The Ringer NBA Show - The Celtics Sale, a Cavs Vibe Check, and March Basketball | Real Ones

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

Logan and Howard bring the Friday vibes, starting with Bill Chisholm buying the Boston Celtics. They discuss Howard’s piece about the sale and what are the best- and worst-case scenarios for the Celtics moving forward (2:00). Then they discuss the Cavs' struggles on this West Coast trip and whether it means anything or not (25:25). Lastly, they discuss March basketball and the amount of guys sitting out to either tank or rest up for the playoffs (36:15) before talking about their Real Ones of the Week (44:44). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hit the mailbag! [e-mail] Hosts: Logan Murdock and Howard Beck Producers: Isaiah Blakely and Victoria Valencia Additional Production Supervision: Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's popping? Real Ones, Friday vibes. Logan Murdoch here. Howard Beck there. Isaiah on the boards. Victoria on the video. No Roger today. How do you feel about that? I mean, he had such the crazy performance last episode, Howard. And was it fine worthy? You think that like this is just like a, you know, how are we supposed to think about this absence from Roger? Should we look into it? I mean, it's late March. Everyone's load managing. I was a vet. He's no different. You know,

I think he earned it. He brought it on Tuesday. He earned, he earned it. He earned the three day weekend. It's fine. It was, the performance from Rajah on Tuesday was like,

was like a soft March 40, right? Throw out eight assists. Got five boards, but got like those five turnovers that you're like, damn, I would, like, we still won by 20,

duh, but like, he's going to look at those five turnovers. Like, damn it. No, he won't. He won't care. It'll be like,

it's fine. fine. It's fine. I put up the points. I did what I needed to do. Did we win the damn game? Did we win the damn game? Okay, shut up. Okay. All right. You know who won at life, the Grosspex. Wick and his father, shout out to the Grosspex. They might be ruin of the week potential right now because they just sold the Boston Celtics for a reported $6.1 billion, but I feel like I've seen some people say that the deal by the time it's over, it could reach 7.3.

Others have said it could reach $6.7 billion. And he sold the team to Bill Chisholm. There's not a lot like known about him other than he's from Massachusetts and he grew up a big Celtics fan. I'm sure we'll get the big profile in the coming months about him. Let's get into this, though, this sale. There was a really, if you guys want like the expert analysis of this, there's a really good conversation on Bill's Pod

with Chris Mannix about just the ins and outs. But we're going to do the best that we can here. Howard did a really good piece and the ringer on the sale and just what it means for new ownership and basically giving advice to the new owner in a roundabout way and telling him the pros and cons

of what new ownership in the NBA is like. First off, let's go to your article first, which is entitled, don't light the cigar on the Celtic sales. just yet. We could get into that article, but I guess to start off this segment, what is the best case scenario

and the worst case scenario, do you think for this new ownership group, owning the boss of Celtics, earmuffs Isaiah, it's going to be okay, but just, you know, just doing a thought exercise here. First of all, just think about what's happening right now with this sale at all.

I have not looked this up, but I'm pretty confident in saying I don't think there's been the sale of a defending champion in the 28 years that I've been covering this league. Like teams don't get sold that often in the first place. But like great teams, like teams that are at their peak, I don't think get sold that often. And it has nothing to do with winning and losing, right?

Like franchises get, you know, the ownership turns over when owners are ready to move on for whatever reason. But this is a really unique situation. The Celtics are defending champions. They're selling right now. They are not only defending champions, they have the core of a team that should be contending for several years to come, except that the current CBA makes it really, really, really, really hard to keep together a team with a ton of great talent because talent costs money. And now you start triggering aprons and all this stuff. You start having to pay massive luxury taxes.

You start losing the ability to do sign-in trades and acquire guys and all kinds of stuff. So even if the Grossbex had retained their ownership of the Celtics moving forward, they were going to have a lot of strains based on the fact that they, you know, to their credit, put together a really talented, Brad Stevens and his front office put together a really talented roster. It's hard to keep that together, no matter who you are. All right. So now let's move to the Bill Chisholm piece of this. New owner comes in, gets to inherit the defending champions and all their amazing talent

Tatum and Brown on Derek White, Drew Holiday, all these guys. Now Bill Chisholm and his group have to figure out how much can we pay these guys in for how long and how much will it hamper us in the future if we're now in the repeater tax. And if we're now over the second apron and we're now we're losing future draft picks and we're now unable to make trades. Like, it's really hard. And the really hard part of this was going to apply no matter who owned them. But I do think to the extent that this is a new owner coming in with zero track record

in the league. zero track record in the public spotlight, really. Like, nobody knew this guy's name until 24 hours ago. And now it's, congrats, assuming he gets the approval from the board of governors, which maybe months away. Congrats. You now own the defending champs. You now own one of the crown jewels of the NBA.

You now own one of the most historic franchises in professional sports. Good luck with this payroll that, according to Bobby Marks from ESPN, is going to cost 450 to maybe 500 million next season based on pay. payroll and luxury taxes and we'll have all these other things triggered too. So that part of it, Logan, is just really difficult no matter who owns it, but especially with a new owner and all the expectations of, hey, guy, we're on the verge of a potential dynasty here, or certainly we'd like to think so. Keep cutting the checks. I mean, this is the modern NBA, right? And the other part, the one part that I do want to note from this sale, and the reason why the defending champions are

up for sale is because Whit Grossbeck's father, Irv, is getting a little long in the tooth, 90 years old, trying to get his affairs in order, and wants his will or whatever you want to call it to be liquidated and have his cash flow popping. And now, so it was timing on that. It was a great set of circumstances that made this actually happen. And that tends that that can occasionally happen at points in times. But that's the reason why a defending champion seemingly at the peak of their value at this point. I mean, all these values go higher and higher every year.

But that's the big reason, you know, why this is happening. So a point of, and I want to get your opinion on this, we talked about Mark Cuban. We've talked about Mark Cuban a lot post-Mavsale. and seems like Wick has gotten a similar deal, although he has his in writing, that he will be a team governor for the next three years and still have some saying, you know, basketball decision making.

That sounds good right now when you sign the paperwork, but do you believe that this is going to be a new, fruitful situation for Wick, or is this going to be Mark Hughes? Cuban 2, 3, 4.0 at this point. What do you think on that? So the distinction here is that Cuban sold, you know, controlling interest and told everybody, I'm still going to run basketball operations. But as far as I can tell and as far as anybody in the league knows that I've spoken to, there was never anything in writing that made this an

official part of the transaction. In this case, the statement that was, I think it was kind of a joint statement, right, by Bill Chisholm and Whit Grossbeck yesterday. It's clear from both parties that this is their intent. So they're already one step ahead of the game compared to where the Mark Cuban situation was with the Adelson family. So let's take it as a given, Logan, for discussion purposes, that this is ironclad. It's in the deal. Grossbeck will own less than 50%, but he'll still be the governor and CEO. He'll be running the show for the next three seasons through 27, 28.

and then he'll sell the balance and that's when Chisholm will take over. Let's assume that that is official ironclad in the contract. It's going to happen this way. It's still awkward as hell. You just set the record. Bill Chisholm and his group are setting the record for the highest price ever for any franchise and any professional sport in North America. As you noted, 6.1 billion, but it's really, and I got this myself.

yesterday, too. It's been reported a couple places, but I confirm this with a couple different sources in the NBA. It's probably closer to $7.3 billion because what's going to happen is the first payment or the first, you know, conveyance here of the 51% is at the $6.1 billion valuation, but there's an expectation that the value of the team will continue to increase over the next few years. And therefore, the balance payment at that time will have increased as well. And so the expectation is this is going to actually reach, yeah, over $7 billion, like $7.3 billion. If you have paid that amount, are you really going to seat all control for three seasons? Are you really going to be patient with that?

No. It's sticky. It's awkward. I'm not saying that this won't work, but I do think it's inherently fraught. I also think, let's go half glass full for a minute here. The optimist view would be Chisholm realizes on day one. And this would be, this would be really refreshing, by the way, because no owners ever realize this on day one. If you realize on day one that you don't actually know how the NBA works and you need to come in with some humility about it and defer to the people who know it best, in this case, not only with Grossbeck, but Brad Stevens and his front office, Mike Zarin, like, defer to the people who are the real experts.

There are too many owners who come in, who think they know it all, who are captains of industry in other industries in private equity or real estate or banking. and they come in and they think, I'll just run this the way I run my other businesses. Nope. Wrong answer. MBA's different. That's the reason why you're on blue sky, huh? To avoid the billionaires.

They don't want me around. But there's a humility that's necessary. And if Bill Chisholm is coming into this truly with not just the deal in place where I'm not going to be governor, but also the recognition that there's a reason that actually makes sense, not just. because Grossbeck's not ready to give up control. And this is the arrangement that they, that they made. But if it's also because Chisholm realizes on day one, I might actually have a learning curve here. Like there's a, there's a, there's a great outcome possible here where he just immerses himself,

stays in the background, listens more than speaks, and learns from from Grossbeck, learns from Brad Stevens, learns from Mike Zeran. And in three years, he's more ready to take the training wheels off as owner and actually be the day-to-day decision maker. Most owners, most owners, none of them actually do it that way they come in and yeah i mean some may lay back a little bit but usually they come in guns blazing we saw you know mad ishbia we've now seen with patrick dumont and the addlesons in in dallas um we've seen various versions of this over time hell we saw it with mark cuban when he first bought the mavericks 25 years ago uh there's not a lot of humility baked in usually so if this arrangement where he doesn't is not the governor on day one if that allows

him to, you know, immerse himself and learn the ropes and understand the NBA first, like then there's a really great outcome here potentially for the Celtics going forward. I think, I think a couple things, right? One of the things that's easy is he has like a ready-made contender already and he has the people in place to keep it going, right? Like, you have Brad Stevens as the head in your front office. You have Joe Missoula who has been a great coach. You already, you have the tandem of Tatum and Brown.

and you already have that baked in. I think the hardest part really is just going to be how you build a team around Tatum and Brown. Like that's really just going to be based on what we just talked about with the luxury tax. It's a pretty easy job if you don't have your ego involved, right? And, I mean, I think the best case scenario, I mean, I think honestly this is the best case scenario. If you're going to spend this much money on a team, you have it ready made. I think the other team that came to mind that did this right in the ownership that came to rhyme was the Golden State Warriors when Joe Lakers and Peter Hoover bought the team. And it was a little different because the team wasn't a champion and coming off of that.

But what they did was they put basketball people in position to make basketball moves, right? Like you had, they got Jerry West as an advisor. They did take a chance on Bob Myers as an assistant GM, but they up until around now, like, have been listening to the basketball people. And I think if Chisholm just continues to listen to the basketball people, he'll be fine to sit front row. Let the machine keep on going. Like there's nothing really that you have to change right here unless you have to,

unless you have an ego in it. You know, but right now, y'all can win another title and continue to win another title. Y'all might make a three-pee. We'll see what happens. But this is a, this seems like an easy. this seems like easier than most potential owners going into a situation like this. I think you're right, Logan, on some level, right? Like you inherit a winner.

You don't have the pressure. Like Ishbio, the second he takes over the suns is like, I've got Booker, but, you know, we need to do something else. Chris Paul's getting old. I need to make a splash. Let's trade everything we've got to get Kevin Durant, you know, before the ink's even dry on the contract to buy the team, right? So desperation with a team that's not a contender can lead to some really bad outcomes,

which is what we've seen in Phoenix, right? Just desperation plays over-eager, over-aggressive, and Chisholm won't have that in Boston, because as you note, he gets to take over a winner. But there's a different pressure that comes with that because now it's don't fuck it up. You know, like do what you've got to do to keep this team together. And oh, by the way, if the system that the NBA has created is making it impossible to keep Brown and Tatum and Drew and White and Porzingis and Peyton Pritchard or whoever, then, you know, find a way to empower your front office to replace those guys at a, you know, similar talent, but cheaper and younger, whatever it may be. Just don't screw it up. But as I said before, like part of this, like the baked in challenge for, for the Celtics, no matter who owns it is the system is what it is now. It's really hard to keep a team together.

And if a team is that talented, then it's going to be that expensive. And it's that expensive. Now you're crossing second apron and you're getting into all these other difficulties. So on the one hand, it's an easy one to be a new owner of the Celtics. On the other hand, like there is no greater pressure unless you're the new owner of like if the Lakers were sold tomorrow. Same kind of thing. It's like even though the Lakers aren't, you know, defending champs right now and we can argue about whether or not they're contenders right now.

Those are the two franchises where the fan base expects nothing but championships and nothing, nothing below that is even satisfactory. You brought up the Lakers. I'm sure they're really, really excited with this news right now. And including every other team that like, it's crazy to think, what was it? not even what a little over 10 years ago that bomber bought into the NBA for two billion and now we're and we were like damn that's a lot of money and people thought it was an overpay Logan people thought that was an overpay now like oh it was a little bit of a bargain right like even about about the warriors in 2010 they bought that for like 450 million and you know and

that was a lot of money right we missed our window man we missed our window to buy a team when it was only in the hundreds of millions we could have pulled it up now that it's over you know, two, three, five, six billion. I think, I think we're shut out, Logan. I didn't have a lot of money then. You did, you do. I could have got a little percentage. You know what I'm saying?

You know, me, you and Roger would have got it. He would have had control and stake. Now look at this. What does this mean for expansion, Howard Beck? The league is thrilled. So let's just, let's be really clear. The fact that the Celtics are going for somewhere between 6.1 and 7.3 billion. And without control of their arena, by the way, there's no.

Or like, or there's no attachment. Like we're talking about Ishpia, like there was a, there's an arena, there is a practice facility that they were just building. And also a W team. There's none of that in Boston. Yeah. Now, they could try to go get an arena. Obviously, the arena in Boston is owned by the Bruins, the owners of the Boston Bruins. So the Celtics in theory, like you spend six, six Billy, seven Billy on a team, you might want to get your own arena at some point.

Yeah. that might be the next thing. Lakers same situation, right? Don't own their arena. They're their renters. But if you're Jeannie Bus and her siblings and you're looking at the Celtics, the other marquee franchise of the league selling for $6 billion, $7 billion, whatever it ultimately ends up being, you're thinking, well, and they didn't have the arena. The Lakers don't either, but you can now bank on the idea that our franchise is worth at least that much as well. I would say like 10. I mean, we're, dude, we're going to be there.

Like 10, 10 billions on the horizon that's in play. That might be the next sale, right? Like, that might, whenever, I don't know. It'll be one of the bigger markets. The one thing that was interesting that somebody pointed out to me yesterday was if you look at all the recent sales, the really high prices are still in the bigger markets. The smaller market teams, the valuations are not in the five, six, seven billion range. They're more like, you know, the one and a half, two billion range. So there is a little bit of a difference there.

But if they are going to just keep going up here, not so far in the distant future, someone's going for $10 billion. And like the Lakers and Knicks are the two that you look at immediately. Like if those two franchises, either of them ever sells, given the size of their markets and the historic nature of those teams. And in the gardens case, of course, they do own their arena as well as the local sports network, the MSG network. So that one's going to go for even higher anyway. but the league is thrilled because don't the Lakers do, I don't know what they're, don't they own their rights, their TV,

they have like a great, maybe they just have a great deal, but they don't own the network though. Yeah, they don't own the network. The Garden actually owns their network. But the league is thrilled because for expansion purposes and everybody should go back and look last month we had expansion week at the Ringer

and we've got all kinds of stories about the possibilities of expansion. I don't think that that's imminent, Logan, but one of the things that was slowing up any expansion discussions at the league level and any formal, because they haven't even formally started expansion. Like expansion is literally not in progress, despite how often we've all talked about it. But they needed to have the Celtics sell first because they were really hoping to get something in this range, $6 billion plus. That now sets the bar.

So if the league is expanding in the next three, four, five years, you know the asking price now. It's minimum $6 billion for Vegas or C.L or whoever. So that's the price now. We know what the asking price is, minimum $6 billion for those two new franchises. So the league is thrilled at this outcome. And for expansion purposes, yes, this now makes it that much more attractive for the league on a financial level. Yeah, it's fascinating. There's a lot of questions that I can ask, but we just don't have them yet, right?

Like how is this guy just going to be like how the previous ownership group goes and say, fuck it, we're just going to pay all the luxury taxes. We want to win. Like, we want to win in this window now, or is it going to be a strip down? Like, I don't, we don't have answers to those questions, like, of how this guy. We don't even know this guy. No. And it's really interesting, too, Logan, because you think about it. You mentioned the Warriors, which I think was a really smart point about how Lacob and Goeber approached this, that they did approach. I don't know if the humility is still there for championships later. I don't, I mean, I'm going to say this. I don't think it was ever there necessarily, but I do think that back then.

there was at least an acknowledgement of like we don't know what we're doing necessary we're new we need to figure this out uh but yeah i mean lacob is is is the guy who coined the light years a head phrase that they have been paying for and mocked for ever since but shit man they won four championships you can say whatever the hell you wanted a certain point um he don't think i think he only won one championship at the time he said that but anyway um yeah you you you should have some humility about the league when you first come in but it doesn't always work that way and i think what's interesting is like, I can make the case, Logan, that the best thing an owner can do is listen to your basketball experts, defer to them, cut the checks and get out of the way. On the other hand,

the counterpoint to that would be Patrick Dumont, the Dallas Mavericks CEO or governor, because don't just get out of the way if your GM comes to you and says, hey, I think I want to trade one of the three best players on the planet for a guy who's six years older, injured all the time. Say less. Yeah. Cool. So, yeah. So on the one hand, I would argue that owners should not meddle in basketball affairs that they don't have very little about. They should not trample their front office. They should defer to their experts. But if your expert comes to you and wants to do something absolutely bad shit crazy, that's what you probably as the owner should say, eh, no, I'm in charge here.

Let's not go there. But Howard, I got some counterpoints that I would know. Like, I do believe that everything that Chisibis said, he's doing this because he loves his team, right? Like, he definitely, like. Everybody does. They all say. No, no, no, no, no, but the Aedelson family at Patrick Dumont literally did it from the very beginning to be a land buy. Like, this was not about, this was not about like building a team or anything.

No, it was like trying to build a casino in Dallas. And with no NBA history, right? Like, Chisholm, at least the way he's portrayed himself as I grew up, you know, outside of Boston. I'm a Celtics diehard from childhood, blah, blah, blah. And yeah, you're right. You're very right to make that point. You listen to Johnny Most, all the Celtics propaganda. all of that, but like you didn't have that necessarily in Dallas, right? It was a,

it was a complete land buy. So I do think there, like, that's why I was hesitant to compare the two sales, right? Like, in theory, it could have, but I don't want to compare the sales or the Mavs to this one just for that reason. It's more just the fact that you don't know what an owner's going to do until they start actually having to make decisions, right? Like, what their personality and their approach and their philosophy is going to be. The Adelson's could have come in without any MBA experience, as they don't have, and purely for casino purposes and land purposes and while,

and they still could have ended up being good owners. It's possible. They haven't, but they could have. I just, I could not imagine just being like known for one thing and that one thing being like forever, known for one thing forever.

And I got a long life to list that might happen. But like, no matter what you do, you are known as the people that trade away Luca Dachians, right? Like, no matter what happens. Woof. Woof. Always goes back to the disappointment of Dallas.

But let's table this discussion for now. I'm sure we'll be talking about this in the coming months. But Boston Celtics, new ownership group. Let's take a quick break and do a vibes check for the Cleveland Cavaliers. This season, Vandal has given you the power to take control of your bets, Introducing the bet back token. The ultimate game changer that lets you bail on any bet that's not going your way by turning to bonus bets. It's simple.

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they're having a shitty West Coast stand. I just know that they lost to the Kings last night. And whenever you're losing to the Kings, that is not a recipe for success. They are now 56 and 13. They have lost to the Clippers, Kings, and Magic in consecutive games. And they have the Phoenix. sons tonight. If they lose it a Phoenix Suns, you know, this is also coming on the hills of them, you know, winning 16 straight. But I think that

this goes back to our conversation. I believe it was with you or Raja or both. Talking about peaking too early or peaking at the right time. For you when you see this, is this a curious case of

the march? Marches? Or is this just like we should be concerned about this team right now and where they're headed. Donald Mitchell said that he's crazy and that this kind of puts a smile on his face because they face adversity. And I'm like, okay.

But how do you feel when you see what's going on with this team right now? You'll be shocked to hear this, but I have a personal experience reference point that involves the Los Angeles Lakers. What? Did you cover the Los Angeles Lakers once upon a time or something? It was really funny.

there was when I was first covering the Lakers and the guys who covered them in the 80s would occasionally come through and they were no longer the beatwriters now they were like columnists or feature writers and they would start rhapsodizing about the showtime days and I'd be like, ah, here we go, another showtime story and here I am all these years later. I'm the stupid old guy rambling on about back in the day.

Yeah, that's like a Marcus Thompson just waxes poetic on we believe. There's nothing else before that, but like it's like, yeah, me, you know, you know, we never know about we believe me. You know, we never know about we believe me. You know, we're outside. That's your Marcus Thompson.

impression. Yeah. That's a spot on Marcus Thompson impression too, by the way. We're ready to bring on Marcus for a rebuttal. That was... William she, me.

Oh, my God. Really stoked me, ma'am. I'll be half of the real ones, Marcus. I apologize for my partner. Lim. All right. Then, no. Okay.

No, so. The Lakers in 99, 2000, first year under Phil Jackson, they won 67 games. Guess how many double-digit winning streaks they had, Logan? Three. Wait, wait, wait.

Well, you didn't let me do it. What was the question? Because I didn't fully get it. I know it was three, but what was the question? Just how many double-digit winning streaks they had? Which year was this? 992,000. Okay, let me guess.

They had, let me see. They had 18-1. Once that, that was the record. it was a record for them, I think, at the time. Or it was like the second best to 33. Then I think they had two 16 ones. I think one of them actually ended at 10. I think one of them, like they just got there.

I'll look at up while we're talking. But the thing I remember about that season, other than like how incredible it was that they could put together multiple double-digit win streaks in the same season. So they had, like I say, they had three. So it goes 16 early in the season. season that stretched into January and then a 19 that's the one you were talking about that ended in mid-March and then they had an 11 game I was off by one that ended in early April that

they lose to the did they lose to the Wizards after that 19 one does that did they lose that was that the one where they ended yeah good call you see me look at that uh lost the wizard's 109 102 on March 16th 2000 and then immediately 1 11 after that so they ended up uh good going like 30 out of 31. Like that, that shit's just crazy. And one of the things I remember about it, and the reason I bring it up,

other than to just be an old man rhapsodizing about the good old days, is that there's a certain, like, monotony to it at a certain point for the, for the players, for the fans, for everybody. Like, it's awesome winning that much. Like, there's no downside to winning. But it takes a lot out of you, for one.

and then the streak, and remember when the heat had that huge streak during the LeBron and Wade era, it was the same kind of thing where it's like there's a certain pressure now. Now you feel like you've got to keep extending it. So instead of the natural letdowns you sometimes have in the course of a season where you win five, you lose two, you win seven, you lose one. Instead, you're kind of like putting everything in every night. The other thing that I always remember is that Phil Jackson was always thrilled when the Lakers lost because it was like, these guys think they know everything now.

They're not listening to anything anymore. I need them to lose so I can like say, see, dumbasses, you don't know everything. We're going to work on this today. Hey, good question. What's your Phil Jackson impression? Not as brutal as your Marcus Thompson, the third impression. I was accurate, though. Phil is just the gravelly thing.

When we were doing Phil Jackson impressions and by we, I mean, like, every single one of us who covered the Lakers, we'd be sitting there in the press room just like doing the all right guys what you got why am i talking to you again what what can you guys possibly ask me now that you didn't already ask me three times in the last 24 hours because phil would get annoyed when it was like especially like playoffs it's like we talk pregame we talk post game and there's a practice the next day nothing has changed and um what phil do like the what phil do the whistle to get you guys to come over that that whistle's incredible i never could do that That always pissed me off.

People who could do the two pinky thing under the tongue or whatever. No, he did not whistle at us. That was usually just for the players. Phil had a hat that he busted out one of those years. It just said, I think it was like a brand of some sort. But it just was a baseball cap that said blah, blah, blah on it, which was perfect because that was like his not so subtle message toward us, I think, when we're gathering around post practice and it is just a blah, blah, blah session.

Like, here we go. We're going to just like throw all these mundane questions. at you again. Oh, whatever, Phil. Because Phil used y'all so much. He used the media so much to his advantage and didn't want to say, oh, I got to talk to y'all, even though he was going to use y'all to fucking shit on a player on his roster to get him to motivate him. We know the vibes, Phil. Phil was good at all that, but also, like, he was really great with the media. Like, for whatever anybody might say about him, like, and, yeah, some of that manipulation and the message sending, like, all that's in there. It's all baked in. And there were times where it's also a little bit of,

like Phil doing the passive aggressive like, oh, what do I have to talk to you guys? But he enjoyed it. Like he, he absolutely had fun with it. And he gave us plenty of great material over the five years I covered him.

So, um, you heard that Steve? You heard that Steve? You heard that Steve? You got a lot to live up to my doubt. What's the name to? You heard that? I'm,

I'm shooting. I'm, bow, bow, bow, bow, whoever wanted. He was only one of the best interviews in the NBA. Um,

um, you're out of pocket, Logan. No, but like when a team wins too much, if there's such a thing, you can lose track of the fundamental. Sometimes when you're just, if you're just more talented, everybody, and certainly like Shaq and Kobe, that was a thing, right? They were just so much more talented than everybody else that they could give a B effort and still beat a lot of teams.

The Cavs are at that level, but they're really, really good. And I think they're probably, you know, if we gave Kenny Atkinson truth serum. I wonder if Kenny would tell us like, yeah, good to lose a few so that I can, you know, work on some of the fundamentals that maybe had slipped along the way that we were getting away with. And like, that's a real thing. It happens. And my guess is this is not some, you know, moment to panic for the calves. This is just the, it's late in the season. It's hard to sustain that night in, night out. When it was, you know, when it becomes an actual modest losing streak, maybe it's a little more concerning. But the calves are still going into the

the playoffs, you know, as long as they're healthy as the biggest threat to the Celtics in the East. You know, those are the, those are the two teams we're all still focused on. I don't think anything's changed. And meet you and Isaiah were looking at the Eastern Conference standings repod. Yuck. That'll be fine. The Cavaliers will be fine. It's going to be okay. All right. It's just, it's a slow news a week to use. I mean, the Knicks are dragging. The Pacers have revived themselves, which is interesting. The bucks are kind of all over the map. The Pistons. or at least, you know, they've got everybody's attention. But the cows will be playing, the calves will be playing like one of the Hawks,

Magic Bulls. And like, ugh. I mean, if they do play, if they do have to play the magic, the magic, we were discussing this pre-pod, the magic aren't necessarily like a good team, but you are going to feel them. Like, it's going to be, it's going to be tough. Like, you're going to win the series, but you're going to, you know, like I said, it's like when I play you in one-on-on-one, I'm a win, but like, I'm a win, but, like,

I'm going to be hurting now. So as much as I have supported the play-in, and I think it's on balance, been a great addition. Man, the way the East shakes out year after year just makes me feel like, like, why are we even bothering? I don't, I don't.

Can we just do the plan for the Western Conference? Can we just legislate that until that stuck? I know we can legislate that one out or I don't know. Remember when we used to talk all the time about, oh, we should just, you know, do the 1 through 16 without respect to conference kind of thing. Like, let's at least do that for the play-in. Like if there are Eastern Conference teams that aren't even, you know,

that are 10 games below, 11 games below 500 the Miami Heat and they're going to be a play in team. Can we just sub them out for like the Trailblazers or something who are only eight games below 500? Yeah, that'll be, that'll be late. Let me see. What else? This is a bad year for the play. And I mean, for the East specifically, I don't need to see any of those teams. I don't need the Hawks magic holes.

I'm cool with the Western Conference. So I'm cool with the Western Conference. The West is fine through eight for sure. Clippers and Timberwolves deserve. to be in play. The Kings. Sons. Yuc.

The Kings, the Sons, the Maverick. I don't, these are teams that just need to go away, Logan. Like, enough. You're, you're, you know, I don't know where you guys are headed, but like, let us know in July. I don't need, I don't need more of them in April. Oh, no.

Okay. Let's talk quickly, though, before we, we get you out of here. Let's talk about sitting out. once again we talked about it a little bit we pumped faked a little bit about like you know yokich and by the way guys the only reason why I noticed is because Howard

brought it to my attention but if y'all don't fucking relax all the real ones out there just relax okay we just were sad that fucking yokens just didn't play it's just that's all it was we didn't criticize him we didn't criticize the nuggets we didn't rip anybody we didn't see anybody was

dogging it we didn't say anybody was dogging it We didn't say anybody was bailing. We just said it was it was a bummer that we didn't see him. The real ones are serious. And you're finally figuring that out, Howard. Howard, also please stop sending me tweets about what people are saying or guys or whatever the fuck. I don't care.

They're just going to argue with themselves. You need a much healthier life. You'd need a much more mentally healthy life than I do because you stay away from this stuff. And I sit there and read. I'm over here like trying to do it was Thursday. I'm like, yo, I'm calling Howard. Yeah, yo, what you want to talk about? He's like, these motherfuckers are good.

It's all interesting. And I'm like, I don't care, bro. Like, you can turn that shit off. And yet you just brought it up. Well, because the only reason I know about it is because of you. That's my bad. Jeez. All the real ones, relax.

Completely on me. You know, by the way, we appreciate you all listening. And even if I disagree with some of your critiques at times, I appreciate you all. We love you guys. And engaging. It's great. It's awesome. Just relax.

Everybody just relax. Just chill. It's not that serious. It's just sports. Anyways, I just, you know, sniffed out two minutes of our pod. But anyways, Luca sat out last night against the Bucks, another national television game, right? And then the game before that, Nicola Yokic sat out against the Lakers. My gears are grinding because I hate this.

This is like, what are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing? Tom Haversstro, our buddy over at Yahoo and other places, hashtag this March sadness, which I like. That was good. Like the NBA does have a March problem. And it's at both ends of the standing spectrum, right? Because you've got losing teams that are pulling the plug because they want to play the young guys and lose games and enhance their lottery odds.

And you've got winning teams that are, you know, hey, Luke is banged up. Yokic is banged up. Jamal Murray's banged up. I'm missing some. Did Shea take a game off this week? Like you're strategically resting because, you know, everybody's banged up at this point in the season. Like ask any NBA player, this is one of the standard cliches, right?

Like everyone's banged up at this point in the season. It's all legit. And you're trying to now to get ready for the playoffs. Again, legit. But sucks for fans. Sucks for the product at times. Sucks for your national TV partners when they're skipping those games. And especially if it's a marquee game,

like Nuggets Warriors, as we discussed earlier in the week. And it's a bad look, and it makes for discussions like this. And then people handring about the state of the NBA. I will say this. And I don't have the numbers in front of me. I apologize. But I was chatting with someone at the league office this morning on a different topic, but they noted that, in fact, the player participation policy is still having a net

positive effect that I think there might be a little bit more missed games by stars this season than last season, which was the first year of the new policy, but they're still better off than where they were a couple years ago. The league feels like that policy is in fact working. The numbers bear it out. The number of games missed by stars is still not as bad as it was a few years back. And to the extent that there's a lot of players missing games, and you know, Haberstro tweeted out a list the other day. And it is a staggering list. But the list included guys who were legitimately hurt. Like, Kyrie Irving is on there. He's got a torn. ACL. Anthony Davis is on there and he's obviously been out for weeks with a real injury.

Like some of this is just happenstance. There's injuries. It's the resting part of it that I think makes it frustrating for fans. And then you combine that with the teams at the other end who are, you know, who are tanking, who are pulled the plug. And it makes for a really awkward March product and a March discussion. And it makes for some warped outcomes. I don't know what the answer is. I guarantee you the league is still scrutinizing it themselves because they don't like it either. Yeah. It's just, I know, like, it's just a more of a frustration thing, right? Like, it is what it is.

And I, it's not necessarily like I'm pissed about, like, I know people who got injuries and stuff like that. I just don't want to turn on my television and I get, like, you know, you see the thing like, oh yeah, Yonka's about to play da-da-da-da, or like, Luca's about to play Janus. And I'm like, I want to see this. And now I'm, no disrespect to anybody, but, like, that game was a wash, like, last night. That Laker game was a wash. I mean, I know you didn't watch it because it was, it's at 1.30 in the morning. And, like, you not even watch this.

I didn't watch it because I was busy trying to write about the Celtics sale until 2 in the morning. Okay. All right. My bad. I'm sorry. My bad. I apologize. Sorry, guys.

I was working, man. All right. You were working, man. I know. I know. It's fine. Like if the NBA don't want to fucking, like, get it right. And I'll just watch Juju for the next three weeks.

And I'm probably going to do that anyway. So, you know, it's fine. It's fine. You got any picks for the March Madness, anything like that? I don't watch college. I'm going to, I'm in a bracket with Valencia and Cirit for women's college, women's college basketball. And you're damn right.

I picked USC just so everybody knows. And I picked Columbia to upset Duke. Yes, I did that too. So let's go. I hope I went. Go ahead. Whatever you were saying, Howard, go ahead, go ahead. No, I mean, the NBA walks a fine line with these policies, right?

Like, you cannot dictate to a team when to play your players. You can tell them don't rest multiple stars on a national game. Or you can, like, investigate the injury and say that wasn't a, that wasn't an actual injury. Yeah, and they do. And they do. And the reason that they held off on. Right. Like the Yokish thing the other night, the league's approach to that was it's not a problem if he's legitimately hurt and we'll see where this goes. And he's now missed another, what, another game or two? So like, I think that that underscores this wasn't just a rest game for Yokch. It was like legitimately

needing to to heal up from a specific injury or maybe multiple. But the NBA walks a fine line because you cannot manage somebody's rotation from Olympic Tower in Midtown Manhattan. It's kind of like flopping, you know what I mean? Like it's in the way where it's it's the intent, you know, like you can, on some ways you can see that it's like a flagrant violation or whatever of flopping and they tried to legislate it out that way. And some ways you just can't.

Like it's all subjective in this way, right? Like it is really hard to police sort of things like this. Yeah. But it's also like there's been a couple of teams. I think Toronto's done this. I think Utah's done this. Apologies if I have impugned anybody or if I have missed anybody that I should have impugned. But there are teams now that are clearly in the lottery chase where they're playing their best guys. And then middle of the third quarter, fourth quarter comes along and suddenly it's a G-League team on the floor.

And there's a lot of stuff like that happening right now. And it's not great. And the league doesn't, you know, isn't thrilled to see it. But again, the NBA at the league level at the Olympic Tower level, they can't tell the Raptors who to play or the Jazz who to play. And if they're not holding guys, like the Jazz got fined for not playing Larry Markanin because he wasn't legitimately hurt. They were just resting him. But you also can't say, play him 38 minutes or make sure he plays the fourth quarter of a tight game. There are limits here to what the league can do.

Must be 21 years and older in president's select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RGhelp.com. Call 1-88-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org backslash chat in Connecticut or visit MDGamblinghelp.org, Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline.org or call 1-800-327-50-50 for 247 support and massless. Massachusetts or call 18778 Hope N.Y or text Hope N.Y in New York. Let's go to a little segment we like to call it, ruin of the week. Howard has been really stressing over this guy, and I'm trying to tell him it's not that serious. I ask him,

do you have your real one of the week? He was like, I don't know because I got to make it perfect. Now we're doing, now we're doing impressions of me. Oh, my God, I need to make it perfect. That was slightly less insulting than your impression of Marcus Thompson. Which is wild because the one, if Marcus hears this, he's going to know that that was an accurate representation of what his accent is. Yours wasn't. I did some sort of like luck of the Irish type thing. I don't know. Oh, my God.

I don't know what that was. And you're more offended by the accurate Marcus Thompson one, which is wild. I'm way more offended on Marcus's behalf than mine. why he knows it's true he's not even here to defend himself and it sounded like absolutely fucking ridiculous besides wow

see now you're gassing it now you're gasing it it it wasn't even that was it was more of an homage and now you're making it was an homage it's more of an homage geez really stouted in mine oh throwing up to hundreds

oh my god all right you know you know you demand you demand I had a real one of the week. I give you Brunny James. Wow. Listen, I think you know.

Actually not because early in the season, when you were when you were out on paternity leave, and Raj and I would like briefly touch on this and then I would always always make it clear then. And maybe you and I've had this discussion. Like I just don't. The Brony James discourse and LeBrony and Brunny discourse and all the other discourse around the discourse has been driving me nuts all season. And I've tried to stay away from it because like just, just let the kid have his career i understand why people fixate on you know him his dad everything but

like just just let him have the space and the oxygen to grow and develop into whatever he's going to develop into i don't care about all the rest of it and the politics of it so all that said real one of the week brawny james because uh kid just had the best night of his of his young career 30 minutes last night coming off the bench against the bucks um 17 points 7 7 7 for 10 from the field made two of his four threes uh five assists three rebounds like he's a minus 36 but you know listen let's let's focus on the positive right now um rough night for the lakers without luka without lebron but great night for brawny james like i don't care even if it's a meaning more or less meaningless late march game um what you do in those minutes matters and making progress

matters. And I don't know what his career will look like ultimately. And again, I'm not one who's fixated on that. But I think it's a great night for him. So congrats to Brony James. I think I just congrats to Brony James. He was, he was bawling in like the garbage time. And it's, shout out to him. That was really, it was fun to watch. Like it's legitimately a story. Like I said beforehand, I wish you can like kind of have the lights dimmed on him for a little longer, but that's just not the case. Like, you're going to see his high, you're going to see his lows. And, you know, he's going to get stronger from that. So, um, congrats to him. Um, I put the, I think I just, I pumped faked it earlier, but, um, I'm going to just give it to the gross specs, man,

as a family, dog. Six Billy is pretty cool. Actually, seven Billy in your pockets. Hell of an investment after 23 years, you know. Got two titles out of that thing. Um, had a good run set up family for generations of generations, you know? Child to them. I thought your real one of the week was going to be Marcus Thompson, just to make up for him for all the slander. It wasn't slander. Mockery.

I stand on that. It was imitation. God, I hope he hears this. Someone send him, someone send him the audio, please. I mean, we'll see. We'll see. I wonder what his impression of me is.

That would probably be funny. Hello, I'm Logan Murdoch. I don't know. I don't know. Anyways, that was Friday vibes. We get a little loopy on Fridays. Usually it's me and Raji who are getting loopy, but we brought Howard back into the fold. I hope you didn't lose brain cells doing this Friday exercise with us. I think somehow my filing of a story at 2 a.m. might have had an impact on my loopiness today. For sure, for sure. Well, shout out Howard. It's going to be me and Howard on Tuesday, which Tuesday pod, which is, the Real Ones mailbag episode. So Real onesmailbag at gmailbag.com. Real onesmailbag at gmail back at gmail.com.

Me and Howard will be on that one. No Raja on that particular pod. Anyways, shout to Howard. Shout out to Isaiah. Shout out to Victoria. And we will see you guys on Tuesday. Tap in all this shits. Bye.