The Ringer NBA Show - The NBA Season Is Suspended | The Mismatch

Episode Date: March 12, 2020

In light of the news that the Utah Jazz’s Rudy Gobert has tested positive for COVID-19, the NBA announced that the 2019-20 season has been suspended. Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to The Ringer NBA show. I'm Chris Vernon and joining me as he does every week for the Ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor, aka Kevin O'Connor, A.K., Kevin O'Clymer, Kevin O'Colns, Kevin, Kevin O'Clymer, Kevin O'Clyland. Kevin, this is an episode that we never expected to be doing. Oh, boy. No, definitely not, Perna. That was a wild, wild night. Probably the craziest day in sports than I can remember in my lifetime. That is for certain. And I can't remember. And obviously, look, we are recording this on Thursday.

morning. On Wednesday night, the news came down that the NBA has postponed its season. And so things are evolving rather quickly. But here's what we do know. There were games scheduled for last night. We saw in Oklahoma City and Utah players being taken off the floor. We saw a game being played in Dallas where Mark Cuban got the news in the middle of the game, as did the players, as did the coaches, as did the officials in said game. And then to cap off the night, one of the most bizarre things I can remember seeing in sports was, and I just have this vision of Richard Jefferson being the color guy last night

on the NBA broadcast that was going to be taking place between the Pelicans and the Kings and him saying, the Pelicans have not come out of their locker room. And all the while Sam Amick is reporting that, they don't want to play this game. And so ESPN has this national television broadcast of a game that is going to be played. Doris Burke on the end of the previous broadcast has said that they should not be playing the game. And now a team has not taken the floor.

Lonzo Ball goes out there by himself and is shooting around on the court. But nobody really knows what's going on. And then you hear the announcement come over to the loudspeaker in a stadium filled with fans that tonight's game has. been canceled, and then it just kind of kept evolving from there. Take me through your night. I mean, pretty much identical to you, Chris. I mean, just simply when the news dropped that games are going to be suspended for the foreseeable future, it made me think about just what I had heard earlier in the day, that, you know, this is something that if a, if at least one player gets it, which we now know to have Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell, both of the Utah Jazz, if one player

God, and I had heard that this could be a four to five week suspension or delay before games are played again. But if this is anything like what has happened in South Korea or Italy, among other countries, it could also be a heck of a lot longer than that. And this is going to be the last time that we watched NBA basketball for quite a while. Yeah. And there is no phrase that has been said more often over the course of the last 24 to 48 hours than I'm not a doctor. So I don't think I need to clarify for everybody out there that we are not doctors. Therefore, it is very difficult and without being a health professional to, look, you even heard Mark Cuban last night uttering these very words and saying, I trust Adam and I trust the NBA. And we will figure this out.

And there are going to be very long meetings to try to understand how they could figure this out. you know that there was some level of preparation because the news came down yesterday that they had reached out to teams about their arena schedules later in the year, if in fact there was a delay or they were going to have to play games in different markets or whatever it would may be. Obviously, they had a lot of things on the table, but we knew then that they were at least looking at the possibility of, hey, if we need to put a halt to things,

are we going to be able to play a season later? Those dates, many of these arenas are hosting events. They are hosting concerts. They're hosting whatever it may be. And so the NBA schedule is already a very difficult thing to put together. And now you have a situation where they've got to figure out how they would be able to resume a season. and how many games you play and what you do with the playoffs and what you do at free agency and the draft and summer league

and I mean just everything everything literally everything yeah man I mean this is going to have ripple effects that go far beyond this current season there are the reports from Mark Cuban this morning he said on the jump that their expectation is that the end of the playoffs could go until late July or early August and if that happens well what happens happens to all other summer competition, what happens to free agency, what happens to the start of next season? Will the start of next season and seasons that come after begin in December, which is something other teams are actually in support of anyway to avoid the NFL schedule?

Or what if July or August, and this is something that was brought up to me this week, you know, the NBA could plan, okay, end of the season will happen in July or early August. but what if what if this is more serious for longer than expected what if this goes longer than expected and these games go into september who really knows who really knows when we're going to be able to play again but the important thing is and this is what i'm happy about with last night is granted it's horrible what happened and granted it sucks that rudy gobert and mitchell have it however in a way like it's a good thing that games are suspended now instead of this going another week because the longer there are those big crowds of people together, the longer we bring

those people together, the more it's going to spread amongst people and the more it's going to spread amongst society in individual cities. The more it would spread amongst players, executives, coaches, whoever it may be. So in some way, I hope it's a blessing in disguise that this happened on Wednesday, March 11th instead of like Wednesday the 18th of March. Because the sooner this happened and the sooner games stop and the sooner crowds aren't gathering, the better. And, And it's good to see certain cities across the country, such as San Francisco, using social distancing, which is what has been effective across the world in curtailing the spread of coronavirus. So hopefully this happens more often in other places, too, which are still allowing those public gatherings. Yeah.

Well, and attempting to understand what has taken place other places is I think is what every American is doing. And the World Health Organization praise China for the way they have dealt with this, right? And one of the things is you research and you listen to what they have done. And I mean, this is not something clearly that could be pulled off in America. I mean, they are taking your temperature when you're getting onto mass transit. And if you were at risk, they are taking you somewhere. I mean, you are being separated from your family and a non-authoritarian government, you know, putting in the mandates that they have in terms of separating people that are at risk or with the illness is something that it's not going to happen. in America. And so I think everybody's trying to figure out how to deal with this best. And obviously not gathering huge, massive amounts of people in the same area is a step that leagues are willing to take. And you have this moment that takes place and it's unfolding, you know, before us as news is breaking where there's this moment where I think everybody that's a sports fan and everybody that is a sports observer starts to take this very seriously because while it

could have been something that everybody joked about a few days ago, you even saw Rudy Gobert joking about it with a group of reporters, you know, because I was, I was in an NBA arena on Tuesday night and it was surreal. I mean, the coach's interview, which is typically done sitting next to the broadcaster, is done with a boom mic, a water. off interview in the case that they won was not going to be done on the court. And pre-game media availability were done on a podium. And so you have this moment where Rudy Gobert is joking about the current situation and then touches all of the reporters, you know, microphones and recorders and everything. And even the reporters think this is funny.

And then you have fast forward the news that Rudy Gobert has an illness, he might not play in the game. And then you have the players getting pulled off the court, and then you have the news that Rudy Gobert has the coronavirus. And I think there's a flashpoint for everybody involved in sports, as then you saw the NBA cancel its season, where everybody's then trying to figure out, who rode the same planes as the jazz, who played against the jazz in the last week? And you have this moment where anybody that would have been joking about it ceases joking about it because they saw this just truly unbelievable scenario where the guy that is the one joking about it

is the one that has the coronavirus and now fast forward to this morning, we'll get to those news. But as you're watching that Gobert stuff all unfold last night, what are you thinking? I mean, it was inconsiderate to his teammates for the report

that we would put out there of touching players and their belongings just as it was as we saw with him touching all the microphones. It showed in ignorance to the issue that the world is facing right now. And, you know, it's a, I'm sure Rudy Gobert feels more sorry than anybody else for what has transpired. You know, obviously I feel some frustration with that, not about to kick him while he's down now after cooling off a little bit. But it's like, I think it just at least serves as an example for all of us to, you know, taking consideration others,

especially whether it is something with a fast-spreading virus such as this. We're seeing now with coronavirus or even during flu season. I mean, it made me think about a time in elementary school when I saw a kid cough in someone's face, like purposely. It just like cough nonstop. I was from afar. I don't know if that kid was sick. He was just coughing in his face.

And it's like Rudy O'Ber didn't do that. But just by touching this stuff when this can be spread so easily, it's just like, don't do that. Don't do things like that. Be considerate of others, especially at a time like this where something is just spreading so quickly. So it's disappointing.

And you know that the other players on their team have clearly vented their frustration. You know being in news reporting, that's how the story comes about. Because as Adrian reported, jazz players privately say Rudy Gobert had been careless in the locker room touching other players and their belongings.

And so that comes from a player saying, you know, and you know the way this goes. They're bitching about this. Like, and now Donovan's got it. Like, this guy was, he was joking about it the whole time. He's touching all of our crap. He's touching us. And now, you know, the star player on the team.

Sure. He's got the coronavirus. Like, the only way we know of that is if a player is relaying this message to get out there that this is, this is ridiculous. obviously upset with the situation. I mean, it was a dopey decision for Rudy Gobert to touch the microphones and mock what is a serious issue.

I mean, ultimately, this is why the NBA at first closed locker arms. It was a quarter measure, you know, of what the actual issue was, but it was a step one in this process. Step two, I think their intentions were to play games with an empty arena. But this really escalated things

with a player actually being diagnosed with coronavirus. And like I said, Gobert, I'm sure feels more sorry than anybody else for some of these choices. I just hope people look at that and see that as an example for how serious this can actually be. I mean, I see so many tweets on my timeline. I see so many messages, people are like, oh, this is only going to kill or affect less than 1% of people under 40 years old. This is no more serious than the common cold for the far majority of us. But it's really not just about that. If you look at what's happened in Italy, especially, it's not just about the people that survive this.

There's a small percentage of people, but a large amount of thousands of people that will get affected from this and have to be in the hospital for two to three weeks, have their lungs pumped of the fluids that are in it. Hospitals are overcapacity in Italy. And that means people who have other health problems. If someone has a stroke or someone who has having chemotherapy needs to go in and get fluid or blood, that they're going to a hospital that is in full capacity, if not double. And so this is a problem beyond coronavirus. And so it really pissed me off this week to see stuff like because like this past year, my dad was in the hospital like eight times.

I think it was eight times was the number. And that would be a time where he had to stay overnight. There was many other times he had to go for a day to get blood transfusions. And I can't imagine a world in which that my dad would have had to go when there's people in the hallways because hospitals are so full. So it's not just about the people in the death percentage, the people that are going to die. It's the people that need treatments and that make these hospitals in full capacity, overcapacity, then nurses and doctors get sick, and then they're overworked and understaffed.

It's more than just the people that die. It's way more than that. So it really has pissed me off to see some of the ignorance towards that aspect of what's happening now this entire week. That's right. No, it's not, and most importantly, it's not about you dying, right? Like we are programmed to be so self-centered sometimes and care about how this affects us and those around us. And then everybody's, you know, what you went through. I always say this.

People's opinions change when things affect them, right? we could all be better at being more empathetic towards everything. And I understand that's the way it goes, right? Like, you know, you may not be passionate about some kind of a curing of some disease until maybe your mom gets it or maybe your dad gets it or whatever it may be, right? I went through this, as I talked to you about with my, you know, when you were going through it with your dad, when I went through with my best friend. Every insurance company dropped him, every one of them, Kev, every one of them.

and you cannot get it. You know what I mean? He's got stage four melanoma. He couldn't get it. And so, of course, it is going to make me think more about the health care system and about the way health insurance works and everything else. I mean, because it affects you. And I think whatever message, you know, you attempt to get across it, it's that maybe

it shouldn't have to just affect you directly. And I had this moment where I was listening to a podcast this morning. It's the short one that the New York Times does, the daily. And they had a health professional on there, and he was basically just talking through this, talking about how the United States is handling it, other countries has handled it, et cetera. And it's wild because I don't know when they recorded this. I think it was yesterday. But they were talking about, he was talking about like a Rock Hudson moment for people to take it seriously.

And he was referencing that back in the 80s, a very famous actor who was an actor, and great friend of Ronald Reagan at the time when they were actors. He was diagnosed with AIDS. And the first time that Ronald Reagan mentioned AIDS was after this Rock Hudson thing had happened, and all of a sudden there was all kinds of federal money that went towards finding a cure for AIDS and whatever. And the nation had somebody to look to, and now this is not just, oh, it's affecting other people. Last night we have somebody in the NBA, and then I'll be damned. Tom Hanks, right?

I mean, that comes out. And it's like, it felt like everybody's attention was gotten last night, you know? And then if nothing else, the canceling of the NBA season, at least for an amount of time, the postponing of it. And then really the only thing hanging out there is the NCAA tournament. You see already people being very vigilant in believing that that, if professional athletes aren't out on the floor, how on earth are. are you going to put amateurs out on the floor for an NCAA tournament? Also, one of the, I just saw this pop up on my timeline at Network, or a friend Jason Concepcioner from the ringer tweeted this out in regards to

the NBA tested 58 people last night that were staff, players, coaches, 58. That is more tests than the testing capacity per day at UCLA in Los Angeles, at University of California and San Francisco at John Hopkins in Maryland. How is it that these medical institutions have fewer tests per day for coronavirus than an NBA team got? And this touches on really the greater issue that goes beyond basketball. One of the things that South Korea has done most effectively is having drive-through testing, where people can schedule a time, drive-through area with their car and get tested for coronavirus, to know whether they have it, to know if they should be self-quarantine, to know

to be aware of symptoms, to know if they need care. And here in the United States, we don't have that at all. UCLA can only test 20 people per day, 20 people. And that's something that needs to change. It's a good thing that all, everybody in the NBA in Utah or in Oklahoma City were tested last night, but there's a heck of a lot of other people in the world that aren't able to get testing that maybe should be getting testing. Well, and I just saw my buddy John Hollinger saying, praying the NBA is a statistical outlier, crude math suggests that if two people in a population of 500 have it, over 100,000 in a population of 300 million have it.

Look, and that's all we know of so far is Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert. That's it. That's the only ones we know. And the NBA is not, as he says, it's 500 people. and so we just don't know. There has not been the level of testing to know. Well, there was a great chart that I saw last night, and it showed how all 30 NBA teams can be connected from the past five days.

Yeah. I mean, so if one team played another team, that team played another team, it doesn't mean that it's spread amongst every team, but it's just meant there's a low percent chance that it actually could have even just within five days, which is representative of how quickly it has spread amongst other countries and amongst other people,

just with minimal contact. Let's talk about the way this does affect the NBA season. They are going to have their meetings. They're going to get together, and they have some very, very difficult decisions to make. I was very happy with Mark Cuban last night. He came out and said they had already been proactive and thinking about how they

are going to deal with the hourly workers. Because when you and I talked about this earlier in the week, I said, there is so much to consider. There's so many people whose livelihoods are dependent upon even singular games going on. And so he said that they were going to put together a program for the hourly employees and so many people that weren't to put on Mavericks games so that they're going to be able to get by. I will tell you in my market, they just canceled city schools all of next week.

You know, the kids are on spring break next week. and then the following week, they are not going to be going back to school. I mean, you have so many, and I was thinking of all of the parents that are going to have to figure out what to do. When you got a third grader that's supposed to be at school, what are you going to do about the child care of the day? If you have a job and everything. And so there are so many things that are going on, but on the NBA level, that, right, you have so many people whose jobs are dependent upon these teams playing games. games. And so now they're going to meet and they're going to try to figure it out. We had at least some slivers of news come out from Cuban saying that they would come back and maybe play seven, eight games to warm up and then try to do a playoffs after that. What do you think? It's hard to predict. No, I mean, but does that sound reasonable? Yeah. That you'd play seven or eight? I think that's very reasonable. It would not shock me at all based off conversations. I've had this week that there'll be some amount of games that get cut.

Will it be a lot? I mean, I don't know. We don't know. It largely depends on what happens in this country. And really on this continent, you know, you can't forget the Toronto Raptors. What happens in Canada as well? So much is out of the league's control. And you can plan ahead only so much.

I do think that something like that is realistic, as long as there's a collective effort from the United States government, as well as its citizens to curtail the spread of coronavirus. I mean, the longer this goes, the longer the season is going to be affected, the longer the playoffs are going to be affected. The deeper into the summer,

this is actually going to go. So I think that sounds good in theory. I think playing seven or eight games before the playoffs gives enough time for some of these races to get finished up. You get Memphis with a three-and-a-half game lead over Portland, New Orleans, and Sacramento. Maybe you could tweak the schedule

and do some type of play. play in tournament. I don't know. But the fact is, is that you can only plan so far ahead. And the important thing for the league and for us as people is that this thing slows down and doesn't continue to escalate. And we don't even know how widespread it actually is right now at this point because of the minimal amount of testing that there actually is. So hopefully that games can resume as Cuban detailed and as you just shared, Chris. But I just don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Well, nobody knows, Kev. That's the truth. I mean, you saw, I mean, Mark Cuban, doesn't know. I mean, because let's say you want to do it in, I don't know, you take off three weeks,

you take off a month to try to get it under control. I mean, God forbid you come back and then a player test, you know? Like, and then what? Then you got to scrap it all over again. And so there's just no way of knowing you just try to, you know, have best practices. And I thought it was fascinating because even in the midst of all the chaos going on and understanding that the season is going to be postponed. You know, Mark, one of the things he said when he was on the sidelines, one of the first things he came to his mind was the players being there and being able to practice and be under their guidance slash watch because that that was going to be a thing. What you don't want is everybody going back home and being around whoever all the time and then say, okay, and now the season's

about to start, right? Like, and almost treat it like a lockout or something, right? And so this is just, it's new territory for everybody. We've never been through anything like this. And so trying to figure all of that out. And then, frankly, trying to plan seems, I mean, almost impossible. I don't think anybody knows what things are going to look like in two weeks or a month. And so you just kind of go, yeah, I don't know, week to week.

month to month and try to figure it out. And there's certainly a possible, I mean, you could see a scenario where the season doesn't get played out. Yeah, I mean, there is a scenario that that could happen.

There's just, it's just the facts because we don't know what's going to happen here. And, you know, I was just thinking about this last night, how this is our fourth year

doing this podcast together. Because we started in the 2016-17 season. This is easily the funnest year of basketball that I've had doing this with you, from the product on the court, seeing guys like Zion and Luca explode and Jha and seeing LeBron in his mid-30s still be the guy that he is, seeing Janus take another leap,

seeing so many surprise teams across the league and just fun young players that are now up and coming. It feels like a real turning point in the league where the guys we're seeing emerge now are going to be the guys that we watch for the next decade plus. It's really a new generation of stars. that have emerged this year. And that's been a lot of fun.

It's really the funnest year I've had in my lifetime watching basketball, never mind just in the years doing this podcast with you. But it's remarkable that that's been contrasted with the most just really horrible, you know, off-court stories that have happened. I mean, starting with the NBA China saga that happened in the beginning of the season, the passing of David Stern after his brain hemorrhage, the passing of Kobe Bryant and his dad. daughter and the seven others on that helicopter. And now this with how coronavirus has impacted

the world and the NBA directly, it's just a shame that this has all happened, you know, period, in the world and to so many families. And for us as basketball fans that truly love this game and talk about this game every week, people who listen to this show, people who talk about it with their friends, just like you and I do, that the game is gone for a while. And we don't know when it's going to come back. For so many people across the world throughout history, sport is something that has unified people and brought people together. It just really sucks that for a while now we're not going to have that.

And that's something I'm really going to miss. I agree with you completely. We're just going to have to figure out how to, look, we can catch up on the history of basketball, I suppose. I don't know. Oh, Kevin, just like this should speak to how the world changes at a moment while you are recording things. I just got two texts.

The AAC, which the hometown team where I am, Memphis is in, they just canceled their tournament. Oh, wow. So they have canceled their basketball tournament. And now the Big Ten has just canceled theirs. So this is all happening right while we are on the air. I mean, there's just no way the NCAA tournament's going to be played. You got the AAC and the Big Ten both canceling theirs this morning.

And I can only imagine that the other, I mean, that's what has to happen. and then the other dominoes are going to fall behind it. We'll see. I mean, isn't it amazing how drastically different the NCAA and the NBA have handled this? One player gets affected and the NBA cancels everything. The NCAA is like, well,

we're just going to play the entire NCAA tournament in an empty arena. And we'll see if that changes for the players who aren't getting paid shit to play basketball. We'll see if that changes. I don't know. But like none of this, you know, none of this feels real, really.

No, no, you know what's so crazy you say that. I cannot remember the last time. Maybe, I mean, obviously it is not the tragedy that we dealt with when you're talking about 9-11. And I guess I talked about this when it was the Kobe death where it just doesn't feel real. Even that memorial service that they did a couple weeks ago, it feels so surreal. I'm not kidding you, Kevin. I woke up this morning and it crossed my mind. Like, did I just dream that?

Did I just dream that the, like, I mean, it is so much to take in that it's almost like this cannot be real. And when I woke up this morning, I'm like, did all of that really just happen? Like, because you're just, especially, you know, in the business that we're in, where you're getting the notifications and people are texting you and you're getting all the news, you know, one. after another, and then you finally calm down and you go to bed. And I wake up in the morning, and I'm like, Daddy, this is crazy. Like the whole Rudy Gobert thing into Tom Hanks to, by the time I'm going to bed, the NBA season is postponed. It's like, and you have that moment that I'm watching last night. Like, did that really happen where I just watched a team not walk out on the floor to play a game? But I did. Like, it's all real. It's all happening.

and now you see, you know, these conference tournaments are canceled. Now you, right, that takes away all the, you know, now you don't have the auto bids for the tournament. And the tournament's not going to be played. The NCAA tournament's not going to be played. We'll see. No way. No way.

You know, it might turn into like May madness instead of March madness. But, you know, in terms of like that feeling of surrealness, I remember there was a day last March when it was like a week or two after my dad got diagnosed with cancer. sometimes my mom and I would stay up late after my dad went to bed and just talk about things between us when my dad was asleep. And there was this one night my mom said to me, it doesn't feel real that your dad has cancer. And I was like, no, it doesn't. Of course it doesn't. And I said to her, but nothing in my life feels real. And in a way, I'm used to this feeling. I said to her,

the good doesn't feel real. The fact that I work, what is beyond a dream job with the ringer, that doesn't feel real. The fact that I'm able to like travel across the country and cover this game, that doesn't feel real to me. It also doesn't feel real. None of the bad feels real. It doesn't feel real that my dad has cancer. It doesn't feel real that we're having these conversations. And, you know, I've really, you know, felt that feeling a lot this past year. You mentioned everything with Kobe. You mentioned like what's happening now with coronavirus. You mentioned, you know, a lot in life hasn't felt real. And this past year, especially recently, I really backtracked that feeling that I have.

have and I'm like, geez, like, I've, I've had that feeling a lot throughout my life. And for me, I think it really does trace back to 9-11 in terms of like, that happened at a formal time in my life. I was 11 years old when that happened. And I just think back to that moment in that time. And that's where like an age where you're really starting to understand things and know what's going on and seeing how things are changing. And I'm curious about anybody else in my age range. you know, I'm 29, I turned 30 in July. Anybody else in my age range feels the same way because I think about that time. And I'm like, it really made me at a young age realize how anything could happen to anybody.

You know, the people that were in those towers that night and on those planes, they're thinking that's just another normal mundane day. And on any moment or on any day, something can happen to you. It can happen to your loved one. It can happen to anybody. Nobody's exempt from anything. And I really think about what happened around. that time. And like, a year after that, I remember my grandpa had like a five-way bypass surgery.

And I just remember seeing him in the hospital and just all the tubes coming out of them thinking, like, geez, my grandpa, that's happening to him. And I think about those experiences my life that felt unreal and how that's really carried on through my childhood, young adulthood, and now today. And like in some ways, I'm not thankful for any of that, but in some ways I look at those experiences and it's really instilled a real present mentality in me. And I hope when stuff like this happens, people learn to not take for granted the days we have on this earth. Life is a miracle. It really is. It's a miracle that we're alive. It's a miracle. And I hope that a lot of people that are able to get through this can really value and cherish the days that we have together

as people. You know, that's all. I don't know if I have a point other than just to say that, you know, that hopefully there's just some good that can come from this for individual people in the world. No, and I do think that you probably, I think there probably are a lot of people in your age range that went through the same experience because that is when you are, it's when you are starting to understand things. And that was something so impossible to understand for anybody. Like you just couldn't get your head around what had happened and what was going on. the NBA has showed they were very proactive about this and has shown leadership within sports about this

and you're talking about the NCAA tournament that's what we were just talking about and I was like there's no way it's going to get played and you think about all the money that is involved with all of these different enterprises just now while we are recording the SEC which that's one of the big money ones they just canceled the rest of their tournament

in Nashville. And I told you on Tuesday, I've been to that tournament. I mean, you're talking 14 different schools, people from all over the country descending upon that city and going to that tournament. And I will tell you,

that is not a, those decisions, much like the NBA decisions are not decisions that are taken lightly. Because it's not only the arena and all of the things and all of the tickets and all the refunds

and all the people that work concessions of the ushers and the parking garages. It's also all of the businesses that are around all of these arenas that in many cases survive upon their being events at said arenas. You know, like there's a lot of businesses in a lot of towns that that's what they survive on. Is the foot traffic that are going to concerts and are going to games on a regular basis? And in this case, it's just a one-off tournament. But the economic impact of these tournaments and the NCAA tournament and every NBA game is extreme. I mean, we're seeing that in the stock market right now.

Right. But people aren't spending, and that's going to have adverse effects that linger for a long time beyond the virus itself. And, I mean, it's a good thing to see somebody like Mark Cuban really leading the charge and saying that he's going to look into ways to, to, to, pay the arena workers, you know, that aren't going to have work for quite a while because it's not just games that aren't playing, game, play. There's concerts that are getting canceled. There are tours that are being canceled right now, festivals that are being canceled. We mentioned this on Tuesday, but I believe it was South by Southwest and Texas had to layoff 50 people. That's going to happen in smaller ways and small businesses across the country. It's going to happen

with large corporations as well, where people aren't going to be getting work and they're not going to getting paid. And again, again, this touches on what we talked about earlier. You can't just look at the death rate of coronavirus because the ripple effects of how much it spreads impact far beyond the deaths from the virus itself, whether it's the death of somebody else who goes to the hospital and can't get care quick enough because it's over capacity or it's somebody that runs out of money and they have to go on the street. Even if that happens to one person, it's one too many. And you think about, like, you think about this NBA schedule.

We don't know. Hopefully they will come to, they'll be able to come together with at least a tentative plan of how they want to play this out. But you know that everything that we are used to on said schedule is now changed, right? And this will change. This will change the NBA draft. This will change, as I said, summer league. And again, all of those industries and things that are effective.

by that. I mean, this is not just, you know, oh, there's people that aren't going to go to games, and so we got to refund their tickets. It's all the people whose jobs depend upon, you know, these type of things happening. It's the, it's the travel industry and the hotel industry and small businesses around arenas. And I mean, the sports betting industry, which is now recently exploded. I mean, and there's not games going on, right? Like, I mean, you see all these states that just tried to legalize this, all these people that have jobs in those industries. And so the ripple effect, as you mentioned, is just extreme. And to know what will become of this NBA season, the only kernels we have are that maybe

it'll be seven, eight games to warm up for a playoffs. But here's hoping we get to see a playoffs. And this season, I mean, if there's one thing right now, I hope that this season is able to continue slash end, you know, that the whole season doesn't have to be, like, we look in the history books and it's like when we see the Montreal Expos had the best team in baseball in 94, the season just didn't get played out. You know, you didn't get played out. They had a lockout, and that was the end of it.

And there was a strike. And that was the end of it. And that's clearly a possibility that we just play again in October. because we just don't know right now. But I think if there's anything, it's not the example you want. But when you see the news out there that there once upon a time was the guy that joked about this and got it. And he joked about it around the people around him and they got it. Now, look, one tiny silver lining is that of the 58 people, only Donovan Mitchell got it.

right because i mean that could have been much much worse and and here's the other thing and this is what's so hard to get your head around everything kev rudy gobert was going to play last night we felt good enough to play in it well he wasn't he wasn't at the arena so he wasn't going to play he just he felt good enough to play yeah and you know ultimately that is a again an example of how for a lot of people they're going to feel okay they're going to feel normal and they're going to go out. But if you're displaying any symptoms at all, even minimal ones, you've got to be careful.

And if you're around people, whether you're not, wash your hands. And that's the number one thing you can do. Wash your hands. Don't touch your face. Michigan and Rutgers players both took the courts for a warmup and then left quickly. The Big Ten tournament was canceled,

as we mentioned, as of our ending recording, ACC, Big East, and Pac-12 are the only ones left in college basketball. I'm sure those dominoes will fall very, very quickly. So what are you going to watch? Well, Bachelor's over. I heard everybody hates the mom.

Yeah, Barb. Barb do not handle that finale night very well. That's for sure. Look, I at least stay on top of things enough to know. My beloved Megan Triplett, who works with me here, she fills me in so that if I need to go somewhere. I was like, just tell me what to say if somebody brings up the bachelor. She says, just say, can you believe that, mom? Yeah, she's, it worked. It worked as soon as I said it. You were like, hey, for anybody out there, just find somebody that, this is what I do. I just find

somebody that watches all the shows. And then I ask them, if I happen to be in a crowd where people are all talking about it, just give me something to say, right? Like, oh, can you believe? so and so, or can you believe? And so she steered me right with the mom. I mean, golly. I'm going to, you know what? I'll be honest, I'm going to do something that I very rarely do, which is watch television shows. You know what I mean?

I could get caught up on so many things that were big cultural touchpoints and things that movies I haven't watched and TV shows I haven't watched. It's almost like the summer now, you know, at least for a couple of weeks. Because I'm not kidding. I don't, like, outside of, you know, maybe a couple shows that are DVR, like, I'll watch, like, American Idol with, like, my family because it's a family show. Or I'll watch Curb Your Enthusiasm because it's 30 minutes, you know, and I'll catch up on that once a week. I have a suggestion. I don't watch much.

I have a suggestion. I pretty well just watch games. I mean, that's what I do. I have a suggestion. Oh, no. Oh, no. Go back and watch some bucks games. Yeah.

So I can watch Brooke Lopez stand five feet in front of the basket and then trick everybody into thinking he's an amazing defender. I swear,

that's the only good thing to come out of this was their freaking Bucks fans stop. That's the only good thing. I laugh, but I'm not kidding. Even they had

some level of self-control in the whole thing. Go watch some Bucks games, please. Oh, for goodness sakes. Let me just say this, because look, it's a good opportunity. You people don't know what you're watching.

Oh, come on. You don't know, Kevin. You don't know what you don't know what you're watching. You don't know. There's four great defenders in front of the guy, and he never comes out from the basket. So you stand in front of the basket. This is how Hashim the beat got drafted second.

You tricked the world into thinking your amazing defender. It's like college basketball. You just set the guy in front of the basket. kid. It played over a decade in the NBA. Over a decade. And he suddenly became Bill Russell. Or maybe it's the system.

I knew you'd make me mad. I knew you'd make me mad before this is over. I was just trying to make a friendly suggestion. Well, now we'll have at least three weeks for people to write LeBron MVP articles. I can go back and do that. It's going to be very interesting over the next couple of things. of weeks Kevin sure is man stay safe everybody I don't know where this is going to go I don't know hopefully people will maintain their safety and we will get to continue the NBA season

but we are still at a moment where we just don't know Kevin you stay safe too brother and I'll talk to you either way on Tuesday have a good one everybody thanks to Isaac Lee for producing the episode today you dig what you're hearing go get your rating interview on iTunes five stars five stars it really helps and we will talk to you next week.