The Ringer NBA Show - ‘The Last Dance,’ Re-living the Demise of the ’90s Bulls, and the NBA’s Quarantine Bubble With Bill Simmons | The Mismatch

Episode Date: April 21, 2020

Kevin and Chris are joined by Bill Simmons to react to Draymond Green’s Warriors-Bulls comparisons (1:48), discuss episodes 1-2 of ‘The Last Dance,’ recount some of the lesser-known stories of the late-’90s Bulls, and discuss the feasibility of the NBA's return from quarantine (54:44). Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Guest: Bill Simmons Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Mismatch on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by World Central Kitchen. Their relief team is working across America to safely distribute individually packaged fresh males in communities that need support. They're now serving tens of thousands of meals daily in some of our biggest cities like New York and Los Angeles. And they're launching initiatives across America to deliver fresh hot meals to hospitals and clinics, fighting on the front lines while keeping local restaurants and business. You can directly help the heroes and hospitals and clinics who are fighting for us, and you can help keep your local restaurants alive.

Please go to the ringer.com slash WCK to donate. We're trying to raise $250,000. So if you have the means, it's an unbelievably great and useful cause that helps our hospital heroes, emergency workers, and local restaurants. Please give whatever you can. The money goes directly to World Central Kitchen, and it's a charitable donation. Once again, that's the ringer.com slash WCK. And now, time for the mismatch. Welcome to The Ringer NBA show.

I'm Chris Vernon. Join me as he does every Tuesday from The Ringer.com. It's Kevin O'Connor, A.K. Kevin O'Bomber, Kevin O'Connor, Kavanaugh, Kevin O'Connor, Kevin O'Connor. What's going on, Chris. We get a special guest, don't we? We do have a very special guest. The big boss, Bill Simmons has dropped in for today's Ringer NBA show.

Hello, Bill. What an honor. So proud to be here. So happy, proud. honored. What's going on, Bill? All right, we have to start with, like, everybody in the free world watch the last dance the other night. It appears Draymond Green did too. And Draymond Green went on a podcast yesterday, uninterrupted WRTS after show party with Paul Rivera and Maverick Carter, no less.

and he likened their last season with Kevin Durant, the Warriors, to what he had just watched on TV with the last season of the Bulls. And he didn't hold back. And he said, one of the things from watching it was that what you saw is everybody kind of set it up like this is going to be the last year. And so there was none of that elephant in the room hanging out there for their team, that last Warriors team with Durant. and said that, you know, Steve tried to deal with it, but Kevin was asked about it every day. Drayman saying, I want to be a warrior for life. Clay saying, I want to be a warrior for life.

And then there was this elephant in the room the entire year. And it was almost as if he watched the last dance and thought, geez, they handled that a lot better. Like, because it wasn't hanging out there the whole year. Everybody knew that was going to be the end. And so they just treated it that way the whole year. What do you guys think? I mean, ownership didn't handle it better. The players may have, the players may have handled it at worst with Scotty Pippin,

you know, getting the surgery when he did, wanting out, you know, Jordan thinking it was selfish. But ownership on the warrior's side of things, at least their goal is building with sustainability. They want to keep Steph Curry and Clay Thompson and continue winning. Risenorf and Krauss and the Bulls were ready to pull the plug after the first three championships, trying to trade Pippin for Kemp. Granted, that's still a win. But then after it, it's about trying to tear it down and rebuild. I don't see that from the Warriors now,

but it is fascinating how much history has repeated in some ways with the disease of Moore and whatnot that manifested with KD, always being jealous of Stefan Curry in the spotlight that he received. And then you look at what the Bulls went through in the 90s. It is hard not to see the parallels from the player side. What do you think, Bill? I didn't see it. I just think Traymond was, I think he was beat a little,

narcissistic with it. It's totally different situation. Durant in that situation is basically the Rodman character, right? Rodman was on the Bulls for three years. Durant shows up for three years, pushes him to another level. But other, I mean, the Bulls thing was so different. Jordan and Pippen were together for, you know, 12 years. And they were with Phil Jackson for, I don't know, it was at least nine or whatever. And everything was the same. And they were just going, going, going. And they had all these different ups and downs. And that Warriors thing, you know, Durant was on that team

for a blip. It was, if you add up when he actually showed up and then when he left, it's less than three years. It's like 30 months. It's not a perfect comparable for either team.

But I just think, you know, the players, you know, seeking that attention, wanting what's theirs. I think with that aspect, there's some similarities. But overall, though,

I mean, I'm with you in the sense that ownership and front office objectives here are far different. You know, what the Bulls wanted to do in the 90s with Kraus and Risendorf is far different than what the Warriors are trying to do with Myers and Warriors ownership now, right? I mean, this is a team that wants to be an expert.

The difference is with the Warriors thing, it was one person undermining the whole thing, Durant. Yeah. The Bulls thing, it was like a bad marriage with, you know, eight, nine different people all knowing like the marriage is ending. And I think with the Warriors, they kept trying to pull Durant back. and that second season he was there was when it started to fall apart.

And the third season, I still feel like they felt like it might be salvageable until they had that Clippers game. And then after that, I think there are some similarities with the chemistry. Well,

let's say, this. Let's say Draymond gets his way. It would have played out the way he wanted it to, right? Like, I don't buy for one second.

If Kevin Durant started that season and said, this is my last year with the Warriors, it still would have been a problem. Like the whole year, the whole year, By the way, he should have done that, though. That's how he should have handled it.

And I think part of the problem is he didn't handle it that way. And, you know, the players and the team in the organization, they knew he was leaving. They knew about all the New York stuff. They thought it was going to be the Knicks. But they knew he was leaving. It was by, especially by February March, everyone in the league knew. So I think from that standpoint, the way he handled it undermined it. What's the elephant in the room that Draymond's talking about?

then. You know what I'm saying? If they all had this understanding, Kevin ain't going to be with us after this year, then why is he acting like it was a problem throughout the entire year that Kevin was just saying, oh, I don't know, we'll see. Well, because I think,

and Kevin, you probably agree with this. I think there was still a hope that he might do a 180. You know, I think that, and honestly, with the 98 Bulls, and you're going to find out in the 10th part, it came a lot closer to everybody coming back except for Rodman. I think they knew Rodman was done.

But I think once they actually won, I think there was a moment there where they were like, holy shit, what are we doing? We got to defend this again. I think with the Warriors, they were always trying to pull Durant back. And even if you think about the playoffs before he got hurt, remember how incredible he was?

I mean, the first round of a half, we were like, this guy is clearly the best player in the league. And then he gets hurt. I still wonder if they had won the title with him. Kevin, do you think he leaves? They win the title. Do you think he's like, all right, guys, I'll see you later. Part of me still wonders if that actually happens.

But, you know, that was part of the reason they win. Well, and they always had that hope, like you said. I mean, everybody knew everybody was talking about it. As you mentioned, that Katie was likely leaving for people thought the Knicks of the time. And that's were more in the back seat, it seemed, until he actually made that decision. But, I mean, you just don't know. sometimes when it comes to hearing what players are thinking and hearing what players desires are, Katie or anybody else, sometimes it's dangerous to ride that wave because, you know, one week it's one thing, the next week it's something else. Because that's what it is for players.

You know, they change their mind just like any other people do. Especially him? Yes, especially KD. And so for the Warriors, it would make sense not to assume, oh, 100% Katie's leaving despite everything that's happening right now. And for them, I mean, obviously it didn't work out. But they won two titles with him. It was great to have him. And moving forward for that team, at least they're trying to continue winning.

And, I mean, they're going to be right there at the top of the championship contention as soon as basketball resumes. Chris, I will say this. I think if you put that kind of 93 to 98 stretch of the Bulls in the modern era with Twitter and the way we cover basketball now, I don't think it's a very far. arrives until 1998, especially the Pippin stuff. You think about like, because we knew, believe me, I was there for all of this. We knew what Pippin was doing at the time when he got his surgery.

And it was a story, but it just basketball wasn't covered the same way. He almost, it left out in the dock. Like, he almost got traded to the Celtics in 97. And that was a big draft day thing where it was going to be the number three and six pick and the 1998 number one for Pippin. Patino was trying to do that as his first big move. And by all accounts, it almost happened. You think about that trade, it would have been Chauncey Billups.

It was Ron Mercer. It could have been T-Mack. They could take a T-Mack 6th. And then the 98 first rounder was Paul Pierce. So thank God for the Celtics that didn't happen. But, you know, he was in trade rumors for that. He was in trade rumors for Sean Kemp. I think him specifically making as little money as he was making as that deal went along.

I think that would have cratered. I think the Internet and just the day-to-day of it, he would have gone crazy. Why didn't they trade him? They almost did. I know, but did Reinsdorf step in on that? Because you've got a guy who clearly said, I played my last game in a Bulls uniform,

and then they say that he requests a trade. You know that Krauss wants to trade him. Why did the trade just not happen? It was Jordan, right? Well, it was a little Jordan, but I think ultimately, they should have made the Celtics trade. I mean, honestly, if you get,

think about that trade where you're getting a third pick, a six pick, and a future unprotected, number one, the following year for a guy who can leave in a year. Like that, it's almost like kind of criminal. They didn't do that. The other one, when they almost did the Sean Kemp trade, which I can't remember what year that was, but Kemp hadn't had any problems yet. Like, he was still like it looked like he was a Carl Malone type guy. And I think that was earlier.

That might have even been in the earlier 90s. I'm going to look it up after Kevin starts talking. But I remember that one, that would have been a really fun one too because I think Jordan could have changed the trajectory of Kemp's career. You know, Kemp was a guy who ended up having a lot of problems. And Jordan had this knack of either he brought the best out of you or he discarded you. You know, and somebody like Kemp who was just so talented. One of the things I love about this, Doc, is just I feel like Kevin's generation.

I'm going to throw Kevin under the bus. the Kevin generation. Like, they just weren't there for Jordan. And I don't mean to be like the I Was There guy, but it was really interesting watching the reactions where people were like, holy shit, Jordan had 63 against the Celtics, stuff that I've just known my whole life.

And I just forget sometimes that if you're under 30, why would you know this? Why would you have a Jordan opinion? You know, and the other thing is, you and I, Bill, we grew up and you would watch the old clips and you're like, yeah, right, like Bob Coozy dribbling around, with one hand. He's probably not scoring now.

There's no way you could watch all those Jordan highlights and think that doesn't translate to what we watch it. Like he's scoring now. It's not like our group would watch old highlights and it seemed like a distant memory. And you watch those guys and you go, they would get swallowed up in a league now. Whereas there's nobody that can't watch that and think like he's, he's as athletic as anybody that's in the league today. I mean, you watch you watch you watch. Pippin highlights and today you're thinking about oh, imagine him in today's league five position versatility in the defense

event. He'd be a big point forward running the show. Granted the average like 6, 7 assists during the 90s. Today's league, you'd probably be empowered to be the full-time point card. So I mean, there is a difference in that aspect for sure. I mean, I've said on this pod before, I've said, it's

hard for me as someone who was born in 1990 to when it comes to the goat debate, you know, LeBron and Michael Jordan and whoever else you to throw in that. Kareen. It's not a debate. It's hard for me to be part of that as someone who didn't live through Michael Jordan. I've said that before. And I think it's nice to have this documentary for people my age or younger, especially younger, that weren't even able to experience Jordan while it was happening even a little bit. Producer Bobby's produced in this podcast. He probably thinks like Steph Curry is the greatest sport of all time. He's like 24.

Bobby, defend yourself. Defend yourself. Bobby, you've ever heard of Michael Jordan. Bobby, you've ever heard of Michael Jordan? Slow it down a little bit. I had NBA Hardwood classics. I've gone back and watched a lot of these games. I made a point of it. I made a point of it when I was playing basketball in high school to just go back and watch all the Jordan finals runs.

But that was about it. You're right. I didn't live through it day to day. So I didn't really understand like the mentality of the players he was going against, which I know is obviously a big thing that people use in the argument for Jordan. Just nobody ever thought they were going to win. So that's the biggest thing that I feel like I missed out on. I have one more thing on this, Chris.

the goat thing is not a debate. The only way LeBron is even in the consideration is just for the duration of how long he's played. But I think by the time people finish this 10 parts, they're just going to feel stupid. Jordan took out every single rival he had for an entire decade. He vanquished all of them and he was the best at everything. And that, you know, especially some of the younger people were like, well, you know, he look at his three-point shooting percentage or whatever they're going to say.

It's like, if Jordan had known three-pointers were going to be as important as they became in 2020, guess what? He would have been the best three-point shooter. He just would have shot a million of them and he was shot 45% from three. He was athletically, like, perfect.

And you watch, you'll see as this thing goes along, his footwork, his athleticism, his intelligence, the way he could break down stuff. Like Kurt Goldsbury had a piece with the shot charts from the, the last two years, he is by far the best mid-range shooter ever. This was a guy with people playing real defense on him who would make like 55% of his 17, 18-footers. There's just never been anything like it. Even Kobe, who was doing a Jordan impersonation, like, just was not

on the same level. So I'm excited that people actually are like re-realizing how good he was. LeBron's career is still being written, though. It's not over yet. There could be more championships to come, there could be no more. Who knows? But it's still being written, and that's another reason why I think it is a bit hard to compare the two when LeBron's not done yet. Well, and it comes down to 25 years of

LeBron versus 14 years of Jordan or whatever, and at some point if he just keeps playing and playing, he could say, like, he had a greater career, but I don't think you could say he was a greater player. He just wasn't. You were talking about the media coverage and how much different it is now, and I know

you've seen this footage. You, You in fact said with Ryan that you got to look at this years ago when you were trying to put together a Jordan Doc. I wonder everybody now, every kid, your kids, my kids, Kevin, for that matter, they grow up with a camera in their face, right? They know how to act on a camera. I'm interested in what this footage is going to show and being that you have already seen what we are going to see going forward. is there any chance another team would allow a camera crew

to be embedded as this one was once upon a time before I answer that it was draft night 1994 it was pippin for Sean Kemp

Ricky Pierce and they swap first round picks wow and that was like the Bulls trying to rebuild because they didn't know if they were going to have

Jordan back so if that happens they're getting Kemp right as he's becoming like Carl Malone basically yeah so with that footage and stuff.

And you'll say it, the second half of this documentary of the last five episodes really starts diving into that 98 season and the playoffs and all that stuff. And the thing I loved about it was it was like the withering Jordan that I had always heard about. And I remember

at the 06 All-Star game, I wrote a whole piece about just randomly sitting at the table next to him at the four seasons when he showed up with his friends and started playing cards and was like bullying people and just being like cocky, competitive Jordan. And it was like, oh, this is the guy that everyone wrote about. And I think there's pieces of that in the dock. And people are going to really like it. It's not 100% flattering

for him either. And I gave him credit for being like, fuck it, put it out there. But for the camera crew thing, so Kobe, I know Kobe recorded like the last two years of his career and had a camera crew going everywhere. And there was a famous story about, um, that I'm sure is true. I don't know if it's public, but it says the fucking aggregators are going to get me on this. But DeAngelo Russell apologizing to the team

for the Nick Young thing and the whole team's in there and he's like all emotional. And then like halfway through, Kobe showed up with this camera crew. I was like, what the fuck are you guys doing? Starts making fun of him.

And he's actually like has the cameras taping it. But that footage is starting to take on a life of its own too for people like, oh, could that be something? I'll tell you. It wouldn't be the same as this, but now that what happened with Kobe, I think there would be some mystique with it at least. But it was so set up because I was at a game

where it was Kobe's last season and he came here and there's a TV timeout, right? So like, you're nobody that's, you have to be in the arena to see this. And I'm not kidding you. At the TV timeout, they're over by the Lakers bench. A camera crew runs out. I'm talking with lights and the whole thing.

and he brings the ref over like Bill Kennedy or somebody. And he's like talking. I'm like, they are filming a fucking movie scene in the middle of this game. I'm like, this is insanity. I've never, like what is happening here?

Another example was in the summer 2010, Wade and Bosch filmed their whole free agency thing. And this was pitched us as a 30 for 30. Oh, wow. But the funniest thing is they didn't realize they had to get permission from the different teams. And most of the teams were like, no, fuck you. We're not taping our free agent pitch.

So they ended up, I think, I think ironically, Darryl Morey was the only one who signed. So there's video of Darryl Morey's free agency pitch with Chris Bosch. Maybe he could be a ringer doc. Yeah. So those guys have had that forever. And I don't know if Dwayne waited end up putting it in his thing. But they had this, that was the era, because 30-30 had already happened.

And that was the first year when athletes were like, oh, I can control my own narrative and the content. That's when LeBron does the decision. That's what Wade and Bosch, have a camera crew all of a sudden. And then it kind of evolves to where we are now, where these guys, I just think we're, we're too familiar with these guys now. I don't think it would have the same kind of spout. I would always feel like it was an infomercial. You know, like if LeBron had a camera crew following him around, I would always be like, well, why is he doing this? are we seeing the real LeBron or like what he wants us to see.

What I liked about this Jordan stuff from 98 was it's the real Jordan. And you're going to see in future episodes, like, the thing that struck me 11 years ago was kind of how weird his life was where he couldn't go anywhere. And he's just hanging out, these four security guards. And he's in a hotel suite at the games. He's hiding in the officials room. He has like no human interactions. He was so famous, way more famous than any athlete we have.

Now, he was so, he was like the Beatles. He couldn't do anything. So that was what his life was like, and I think that's why he would have retired anyway. Debates for most valuable player and focusing on player analytics like the Greek Freaks, P-E-R, have taken a backseat to fans maxing out on 2K and looking for outlets to avoid anxiety over their favorite league and the coronavirus shutdown. When we're stressed and don't sleep well or have late nights schemes to fall asleep to, our immune systems weaken and become more prone to getting sick. And the best natural way to boost our immune system is through great sleep.

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away from the dock. And I am always most interested in people personally and like, how they became, how they became. And there was one thing that I didn't know that stood out to me probably the most. I always feel this way when I'm reading a book and I'm like, oh, that's why he's that way. And it's this clip and it's not one that got a lot of play, but his dad is talking about, he basically says he's got the older brother, his dad favors the older brother. And Michael is the kind of kid that if you asked him for a Phillipshead screwdriver, he might

give you a pair of pliers. I say, go hang out with your mom. And then you have this moment where older Jordan is saying, like, that's traumatic to grow up that way and that he was always trying to, like, prove to his father or gain his father's attention. And it's interesting because all three of us had sports dads. There's some element of, you know, what drove us to what we like is that it signifies these moments with our father. and our father pays attention to us because we're so involved in sports, though we're not athletes. But you always try to figure out like, why is he like this? Why does he work harder than everybody?

Why is he wired like this? And I don't even have to be like some kind of pop psychologist. Just watching that, I'm thinking, like, this whole idea of father's approval, which has been around since the beginning of time. And I never thought I'd hear Michael Jordan say something about, you know, his childhood was traumatic. And yet here it is. He's talking about growing up in his house, fighting with his brothers and fighting for attention. And you do kind of get a window into,

oh, that's why he wants to rip your heart out. You know, he's been doing that since he was a little kid. It was crazy to me. Shows how much personality in our childhood shapes who we become. I mean, Michael Jordan,

they mentioned both of his parents, always taught hard work, gave him hard lessons. It was a competitive family overall, and that essentially activated. and shaped him to become one of the most competitive men in history. And then you have Scotty Pippen who had his father and his brother who were confined to wheelchairs. And he's from intense poverty.

And that helped make him into the competitor who he was and shaped some of the choices he made like we saw with signing the salary to, you know, in order to support his family. It shows how much background is needed when it comes to draft decisions, when it comes to personnel decisions. And it makes us all of us as people who we are is our backgrounds. I definitely think COC in his 87 draft guide would have loved Pippin. You would have been, when KOC was minus seven years old, I think he fucking loved, he loved Pippin. Minus three, Bill, minus three. But the Pippin story of like, and the same thing, though, they're going to do with Rodman in episode three, these guys that are 6162 and they go to college and then they grow five, six, seven inches. Pippin grew five inches in college.

Yeah. But they're, so they have point guards bodies. And then all of a sudden they go from 6-1 to 6-7 and they keep all the skills, which is the same thing to happen to Rodman. Rodman went from like 5-9 to 6-8 in a year and a half. The Pippin thing is insane. And I don't think, and I think this is because when you're Robin, your story doesn't get told as much. I don't think that that's gotten enough play that the kid went to college. He wasn't even, he didn't.

I always thought he went to Central Arkansas to play basketball, and he wasn't that good coming out of high school, and that's why he went to Central Arkansas. He wasn't even on the team. Right. He was hit quit. I mean, for a kid, I didn't know that. I went to an NAA school.

It is the most implausible thing in the world to think somebody from an NAA school could go number five. I mean, it would never happen again, ever. Like you would get some Division I, Power 5 school would find out about you. and by your sophomore year, you would have transferred somewhere. But Scotty Pippen going from not a player, but an equipment manager on an NAA school to the number five pick in the NBA draft might be the most incredible thing ever.

Well, the other thing with that, I don't know if the doc, it's really good. I don't know if it totally captures in the first two parts what Jordan meant to kids and teenagers, because I was, yeah, obviously a diehard Boston fan. I love Jordan. And Jordan was like our guy. You know, we'd always heard about Dr. Jay and Connie Hawkins,

Eljabell and all these guys. And Jordan was like, oh, this is our guy. His posters were cool. He had ads. He had all these things. And by the time we got to the 87 draft, everybody wanted him to have, you know, better teammates. Because the Celtics, it's glossed over in the stock,

but the Celtics killed them for two straight years. They won all six playoff games. Two six in a row, right? Yeah, and a lot of blowouts. When they took Pippin and they traded up, and it was like they had the eighth pick, Seattle, the fifth pick. But it was a good draft.

We knew it was a good draft. And you look back at it. Like, we thought Dennis Hobson was going to be good. He wasn't. But Reggie Williams was Georgetown guy. I thought he was going to be good. Scotty Pippen, Kenny Smith, Kevin Johnson, Horace Grant, Reggie Miller.

And it was like, I really hope the Bulls get somebody good. And they took Pippin and it was like, what the fuck? This guy was central Arkansas? And they're showing the clips of them and it looked, you know, like the Janus Greek YMCA clips where you're just like, what is this? Is that? And it was also a time when, you know, everybody really watched college basketball the same way like KOC is like one of five people left to watch his college basketball obsessively. In 87, we all knew who all the guys were. We were watching everything.

And when they ended up with him, it was like, motherfuckers. why are you fucking around with Jordan? Like you got to get got to get him somebody good and we had no idea. And it was early, it was apparent that first year it was like, oh shit.

You know, he was so athletic. You could just see it. You knew he was going to be something even as a rookie. Does Crouse deserve more credit than it seemed he got in those first two parts of the documentary

for building this thing out into the team that it was? There's no question. I think so. There's no question. I mean, look, because those are bold-ass moves now. You took a kid from an NIA

school and trade it up to take a kid from an NAA school. That if that doesn't work out and you passed on somebody like Bill said that's on TV and everybody is aware of, that is obviously fireable. You've got the, he trades Jordan's best friend, which I thought it was very fascinating for Jordan. Oakley for Cartwright. Yeah, it made us a better team. Yeah, that was a bigger deal at the time because Oakley was better than Cartwright.

Right. The trade didn't 100% make sense when it happened because Oakley was like 24, 25 and was really good. Here's one thing that wasn't explained either that stood out to me was I had no idea how Jerry Krause got that job. But they just gloss over the fact that Jerry Krauss is a baseball scout who obviously is close to Jerry Reinsdorf and goes, I want to be the general manager of the Bulls. And it's like, okay, and that's how he got the job. Like, what? What are we talking about? It's 10 episodes. It's 49 minutes an episode. You can't do everything.

And I'm with you. Like the Krauss stuff, Kraus did a really good job. Like the Ku Klux pick and him coveting Ku Klux during a time when foreign guys, you know, Serunis Marshalonis was like the first foreign guy that even came into the league. And that was like 1989, maybe something like that.

And Petrovich was coming. And Devach showed up on the Lakers. But it was still pretty early to be like, I'm all in on this coup coach. guy. And it's funny how much they'll go into this in a later episode. But Jordan and Pippen really resented the coup coach thing. They really tried to like destroy him at the Olympics. And meanwhile, this is like the perfect guy to play with them. He could play three positions and he could handle the ball. But I'm with you. I think Kraus was just a really petty asshole,

you know, and I think. How does a baseball scout get an NBA GM job? When Risenorf's the only Because of it. No, it's, it's worse than that. It was the 80s. Like, crazy stuff happens. You go back and you look at, you had owners, like Ted Steepie and the Cleveland Cavs owner. He traded so many first-round picks. They had to, like, make a rule.

Sterling, like moving the clippers from San Diego to L.A. and getting a loan from Jerry Buss. And, you know, it was all hell was breaking loose back then. One of the things that I didn't hear anybody bring up that was fascinating to me is you're watching it. And part of the reason. that this guy gets kicked around so much. He's a weird dude anyway, but he's the short fact guy who never played any sports and the players all resent.

I must tell you, the NBA now is littered with the non-athletes. You know what I mean? He is really ahead of his time in being the guy who's not just some dopey former athlete who was given the job in order to put together a team. And obviously we've had great guys that have built championship teams, Joe Dumas, Jerry West, on and on, former players that were great at the job. There's also a lot of former players who were not great at the job. But you have that whole element of-

More than a lot. Yeah. Well, you have that whole element of the players like resenting a guy or just not respecting a guy at all that does exist now. You have to really earn it by being very smart and earn players trust when you are not a former player. And now the league is just filled with non-former players as GMs. There's not many that are.

Phil had something to do with that, though. I think, I don't know how, I can't remember how much it goes into this during the, during the show. But, you know, it's like if your parents are in a divorce, the parents can turn the kid against the other parent, right? Everybody, all the Bulls love Phil. And if he hates Jerry Krauss and they're not talking, he's got subtle different ways

to really turn them against Krauss. And I think it goes into the Pippin part in the second episode. It went too far. Like the Pippin stuff, and if you read the book by Halberstam goes really into him just like berating Kraus on the bus in like a really ugly way

where they were like, holy shit, we have to trade this guy. But I think with the Kraus stuff, you know, the thing that he didn't get enough credit for was the Phil Jackson move. where Collins was doing well. Like that team was competing in the playoffs.

He was only there a couple years. And he saw something. And moving fill in when he did, I think allowed at least that 91 title. I thought that was a bossy move. Like COC would have written a huge piece about that if they did that now. It's the equivalent of, I don't even know,

whoever a successful coach is spouting that guy, everybody was like, what? They're firing Doug Collins. It was surprising. I think the last one is when they kept going to the Easter Conference Finals, the Pistons, and then they moved off of Carlisle and hired Larry Brown. Yeah, good point. True.

Probably like something like that. KOC, what else stood out to you for watching the other night? With Phil Jackson, though, to that point, I mean, he was coaching a team called the Albany Patrunes from 82 to 87 when he got hired as a Bulls assistant. And, you know, Risendorf did mention that Krause deserves credit for giving Phil Jackson that opportunity. And, I mean, I brought up Kraus because I feel like Risenorf, sort of has evaded blame.

The way we've talked about this show since then, within the documentary itself, I mean, he's the guy who he himself said he was told, don't touch Krause. He has a way of alienating people, but he said, I wasn't hiring someone to win a personality contest.

I wanted somebody who truly believed in building a team the way I wanted them to, and Kraus was that guy. And he let this chaos develop over the years. I mean, at some point, he made the choice between Krause and Phil and Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. I think Risenorf at that time probably should have pulled the plug on Jerry Krause,

hired someone else into that job and move forward with Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan and maybe into Scottie Pippen. And it makes me wonder, though, how much of it from Risenorf's perspective was, I don't want to pay Phil Jackson the money he wants. I don't want to pay Scottie Pippen the money he wants. Because Risendorf over the years has been a notoriously cheaper owner. after winning five championships was that part of it

when it came to his decisions at the time that really pushed Kraus to change everything. I mean, Kraus obviously deserves blame for, you know, the petty things that he did and for the way he was.

But it's just a little odd to me that Risenorf has sort of, you know, scooted by here without any blame. Chris, should we correct KOC on how he's saying Rinesdorf's name or no.

I was going to let it go, though. I wanted it to go the whole episode. I like Risenorf, though, because it feels insulting to Ryanstorff. Hey, I'm going to just start talking about Pat Kahniton to make him feel better.

You know, the thing with Phil Jackson, when they actually made him the coach, he was like the guy in the Knicks who was the hippie who had the long hair, who wrote a book called Maverick that's one of like the 10 most unbelievable NBA books. Like talks a lot about drug use and things like that. It's great. You can't even find it on eBay. And it just kind of seemed to, even when he became an assistant coach, it was like, Phil Jackson's an assistant coach? Like he just had this reputation as being this kind of Zen hippie guy.

It's crazy what happened. But you look at the relationships he had over the years, you know, he's kind of a drama queen. You know, you put him in this situation. Look at all the stuff that happened with him and the Lakers. He quit the Lakers. He came back a year later and then it ends up quitting again. you know, I think he kind of fed off this stuff too. So you put him, Rodman, Pip and Jordan, Krauss, Risendorf, all the...

Hey, you could give some historical perspective to this because it's not really broached in that, in the episodes that we have seen so far. Maybe it will as it goes forward. But there is, we know as the years went on, that there wasn't impending lockout. Like, that happened. And how much is that in the calculus? of what happens with this thing being broken up. It's 100% in the calculus. It was like, I'm trying to think of modern NBA times when this happened.

I guess 2011 was like this. Because if I remember I was writing about a lot in 2010 and 11 for ESPN and Grantland, especially the 2011 playoffs where you knew something bad was going to happen. And then something bad happened. In this case, the league was out of control. the rookie contracts, people being able to opt out of deals. And the cap was out of whack. Like, MJ made $33 million his last year.

And I don't even really know how that worked with the cap. I don't understand why they couldn't have fixed the Pippin contract, things like that. The other thing it didn't really go into enough, I didn't feel like in the doc, just explaining the Pippin contract, which is fine because you only have so much time. But, like, Pippin's real screw up was he had a six-year rookie deal. And after year four, you were allowed to sign an extension, which he did because he wanted the safe, guaranteed money. But the extension, which I think was a five-year extension, so people are saying it was a seven-year, $18 million deal.

It actually wasn't. He had two years left on his rookie deal. And then you added the five-year extension after it. So when he was playing in the 91-92 and 92-93 seasons under his rookie contract, didn't get the new money yet, and the extension hadn't even kicked in, versus if he had just ridden it out, he would have been a free agent after the 93 season,

and he would have made like five times as much money, but as he lays out in the dock, he just wanted the security because he had to take care of all these people back in Arkansas. And that was the part that really sucked because it wasn't stupid for him to do that. He was trying to lock down enough money to take care of these people.

He didn't care of. about 1998, but then as you're in the contract, you're like, oh, what did I do? Well, and this is crazy because I didn't remember this until I saw somebody mention it maybe the other night. His agent actually lives not far from me. I see him all the time. It's Jimmy Sexton, who is, he runs college football now, right? Nick Sabin's agent, he's everybody's agent.

And Jimmy was very, very young because he's, uh, Jimmy had, he went to college at Tennessee and he had, he started the whole thing with one client and it was Reggie White. And so he had Reggie White and he started this athletic resource management out of Memphis, Tennessee, no less. And then he got this kid from Arkansas, Scotty Pippen. So, I mean, he was very young agent at the time. I need to find out how that all played out because I think it's easy for us to watch that in retrospect and be like, man, that was so dumb.

But like, look, man, you got two frigging people. in your own house in a wheelchair. Like, there's just no way that you don't constantly have this feeling of it could all be taken away from me any day. I better, I better get this while I can. You know? Well, he also got it back. The cap rising as much as it did either. I mean, it was, what, $17 million cap when he signed the deal and it was like $40, $45 million when he signed the next one.

As you said, Bill, he did make it back with the new deal. The Portland contract he signed was ridiculous. I mean, he made, he ended up making more money than Jordan did as a player. But then the funny thing is he goes back to, and Jaywin always talks about this, he goes back to the Bulls after his Portland contract in 03 and signs two years, 10 million. And he's just done. He's like, I'm mailing this in.

I'm getting these motherfuckers back. And he plays 23 games for the Bulls. It makes 10 million bucks, which was like half of what he made for them the entire time. But yeah, if he's, you. had been a free agent in 93, you know, he would have, he would have done really well. And he would have been, and that could have been the end of the Bulls dynasty right there. So in a weird way, the fact that he signed that goofy extension probably enabled the last three titles. You didn't see the Pippin's wife tweet the other night when everybody was lamenting how chronically

underpaid he was. She tweeted out a picture of Scotty Pippen and said, thanks for your concern. Scotty did okay. And then it says career earnings, $109 million. Oh. Well, I wrote a piece two years ago about when it looked like LeBron might not have a team to go to after 18 about how Jordan's last season,

he kind of didn't have anywhere to go. That was one of the reasons he retired. If you go back and you look at that 99 lockout ends, everybody has more money to spend. There's only like seven contenders at caps. space. And the Rockets were one of the seven. And in retrospect, if Jordan had wanted to play again, he was friends with Barclay, they had Barclay, Hakeem, they had the money to give Pipp in that contract. It would have been interesting if Jordan's like, I don't want to stop playing. I'll go to the

Rockets and play with Barclay for Barclay and Hakeem. I'll do a one-year deal or whatever. Pippen goes somewhere else. There's a lot of what ifs from that lockout because one of the things that happened, all the sudden it got solved. And it was like this 10-day free-for-all that was a little bit like, remember in December 2011 when the lockout ended and all hell broke loose? And it was like the Chris Paul trade's happening and guys are signing left and right. It was a lot like that. And, you know, I'm sure that's going to happen again.

When is the next potential lockout KOC? 2024. However, I mean, with everything happening now, they're opening up for, could open up CBA negotiations sooner. So we'll see if that 24 date stays. Yeah, because I mean, how can we even know what basketball related income is this year?

Well, that's the part that I haven't, and there's no way to write about it, but what happens to the salary cap next year, the teams are already talking about that because, you know, the salary cap's cut in dry. It's based on revenue. And if between all the revenue they lost in China,

the regular season games they lost, they lost. And if the playoffs come back in July, there's going to be abbreviated playoffs. There's going to be ad revenue that they lose. The cap for next season could go down by $25 million. 20 million? I don't know. I don't even know what the exact number is. And you look at a team like Golden State and they have Curry, Clay Thompson, and Wiggins. Just those three make like $100 million next year. I have no idea how this is going to work. I don't, I don't know if it'll drop by that much, but it's going to drop at least some amount. And that's going to change the whole equation for what we've been talking about this this past year and all that when it comes

to teams. They're going to have max cap space. We talk about the Knicks having double max slots in 2021. They may not have one or they'll have maybe only one and not much else to do. And it's going to change the whole equation. KOC, they might almost have to do some weird formula with it, right? Where it's like the salary cap, it's really 80. but let's pretend it's 100 so we can have more maneuver. But they might have to create some formula to make it more competitive because it's going to favor the teams that have the contracts locked in already. And that's the weird thing about, you know,

so everybody's talking about how player salaries are getting withheld. And I think the way that's been perceived by a lot of the public is that owners are keeping the money from the players on the cells. But that's not the way it is. It's the BRI basketball-rated income that's split, 51% for players, 49% to the team. So the share remains the same.

A player, whether he gives back money in his paycheck now or gives it back in August or September, is making the same amount no matter what. And it's a bit interesting that revenue is what's determining the percent that a player is receiving. Yet with the salary cap, it still counts as that exact number. If a player is making $30 million,

he counts against the cap as $30 million, even though because of every, everything happening, he might only actually make $25 million. And so I wonder if maybe moving forward, it should be maybe percentage of the salary cap. You know, that's what a player makes. Yeah. I think what you laid out is probably going to happen. But there's going to be some ramifications because the max salary just won't be as high.

And if you go back to 99, remember KG signed that? Remember Chris, what was it, like $125 million for six years, something like that? He's making like $20 million a year. but then it's switched. They put in the new cap after the lockout and the max guy could only, the most you could sign for was six years, I think 71.

And Marbury was pissed off about it. He was KG's teammate. And he could only make like 60% what KG was and he couldn't get over it and was like, I need to be a franchise guy on my own team. I think, I bet we see that with some NBA guys.

You're going to have situations where somebody's banking $35 million and then Jason Tatum, it's time for his. max deal and he can only make 22 million as a max guy. It's going to be an issue. That might happen with the guys who already signed extensions too. They signed ahead of time. They're getting 25 percent, some of these rookie max extensions. But that 25 percent is going be way lower than what they had hoped for. And also, Chris, the Kauai, like Kauai Paul George,

where they have the player options. But the player options, they can opt into this huge number that if they went in the free agent market, they're looking at 60 percent of it. If the cap goes down a lot or a little whatever. So it's going to have a lot of ramifications. It's always the guys that like people feel like don't deserve it getting paid an extraordinary amount. Like it's hard to explain. KG wasn't KG when he signed that deal.

But I remember an old basketball executive telling me it's not Kevin Garnett's contract that effed up the league. It was big countries because every other guy around the league looked at that and said, fucking big country makes this. I deserve to make this, right? And I do think guys did a reasonable job with the understanding that one year that the cap went up. And you had all those guys from, you know, Kent Baysmore to Mike Conley to on and odd. Kent Chandler Parsons, Alan Crab, a lot of guys, I think, were pretty good about understanding that was an outlier.

And that's, I can't be sitting there going, Kent Bismore makes $20 million. I should make more than him. But back in the day, like when you're talking about with the KG stuff, when you had very young players, you even had even prior to that draft picks, Glenn Robinson comes out and he's, he's got $80 million in his pocket or whatever it is. Kenny Anderson. Yeah, Kenny Anderson was like seven for $60 million. He hadn't played a game. Right. That's why that decade there was so many disappointing guys.

They all were making a ton of money that hadn't even done anything yet. And I think they realized like that's not great. we got to at least make these guys play for their first big contract and kind of learn a work ethic and habits. Now, though, because of the rookie scale contracts, you're going to have the number one pick making about $12 million annually. And in an era where the salary cap could be declining. So, like, salaries have risen, you know. So could that go down, though? Like, could the rookie scale actually, is that tied to the cap?

I believe those are set, I believe. Hey, here's a business side of things, questions. that you could answer Bill that we couldn't as someone who's in charge of a business, right? So one of the terms that we've all been forced to learn through this pandemic is this forced majeure, right? Yeah. That's in all these contracts, which basically says, so if I have a massive sponsor that has signed a year-long contract, like there's all these clauses and all these contracts

basically saying if there is a natural catastrophe, if there is a pandemic, if there is all this stuff. Here's what happens. And that's why you have a million lawyers around the table. That's how we don't know about basketball related income. So to that point, like right now, they are not providing games for say, let's just take ESPN. That's the biggest one, right? Do you, is the NBA still, is ESPN still cutting its check to the NBA, despite the fact that there is no product being produced on air right now. My understanding is yes. And I think they also have the option maybe to back out or stop or whatever.

But the thing is, you're still in a relationship with the league. And when everything gets better, you want to be in a good relationship with the league. So you don't want to jeopardize things like that. The fourth major thing, like it could be interpreted any way you want. But if this whole event doesn't qualify for that, then I don't know what does. I mean, I would say pandemic, earthquake, massive fire, all that stuff. I still feel like they're going to figure out this July tournament thing. I really think it's going to happen.

I think they're waiting for baseball to come back first and then they'll jump on it. But I think it's going to be Vegas, L.A. or Orlando. They're going to figure out the bubble thing. And they're just going to do it. There's too much money at stake. and whether there might not even be media allowed there. It might just be players, people directly related to the games, people directly rated to filming the games, and that's it.

But it's for this reason. Like there's so much money at stake from so many different players, owners, TV networks, they all need to actually play basketball. That's why I think it's going to happen. I'm with you. I wouldn't be shocked if it didn't happen. because who knows what's going to happen moving forward. However,

they're full speed ahead and lying to make this happen, which made the Adam Silver conference call last week that I was on when he talked to the media after the board of governor's meeting. He more than any other time that I can remember him speaking publicly about this, whether it was with Rachel Nichols on the jump or with Ernie Johnson on the Twitter NBA live thing they did, he was more cautious with the things that he was saying about playing this past week than any other time that I can remember with him.

However, everything I've heard is what you've just said, Bill, that their intentions are fully to get games going in July. And Adam Silver was more like, no, we're just listening to ideas. I don't think that's true. That's not true. There's a real reason he played it that way if I had to analyze it. It's coming right off Trump having the meeting or whatever he did, Zoom meeting with all the commissioners and a couple different owners. I think Adam is being really sensitive about the perception of his players

with how he handles it, especially with the Trump part of it. Because you think, like, I'm going to go out of limb and say that most of the player demographic is not in the Trump camp, just in general. And I think that that's a delicate line

to be like, the players know he's talking to the president, the players thinking Trump's forcing him to come back or whatever. And I just think they're trying to, kind of navigate it. I also don't think they want to be first. That's what I keep hearing. They don't want to be the first league back. And they're really kind of waiting for golf and baseball and a couple other things to get going. But I was saying this two weeks ago. I think it's going

to be like a seven, eight week run in starting July 3rd, July 4 somewhere like that. Bubble system. You do it at LA Live. You do it in Vegas at one casino or you do it in Orlando. and you just have everybody come in or needs to be there and nobody's allowed to leave and nobody else is allowed to come in. You test everybody and you just kind of go. And that's it. As the novel coronavirus pandemic escalates in the United States, public health officials are encouraging those who are experiencing signs

or symptoms of COVID-19 such as coughing or fever to seek medical guidance remotely. If you are a loved one are feeling sick or just feeling worried, there is a way to get help without leaving home. Roe is offering free telehealth services for people seeking guidance and information on COVID-19. The service is available free of charge in all 50 states and in Washington, D.C. Rowe's free online assessment will determine if you are at risk, and if appropriate, Roe will connect you with a medical provider for a free consultation.

The assessment was designed by doctors and infectious disease experts and is based on guidelines from the CDC and the World Health Organization. visit RO.CO slash coronavirus on your phone or laptop to complete a free online assessment or just learn more. If you're worried that you may be experiencing symptoms, go to RO.co slash coronavirus to start your free assessment today. That's row.com slash coronavirus. Now back to the mismatch. We just watch that doc with David Stern makes an appearance when they're off in Paris, whatever. And I know you knew the Stern NBA experience.

extremely well. How much different do you think what we're going through right now is if it's David Stern still running the league instead of Adam? Stern would be much more available, present, and kind of owning the real estate of it than Adam is. Like Stern had a little bit of a Trump side to him where it's like, here, I'm going to have another press conference today. Here are my thoughts. You know, like he, in times of crisis, he was very, very available and present. And I think Adam is little more behind the scenes. The interesting thing to me, and I'm just starting to find out details of this,

but just like who's emerging as the power brokers for driving this, if it actually does happen, who's against it, who's for it, things like that. I've heard some stuff about, you know, like at least one owner who really felt like it should still be in the

arenas if they came back and, you know, teams flying back and forth. and I think the debate is a lot more robust and heated than maybe has come out so far. Have you heard that, Kevin? Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of this agreement for sure. I mean, I think that's probably another reason why Adam Silver did take the stance that he did for the reason you mentioned. But also, you know, there is nothing that has been set in stone yet here.

I'm sure there are certain ideas that he's taking more seriously than others. And that is obviously the bubble idea. It's just a matter of where you do it and whether you're doing. and whether you have one or two of them, I think what Keith Smith wrote on Yahoo makes a lot of sense. Disney World is already essentially a bubble. That is a place that already has the hotel infrastructure. It is already, it's not a city like Los Angeles or Las Vegas

where people could theoretically go there and try to sneak into a place. Disney World already has closed doors. Well, there's also a tie-in with your biggest business partner, right? Sure. Yep, of course. So in 2011 when they had that lockout and it became a have-have-have-nots thing with the owners. And some owners kind of emerged as the powerful voice of reason owners. I remember at the time, like Peter Holt was like the San Antonio guy became kind of the guy.

And like the conciliary for the owners and the conduit, I think Cuban was very important. Wick gross back from the Celtics was important. Clay Bennett from Oklahoma City was kind of the small market guy. And you have these different little phyelums, and they're all trying to figure it out. But everybody has an agenda. I haven't heard enough yet about what the agendas are this time around. I know Cuban is really active. The Golden State, those owners and the Celtics owners.

And then, you know, Balmer, obviously. The thing is, the owners that they have now are much more successful and competent than the owners they had. certainly, you know, 20 plus years ago and even in the 2011, a lot of the guys that have bought into teams now are really successful businessmen who care about what people think about them. So I think that's got to be driving it too. The worst case scenario is you do this bubble thing, it's going. And then during round one, Chris Middleton comes down with the coronavirus or whoever. And you're like, oh, shit, do we stop? What happens? And I think that's the thing that they're trying to

figure out if we do this, can we be 100% sure we can start from a position of zero people have this? And then they're in the bubble. And there's all these different models. If you do the bubble think correctly, nobody has it, then nobody can give it to each other. So the question is, well, how do we know if somebody is asymptomatic? And I don't know. This is all the stuff they're talking about every day. One thing that is good or better than it once was is, and you know this, Bill, these guys are way, they're much more rich than they were before. And so these losses, it's not as big a deal. You know, when this happened, even 10 years ago, there's a lot of guys. They, like, you know, the amount of money that they may be losing right now, it can be taxed right off. I mean, it's ashtray money to some of these guys, honestly. Whereas, because they got 10, 15 billion dollars, seven billion dollars in some cases, there's so many guys that are so much more rich.

that own these teams than used to. You didn't have to be like crazy rich to own a basketball team even 10 years ago. Yeah, but I'll flip that around the other way. There's people that became rich basically, you know, like look at the Houston owner. He's a restaurants, hotels guy. Right. No, that's fair.

Would you want to have investments in restaurants and hotels right now? I wouldn't. So I do wonder if there's going to be some, at least a couple teams that if this keeps dragging on, are going to want to try to sell just to, you know, because they need the money or whatever. We were in a situation really the last two, three years. I don't even think there was really more than two teams ever legitimately for sale, right, Kevin?

It was like Minnesota we'd heard rumors about. Other than that, I don't even know if there was, hey, it was 30 owners who liked owning their teams and they weren't for sale. Was there anyone, Kevin? None coming to mind. I mean, obviously, Knicks fans would hope James Dolan would sell for $5 billion or whatever the Knicks would be valued at. But even he's not well. I guess Brooklyn counts.

But everyone, he was trying to sell Brooklyn for a few years. And I think he lost a lot of his fortune. So, yeah, I think, you know, whenever we come out of this and God knows what it's going to look like, the league's going to be drastically different. The caps are going to be different. There's going to be new owners. You're going to have a situation where the guys who got their salaries in. over the last three years are just going to have a higher max number

than the guys that are coming after. A couple quick things before we get out of here today. All right. So for both of you, first, for Bill, you read every single book about this bull stuff. You wanted to make your own documentary on it. You lived through it, right?

But you watched, let's just take the first two hours, which is what everybody's seen. What did you not know that was in the first two episodes? I have a bet with KOC. You better say you didn't know something. He said he's going to say he knew everything.

No, I really did. Not only did I live through it, but when I wrote my book, I read every book. And there's just nothing that was in this that I didn't know. There's stuff in the later episodes that I didn't know. But at these first two, they were, you know, set up big picture stuff.

Even the backstories on these guys, like about Pippin and about Jordan. And I think it is. Wasn't a lot of this in playing for keeps? A lot of the first episodes. Some of a lot of the NBA business stuff is in breaks of the game. Jordan rules. There's a lot of Jordan books.

Like he was the first modern basketball player who was really covered in a real way where I felt like I didn't not know anything. I tell you this, I knew nothing about his brothers. Like I told you about how important that family stuff was when I was, I didn't know his mom was alive for that matter. Yeah. She looks unbelievable. Yeah.

Considering, you know, she's in her 70s for goodness sakes. But the brother stuff and then somebody texted me yesterday. They're like, you know, uh, you know his brother's an executive for the hornets. And I was like, wait, what? Yeah. One of his brothers is an executive for the hornets now. I mean, I've never even, it was weird because like when he was talking about it. And again, I'm sure it'll change his time goes on.

But even when he's talking about his brothers, it was all like bad stuff. You know what I mean? I had these brothers and I fought with them. And it wasn't like I really looked up to my brother or, you know, none of that stuff. And frankly, we're just so familiar with everybody. Everybody knows every one of LeBron's kids. Everybody knows everything about all these guys. And now it's all these years later, the most famous athlete in the world.

And there was a lot of the family stuff that I didn't realize about Jordan. I mean, just overall, I sort of take away Ryan's first thought on your pod bill. I thought it was pretty motivating. And there were some good life lessons in there. I thought the scene with Michael Jordan when he was a rookie with the Bulls and he opened the door and there's people doing cocaine and everything. And he's like, you know what? I'm not going to let this derail me. I thought that was a really, really cool part of the episode.

I mean, it was funny, you know. Yeah. Thinking about that Bulls team going from what he went to to that. but it was also sort of, you know, this is a guy who his whole life sort of knew what he wanted. And he worked as hard as he possibly could every step of the way to achieve what he wanted to achieve. I sort of felt the same way as Ryan did on your pod, Bill. To your point, Kev, like, I didn't know about, like, you understand how it shapes him, right? That he was like, I'm not going to be going out to the clubs.

I'm not going to be doing whatever. But it's different, like, even nowadays covering these guys, like, they go out as teams, and they go out when they go out on the road and whatever. But like, how traumatic it must have been to open up a hotel room and there's chicks and cocaine and all that. Like, you could, like, throw everything away. Like, nobody's throwing anything away from going to the club in Miami when, you know, when these guys go out now.

But it's just so hard to even comprehend, you know, if you open up a door, any of us, you open up a door and there's a bunch of people doing cocaine. You're like, damn, man, if I'm a part of this, I could lose everything. Like, nobody had that decision to make anymore. But, I mean, honestly, that was a huge factor with the league he was going into. It's the height of the cocaine era. And, you know, it's not just destroying the NBA.

It's destroying the NFL and MLB to some degree. And Hollywood. There's so many comedians and actors and directors who got who nobody knew it was, you know, that debilitating from, from 70s. all the way through, then people started dying. But if you go back, and I wrote about this in my book a little bit, the drug thing was the dominant topic in the NBA, other than Bird of Magic for the first part of the 80s. And we were losing guys left and right.

Guys' careers are getting cut short. That was when Stern, he put in the big, the drug testing and the whole suspension thing. That goes in in like 82, 83. And it all crests with Lembias in 86. And when the Lembias thing happened, and right after that, the Rockets who had made the finals, Lewis Lloyd and Mitchell Wiggins,

they both had cocaine suspensions. And this was the biggest problem in the league. And it was interesting. He ended up on a team that I think was probably a little worse off with that stuff than most. If you go back and you look at the basketball reference, you could probably figure out who a couple of the guys were. But yeah, like, what if he goes in there?

And he's like, all right, I'll try one. You know, like, I, you know, Len bias is the great Celtics what if of my life. And he was somebody that I think, you know, had a lot of Jordan in him. I don't think it's inconceivable that he could have been as good or better than Charles Barkley or Carl Malone

if he'd come into the league. And he's, you know, he was at least worst case scenario of the Celtics version of James Worthy. And he starts partying a little bit his last year, Maryland, and all of a sudden he'd ODs, you know? So I think the dangers that were in place

for these guys really can't be overstated. People didn't know any better and they were doing dumb stuff. It's like episode 9 or episode 8 of Better Call Saul in season 5 when Mike's talking about bad choice road. You make choices that lead up

to where you are in your life. You make some good choices along the way. You make some bad choices along the way. You can't do anything about that. It's just about what you do moving forward. Chris, I remember we had a huge ringer party. Just cocaine, booze, women.

and in KOC, we just hired him. KOC opens the door, he looks in. He's like, I don't want any part of that, guys. I didn't judge him. I didn't either. I didn't either. You guys don't judge me for that, but you do judge me for saying the bullshit of tanked in the 86 season, right, Chris?

Oh, boy. Hey, I was right. Kosey's right. Oh, stop. Kosey's 100% right. No, he is. So, Chris, the lottery that year was seven. teams, everybody had the same odds.

If you were the seven team, you had the same odds as the first team. And that was a really good draft. They absolutely should have tanked. I would have sat Jordan's ass down. Would Jordan the owner have sat down Jordan 86, Jordan, the player? I bet he would have. I don't know. No, he, look,

even now running the frigging Hornets, they win 30-something games every year. Right. Maybe they don't need to tank. They suck anyway. Well, I mean, he could bottom out. He hasn't in Charlotte. I do think he really believes that, that there is an integrity to the game and what the fuck are we doing here? Go out and win.

You know what I mean? Well, that explains a lot of the Hornets contracts the last 10 years. No doubt about it. They're their team that's obsessed with getting the six or seven seed, getting two playoff games, maybe three. And that's called that. Yeah, it is unbelievable. They gave Terry Rozier 60 million bucks. Rozier's had a pretty good deal, but not a 60 million dollar deal.

deal year. Who are they bidding against? Oh, you're right. All right. Two days away from the NFL draft. You're both Pats guys. Who do you want? And do you want to come away with a quarterback?

Would you trade up for two, Bill? Let's go. Bell check just that. He just doesn't do that. How many times does he trade it up in 20 years? He has treated up. It's been like twice.

He traded up in the high tower draft. When he loves a player, he's willing to trade up, it's very rare. And we haven't seen him in a situation in which he needs a quarterback. And I'm just saying that as a theoretical if he were to fall. Well, and hey, Sabin's his guy. Sabin is his guy. You know he knows what he'd be getting into a better than anyone.

I am all in on Cam Newton or James. Oh. And just try to load up on the draft. Why do you want James? For the fun of it? Why not? The 30-th-thru-yard last year. He also throws 30-30-pig.

Two has had five surgeries already. I know, I know, I know. It seems like a lot. There's a lot of red flags there. It's scary. And I bet that's why I was curious. I'm not sure if I would want to trade up for him with all the injuries and the major surgeries that he's had.

It's just something that I've thought about with a potential scenario and think Thursday. Would I want the Patriots to do that? Yeah. Look, Cam's a good dude. Great player. But I can't see him walking in in a frigging Little Bo Peep bonnet and a polka dot scarf in a Patriots press conference. How long does that last with Bill Belichick?

Let's get serious. Chris, we're not the Super Bowl run is over. I'm for like a fun Patriots team. I know we're not winning the Super Bowl next year. The 1989 NFL draft was on last night, which of course I watched three hours of. And it was during the height. It was during the height of when the Patriots were just awful. And this is a draft that had four Hall Famers in the first five picks,

then Andre Risen, Thurman Thomas, all these guys. And the Pats took Hartley Dykes, who played two years, who got in a bar fight with Irving Friar, hurt his eye, fractures kneecap. Was out of the league in two years. But as you're watching this draft, they're like, oh, you know, physical receiver, speed, you know, some off-field stuff, but maybe going to New England will be better for him. And it just took me back to this PTSD Pats run pre-Bledso and it seemed like they were going to move.

Every year they fucked up everything. And now I feel like we're heading back there to that place where it's just over. Wait. So yeah, it's just done. Wow. We haven't had a good draft. We haven't had a good draft since like 2014. Like this team's not going to be good next year.

So the Tua thing, it's like, what's even the point? I would rather see them. Nothing's more fun than that. It's more fun than Jared Stitton. James. James. Jared Stittling. James is not fun.

Cam Newton, fun. James Winston, not fun. I'd also be happy with going like a Jalen. Jalen Hertz as well. I'm very intrigued by Jalen Hertz. Oh, Jalen Hurts. Oh, wow. Those are quarterbacks I like this year.

We made nine Super Bowls and we won six in 20 years. It's never happening again. We had our run. What an error, huh? But you don't hope you come out of draft night with a quarterback. It's not essential to you. Who does Mel Khyper has you taking Zach Bonn, a white linebacker from Wisconsin. It's a perfect fit, right?

Chris, can I tell you where I'm at with Tua? Please. I'm deep down hoping he falls to 23. Oh, my God. I do think there's a lot of medical questions. And everyone's doing this on Zoom. nobody's been able to actually work him out. And there might be a chance, like, maybe he just starts falling.

And then if he gets to, like, the 13-14 range, I'd start to get excited. You know, I always complain about the group thing that goes along with drafts. I tweeted about this last night. All these NFL analysts changing their tune on the kid from Oregon is embarrassing to me. Like, bro, you spent the last month telling me that this guy ain't that good and you're not that high on him. And there's, there's, there's, there's, uh, burrow and two and then a drop off. And they all get word that all these teams at the top like him, that he might go in the top five.

And so now they, they're all talking up Justin Herbert. And I'm like, give me a break. What? Do you want to hear the saddest, the saddest conversation I've had in the last three weeks about sports? I'm talking to my dad the other day. And I'm telling him out, I think there's a chance they're going to play the NBA this season and maybe I have 12 playoffs.

teams, not 16, maybe four, four buys for the top four, maybe just eight playoff teams. And I'm laying it all out from. There's a pause. And my dad goes, does that mean our Memphis team? Memphis pick could be in the lottery? I'm like, I'm like, dad, that shit sailed. That pick's not going to end up in the lottery, no matter what playoff system they have. He's so heartbroken that that Memphis pick that it turned into a top five pick, he can't get over it.

It's hilarious that that's what you say. you are laying that out, I'm like, oh, F that. That's their way so that they can justify, okay, fine. We're not going to have Memphis instead of Zion. We can't figure out a way to get Zion in there, so we're just going to cut it off at six so we don't have to deal with it. Oh, F that. Yeah. No. No. No. Start preparing now. Start preparing emotionally. No. No. They're going to cut it off as to not. 12 team playoffs. That's terrible. Well, it does a couple things. The other thing it does is if KD and Kyrie are ready to come back,

all of a sudden, Brooklyn has the seven seed that actually has these two guys that could play. Oh, wow. And ruin everything. You don't want that either. Yeah, you don't want that either. So I think you either do eight teams or 12. KOC, what do you think? Eight teams are 12?

So, I mean, I've heard, like, look, everything's been torn around, you know, with playoff, play in tournaments. But with this theoretical six team in each conference playoff system, you would still have a plan, right, to determine some of these final seats. So I guess Brooklyn could still get in. Memphis could still get in. Oh.

What do you mean to play in? I thought it was going to be 12 teams, the top two seeds in each conference, don't play in round one. And you do best three or five, three versus six, four, four,

for five. I think you do three verse six, four verse five. You know, right now, though, we don't, there's no games.

You cut it off right now, what the standards look like right now. Regular, regular season's done. That's not happening. What's funny, though, is that they'll keep our money, though, this whole time.

There's going to be no regular season refund for the season ticket holders. They'll do that like at the tail end. But teams, teams do want to get to that 70 mark. I mean, they're not going to get to 70, but maybe if you do have the,

like if you have some type of playing tournament that counts towards regular season revenue, that could be used to determine the playoff seeds, though. I mean, it could get funky. I don't see it. So you just see them cutting off 12 teams. Yeah. Top six seats.

I did. So Dallas, Memphis are out. That is bullshit. Oh yeah. No Luca, no John Morant. Great. Just so they... I'll have them next year.

I don't see it. I think those, you're going to see those guys play again. I'd be surprised. I hope Bill's wrong. If there's games being played, I think you're going to see those guys playing. I hope so. By the way, can we talk about trades that people wouldn't have done if they knew a massive pandemic was coming through?

weeks later, you got to start with Miami for Andre Aguadala, right? They gave up Justice Winslow and they do this whole move to load up. And then, what, two and a half weeks later, the season's over? Two and a half weeks later. Yeah, they're feeling good about that trade, Chris, huh? Man, I mean, the fact that they got anything for Andre Aguadal is unbelievable. after the way that all played out. That was crazy.

It was crazy the way that all played out. And then the other one that's nuts now is the Wiggins-Rustle trade where Golden State has a top three protected 2021 pick from Minnesota. I would say that's a top-five team I would want a top-five unprotected pick from, top three. I'm telling you, that was a great trade.

A great trade for the state. The most important question. So since you brought up the fact that the pandemic has hit and all these NBA players, you know, would you go back and make different moves, whatever? Who is going to come back the most out of shape? This is almost like a lockout scenario. You know, you'd spend a long time talking about Sean Kemp.

He is the famous. Had a lockout came back. Oh my God. What happened here, right? Inevitably, like a lot of these guys, I talked to a couple players yesterday. I'm not kidding you. They went to friggin' dicks to buy basketball. goals for their house.

They don't have basketball goal. They don't even have goals at their house. Much less, I mean, unless they're running around the neighbors. I know. I'm with it.

You never consider it, right? Like, if you're Jason Tatum, why would you have a basketball hoop? Anytime you want to play basketball, you just go to the practice facility. So these guys, underrated fat lockout guy was Antoine Walker.

Because he came back. He had signed a max contract. He was like 22 years old. All of a sudden, a $71 million deal. We won nothing with him. I personally liked him, but the Boston fans,

it was a little iffy with him. And he shows up and he's a good 15 pounds heavier than he was the season before. And I remember my dad like, what the hell? What's he been doing? There will definitely be

at least a couple guys like that. I do think it's easier to stay in shape in 2020 than maybe it was in 1999 because you can do, you know, buy a fucking Peloton or, you know, there's things you can do at home.

Would we agree? there's a reasonable chance Zion is 380 when he comes back. I mean, he's already 305. The two guys I'm most worried about are Zion and Embedde. Embedd's another one that I feel like Embedd's been on the fringe for a while

and I do worry about what he would look like. But my favorite part of this is Chris really wants Zion not to work out. He'll never say it publicly in a pod, but the John Ramran Zion thing. It's like if Zion came back three, it's real. Chris would be walking around his house like, yeah. That's real. That's right. I love watching Zion, but, and we need to find out if he stayed in New Orleans, because there's no way if he stayed in New Orleans that he,

you can't, I mean, I go for there for a weekend. I gained 16 pounds. There'll be, there will be one center. The centers have the trouble. There will be one like, he's just coming back from, Yokich and B. Oh God, poor Yokic. Oh my God. Oh my God. Yokich. Is there any chance that he has gotten on a treadmill or a bike or run around the neighborhood or no way? There is no way with if you told him.

If you're not making him, hell, he doesn't even want to run during the games. He wasn't in shape for the first two months of this season and we didn't have a pandemic. Yeah, I don't know. The one like serious note on this topic, though, it's like there is a legitimate concern for player conditioning with something like this happening mid-season. And I wonder, will there be any guys who are going to say, I'm not going to play? Will anybody just sit out entirely? Andre Heguada. Whatever tournament.

Yeah. Andre. Oh, one more out of shape guy possibility. Luca's got to be on the list, right? Luca's been like borderline for the last couple years. He was my first pick in the NBA test top BMI drafts. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Unfulfilled promise because of a pandemic. Who would have ever? There will inevitably be some of these guys that are, I hate to say that, but are not the same after this. And there is great risk of injury because being inactive for this amount of time. You know what I mean? Like I, just anybody, you can't go from being inact. active.

And I don't know how many of these guys are staying, you know, mega active, certainly nothing like what it takes to be in NBA shape. It's tough. And Bid and Zion, I think, would be my top two draft picks. Bill, thanks for coming on with us today, man. It's been great to see you guys. KOC, your beard looks fantastic. Chris, I'm glad you're well. You really, I mean, look at that thing.

It has really filled in. He looks like a Civil War general. It's kind of at that stage right now. I'm just letting it go. Kevin, I know he's the boss there. You got bust his ass. Look at his. Yeah.

He's letting it all grow up. I respect it. I respect it. Yours waiter. You're dominating him in the beard game. Well, he said he had a two-year head, two-month head start. Yeah, I started in December. And he's also like following all these, you don't know this, but he's following all.

these guys on Instagram. He's putting like exotic oils in it and shit. No. That's not true. That's not true.

Oh my God. Oh yeah. So here's what happened. That's not true. Here's what happened. What the hell is going on? That's not true. What did happen was I mentioned a beard video that I watched on

YouTube like how to trim your beard or whatever. And someone, someone who owns that beard brand listens to this show. They're like, hey, the guy you mentioned who's like the 55-year-old. you know, attractive dude with the beard but looks like a normal dude without the beard

works for us. And they sent a couple of oils and, you know, shampoo. So that's not, that's not exotic stuff. It's just normal, like, shampoo type of products. Well, that's beard shampoo. Yeah. What the fuck are you talking about?

I mean, it keeps it soft, man. Do you have special beard shampoo, Bill? This is unbelievable. When is KOC's beard getting an Instagram or a Twitter? When is some crazy fan going to just start tweeting? That's great. I'm all in on that. All right.

Thanks to Bobby Wagner for producing as always. Thanks, Bill. Kevin, I'll talk to you on Friday. Talk to your Friday, Chris. Thanks for listening to another episode of The Mismatch. We'll talk to you on Friday.