The Ringer NBA Show - Ryan and Musa From 'Stadio' on Shortened Seasons, Relegation, and Elam Endings | The Answer

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

Chris begins the pod by sharing his reactions to some of the NBA action that took place after the All-Star break. He's then joined by Musa and Ryan from The Ringer's own 'Stadio' podcast to discuss what elements of international football could and should be indoctrinated within professional basketball to improve the game, and vice versa. Topics include the implementation of an FA Cup–style midseason tournament(16:33), establishing a relegation system(25:20), and how player movement and speculation is affecting the game experience in both sports (27:16). Host: Chris Ryan Guests: Musa Okwonga and Ryan Hunn Production Assistant: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How up everybody. I'm J.J. John G. Stramski. And I'm Jason Gough, and if you haven't heard, the ringer has gone local. I'm bringing the fire. I'm bringing the rain from the big apple with my show, New York, New York. And I'm reping Shy Town with my new show The Full Go on All Things Chicago. We've got episodes three nights a week with all the reaction to the local teams and guests. Plus bonus episodes around all the big games and storylines. So whether you're uptown, downtown, downtown, in the burbs, or a transplant. Make sure you follow New York, New York, and the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast.

Hello and welcome to the Ringer NBA show. It's The Answer. My name's Chris Ryan. No Sir it this week. She'll be back next week. This week we have an awesome show for you. I had a conversation with Musa Kwanga and Ryan Hun from Stadio. It's the Ringers International Football Soccer podcast.

It's one of my favorite podcast. It's on Mondays and Thursdays you can catch those guys talking about all the big European leagues. They're really the global game. And it's always really fun to have cross-sport conversations with those dudes who are also two of them, quite big basketball fans. So, you know, we were coming to the end of the All-Star break. There was only so many ways you can talk about Hardin Simmons before actually getting to see them. Hardin should be playing tonight for the Sixers this evening. So I'm really excited about that.

There were some games last night. We needed like an alarm on any time. Tomar de Rosen has the ball with 30 seconds left now, apparently. This guy is like, I don't know, like every night, like he's legitimately making a push to be put in that MVP conversation. So it's really exciting to watch him. And no matter what seems to happen to the Bulls roster, DeRosen is there to carry. them. It's pretty amazing. Also, fantastic Grizzlies' Wolves game last night, the rise of DeLo. I was on a text thread with Chris Vernon,

who was just apoplectic about how DeAngelo Russell seems to just absolutely torch the wolves every time. A scary job Morant moment, but it looked like he was okay, but just an exciting, pesky, too young Western Conference teams going at it. It made me really excited for what the playoffs have in store. We'll get back to regular basketball next week, but let's get into my conversation with Ryan Amusa. It's about What we can do to change the NBA, what we can learn from soccer, what soccer could learn from the NBA, player transactions, all sorts of stuff. Really great conversation. Everybody have a good weekend.

All right. My buddies are back. Ryan Hunt and Musa Kwonga from the Stadio podcast, my favorite football podcast in the world. It's on the Ringer podcast network. You can find it on Ringer FC. Ryan Amusa, how are you doing? How are you, man? I'm doing fine.

I'm good. I wanted to have you guys on today because we'd sort of been chatting on our WhatsApp group about. doing a collaboration pod again you guys have been on before but I wanted to talk a little bit about I don't think we've been on the answer have you not been any answer has I haven't moosa got the call I never got the call up did I do the answer maybe it was just the ringer NBA show before I don't know but it was ringer NBA it was ringer NBA okay you went on ringer NBA we went on the watch that time to talk oh that's right all or nothing that's right we talked about Totnamall or nothing I'm not Chris by the way I'm not coming on when the Arsenal one drops you can have Musa don't be a coward come on I'm not doing it I'm not doing it

I wanted to have you guys on because, you know, we had been talking a little bit about the NBA adopting an in-season tournament, but basically comparable to the FA Cup. And just as we were recording this podcast yesterday, I believe, Kirk Goldsbury, who is a former colleague of mine at Grantland and still works at ESPN, published a piece for ESPN.com that was basically a reimagining of the NBA. It was a reimagining of the sport both in terms of the way the season works schedule-wise and also the way the court dimensions are laid out, the way the game would be scored at the end of the game.

It was a pretty comprehensive reimagining, and I thought it would be a great jumping off point because Kirk borrows a couple of ideas from international football. But I got to thinking, you know, in basketball, I think that there's like a really, really highly engaged, perhaps two online contingent of basketball media and fandom where they're constantly trying to, like, improve the game. or I count myself if it was among these people

who is like a little bit over-concerned with reinventing the wheel. And I was curious whether or not you felt like that sentiment also exists in international football. Like, do you guys feel like you spend a lot of time thinking about how the game could be improved, how the schedule could be improved, how different competitions could be improved?

Or is it something that's like a little bit more state-side and that impulse to sort of constantly be disrupting and changing and making more efficient or making more of a better product, so to speak, is more of a distinctly American idea. Musa, what do you think of that? The thing about basketball, I think it's the structural, right? So there's so many more scoring opportunities for basketball. There's so many more variables who can measure improvement and change.

And in football, there are vastly fewer, which is why I'm more wary of tampering with it, because the variable affecting is the scoring of a goal. You don't get any goals in 90 minutes, whereas in basketball, the concept of a nil-nill-nill-drawer is just they would think it was match-fixing. Either you'd have to like, yeah, yeah. Either everyone would be teleported to a different multiverse, or there'd be match fixing for it to be on the other draw. So I think that the variables and the nature of it form,

and this is me being fair to basketball as a sport, it's really exciting because not just there's more ways, you score more often, but there's different ways you can do it, right? So where I kind of overlap with the desire to reform, I think with basketball is just a stamina issue and like what the players are put through. I think as well, like the nature of franchises and basketball, the fact that franchises can be uprooted from community,

and be moved around makes the product different. You look at the development of football, for example, and some of the sports, I think that optimizing a team's performance is more important in basketball than it is in football because football people can happily support a team that is, like, terrible for years on end. And I don't just mean an NBA team that tanks for a few seasons. I mean, a team that is historically terrible. You can have a team that basically loses for 100 years.

We have that in Berlin, right? Amateur teams in Berlin, and that's part of the identity. So I think the dynamics and nature that both cultural and structural of football mean that it's less inclined to want to reform like basketball is. Here are those amateur Berlin teams. That would just be Nick's fans. Anyway, yeah, so Ryan, right. Well, I was going to say that I'd hit everyone with a disclaimer up front

because there's nothing worse I imagine as a US sports fan or indeed an American sports fan than hearing two guys from England living in Berlin coming on an NBA. podcast and tell them what's wrong with the NBA. But I think from a football point of view, I think we do spend a little bit of time talking about how the game can be improved. But weirdly, I think it's because of a different reason to what's going on with the NBA

at the moment. And it's the fact that the governing bodies in European football specifically, and world football, if you look at organizations like FIFA, they're actually the people trying to reform the game. Yeah. And no one kind of wants it. I know. So it's more of a, okay, I often have this thing with the way that

soccer is run by governing bodies in the sense that they seem to be really, really good at identifying problems and valid problems often, but the complete worst at finding solutions for those problems. Would offside be like an example of that? No, I was thinking more of the World Cup every two years and hear the reasons why. And the, you know, the head of FIFA who is the global governing body of soccer, suggesting that if the World Cup did happen every two years, then that might stop the migrant crisis from North Africa. So this is the level that we're dealing with. We're not talking about like slight changes to the arc. We're dealing with guys who, you know, I think I wrote a tweet once about it saying it's like trying to fix a burst water main with a single Rizler.

Right. And for our American audience, do you want to say what Rizlers are? Well, let's just say swishes Swishes aren't huge in England. Okay. Yeah, so I mean, I guess that there is that there is that slight difference. I mean, I think that Adam Silver, at least in his public-facing comments, if I had to guess, I would imagine that he would probably be a little bit more aggressive about changing the shape and what basketball looked like on the court and off the court.

And that a lot of it is because his hands are tied because he essentially works for the NBA owners. I mean, there isn't an independent governing body of basketball. Adam Silver isn't an employee, essentially, of the collective of the NBA owners. And all these ideas, and Kirk lays out a couple of them that I wanted to bounce off you guys. But all these ideas are essentially at the mercy of these NBA owners saying, like, well, that affects my bottom line. And that's unacceptable.

Right, right. Absolutely. So the number one one with that Kirk brought. brought out in the beginning. And Darry, the president of the Sixers, has also kicked this around. He mentioned this, I think, on Colin Coward's podcast a couple of weeks ago. It was this idea of shortening the NBA season from its traditional 82 games to a 58-game season that would mirror like the Premier League style play every team twice.

This would, I think, certainly solve a lot of issues with like most of what you were mentioning about player stamma. It would like allow players to basically play two college basketball seasons in their, in a professional season. So college basketball seasons are about 30, 35 games. And then you basically like double that when they get to the pros.

So it's a little bit more in touching distance with the amount of basketball that players are used to playing. And then I think also it just creates much more night to night intensity in the regular season games. Now, the immediate stopping point for that is that all of these MBA owners

are going to be like, where are my 24, extra game night tickets coming from and the receipts and the money and the concessions everything I get from that and that's the stopping point you know I mean like that's really like the thing and I think that you know I I'm I wonder what would happen if basketball basically was governed from by a body that was decoupled from ownership of basketball teams I feel a little bit on the fence about this I like the idea in theory because I think that there are a lot of pros for it in a sporting sense purely in a sporting sense because I know that the main the main obstacle will be the financial side of it

but purely from a sporting sense it kind of removes what it gives you a truer sense of franchise strength that season or squad strength because everyone is playing everyone twice so you you eliminate these you know if you have like a really really strong division and and then like three teams in that division like three of the best teams in the NBA are clustered in one division it kind of skews the standings a little bit because those sides are always the sides that are playing each other more regularly throughout the season.

Yeah. So from a purely sporting sense, it's great because you can actually literally see, okay, everyone played everyone twice, this is how it looks. The financial side of that is obviously the thing that's going to stop it. But also, I wonder whether there's actually,

is there an appetite? Because for me, for example, I think if the schedule was slightly tweaked in the NBA, it would be really, really appealing at each game, like you said, had almost like an extra importance, but I think it's quite easy for us

to talk about that being in Europe. But is there, I know I've heard Bill talk about it sometimes and you've talked about it sometimes, but is there an appetite for a shortened season? Do you think amongst fans? I think that when we've had, unfortunately had lockout seasons

or pandemic shortened seasons or whenever there's been like an artificial shortening of the season, And for the most part, I think people are a little bit like the scarcity of NBA games and also the like the feeling that, you know, the season has a little bit more intensity because of its shortness, I think is welcome. And I think there's this interesting thing. I love one of the reasons why I love listening to you guys is that you're able to be very clear-eyed about the machinations behind the game while also maintaining the sincere passion that you had for it when you first fell in love with it, you know. Just about, just about it. It's like, it tries its very best to push us away.

But I think that what happens when you start to cover a sport professionally is that you become increasingly cynical about the sport itself. And you spend so much time thinking about it and so much time watching it and so much time reading about it and so much time talking about it, that you can't help but want to essentially like optimize it or, you know, make it different than what it is. But when we were kids, I doubt that I gave much thought at all to, how many games the Sixers would play in the season. I probably didn't watch the Sixers nearly as

much growing up as I do as somebody who's paid to follow the sport. And I sometimes wonder whether or not sports aren't really meant to be covered in this way. And that that's part of why we then have to have like this reaction to like, well, we have to shorten the season to make it more important or we have to do this or we have to do that. Musa, does that make any sense or am I going off on it? No, you're completely right. I was thinking about the Zion Williamson, for example. Like, and I love JJ Redick. He's an amazing pundit. And then I saw it.

I thought to myself, my goodness, he's discussed this individual event. There's like two or three different podcasts and like there's been reaction to the reaction to reaction. Yeah. And this is not his fault. It's just what happened to this particular story. And it's like the comment around basketball, specifically basketball, there's so much noise. Like you can say a player can tweet or say one thing. And it's been dissected six games later.

That is exceptionally. unhealthy for anything like the media ecosystem in terms of what it's discussed. So what you're saying as I was listening, as you were listening and I was kind of, I was thinking my sort of filing to my brain and thinking, my God, like, I watch and I consume more NBA podcasts than I consume NBA games. That feels like a problem. Maybe not. And I'm something that started out obsessively watching NBA games and now different things are taking my attention in a very insidious way to the point where, you know, some pundits, and this is not JJ Red, I think he's amazing, don't get me wrong, I think he does

what pundits should be doing. Some pundits have become like film stars. Some pundits are like better paid than a lot of people bring us the spectacle that doesn't feel right. Yeah. Unless, of course, that's the point of the entertainment. And this is what we're going to come back to. I think we're going to keep coming back to this podcast as refrain, like, what is the product? Is the product the players?

Or is it the controversy? Is it the noise? Is it the attention? Is it the engagement? What is the actual NBA product? Is it the game? Is it the quality of the basketball, right? Because actually quality has never been a problem, never will be a problem. Like we've had, you could argue now, the quality of the NBA exponentially just improves. The types of players we thought, look, everyone goes, oh, he's a unicorn. Put it this way. You hear that phrase. Oh, he's a unicorn the NBA. We probably had more unicorns in the last five years of the NBA in the previous 25. We've come out of our ears. We've never seen a player like Durant. We've never seen a player like Kyrie. You've never seen a player like Hardin. I'm like, oh my God. Because. the quality of basketball, and this is thanks to people like Adam Silver, right? The innovations they brought in, opening the league up to European players. The quality is not in doubt, right? So the question is really like, can we ensure that the product that is the NBA, because it's a product,

the product remains the entertainment on the court and not off it? How do we maximize that? That makes sense. I mean, to your point, I would say I probably, as a Liverpool fan, have read more about Manchester United and Tottenham's struggles this year than about. than about Liverpool and Manchester City's successes. Who are having astonishing seasons? Historic.

Fine when things are going well. No, the same thing is how I think people have read more about the Lakers than they have about the Suns this season. Which is wild. People would rather read about the palace intrigue with the Lakers and whether or not LeBron is turning on Polinka and whether or not he's going to leave or whether or not they're going to have to reimagine this roster one more time around him to make another title push and what his comments at All-Star Week

meant and then you're like oh yeah by the way Miami is having an amazing season you wouldn't know the heat were top in the east you wouldn't know if you just followed it casually and like everyone was oh they can't they can't follow what they did in the bubble and it was oh yeah the heat they're awash they're top in the east yeah there's no concept of that it's wild sorry to jump in no not at all I mean so I wanted to kind of go through some of these ideas that Kirk had no I mentioned the 58 game season Ryan one of the things that you would mention to me was that you had some thoughts on this idea of like an in-season tournament that the NBA could have. And especially if there was going to be a short and regular season, I think that the opportunity would be there to do something that

would mirror like the, what England has in the FA Cup. First, I need to shout out Calabersh, who is a stadial listener from the States, a big soccer fan, big NBA fan, family played in college, what coaches, serious players, all this kind of stuff. I think he's a Trailblazers fan. I don't know. Mike Adolins. He hit us up after FAA Cup weekend a few weeks ago and basically wrote us a really lovely long email saying, you know, I love the magic of the FA Cup.

Why couldn't that happen here? Especially with all the talk around a mid-season tournament being floated about. For those who aren't aware of what the FA Cup is, it's known as the oldest football cup competition in the world. I think it's 150 years old this year. So this is the 150th. season that the FA Cup has been going ahead. And any team can compete down to the 10th tier of English football. I think the record amount of teams that entered any one year, I think was about

10 years ago and it was 763 different teams entered in the tournament. It would essentially be like if March Madness was open to junior colleges, community colleges, any, any athletic department, basically, right? And there are a few preliminary qualifying. rounds for the small clubs and then Premier League clubs enter at the third round proper. So you get this wonderful mixture of semi-professional clubs, you know, guys who have day jobs. This is the men's FA Cup specifically. You also, you know, the women's FA Cup because of the football ban in the UK is still catching up.

But it still has that same magic, even though it's nowhere near as developed. With, with the men's, you get these wonderful. you know, Arsenal a few years ago, we went to play Sutton United, which isn't too far away from where my dad was living at the time, and they played on an AstroTurf, you know, artificial pitch. Now Sutton have made it into the Football League, so they're in the fourth tier of English football,

which is now the fully professional league. They had to get rid of it and get a grass pitch because of the rules. So things like this, you get, you know, there have been clubs that I've played for occasionally whose first teams have been in the FA Cup, you know, that kind of thing. So Calib wrote this really great email saying how it could help

restructure amateur basketball as well in the US where there isn't there doesn't I mean I'm not sure if this is hugely accurate because I don't know but trusting what Calib says he said that there isn't really an infrastructure for really well-organized amateur basketball to the level maybe that there is in soccer in Europe

like for example Musa and I both played for the same teams within the same club in Berlin soccer-wise, we literally trained twice a week. And, you know, we would play in a league in Berlin, and we could play in a proper Berlin Cup. And if we won that Berlin Cup, then we would go into the National Cup, you know, and then eventually, in theory, the team that I think I played for could, in theory,

go and play against Bayern Munich. Right. You know, which is wild, right? Yeah. In Germany, the Cup system is really great, because in the first round, the top Bundesliga teams have to play away. So they have to go to the smaller teams and play in their grounds. So this may be, I think, going back to what we were saying before about the shortening of the season,

the first thing that comes up is gates or money. So there could, in theory, be, you know, those other, what, 24 games could be made up with receipts or money or prize money or TV money from this little mayhem of a tournament that happens in the middle of the season where you could in theory, say, for example, have a super but amateur team from like, I don't know, let's say like the Bronx or somewhere like that, who might end up playing the Lakers, right? But then, but from that point of view as well, it's really great because like we do Wright's house on Ringarresti as well with Ian Wright, who, you know, Arsenal's second highest

goal score of all time. But he didn't turn professional until his early 20s because he was playing Sunday league amateur football and no one, no one picked him up at a professional club. And he made it really late because Crystal Palace. saw him. So it also creates this really interesting possibility of what if there is, what if there are just like hundreds and hundreds of amazing ballers that have slipped through the system who maybe didn't go to college or maybe kind of fell into a different, I don't know, world, a line of work or something, who then turn up and drop like, I don't know, 20 on the wizards.

And you're like, right, what the fuck is this? This is incredible. Yeah. And all of the stories that create, that could, you know, create contracts. It could create. even G-League spots or something like that, have the G-League teams compete, you know. So part of the problem is that the United States, I'm sure I'll be proven wrong, but for the most part, professional basketball is still linked to the NBA.

So like the G-League is made up of teams with associations to NBA teams. There isn't really like a championship or first division of basketball here. I was going to suggest that. I was going to say, when there is a tournament, make it like March Madness,

which I adore, by the way, when I was in the US for a bit of work, few years ago, it's first discovered March Madness. I was on high school exchange actually doing a editor project and it was mind blowing like the March Madness. Have March Madness. But then it's the franchise. It's the entire organization, including G League, right?

And here's the thing. Have a roster. Selection of players from the NBA team and the G League, right? Mm-hmm. A coaching roster, a blended roster of NBA coaches and G-League coaches, right? So their affiliates and they form an organization as a one-off that like every year they bring together brilliant players in the G league and let's see like because imagine like the warriors for example with their G league like imagine how step curry would embrace imagine like him like just

dapping up like some kids you've never seen before right right and feeding them the ball like when they get hot and step just passing up the shots that's like you know drawing three men a triple team and just like kicking it out and someone just like dropping threes everywhere imagine clay and step just like hugging some dude that you've never heard of before it's magical because that exposure right and do it March Madness style, one and done, with the Elam thing. I love this kind of the NBA focus of like certain amount of points, wins or whatever. Yeah, that was another one of Kirk's suggestions is to adopt Elam in it. Do a March, do a March madness, one and done and turn it into like a Rucker Park thing.

So basically, does that make sense? That's what I do is because that sufficiently differentiates the tournament from the NBA. It's showing you players you've never seen before. That profile could maybe win some of those players' contracts within the NBA, or Europe, right? And it's just incredible showcasing. It's so different from the NBA product that no one's ever going to say

it's an NBA title because it's not. But what you're showing is the ability of superstars to play with unknown players and elevate them and them elevate each other. So one of the issues is that I think you guys have mentioned the FAC Cup and you talk about the romance of it, the magic of it.

It's hard to fashion magic and romance and tradition and history out of thin air, right? So I think that when Bill has talked about something like, I think he called it the Commissioner's Cup or something like that, it was a little bit closer to what you guys have in the League Cup, which is mostly what, the first two divisions, or is it Premier League and Championship?

Top four leagues in the League Cup. Top four leagues is the League Cup. So even if you were to do, let's just say we were going to do a tournament that just featured NBA teams. And in the early rounds of the NBA of this in-season tournament, it was probably unlikely that the All-Star level talent would play. It would be like the night, if the Warriors were in an opening round league cup match,

Steph, Clay, and Draymond would probably sit. Maybe Wiggins would play or something like that. But let's just imagine it that way. It's basically like how do you incentivize those guys to want to compete in that kind of competition? And what's the sort of goal? Is it giving, is it a financial reward for the players on the team? Like, is it actually like a purse? Or is it something closer to you get a first round draft pick?

Or you get $10 million in salary cap space? Like, are you incentivized? the individuals or the franchise. I love all the permutations of it. Ryan, what we're going to say? Yeah, I think that's why I would lean more towards,

if you broke it all up and then pull the mixture of players together, then there's no real incentive for the franchises. And there's no real incentive for the leagues. And also then you kind of go into a bit of a trouble where you have like franchise players going and playing for something that isn't strictly like an NBA thing and it gets a little bit murky with like, what if someone does an ACL in there? And it's just like, uh,

okay, shit. So I think you. probably the way that if you were going to do it. And I would again stress that I'm reminded of something that I had a back and forth with some guy on Twitter who, as we know, is a very balanced debating platform. When I wrote a piece about the Super League, the European Super League that failed last year. And there was a line in there because of the lack of promotion and relegation where he basically accused me of calling all US sports invalid.

And I really patiently tried back. and forth to say, no, no, no, no, I just mean, you know, from this structure, it's, it's integral to the competition in the NBA or in closed, league control, necessarily, leagues that are, you know, franchises are assigned and expansions are agreed and stuff like that. It's a different thing. You don't need promotion of relegation. Actually, I think promotion and relegation would, I'd be against that in the NBA, personally.

I wouldn't like to see that. I think that the franchise is in there, especially, It's not perfect. You're never going to get a perfect thing and you're never going to fully eliminate tanking even with lotteries. But I quite like the cyclical nature of teams in the NBA. And it's something that we always say

would be really great in soccer actually, you know, accepting that, you know, your team is going to suck for a few years and then maybe you might get better. Kind of addresses that inequality a little bit because all of the wealth and strength is funneled towards the top, you know,

like historic teams. Musa, if that would change the talent distribution, in soccer and it meant that like Chelsea didn't get to sign every good 17 year old in the Western hemisphere and then then maybe yeah maybe that if Norwich got to draft Pedry like that would be pretty cool right shit to be honest with drafting I'm a bit um I have mixed feelings about drafts like you see the Zion Williams saying Zion Williamson thing and James Harden the reason I've got an issue with drafting I think is when I look how American athletes are treated with trading.

Yeah. And this brutal, the brutal nature of trading. A player can be traded in theory like, you know, half time or during a game. Like, it's so brutal. You're up and you're leaving. And it's almost like, I think there for me are some unfortunate. How do I say this? I know what you mean.

I don't like the idea of a play. I mean, it was at Zach Lowe, did an incredible thing on this. He was talking about Zion. And everyone else talked about Zion and his lack of commitment. And someone said, hang on a minute. You can give the bulk of your NBA career. And these aren't long careers. You're tied to a.

city for maybe five, six years where you don't want to be. That's absolutely wild, actually. That, that's awful. I think that's awful. I think that's awful. I think that's awful. I think let's let's listen to me. I think, you know, draft someone for like a certain period of time, but make that period shorter where you've got to be there for. If it's two years or something, which is perfectly normal, two years doesn't affect your development. If you go to a club and the club isn't particularly good and you spend two seasons there, you can put yourself in the shop window and after two days decide, I'll move on. It's a bit like being a trainee at a law firm, right? You train at a law firm for two years, you develop and you can move after two years.

It doesn't work out. The thought of keeping people locked into contracts for several years, and some might say, oh, they're multi-millionaires, what do they care about? Well, you have responsibility to entertain and to be the franchise face for five, six years. And if you're miserable there, I'm not sure why you should remain there. So I like the idea of a draft in terms of redistributing talent. And just to say, respect to Chelsea because their academy system is so good that they're making everyone else look bad. and they're making it look as if they're hoarding talent

or in fact what they're doing is creating talent or developing talent. So I think I'm for a draft, but I think the restrictions on the players should be reduced once the draft happens if that makes sense. I definitely agree with you and I think that the one plus point of the say the transfer system

if you like or the player market in European soccer is that no move would happen really without the player wanting to move. So clubs usually reach out through or yeah, through intermediaries, before that and kind of get a sense of whether the player would want to move roughly how much they'd want in terms of salary because the

contracts aren't transferred like they are in the NBA. So I think you're totally right, Mooseon. Like, for example, no one really in a club would be sold after a game and they would never move unless they absolutely wanted to. The player has the right to refuse personal terms with the club that is trying to sign them. you know, which is, so maybe something like that in the NBA would be quite good, you know, instead of being like, right, you're going to the Pelicans. Well, I dare say that we're kind of there, at least with the upper echelon of talent in the NBA.

So this is the last thing I wanted to talk to you guys about was the, you know, we just got through this Simmons and Hardin saga in the NBA. And there's already noises being made about Zion. There's already discussion happening about what will happen with Damien Lillard and Bradley Beal in the summer. As soon as one sort of protractable. will he or won't he story comes to an end

another one starts almost immediately I'm very familiar with this because I follow European football and that's the same that's the same sort of scenario where we've been talking about what will happen with Paul Pagba for longer than maybe

like what for three years now I think we've been talking about what Paul Pagba's going to do and whether he's going to stay at Manchester United or whether he's going to go to PSG or whether he's going to go to Real Madrid there was these sort of massive tectonic shift happened with Messi leaving Barcelona to go to PSG, now Kiliin Mbapé is on sort of on the clock in terms of whether he's going to stay at PSG or leave. In the NBA, it's the lifeblood of what we do is to talk about roster construction

and talk about player transactions. But Musa, do you think that when you look at the way football is covered and also the way teams are built, like do you feel like those kinds of, that kind of player movement is subsuming the game itself. Ultimately, I mean, maybe in my idealist, I'm an idealist here. I think that ultimately the spectacle is everything, right? Like, there's a lot of talk. I mean, there's so much talk about Kendrick's new record. We have an artist in the UK, Jay Huss. Evahs went on Twitter and was tweeting like, frankly, gibberish for days. And everyone was like worried about him. Then he dropped one of the greatest albums of recent times, big conspiracy and everyone shut up. The same with Kendrick. There's so much noise around

Kendrick and there's so much noise about Kanye and Drake but if Kendrick drops an album it changes the entire conversation so deep down people all this conversation is just it's just distraction and waiting for the main event I think the problem in basketball is like I worry that the conversation is detrimental to the players themselves that's my one concern not everyone's a kevin durant not everyone can be on Twitter and i'm not sure how you deal with this they don't be wrong I'm not sure how you actually address this but not everyone can be like kevin durant on be on Twitter and like clap back at someone with 20 followers and then go on court two hours later and drop 50.

Not everyone's built like that. Right. So I'm a bit concerned about the impact that all that exposure, 24-hour news cycle is having on athletes themselves. But that's as far as I could say. That makes a lot of sense. Do you think that it's having an impact on the Paul Pogos of the world? I don't know.

Well, it's always hard to tell because players front up. Players front up, but then you see some players that have like taken away their Instagram accounts for years. players quietly deleting their social media because they can't read it before games and you hear other stories anecdotally about players just like being obsessed with checking their phones straight after matches and it affects them

and because footballers and athletes in general are basically like it's all about provado you weren't how much of stuff affects people but it really doesn't also affects people around them so I look at Manchester United for example and Marcus Rashford and the challenges he's had I'm not blaming Marcus Ratchez's activism

for the challenges he's had I think he's had, you know, injury, surgery. I don't think the constant, like, the scrutiny is helping, the 24-hour news cycle. I don't think that helps. And that would be the case whether or not he was doing media or not. I just think that that 24-hour focus, Ryan, I don't know how you feel like this, but that doesn't end anywhere good, I didn't think. No, I totally agree.

It's almost like an ecosystem within its own ecosystem. It's something that you see it all the time in football. There are many, many journalists that are football journalists who only really, operate for the transfer windows and transfer speculation. So, you know, January when there's a month-long window where it reopens in the mid-season, that's kind of a prime time of year for them and then again in the summer. But it is, you know, like the famous, it's a 365 day-long sport, you know, and it's the same with soccer.

But I'm not sure how accurate it would be, but kind of looping back to some of the stuff that we've been talking about. that my general takeaway from this and this kind of goes on from what you were saying Chris about trade speculation. I wonder whether actually reducing the length of the season in combination with like none of these one thing like single things I think is going to like for quote unquote fix the NBA. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure if the actual game itself needs fixing. I've quite liked the NBA. I like that I like the NBA a lot. I like that you can I like that I like that you can spot up in the corner and you've got a couple of less feet to shoot and you get three three points like I like that um I think with with reducing the schedule maybe I think it'd be

really interesting to see what actual players thought about it because I know that there have been changes in what happens with press going into the locker rooms and stuff like that after games but you'd have you'd be in front of the camera less as a player you'd have more time actually just in the gym and practice with your families too more time with your families yeah and you would actually have less like for example you know look at the kairie situation at the moment as a prime example. There would be less, or there would be fewer, sorry, instances, and I'm not necessarily going about for Kyrie here because I know that, you know, all of that kind of stuff about

vaccines and stuff is dodgy territory. But for example, there would be less opportunity, there would be fewer opportunities to talk about that because there would be fewer opportunities that Kyrie wasn't out on the court at the Barclay Center. Yeah, right. Also, I mean, like bad seasons wouldn't go on as long. So if you were a player and you were Damian Lillard and you're disappointed with the laser season. Guess what? It's going to be over 25

games earlier. Yeah, you don't have to be hauled around to like Memphis when you don't one on a Tuesday. Well, we can wrap it up here. I just wanted to ask you guys, I want to have you on like maybe during the playoffs and stuff, but from your perspective in Germany, like what's been your favorite part of this NBA season? Musa, we could start with you. I just was curious

what you've been really enjoying since rather than talking about how to tinker with it. I'm going to be really, really lazy and I love Steph Curry's arrogance. I love it. I just love the kind of the fact that he's just bust out the gate. People like, oh, this man,

like maybe he's past the peak or whatever and, you know, had the shooting slump. And just is, he's such a great face of the league, I think. You know, there are several faces of the league, but he's just so, we're so fortunate, actually,

I've got to say that in a season where, you know, some of the stars have not really shown out, fronted up. Or, you know, I'm not going to go against the player for being unhappy with his franchise. That's something which is between him the franchise. But Steph Curry is in terms of the vibe, right? Like the way, and I mentioned him before in relation to the Warriors, like the inclusivity

he brings the game. Like, you just feel like as close, as much as a superstar he is, you still feel like he gets it. Yeah. And it feels really important to have people that look at least like they get it. And also like, shout out to Luca Donchich. She was just like lighting up everything. Yeah.

So yeah. It's been a really, what I've loved. My boy. And also, to be honest, can I say just before I go, I love the Mavs trade. Dinwiddie I love it I love it because that was always the imagine listen Sorry to get

That was always an imaginary What Paul Zingers could bring Was always like it was always a fantasy right Yeah it was all potential Dinwiddie gets the confidence back The Mavs are going to be something man I'm excited Dinwiddie shout from Mooser

Ryan listen Hey go man Sorry the tape police You can hear him in the background I mean I've really enjoyed watching Joel NB this season I just think he's so I don't know because there were those first a first few years when he was at Philly

and I think I don't know if you felt the same as an diehard six or Chris but with that run of draft draft picks that they had and none of them seemed to really work and you're a bit like is this going to be another guy who's going to basically just break his body by the time

he's however however all because he broke his body pretty quickly after being drafted right he was done well he came in and he had back problems he had foot problems that's it yeah yeah so seeing him fully i don't know flourish i suppose is is is the word has been amazing and also just just really like take charge with the whole simmons thing you know i just think it was yeah i think he's been so good to watch i mean he's he's bullied the paces this season which

hasn't been great but you know like a lot of the times in both sports you hear uh people say like oh well this person is in their prime you know like they're they're hitting they're in their prime And I think that that's like a pretty abstract idea, except when you watch Embed. Because you're watching somebody who is actually like in total control of their body, but also in total control of the game. Like I think his IQ and his, his like understanding of how to martial forces, how to make passes, how to play off of double teams, how to draw attention, how to expose mismatches and stuff like that, has just been fascinating to watch because he's had to do a lot of it himself the season.

He doesn't have Ben. He doesn't have, you know, Tobias is pretty good. Tobias Harris is pretty good, but he's not necessarily like a guaranteed 25 a night guy. So it's really falling to him beat. His careers have three acts, hasn't it, actually? Yeah. He's in the third act. He had the first injury ridden, the second way cutting on either way, which he might characterize.

All potential. Yeah. All potential. Then also, you know, the rapt is just getting ahead of them. And that could have, people forget that could have been the Sixers year. It could have been. And then now this third act where, you know, the Simmons thing has fallen apart. and people are laughing at the process.

And he's like, actually no. Turns out I was the process all along. The process was actually trusting the process is actually trusting me to be the fake. Does that make sense? It's almost like that's his whole identity. He was just like turns out that I was the process. He was the process. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, man. Yeah. I've also just really enjoyed watching Chris Paul. And I've never been the hugest Chris Paul fan, even though obviously he is one of the all-time great point cards. But I don't know why. There's something about Chris Paul that I just never. It's going to be fascinating to watch the sons without him for the next couple weeks.

Yeah. Yeah. definitely that sucks but as a paces fan obviously the halibos can i say this can i sorry to be rude about this ryan just i want to pick out something there in a very of stodier fashion i think that to be a sports fan you need to have at least one huge player that you should love but absolutely can't or don't that's the the essence of being a sports fan is you've got to have i think everyone's got a chris pull right like you know to me unfortunately mine is james hardin yeah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha is your problem now chris um but yeah no i think

i think i like i really love chris paul now It was like those, I don't know, I think those clippers years for some reason, I just found them a little bit like, everyone's talking, everyone's talking about the clippers. And every time I see them, I'm like, really, really? I can't let you go, you guys go without asking you this. Has there ever been a football player who's played for your club and you've just been like, I can't believe I have to cheer for this guy now? As a Manchester United fan, as a Manchester United fan, I'm trying to avoid lawsuits.

Put it this way. right the great Dennis Perkamp one of the all-time great Dutch footballers one of the all-time Arsenal greats when Arsenal moves to the Emirates stadium he had essentially like a farewell game was the first game in the stadium it was

Arsenal Legends against Iax Legends Croif played all of these people played he retired before the season started Arsenal signed William Gallas in part of the Ashley Cole deal from Chelsea William Gallis who was a centreback and deeply unpopular because he just played for rivals Chelsea who were flush with the

Abramovich money and had won the league, decides to take it upon himself to be the very first person to take the number 10th of Dennis Berkamp and honestly, it's one of the all-time football crimes. Like, yeah, honestly. I mean, that's, that tops it there for me. Yeah, that's the worst.

That's amazing. It's one of the worst days in my football fandom line. And then you were like, I guess I have to cheer for this guy three years. Put it this way. And then he gets a pointed captain. You can listen to Moose and Ryan on Mondays and Thursdays on the Stadio podcast and you can often hear

them on Ian Wright Show Ready's house which comes out on Wednesdays it's all in the ringer FC feed guys thanks so much for joining me talking a little hoops today that's a pleasure thanks man thanks for homeless