for 30 a long time ago,

but I don't remember it anymore. I had forgotten that Francona was his manager. How crazy was that? Oh, that made me laugh. It was a trip. I mean, of all the people, of all the people in the world that could have been his manager, there's frigging Terry Francona.

Bobby, I'm curious, your perspective. I saw a couple, you know, comments out there about how, like, Why would why would they portray Jordan as a success in baseball when he hit 200, just over 200? Clearly, it was a failure for him. I'm just curious what your baseball guy take on Jordan's baseball career. I think it's pretty incredible. There's a reason that everybody was shocked when Tim Tebow came back to play baseball after 12 years off and was actually showing a little bit of power and showing a little bit of, you know, pop in his swing and relatively. competence. I mean, not compared to, you know, a high-ranked

double-a prospect or anything like that. And I think you can speak to this, Bobby. One of my first jobs was a AA baseball. I worked for a AA baseball team. The AA players are awesome. There is not this enormous gap in many cases. And many of them do go on to become Major League Baseball players when you're in AA.

The only reason the guy was in AA in the first place is, because, as they said, media-wise, there was no way they could send him to a smaller place, but you have no business walking into double. There's guys to play minor league careers and never make it to double A. Like, that's not a, you're two steps away from being a major league or when you're in double A. Yeah, I think it's a shame that we never got to see him try to progress even further than that, Kevin. Because like you said, I mean, once you start seeing legit. legitimate off speed. Once you start seeing

legitimate curveballs, legitimate sliders, that's the true test because once you get to the majors, pretty much everyone can hit a 99-mile-an-hour fastball, which sounds ridiculous to say, especially in contrast to Verna's story just now. But pretty much everybody can tee that up.

And the thing that differentiates players and the thing that makes baseball growth so non-linear is the ability to identify the spin on the pitch and then react to it. So I don't know. I tend to think that that's something that you can learn over time,

but that some people it just clicks for. So maybe it would have just clicked for Jordan. What does it mean if you don't see the ball at all? You're talking about the spin on the pitch. I didn't even see this yet. It was in the glove. Maybe it means that you need a, maybe it means you need some glasses.

I know. I think I need glasses. Anyways. All right. last thing, the other best part will end on a fun note was all of these grudges that he holds. But George Carl not talking to him. George Carl not talking to him in the restaurant. The LaBradford Smith story where they find out later that he's made up the whole story

that he's conjured up in his mind that this guy said nice game, Mike, to him or whatever. And there were some of my friends that were like, boy, you have to be a real psychopath to like make up something about somebody to hate them. And I'm like, you would be, you would be appalled. Guys do this all the time, all the time. And I brought up Bobby Portis. Do you guys know this, this story? I said, why don't you go look up Bobby Portis?

Type in Bobby Portis slap mom on Google. Oh, yeah, yeah. I tell us. This is a good story. I know. He goes into every game and he envisions that the guy he's playing. against just slapped his mom in order to, you know, burn himself up inside. And so, like, it's not uncommon.

Like, you would be surprised how crazy these guys are. Like, but they will make up a reason to want to, you know, destroy you. And so Jordan, obviously, look, he would take anything, any reason. Did you see? Who was it that George Carl responded to somebody last night and said, if George Carl would have talked to him in that restaurant, Michael Jordan would have been mad that he talked to him. Right?

Like, it didn't matter. It didn't matter that he didn't talk to him, right? Like, it was kind of framed as, ooh, maybe George Carl should have gone and talk to him. Like, if he did go talk to him, he would have said, this guy's trying to talk to me. You know the way he would have done it. Guy's trying to talk to me, trying to throw me off my game.

Well, you got another thing coming. Like, he's just going to find some reason, as petty as it may seem, to destroy everybody. And I thought they did a good job of chronicling that too. And that is a special gift that you have to be

the most petty. You really do. You have to convince yourself of hating so many people all the time just for the sake of competition, right? Yeah, I was laughing hard

when he made up the nice game, Mike Lyon from the opponent he basically scored 37. It's so good. And like, that's what makes it so great. Like,

you could just watch clips exclusively of Michael Jordan just talking and this would be fun and entertaining if it were an hour long sit down with Jordan because then you get the stuff like with Gary Payton when he was showing the video of Gary Payton talking about how he was able to defend him how he was the best guy to defend him and Jordan's laughing his ass off and just says I had no problem with the glove I had no problem with Gary Payton it's just such good TV it's awesome man Unbelievable. And, you know, look, the shooting numbers were not that great, but I thought, as I was watching that, when you're up 3-0, come on. You know as well as I do, right? When you're up 3-0, you know you've got that team handled. Of course, you're going to get the maximum grand slam effort out of the other team. And so I really think deep down, he thinks, if I ought to go out and bombed them out and we wouldn't have let up a little, it had nothing to do with Gary Payton guard me. It had everything to do with the fact. that we were up 3-0 and we should have given the shit when we didn't, you know? Like, he really believes that for sure.

That's probably true, honestly, you know. Like if I would have, if everybody would have said, you know, there's no chance the bulls sweep. They probably would have gone out, right? Then he would have gotten mad about that and gone and swept them. Or if Gary Payton would have said that, he says that now. I wonder if he would have said that then as much. It would have been as prominent.

But the whole thing is just so unbelievable, all of it that we got. And I do have this little fear. And maybe this is just I shouldn't have this fear at all. Is there any chance nine and ten live up to seven and eight? Are we going to look back at this and say seven and eight? We're just a night of television viewing will never forget. Is there any chance this thing gets better in nine and ten? Yeah.

Because I feel like it's gone up. Don't you feel like it's going up? gone up. There's five and six I thought was the best night. Now I think seven and eight is the best night. Boy, if they raise the bar on nine and ten, I'll be, I'll be impressed. That feels hard to do. Bar is pretty high right now, man. I mean, what's fascinating is that nine didn't get completed until last week and then episode 10 doesn't get completed until sometime this week. So they are against the clock with these final episodes. And I, we'll see, man. We'll see. I, I, I have a hard time envisioning how it won't be at least 75 or 80% as great as seven or eight.

But I'm excited. I'm excited for something night, man. Well, I wish we could have a whole other that could start. I did 20 episodes. Let's start another 10. Oh, I know. Yeah, let's get an outtake series too. How about?

How about as a good steward of the league? Then from now on, we just do two hours of the, give us all the interviews. that we're left on the cutting room floor. Let's do those for another like 10 weeks. You know what they should do? And I mean, whether it's, you know, for on camera or for TV, they could also do a documentary outtake series. I'm sorry, a podcast outtake series of some of these interviews,

like full length, you know, lightly edited hour, two hour podcast, you know, the full interview with Carl Malone, if we see that next week. The full interview with Danny Ainsh talking about the self. You know, 86 Celtics series, you know, like the full interview with Scotty Pippen, you know. Do you know what the cutting room floor looks like for this, Doc? Oh, my God.

Oh, my. I know. I can't imagine. There's probably so many goodies that they had to let go of. Oh. So many. Hundreds of hours probably. Seriously.

Between all of those players talking to them. Yes. Now, I tell you this. So I had on Sonny Vicaro, who have been friends with him for a long time. So they sat down with him for two and a half hours about all the Nike stuff. They didn't use any of it. None of it. So, I mean, they talked to people that aren't even in this thing for a long time and got all manner of stories.

The footage they must have. Because you know they said that on magic. They sat down with bird. They sat down. All the people that you've seen in all of this. Hell, I'd just like to watch the rest of the interviews with his mom talking about it all, you know? and his brothers and stuff like that. You could probably make another 10 episodes of just stuff that they didn't use in this.

I guaranteed. Maybe they should do a season two. Season two of the last dance. Why not? It would be amazing. Except make it about the Hornets. I'm kidding. Hey, I'll tell you what.

The real last dance. And it features Devonthe Graham and scary. Terry. I would love to know the real answer. What is success to Michael Jordan, the owner? Is it the bottom line? Is it money or is it winning a championship? I really wish you would have said at the end of his interview about the whole BJ thing.

I mean like, not only did we beat the Hornets, I ended up buying the damn team. That's how mad I wasn't. I was so mad at BJ Armstrong, I bought the team. too good all right Kevin have a safe week thanks to Bobby Wagner as always

for producing another episode everybody stay safe out there hopefully this thing will be done sooner than later but we will be back on Friday and also

submit your questions for Friday's mailbag episode at NBA mailbag at gmail.com and thank you everybody Thank you.