The Ringer NBA Show - The Passing of Jerry Sloan, the NBA’s COVID Testing Plan, and Mailbag Questions | The Mismatch

Episode Date: May 22, 2020

Longtime Utah Jazz coach and NBA Hall of Famer Jerry Sloan died Tuesday morning. We remember his playing and coaching career and the legacy he leaves behind in the modern NBA (1:20). Then, we get into the nitty-gritty of Kevin’s reporting on the NBA’s COVID-19 testing plans in the event of a return this year (10:50), before answering more of your mailbag questions (27:19). Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. This week, the Ringer is launching a new podcast feed called BoomBust. It's a new hub for narrative podcasts documenting the rise and fall of companies, celebrities, and trends. Season one, hosted by our own Alyssa Boresnack, takes you through this spectacular journey of HQ trivia. The once-a-million-dollar industry-altering company turned disaster. Alyssa interviewed dozens of former employees, investors, journalists, and fans bringing you the behind-the-scenes story of how HQ crumbled from within.

Subscribe to Boom-Bust HQ trivia and check out the first two episodes out now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to The Ringer NBA show. I'm Chris Vernon. Join him as he does every Friday from the Ringer.com. It's Kevin O'Connor, A.K. Kevin O. Bomber, A.K. Kevin O. Conflict. Kevin O. Camera. Kevin O. Climer. Kevin O. Candyland. Kevin O.

Kevin O. Berdo. What's going on, dude? Well, unfortunately, Right before we are about to record this on Friday morning, news just broke of the passing of Jerry Sloan, which has been a very significant figure in the NBA for many, many years. He died at 78 years old this morning, and the statement from the Utah Jazz said, Jerry Sloan will always be synonymous with the Utah Jazz. He'll forever be a part of the Utah Jazz organization, and we joined his family, friends, and fans in mourning his loss.

I mean, you know, I don't think it's an overstatement. He is truly one of the titans of NBA history. And I think you are going to see his name come up a lot over the course of the next, you know, 20, 30, 40 years because of where he is in so many records for coaches to hold. And that longevity, that tenure he had with one organization and the sustained winning is something that I think we've all wondered, is that going to be able to happen again, you know, with how much, how often teams pull the plug on coaches, even when they have a lot of success because of management, you know, turnover or ownership turnover or

whatever. But it's sad, man. It's a sad morning. For sure. I mean, he was a basketball Lifer. He played his rookie season all the way back in 1965 after going to college at Evansville. He coached his final season in 2011. I mean, this guy was around for decades. And as you said, Chris, I mean, the fact he started coaching with Utah in 1988, my ringer co-worker Roger Sherman followed up to a tweet that I put out there this morning that said he was the longest tenured coach in the NBA in 1998. And then he coaches 13 seasons more than that. It's just outrageous that he was around for so long in this game as a player and as a coach.

And I'm not sure we're going to see a guy that coaches on one team again for that long of a time. He's a rarity and perhaps one of a kind. I mean, a couple of the records that this guy holds. And he holds a ton, but I'm just going to mention a few, which are truly unbelievable. 16 consecutive winning seasons, 13 of which were 50 win seasons. I mean, that is crazy, Kevin.

Crazy. 16 consecutive winning seasons? I mean, and, you know, I think we just got done watching the last dance where his team, you know, they had that jazz team that was fantastic and they lost to the Bulls twice. So he ended his career without having a ring. but I don't think anybody denies that he's a great example of, okay, he didn't have a ring.

That doesn't mean he was not great. That level of sustained excellence is truly remarkable, even if he didn't end up with the ring. And he, like many others of that generation, as we learned, the only reason they didn't is because Michael Jordan was in the league. For sure. And he had a sense of humor, too, as we saw in the last dance. He's like, really?

Michael Jordan was sick? I'm just finding this out after the game. A handful of other jokes in there and with the short amount of time Utah Jazz were in the last, just in the last two episodes, of course. But Jerry Sloan is what's remarkable, too, is the fact that because of his long tenure as a coach, just the generations of players that he constantly had to adapt to. As people change going into the league, when high school kids started coming into the league, when they weren't. I mean, this was a coach that shows an adaptability to relate to. and to figure out what buttons to push to get his team to win. Because they constantly won at one point or another.

Obviously, a peak in the 90s. But they had a lot of other winning success over the years, too, even if it wasn't a team that went to the NBA finals. Well, and every time you, we inevitably see all kinds of coaching turnover every year in every sport. And what do they do? They walk in and they say, we want to establish a culture. That's what I'm going to do here. We're going to establish a culture.

We want people to think that if they're going to X school or if they're going to play for X organization, that this is the way it's done. Like, it's one thing for everybody to promise that, but we know you were going to fall in line with Jerry Sloan and the way he did things and Stockton and Malone, or you were going to be gone, right? Like, we lauded the spurs for the last 20 years for being like that. this was spurs before spurs in Utah, right?

Where they had the two elder statesmen that were there for the long haul. They had the coach that had been there forever. And if you were going to Utah, you were going to play like the jazz play and you were going to conduct yourself in a manner or you weren't going to be there. Right. And for all the promises that everybody makes about establishing a culture, here is a guy that obviously, you know, when you're talking six, 16 consecutive winning seasons and 1350 win seasons.

Like they had what they did and you were either going to fall in line or you just weren't going to be a member of the jazz. Just strictly as a human being as well, he was somebody who grew up in, you know, intense, intense poverty as a young kid. And another example of with his mindset, you know, obviously with his, you know, gifts as an athlete. But more than that to become a guy who can be a coach. above all else, a leader of other men, you know, of other people to go from what he came from

and just intense poverty to become what he did shows a lot of good fortune, of course, but also a lot of hard work. And Jerry Sloan is an excellent example of that. And one other thing, because you mentioned his playing career, because I think many times when we think of somebody as what we know them as, there is no real reference point for us of what they were before they were Jerry Sloan, the coach. And I just went through this with my son. And this is crazy. It's going to sound crazy to a younger generation.

But he doesn't know Steve Kerr, the player. Steve Kerr is the coach of the Golden State Warriors to him, you know? Like, that's who he is. And so to just speak of that, Jerry Sloan was a two-time NBA All-Star as a player. and over 11 seasons with Chicago and Baltimore, he played in the NBA, and he was the first player in Bulls history to have his number retired.

And his number was retired in 1978. So nobody wears number four for the Bulls. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I didn't know Jerry Sloan was so good that his number was retired. I knew he had a cup of coffee coaching for the Bulls two years, but I didn't know his number was retired right before he became the coach.

Crazy, right? Yeah. I mean, this guy, so, I mean, Jerry Sloan was obviously, look, he's a two-time NBA All-Star and he got his jersey retired. He's a hell of a player before he was ever a coach. But we just, you know, I mean, Jerry Sloan was old by the time I was a kid. It felt like to me. You know what I mean?

It felt like, it felt like to me. Like, I never knew Jerry Sloan. He was old when I was a kid. Well, like, if you look at, but I'm saying, like, look, 20 years ago or whatever, when he's the coach of the jazz like what we just watched in the last dance that's 22 years ago. I mean, he's 56.

You know, then that's not, like I always thought Jerry Sloan was older than he is. In fact, it's kind of shocking to me today. He was 78, honestly. Like, because, I mean, he always had silver hair. But I mean, and then we got to, like it's not like we're watching a Jerry Sloan highlights. Like, you know, how sparse any old highlights are

of seeing these guys as players, but hell of a career, too, before he was ever one of clearly the greatest coaches of all time. An all-timer, Jerry Sloan. Yeah. This week, we did get some news regarding the NBA, and, you know, last week we talked about how 25% of these checks were going to be coming out. And in the case of somebody like Chris Paul is going to be $400,000 less, his check was last week. well guess what kev another check you know is going to come out next week right assuming you get paid every two weeks um and it seemed like this was really moving pretty fast um you had the call with the players you had the call with the board of governors and now it seems like every few days

we are getting more and more news earlier in the week they said they're kind of focused on Disney World as a place where they could knock this out. Wode says Disney World and Las Vegas still on the table as a place you could get it done. Disney World is the favorite though. And it has been for some time, especially if there's only one destination, one neutral site. But if there's two or three, we'll see what ends up happening. But Disney World is one is the clear favorite. I saw you retweet.

Who was it? Keith Smith. Keith Smith Yeah, okay So Keith had a story He had This is when Let me give a shout out

To Keith Smith You want to talk about You want to talk about Coming over to the top On Woj and Shams Have a source At Disney World Who is their source

I don't know if he called Mickey Mouse I don't call I don't know if he called Aladdin I don't know who he talked to at Disney World But he said sources Source at Disney World

I was like Not there you you go. That's how you get it done. How do you want to beat these guys? They ain't got no sources at Disney World. Well, he doesn't have a source of Disney World? Where's your, where's your Disney for years? That's it. Did he really? Yeah, he did. Yeah. Oh, he worked at Disney. Keith worked at Disney up until like three months ago. And what was he? Do you know what he did? I'm not sure exactly. I'm not sure exactly what he did. He wasn't a character, was he? No, I don't think so. I'd be hilarious. He was the tea world.

And Keith was like, hey, hey, hey, he lifts up that. No, I'm not sure what Keith did there. But now, he worked at Disney for a handful of years. And I mean, that's why he has such a deep understanding of Disney in their facilities. Yeah. And why, like before anybody was ever talking about Disney, he wrote that article on Yahoo saying, Disney is the place the NBA should go. Yeah.

Disney should host the NBA. and like I read that at the time I'm like whoa this makes perfect sense and here we are however long it's been since he wrote that six weeks five weeks and that's likely where games could actually be played when basketball resumes sometime in July if it resumes sometime in July

okay well they're saying June 1st some decisions are going to be made you and I had talked about this and you had talked about June 15th and so it seems like we're going to start June 15th. June 15th is when it sounds like they want to get things rolling. And June 1st, what Woj and Lowe, Amec and others reported was that that's when they want to have players start getting to team facilities for what seems like around a June 15th type of date, maybe a little bit sooner than that now. But that's the plan.

And then from there, a little bit time for individual training camp, a little bit of time for group training camp like you would normally see in September until October. and then it could be time to roll that ball out. I had wondered if, because I had looked at the calendar, and I think if I'm not mistaken, July 4th is a weekend, isn't it? It seems like I had wondered like, oh, wow, what if they could roll it out and announce, and we're going to have our first batch of games over this July 4th weekend or whatever, but now it sounds like it's going to be later than that.

Yeah, it likely would be maybe towards July 15th. It would be cool for a holiday, though. It would have been cool. Yeah, it would be, no doubt. But still, we could be getting some basketball news around then, though. Yeah. You wrote about testing this week on the ringer.com. The testing plans at the center of the NBA's relaunch efforts.

And you talked about the different methods of COVID-19 testing the league is considering. I'm very interested in this because a lot of people have wondered, you know, Adam Silver made it clear on both calls. What we don't want is to have a player test positive and then that shut the whole thing down. If that's what we're going to do, then we shouldn't even restart. And so a lot of people have wondered, okay, well, how do you do this? And so you went digging. How do you do this?

Well, a number of steps. It's all starting out right now with the antibody test that the NBA is part of with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. and I talk to Dr. Sampath Kumar, who is a consultant of division of infectious diseases there at the Mayo Clinic. And she explained to me that the NBA, like they're trying to figure out what amount of their players and staffers have antibodies to COVID-19. And the belief is, is that if you do have antibodies, you will have some level of immunity to coronavirus for some amount of time. an unknown, you know, effectiveness, an unknown amount of time. But that's the belief. But for the NBA's purposes, they're part of this study for the number one reason the Mayo Clinic started looking for participants.

The NBA has sent about 400 participants out of about over 1,000 that the Mayo Clinic currently has because they're testing a fingerstick test as a blood draw to test its effectiveness compared to a typical blood draw through a vein puncture. And the reason for them doing this is currently on the market. There's no finger stick test. You know, you prick your finger, draw a little drop of blood that can accurately tell if you have antibodies to coronavirus. And if they are able to prove that their new test that they created is as accurate as a typical blood draw through vein puncture, that would mean ease for people around the country, around the world to have those tests either sent directly to them, in which they could draw their own blood and then send it to a laboratory, or just the fact that you don't need to go into the doctor's office.

You don't need to go to a doctor's office, which has elevated risk, you know, whether someone's, you know, coronavirus or just has a regular cold there. You don't want to go to the doctors unless you really need to. So for having an understanding of who has it and how many people have already had it would be very important for our society, important for the NBA, to do that because they are collectively, like us, part of society. why the NBA joined that study. But that seems to be step one. But ultimately, Chris, as I, as I think you read in the story, it's about group testing. It's about getting this done quickly.

And that group testing is something in which the NBA is investigating for whenever they arrive at the neutral site as a way to save tests. And what group testing is, is like, if you have a pool of 100 people and you take 100 swabs, 100 samples of them, you could test all 100 of those individually to figure out if somebody has coronavirus or it doesn't. However, with group testing, you could group 10 of those into 10 different tests. So 10 people's samples could go into one tests. You could test 100 people by utilizing only 10 tests. And you would retest the ones that come up positive to figure out what people within that sample are actually the ones causing that test to be positive. So you could essentially do, you know, a hundred swabs and use only 25 tests. So it's a way for

the NBA to save samples, but also that is a reflection of what the state of Nebraska is doing. It is what a handful of other countries are beginning to do in areas of their own countries. And that could be an effective thing for the United States to take on. If only one state in Nebraska is doing it, maybe others can doing it to test massive amount of people while conserving the amount of tests that are utilized. Do you know if that's quick or not? Yeah, I mean, from the people that I talk to in the medical field, it does sound like it can be a quicker process overall. Naturally. Because it freaks me out, right?

Let's say, let's say I've got the Atlanta Hawks, right? I'm going to test everybody in their traveling party. So 50. And then they come back. Yeah. And then they come back and they say, we got a positive. Now everybody's looking around at each other. Like, oh, God, like somebody in here.

Well, you know, and that's why. So, like, I don't know this will happen. But everybody I've talked to from league executives to medical professionals, they recommend and believe this is what will happen that there will be some type of quarantine when you arrive at a neutral site. It could be 72 hours. It could be 96 hours. And over that time, that's when you're stuck in your hotel room and you're not supposed to leave, just like a lot of people are now, right? Like it's a self-quarantine. And at that point, that's when they're doing rapid, repeated testing in which you're getting, maybe. three tests over a three-day period or three tests over a four-day period because these tests aren't perfect, even if a test has a 99% efficiency, if it's 99% accurate or as I call it sensitivity in that world, there's still one person that could slip through. And by doing repeated testing, you increase the odds that you catch that one person who currently has the live coronavirus. And for the NBA, that seems to be something that is a high probability of happening is a quarantine upon arrival at a neutral site.

We'll see if that happens. I mean, the NBA, the Players Association and the NBA still need to come to some type of agreement on what is actually done. But that does seem to be what is recommended. That is what it is recommended by medical professionals. And it is what it seems NBA executives believe will happen. And that's what would increase the odds that nobody slips through the cracks. And of course, there's still risk. But got to do everything you can and take on, accept some of the risks if this is what you're going to do.

Well, I need to imagine that once they get these guys back to their facilities and they're doing the individuals and then they're doing a short training camp, by the time they get to wherever they're going, they're going to be used to it because they're going to be constantly tested as soon as, you know, so hopefully you can, you can nip some of it in the bud. the three weeks leading up. And then that also might give you a good, it might give you a good feel of what you're going to be doing. If you've got three or four weeks and we're going to kind of, all right, we're going to start everybody going back to their local market. We're going to be doing these training camps and whatnot. Like, you know, if six out of 15 players has it on a major, on, you know, several teams,

then we're going to be like, all right, we can't do this, right? You know what I'm saying? Like, you're going to, you'll have time to learn how big of an issue this can be before you head off to Orlando and start this thing. If you got a three or four week run up, like, because, I mean, you and I both know. At the very beginning of all this, you remember, the news came out. And we knew of Donovan Mitchell. We knew of Rudy Gobert. We knew of a couple of guys from other teams, Kevin Durant and a couple of the Nets and whatever.

And there was at least like 10 guys, right, that we had heard of. And we were sitting there saying, well, the league is only 450 guys. And these are just the ones that have been tested. So how widespread are this? Because a lot of these guys, especially at their age and their health level, they could be totally asymptomatic. You even had some of them say, I never even felt sick. I never even knew anything was wrong with me. So they get them back.

I mean, pretty much anybody that spoke about it said they didn't feel anything. Yeah. And that's like when Rudy O'Ber came out and he's like, oh, by the way, I noticed that I started losing. my sense of smell and sense of taste. And that's, he's like, oh, that's the one thing I actually felt, you know? And that's what it is for a lot of people. And that's why medical professionals, why doctors and everybody who's studying this right now, that's why this is spreading as quickly as it can, especially in condensed areas like

we saw in New York City, in which a test, New York State did a test of New York City specifically and showed that approximately 25% of New York City citizens have had coronavirus compared to like 3% compared to the rest of the state. And so it's really condensed areas from asymptomatic spreaders and you so you think about that in a

basketball setting if one guy and every team had it theoretically, this is unlikely, but if one guy and all 30 teams had it and very few players have already had it on those teams, there's a high probability perhaps that that would spread like wildfire, which is why the NBA needs to do testing with antibodies, which they're doing now through the Mayo Clinic.

About half the teams, about 400 total people, players and staffers are part of that study. More are expected to. All 30 teams as soon as their facilities open are likely going to join that study with the Mayo Clinic. That's important to know who already had it. But then knowing who has it is critical in preventing an outbreak within the NBA population. And that happens, as you said, Chris, before they get to any neutral site, before they go to Disney World, that needs to happen with some amount of testing. But then once you get there, that's when the quarantine happens. And that's when you really, really need to ramp up testing before you resume basketball activities.

And then you still continue testing every 48 hours, every 78 hours, however long it is that they decide. But for the NBA, man, like, they're taking the steps they can. and we have seen around the world right now, you know, KBO, the Korean Baseball League thus far has effectively done a good job. We saw the Premier League tested 748 of their players of which six tested positive, which is a very low amount. I mean, I mean, we don't know if there are any false negatives in that population, a false negative being when somebody test as negative, even though they are actually positive. We don't know if those are in there. there's always a chance with this type of testing that happens, which is why repeated testing is so critical.

And for the NBA, they accept that there is likely going to be at least one positive whenever this process happens. And if they do have one or multiple positives, it's about getting that player out, quarantining that player for some amount of time until he is a negative. And that is the way this is going to work for the NBA for some amount of time. This could be happening next season too. It just might not be at a neutral site.

Or it could be multiple neutral sites. But for the NBA, this is, I felt like as I was writing this article that went up on the ringer, and as I was reporting it for that matter, I personally felt like this is obviously an immense challenge for the league. It is clearly a challenge for the players, for the coaches, for anybody involved, never mind for the league office with running it. But it's doable. it is doable if they do the right things with testing and if players don't pull down Dennis Rodman

and leave all the time. And Jared Dudley made the joke like every team has a Dennis Rodman. He just doesn't have colored hair. You can't have a lot of Dennis Rodman's. But for the NBA with the testing aspect and with just the fact that they're doing more with like cleaning the ball, with desensitizing the rooms and all those steps that we're doing at home, wearing your masks, you know, court side and, you know, in group settings, except when you're on the court. If all these things are done, it's doable. It's just going to be really hard. Hey, it's Bill Simmons.

I just wanted to make sure you're listening to podcasts on Spotify. Here's how you do it. First, search for your favorite podcast on Spotify's app. They have a library of over 750,000 pods at this point. So let's say you're searching for the rewatchables or the Dave Chang show or the Ring or NBA show. Once you find them, click on the follow button. and that's how you subscribe. Then click on those letters near the top of the out.

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But the answer, unfortunately, is yes. Make the move. Listen to podcasts on Spotify. Back to yours. Every week on Friday, we have been running through. a mailbag and our listeners have given us all kinds of unbelievable questions over the course of the weeks. Bobby Wagner, what have we got this week? All right.

First up comes from friend of the show, Brian. I'm glad that you mentioned Jared Dudley. He says, Jared Dudley recently talked about how every team has their own Dennis Rodman in regards to players breaking quarantine when the season returns. Who do you each think will be the first player to get busted doing something crazy by breaking quarantine? Hmm. All right. My gut said, like my mind went straight to Dion Waiters. But then I thought to myself, there's no way.

LeBron and the Lakers with their hopes of winning a championship would let that happen. So it has to be on a team that's just out of it, right, Chris? It's so funny that you said that because I also thought of a former cavalier. But I thought of Tristan Thompson. Really? Oh. How many times does he played with fire? You know what I mean?

Like he got caught on the TMZ video. You know what I mean? Like, and his team stinks. You know what I mean? And he's not going to be part of anything. He's not going to be in the playoffs or anything. But his decision making has been called into question.

Let's just say. What if it's a coach? What if it's like Tim Duncan? No way. No way. Popovich and Duncan. They go out for late night and that's a wine off of Disney premises. I think you're, yeah, you're either thinking about somebody that is so good they think they're untouchable.

Like LeBron can do whatever he wants to do. Or you're thinking somebody that's just on an absolute rat team that doesn't care. So it's like, why am I even doing this? Why are we even playing the rest of this season? So find a, find the Nick or, you know, no offense to Nick. Find a Nick, find a son, find the, who else, Minnesota, find a, find a, T-Wolv, somebody there, like, towards the bottom, Atlanta. Is everybody on Atlanta?

I don't know if anybody, like, you know what? The thing is, though, it's like Jared Dudley said. You don't know who it is. Like, we know. Yeah, you know. Like, if you're on the team, you know. Yeah. But we don't know because I don't have the colored hair. Let me just say this.

And I'm a knock on wood right now. All right. There are, especially given the day and age we live in, I am stunned at the amount of players that are not grossly irresponsible. Like the truth is now this league is filled with so many guys that are good guys and that do right. I mean, how many times do you see, that's why I knocked on wood? Like, how many times do you see guys in the news or guys in trouble with the law? Like, it's very rare.

It really is. It's very rare. that you've seen NBA guys in trouble with the law. And I don't know how it would stack up with other sports, but I mean, it's just, I mean, I can't even, I don't want to say I can't remember, but it's hard to remember something that was like mega significant that somebody did.

Like I'm not talking about just being stupid or something. The other thing, Kevin, though, this would have been this whole like quarantine, I was absolutely convinced that there would be somebody that got jumped for tweeting something stupid. And that hasn't really happened either. You know what I mean?

I'm talking about like during this whole like coronavirus and the pandemic and everything else, you haven't seen somebody really get trashed for something, you know, because everybody's just sitting around. They're looking for somebody to make the bad guy. on on anything um yeah they conduct themselves you know very responsibly generally much better than i did when i was 22 i promise you that when i was 22 i was just playing uh call of duty

late night every night just like i am right now are you any good i'm okay i'm getting back getting back on the horse it's taking me a little bit of time i've never been great at call of duty but I've always had fun. When you were a kid, what was your screen name? Like on Xbox? I was Midnight Lightning Lightning. Yeah. That's so good.

Midnight Lightning. That's so good. Okay. Jimmy Hendricks song, yeah. Next question comes from Dad and Ethan. They say, G'day from Melbourne, Australia. Love the show.

My son, Ethan, who's nine years old and I listen to every show, and it's provided a lot of laughs during isolation. LeBron aside, which current player are players is likely to climb highest on the list. How far could they climb and what would they need to do to get there? So which current player could climb highest on the all-time players list? Thank you for the question, Dad and Ethan. It's got to be Stefan Curry, right?

Has to be Steph. Isn't he already? But how much higher can he climb, though? I mean, can he be a guy that just breaks through that top 10? Stefan Durant. Wouldn't you say Stefan Durant? I think it's got to be those too. With Kauai, I mean, Kauai, there's always a chance.

but with the durability issues that he's had in the past, I don't know, but then again, he wins it this year and you go three teams. Yeah, I know. And you go three finals MVP's with three different teams. Kauai might actually be the answer.

Seriously, because that is something that is just unheard of. For you to go to three different teams to be the best guy on three different teams that won a title. And he's still only 28. by the way. He plays 30 games a year. We have a couple follow-ups here too.

So we have a question from Fred. One second. With dad and Ethan, I also just want to say it's really cool that father and son listening to the show together. That's really cool. I saw on their email

that they listened to our show together, Chris, and they said that they've loved enjoying it during quarantine. We've given them a lot of laughs. And as somebody that also listened on a sports talk radio back in the day with my dad, and enjoyed laps riding in the car together.

It's cool that Dad and Ethan are enjoying this show together. So thank you guys for saying that. And thank you for listening. Shout out Australia. Yeah. We get so many questions from Australia and London. I think the London people are lying now that we know that Kevin has the mum thing, but I don't know.

Some of the fake UK folks out there. There's a question from Fred and a question from Max here that are actually kind of follow-ups to this question. Fred wants to know, are there any current players not named LeBron who could end up in the top 10. So do you think any of those trio of guys that you just named could get to the top 10? And then Max wants to know about Katie specifically.

If Katie gets a ring with the Nets, what would that do for his legacy in terms of all-time ranking? Yes. By the time it's all said and done. I mean, again, we'll see how he looks coming back from Achilles. And I know people that hate on Kevin Durant,

but you're going to stack up his numbers one day and there's going to be a different story told about him. You know? I mean, It's like, you know, people always say give you your flowers while you're still here. And I think we just went through this with Kobe, unfortunately, earlier this year. All of a sudden, everybody, everybody that was still, you know, on the anti-Cobie side, all of a sudden then started to respect his career in a different manner, which is sad that that's what it took.

But I do think that once this guy is like not, you know, uh, with eggs on Twitter and want these guys back to play basketball. And his career's all said and done. I think we're going to look back at what Kevin Durant did. I mean, he has averaged over 25 points a game for what? It's over a decade, isn't it? I'm serious. I don't think he's ever.

He may not be the goat, but he is arguably the goat score. I mean, he's right up. He's right up there with some of the all-time grates when you consider just how unique of a player he is seven foot able to do the things that he is i mean it's extraordinary and maybe there are multiple titles in his future that allows him to really break through that top 10 players all time and i think really of the current guys that we're talking about it's those three right uh i mean there's some younger guys like yannis that could someday really really reach that level Didn't you say that Luca was going to be a top 10 player all time or top five player all time?

Something crazy like that? I don't remember saying that, but I said he was a top 10 player. I said he was a top. What I said was he was a top 10 player when people were saying I was nuts. No, this was in our overreactions at the beginning of the season. Our overreactions pot. I said he was a top 10 player in the league. And people at the time were like, no, he's not a top 10 player.

We can roll back the tape if we need to. Yeah, you said of all time. No, I know. I said top 10 currently in the league. We can roll back the tape. From his. No, that's ridiculous. Everybody, nobody would disagree with that.

I did disagree. It's not an overreaction. It's not an overreaction. At the time it was. All right. But I'm going to be right about this. Pull the tape. Let me, let me, let me, I'm going to pull up my tweet.

That's what I'm doing right now. It wasn't a tweet. This was a podcast. We did. I said it on the podcast. I said it on Twitter and I said it here. No, stop. You're misremembering.

It's simple as that. It was an all time. Luke, I tweeted on November 9th. Luca is already a top 10 NBA player. First response. No, he's not LMAO, WTF. No, that wasn't it. That wasn't what we're talking about.

We're talking about the podcast that we did. Pump the brakes. Luca couldn't guard me. Laugh. GIF responses. This was November 9th and we had a similar podcast around the same time. I have never said that he'll be a top 10 player ever that would be outrageous to say he has a chance to be a great player he has a chance to win MVP's he has a chance to someday maybe be in that conversation but top is outrageous it's so tough to be you're gonna regret this you're gonna regret this you did it you did it it was one of the it was one of the overreactions it was on our pod oh that overreactions pod though did I say it on there I don't remember, I don't remember, but I don't think I did.

It wasn't overreactions, fuck. I don't think I did. I'm pulling the tape on Tuesday. I don't think I did. I'll pull the tape on Tuesday. Oh, we'll have the, we're going to have the tape on Tuesday. That's for sure. I promise you that. Top 10.

Top dead all time. By the way, Kevin Durant averaged 20 points a game his rookie year. He has averaged over 25 points every year for the last 11 seasons. The other thing with KD too is that there's a million next KDs. So he really is like the trendsetter for this next generation of players, almost like the way that Julius Irving was in the 80s, where it was like the athletic two guard that could really get to the rim. Now it's like the long guard skill, seven foot dude who can shoot threes,

like the Amani Bates type. Those guys all look like KD. They don't look like LeBron. They don't look like Michael Jordan. They look like KD. Let me tell you something. Kevin Durant, you're right. Bobby. There's always the next KD, right? The next Kevin Darius. Nobody says he's the next

LeBron anymore, right? But they do say that. And I've heard that so many different times, and I just roll my eyes. But when I first heard of Imani Bates, it was actually Jaron Jackson Senior, his dad, who played for the Spurs, you know, in their championship team, he told me two years ago, because he's on the AAU circuit. He's still involved in, you know, AAU basketball, and he said, you got to see this kid, Imani Bates. And I went and looked him up. And of all the people that everybody has always said,

I watched that tape and I'm like, oh my God, it is. If anybody, he just won a Gatorade player of the years like a sophomore, right? He really, he really is KD. If you watch him, it is freaky. That kid, oh my God. Really, he's KD crossed with Kagi with the emotion. he plays with and the amount of trash that he talks on the court. Holy mackle.

Amonie Bates, he'll be a junior next season. He would be the number one pick today. If he were in the current draft as a sophomore at high school, he would be the number one pick. He's one of those prospects that you can say that about. He is the real deal. Oh, anybody, you pull up that kid's highlights and it's, I mean, I saw this is when he was a freshman, right before he was going into his freshman years when I was told about him. And I guess,

Jared Jackson Senior just been on the circuit in the summer because I saw him at Summer League and that's when he was telling me about him. And I went and looked him up on YouTube and that's what he's a friend. And I'm like, oh my God.

Fuck, I never seen anything like this. I mean, as a freshman, you saw how tall he was. I mean, this kid's been and he's tall and lanky's got crazy handles. It's wild.

I mean, he won Michigan player of the year, Gatorade player of the year as a freshman, you know, just for Michigan. And then national. as a sophomore is pretty outrageous. Ridiculous.

And he's only going to get better over time. I interviewed him a couple of weeks back whenever he won Gatorade player. All the days are planning together. I don't know when that award was given out. It might have been four months ago for all I can remember. But sometime recently I interviewed him when he was doing his media tour and he sounds hungry. He sounds like a guy.

I don't think this is like any cookie cutter media training responses. He sounds like a guy who's hungry to get better and improve on his weaknesses. and that that's a variable that that's important for a guy that's already accomplished as much as he has to still have that edge to want to get better. That bodes well for him. Back to the original question, Kauai, Curry, or Duran? In Janus, too, Janus as well. And whoever gets the titles.

Those guys have a big lead on Janus, though. If he wins back-to-back MVP's and then wins his first finals this year, Well, then he will have like, well, back-to-back MVP's pretty special. Yeah, that's special. But Curry's done that. I mean, he didn't do the back-to-back MVPs, but he's also got multiple rings.

All right. What else we got, Bobby? Let me just squeeze in this question from Martin. Kind of perfect for our conversation, but I feel like Luca doesn't get talked about enough on the show. The guy is the best 20-year-old we've ever seen. Do you think there's a chance he could finish his career as the goat? Well, first of all, I felt like,

like we were talking about Luca a lot in October, in November, and December. And then in a way, we almost sort of started to get used to him. And that, I mean, we, the collective we, NBA Twitter, NBA media, NBA fans, because he just was like, we took him as not a surprise anymore as a guy who clearly is a star player. And he just got a little bit less attention as the season wore on. But no, could he finish the careers, the goat? No. No, he couldn't.

I would look at the defensive end of the floor for that reason. Luca can be a fine defender, but he can't be a great defender like Michael Jordan was or LeBron James is. And that's going to hold Luca back when it comes to that all-time great discussion. If he's ever in the discussion to be top 10, top 25, the defensive aspect people will look at and say, oh, he was fine, but not great. I mean, what are the chances he's even the greatest MAV?

Let's slow down. I mean, because Dirk Novitsky, what is he? The 15th best player all the time? Is he the 20? I mean, whatever number you want to give to him, he's in the top 25 all time. You know how accomplished you got to be to be better than Dirt Novitsky, though? I don't know. And the longevity?

You got to have longevity. Yes. You got to win. You got to put out big time numbers. You got to be a leader. Dirk checks all these boxes. And Luca is still just a kid. We don't know what kind of man he'll become.

And that's one of the things he needs to get better at is being a vocal leader, being a leader more than just by example of his playing in the court. that's a great thing to have. But that's one way in which the Mavericks need him to grow up over time. It'd be the real leader of that team more than by example. I feel like we already need a Dirklass dance. They're already forgetting about it. I mean, that guy played for the same damn franchise.

I mean, can we focus? Top 10. No, but the thing is, to Martin's point, Luca is different. 20 years old and having an MVP caliber season, that's different. Dirk in his second season after a really a first season in which he struggled, he got a little bit better. Luca went from a great rookie who won rookie of the year to a guy who in a normal year

would get more MVP votes than he will because of Yannis putting up the year he is, because of LeBron, because of Hardin because of all these guys, because of, you know, because of Janus, Luca, he's a first time all-M-A player, you know, and he's different. So we'll see where he ends up. But what a start for this guy.

This comes from Cole, host of the Dysect podcast. Shout out to Dysect. Chris and Kevin O Castaway. What's your one album and one book you take if you were to be a castaway on a desert island? Oh, I like this. And by the way, let me just say to the homie Cole from Dysect, this new season on the Beyonce album is unbelievable. He's done lemonade is the new season for Dysect.

And for anybody that hasn't listened to Dysc. It's fantastic. He has broken down all manner of albums. I would start with the Kanye one, honestly. My dark twisted, beautiful fantasy. All time great. And that whole, that whole podcast is great. He breaks it down song by song.

Anyways, the album in the what? The album in the book. What's a book? I'm kidding. That's the way I actually feel. What's a book? I'm supposed to say the Bible, right? I'm supposed to say the Bible.

wasn't that Trump's response? Like what's your favorite book? The Bible? Did you say the Bible? It's just the only book he could think of? Yeah, when he was running for president, I think. That was funny. It's funny you say that about the album because I just name dropped an old episode of Dissect.

I might take that Kanye album. I love that. I love Extraordinary Machine by Fiona Apple. That's one of my favorites ever. I'm trying to think the album that like I could just repeat and listen to a lot. Maybe like maybe one of the Beatles ones. I think I'd get tired of it though. You know what I mean?

My answer is clear cut pink floyd dark side of the moon. I don't care of it. But you think you can listen to it a thousand times? I already have probably the last 14, 15 years. Yeah. I'm serious. I mean, I listen to it. probably at least, I probably listen to it once a week. Oh, wow. I love that album so much.

I mean, it's, it would be hard not to take some other Pink Floyd albums. And it'd be hard to say no to some Jimmy Hendricks albums too, but Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is an album I go to when I just want to chill out. It's an album I go to when I want to, you know, have some focus music in the background, you know, sometimes while writing. It's a, it's perfect for driving lead at night. It's perfect for so many different types of situations, including, I'm sure. being on a desert island. I was going to say for all the driving that you're going to be doing by yourself on the desert island.

Yeah, there's just a little track on the island. They happen to have a car there for some reason, but nothing else to communicate with the outside world. What about a book? Would you take a, I'm curious, like, would you take a basketball or sports-related book or would you take a life book type of thing, Chris, or a story? I pretty well read sports books and, like, non-feworthy. fiction, like biographies.

That's what I, that's what I end up reading the most. If you're stranded me on a desert island, I probably like take like a, I'm not kidding, like an omanac or something like that. You know what I mean? I'm saying something that I could, because what book, if you're stranded me on a desert island, is there a book? I don't, I don't think there's a book that I've ever read front to back multiple times. seriously maybe like one of those motivational books or something like that

I don't know if I'd want to read a motivational book when I'm stranded on a beach something like something like that like yeah right um you know like that John Wooden book I mentioned I've probably flipped back through that a lot or like I don't I'm trying to think what other book I've like recalled Harvey Peanix the little red book of golf like you know that's one you could just flip open and check out anytime but I wouldn't be playing golf on a beach. Yeah, I guess maybe like some big ass almanac or something, you know, like something

that I think I deal with something like that. Yeah, just read about stuff, you know. Because then you could escape, you know, mentally with many different topics rather than one world, you know? That would be like your only chance to finish the crazy hard books, like infinite jest or, you know, portrait of an artist as a young man.

Is it like any of those books? Are you reading off the ringer script Is the ringer requiring you to say something, infinite jest? The most hipster book ever. Well, it's just super long. I know, I know.

You got to kill as much time as possible. You can't read like seven seconds or less. Like, you were alive for that. You're not going to get that much out of it that many times. I love it. All right, what's next? Okay, let's do a couple of Sixers questions. We've got a lot of Sixers fans submitting to the podcast.

Oh, great. This comes from Jake. The Sixers have demonstrated. that they can contend with all of the best teams in the league this season. I know they're wildly inconsistent, especially on the road. But do you guys see a world in which the six are still make a run to the finals if the season was to return?

100%. I do. No doubt. I see a world where that could happen. Yeah. They're a bad matchup. They're a bad matchup for some of the best teams. Ben Simmons comes back healthier. I mean, there was the interview with Jackie McMallon in which he did say that he has

the intentions of shooting more threes when he gets back, that he's had that realization. I don't buy it. I want to see it before I believe it. I don't buy that he's going to have the confidence in a playoff situation shooting with the wrong hand when someone's sagging off 15 feet from him. I want to see it. And if I see it, then maybe, maybe I'll buy in there. But even without that, even without Simmons shooting three, this team is right in there when they're clicking. This is what I have to say. They're not the, you know, the bucks, they still have to prove it. They just do. They've got to be in the Easter conference finals and they

got to bust somebody up. The Celtics, this version, they got to prove it, right? Toronto is the one, but Toronto is a weakened version of last year, no matter what we say. So, I mean, when you look through the top teams in the East, of course there's a world. There's a scenario in which it takes place. I mean, they got, they got awesome players. And Embed, MBEed is one of the very few players in the entire league, much less the Easter conference that you could foresee being in a series with Janus and being the best player

in that particular series. That these other teams, you know, you're counting on Tatum to do that. You're counting on like a Seacum to do that. But Embed for sure, you could foresee a situation where he's the best player on the court. Sure. And he's a guy that gives you a chance. And then they have a lot of other good players on that team at Josh Richardson, Tobias Harris and Saul, and maybe Al Horford comes back.

he's shooting threes at a high level, which he wasn't early in the season. Maybe he's feeling healthier. Maybe his knees are feeling better. There's a lot of variables here with the time off. Some of these guys could be worse coming back. We don't know what it's going to look like. But the Sixers on paper, 100%. I picked them to be in the finals before the season.

And I would go with the Bucks now. But before the season, I projected the Sixers. And there's a chance maybe they come back and they gut things right. Maybe they're doing the little things that they need to. Simmons shooting corner threes. Hal Horford defending at a higher level that really puts them over the top. And if that's the case, they 100% are in the conversation. But if all those other things happen, they could have an increased shot of actually making it there and winning it.

All right. So now that you've made Sixers fans happy, let's upset them. This is a question from Henry. For these next few minutes, I'd like to return to normalcy. You guys just arguing over a fake trade blowing up the Sixers. What do you think of Ben Simmons for Jamal Murray and some assets? No way. No, no way. No way. What for Tumol Murray?

Hell no. I wouldn't do that trade. If I were six or Tomo Murray can't even run his Instagram stories right. Or maybe he can. I don't know. All right, here's from Gabriel. Last one on the Sixers. Would you rather start a team around Jason, Jason Tatum or Ben Simmons? Jason Tatum easily. We agree. Both of you. Both of you agree. Yeah, we agree. Yeah. Two straight questions. We agree. I'll always take a score. I'll always take a score.

And he's an elite defender too. Yeah, we're too agreeable on this. Yeah. Tatum is, I mean, God bless. That's going to get lost in all of this. When the season stopped, he was on a four-week, like, tear, where he was one of the best five guys in the league. Seriously.

I mean, it's funny. I wrote that the feature article about him, like a week before, things got shut down. And when things got shut down, I'm like, damn, good thing. I did that before this all that. He was going crazy. he was going crazy I mean, they were, you remember that game?

He was averaging 30 points over his last 15-ish, 20-ish games or something like that. Wasn't it the Laker? Was it the Lakers they played on that Sunday? And they're double teaming him every time. Yeah, they were trapping them and picking rolls, you know, trying to get the ball out of his hands. When you're to the point where you've already got teams trapping you to try get the ball out of your hands at his age, I mean, something clicked with him. And he was, I mean, he was about to finish this season just as a, an absolute different guy,

different guy than we had ever seen before. And he was one of those guys to relate this to the prior Sixers question. If Tatum continues doing that in playoff situations, that gives Boston an elevated shot. Sure. And in this whole thing, right? Because if you have a guy like that, you always get a chance.

And they have good surrounding pieces around that guy. So Philly and Boston, they really do enter the equation with Milwaukee, that if things click right for them, we could have one heck of a final four in the Eastern Conference, as we could in the West. I mean, dude, I can't help but think about it. If basketball comes back, it's going to be so special, man. Like this year was already great with the amount of great young players we have,

rise in with the exciting teams. But if things come back with everything else that's happened, it's going to feel even more special. We've had a chance to miss it, really miss it. Yeah. We stay so busy with it now since it's become a 12-month deal. I mean, we do this show 12 months because we got free agency and then we're going to Summer League and it's like

there's no real downtime you know? We did the show last August, right? We did. There's no real downtime. And now we've had a chance to miss it more than ever before. I wasn't producing the show yet in last August, so it's not canon.

You guys didn't actually do it. It didn't exist yet. That was when we were still run by that turncoat Isaac Lee who ran off to become a Hamilton singer or whatever he did. Superstar producer of HQ Trivia, a new podcast from The Ringer.

What a great natural plug, Bobby. I love it. If Isaac produces it, I can't listen to it. This comes from Gary. He wants to know. Better Stretch 2010 through 2017 Grizzlies versus the 2012 through 2019 Rockets. With postseason success being nearly identical,

which team had a better run. Chris looks kind of hurt by the question. I mean, obviously you think about those Rockets teams in real beloved terms. I remember when they, oh, nobody remembers shit about them ever. What are we talking about? What Rockets thing do you even remember besides them coming back against the Clippers because they bench their best player? They bench James Hardin and then won with Josh Smith hitting threes.

Like, what other thing am I supposed to remember that they did? games with the Warriors and missing 27 threes in a row. Wait, what year? Yeah, right? Great moments. I mean, but I'm saying they went seven games with one of the greatest teams ever. Congrats. And then they lost,

and then they missed 27 threes in a row. In a row. You ask what we remember. I didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. But, I mean, I'll, I don't want to really respond.

I don't want to piss off, Chris. Speaking of those 2019 rockets, Samir asks, wondering who you think is least likely to return to the Rockets next season. Mike Dantone, Daryl Morey, or Russell Westbrook. Did they actually spell it, Moray? M-O, capital, R-A-Y. Yeah.

Thank you, Samir. I would say least likely to return Mike Dan Tony. It's not even close. Not even close? Yeah, I'd say Mike Danone. Not close to the guy that cost him like a billion dollars. His contract is up. I get it.

Simple as that. As contract is up. And there's already been noise for over a year that they want to hire somebody new. I think, I think I'd put them even. Dary and Antoni. Moray. I'd put. Here's an interesting sliding doors question from Richard.

If the Thunder had traded Westbrook instead of Hardin, do you think they would have won a championship? No. Why not? No. I don't think they would have been better because I just watched a 2011 Oklahoma City Thunder like two weeks ago, go watch the games. Hardin didn't pass then either.

It would have been worse for KD. Pass. What do you mean? Are you saying he doesn't pass now? No. I don't care if he gets eight assists a game. He's got the ball in his hands every damn possession. What are we talking about?

He would not have been better with KD. He was the one least willing to sacrifice on that team. But to the point, if one of the three were gone, it's like they say three is a crowd. If one of the three were gone, that one was Westbrook rather than Hardin, that's the question here. Westbrook was. Maybe he wasn't sacrificing with the three of them. He was the better fit.

Andy was a bulldog. Andy was a bulldog, which is what you need in the playoffs. Are we sure he was the better fit with Kevin Durant and not a guy who is a tremendous perimeter score who is also a great passer? Are we sure? Who wants to and has to be the man? Are we sure that a more. A more efficient score wouldn't be a better fit next to Kevin Durant than Russell Westbrook,

who shot that team out of various teams. It's also about their personalities. I mean, keep in mind, Kevin Durant won the MVP. It led the league in scoring playing alongside Russell Westbrook. Of course. I mean, so I know what the results were playing alongside Westbrook. And then I know how Hardin plays. And I do think Hardin would have a tough time being the sidekick.

You know what I mean? And Westbrook was. The sidekick. He was. Make no mistake about that. Didn't it feel like it all the time. Didn't feel like it. Come on.

Get serious. I'd just like to point out that that was literally the exact same as the Game of Zones argument. Right down to the Westbrook shooting threes of it. Dude, that was awesome. I still love that moment so much. Did you watch the finale you guys? Yeah. Game of Zones.

It's really good. Love it's really good. Okay. We got time for two more. This comes from Blake. if the NBA does have a campus slash bubble and advice you to be a part of the media, would you go? Yes.

No. No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to be away from my mom unless you wanted to come. But no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go. I mean, how long do I have to be there? Do I have to be there the whole time? Three months? Oh, no.

No, absolutely not. You would go for, you would go for the end of the regular season and the playoffs. Yeah. Well, I would not go for the rest of regular season. You would go just for the playoffs then. Yeah. I would go. I would go for some portion of it.

Yeah, I wouldn't go. No, for the whole time. Oh, let me rephrase that. The answer is would I, I mean, I would trust their protocols. They will have same protocols for the media too. So the idea is, I thought it was a safety question, not a time away from home question. Oh, yeah. For safety, I would go.

For safety, I have no questions that, I mean, I thought that was the question because no, I can't be away from my house for three months. What are you talking about? But you could go for like a week and a half. Absolutely. So I would do the same. But not an extended stretch for the playoffs,

maybe just the finals or maybe just one particular series. Yeah, that's how I took the question. I thought it was a safety question. Do you think the mismatch is going to get that invite? Us three are going to get our invite in the mail along with Shams Wodge. You know, I wonder if media is going to be a lot. I mean, I don't think so. My expectation is no.

I would say no. And even if they are allowed, you're not going to be allowed near the players. Well, you know, part of a, you know, a broadcast. And I think, uh, I haven't asked much about it. But I mean, I remember a long time ago, I was like, what would it, what would even happen? And I think what you do is have your home broadcasters, like basically you'd be in your, your own arena, like alone, right, to do the shows. and then you would be getting a feed

in order to broadcast it on your RSN, your regional sport, so that you would be getting a feed and your play-by-play guy and your color guy, they're watching the game on a feed and they're able to call the game like that. And that's how you would be able to broadcast it.

But no, they would not be in the arena. Only the national television would be in the arena. That's what the ESPN KBO broadcast are like, they're just in their homes. I mean, obviously it's different because, like, they're not going to fly them internationally to those games, but it's, it's worked okay. I mean, it's a lot harder to call the play-by-play of it all, but, you know. I think that's what they're going to do. You said you don't like doing play-by-play, Chris.

I don't. No. I'm just not good at it. I mean, I have done it before. I just think there is, um, I didn't stay doing it, right? Now, maybe if I would have. But I think that people underestimate how hard that is to be great at and how bad you are at first. That is one of those things.

When you are hearing somebody for one of these teams, whoever you think is bad, whoever, whoever, I promise you, they have been doing it for 10 years, at least 10 years, even if they're young. many of them they've been doing it for 20 years calling games all the time practicing honing their craft and basketball is a hard hard sport to do and that was the one right that i was a part of and that was when i was in college and i just i didn't feel like i really had a knack for it um you know being able to describe things very well um in the way that you needed to and so i just i have i have i have have great um i i honor these guys sit behind the mike and try to do that one day it's not easy it's not that's not an easy job okay last question comes from david i was wondering how you guys met and what your first impressions of each other were pretty sure you guys have told

this story on the pod but we might have some new listeners come to us during quarantine what's the story here we met through bill we met through bill and we met virtually we didn't yeah Kevin and I had done the podcast for over a year for sure before we ever met each other in person. Did we, so we started the show in September or October 2016. I think it was 18. We didn't meet Summer League 2017. Uh-uh. I don't think so.

So we didn't meet in person until Summer League 2018. I think that's true. That's unreal. I think that's true. That's unreal. I remember when we did our first podcast. We did it in Mark Titus's room. You remember that?

Yeah, yeah, the one in person. Yeah, yeah. That's right. I think that's the first. What was the one with the Grizzlies Hotel was like on the 70th floor or whatever? That was. Oh, you know what? Was that 2017?

Yeah, it was 2017. So that was the first one we did. The second one was in Titus's room. That's right. So, yeah. Why do we have to do it in Titus's room? I don't know. I don't remember either.

But my first impression, like, for me, like getting asked to do it, I didn't know we were going to be doing it regularly. I think, I think they just were kind of smacking us together. Whoever made the call to have me record a pod with you because you were hosting the show, you know, you were doing two a week and you had different guests on one of the shows. The other show you had, I think, a ringer staff run. And they put you and me together. I thought it was just a one-off maybe and maybe potential for more. And they're like, oh, yeah, you guys got to do the show each week together. It's like, oh, cool, great.

Chris seems like a good guy. I like talking basketball with them. You know, we just kind of clicked early on. In fairness, I'll be honest. We hit it off because I think Kevin and I had very similar upbringings. And so the age thing doesn't really matter, right? We both had this deep love for our parents and family. And so we had like the major stuff we had in common.

We both love basketball, even though we argued. about different things. And then the other thing is like if you, it's very hard to find people in this job. And I say this as so this is now, I got out of college, it's 20 years ago now. It's very hard to find people that don't authentic,

like really take themselves seriously. Yeah. That we get off the air and that it's for show, but then they're like for real pissed at me or something, you know. And I say that more about myself than I. I do about Kevin. But I mean, Kevin's got to be able to like just laugh it off the same way I laugh it off. I just don't. I can't remember. I can't remember a single instance in which I go off the show like that idiot. I can't remember a single time where I felt that way. And we got

comments sometimes saying like, you guys actually pissed at each other. It's like, no. Why would I be pissed because we're arguing about basketball? Yeah. I would say, what reason would there to be? And like like you said, though, there are people and like everybody grows up with somebody that does take it incredibly serious if you have an argument about sports. And then they take it into everything else. Let me tell you. And that does happen in sports media too, for sure. Nobody takes themselves more seriously than media members.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is. They take themselves so damn seriously. They really do. Nobody takes themselves more seriously the media members and think they matter so much. And that's why. And so I think we both had that in common.

But I'll tell you this, this is a real, this is a great story for everybody that is out there. Because it's not unlike, you know, people, I guess, could have long distance relationships. And this is a relationship of sorts. But Kevin and I, though we had not been in person, you know, you follow each other on social media. You see each other's faces, you know, all the time. and by the time he came to my like there wasn't nothing weird like we felt like we had known each other forever by the time we were the first time we were ever in person together and I think people experience this you see a lot of times with like gamers and stuff like that they play with these guys and then they meet in person it's like oh my god I know this guy you know what I mean um and so for anybody you know that is getting into this line of business or sometimes when you think like do you really know these people um Yeah, like it's real. You know what I mean? Because like Kevin and I, I felt like Kevin was one of my friends for a long time before I was ever in in the same room as the guy. And I know that sounds crazy, but that's the world we live in now. It's the truth. I mean, it's the type of thing where like when I was a teenager, I used to have like online friends. And sometimes I was closer with those online friends that I was with my real life friends. And, you know, I think I found it at a young age of, you know, distance doesn't preclude you for. having a friendship or relationship with somebody and you know over the years finding this you know

in my career you know developing a friendship with people and you know especially now as many people are working remotely if if your job hire somebody new you know which that would be a great thing if your job is hiring people right now um reach out to that person you know you might click you might click and you know thankful for me for me and chris as soon as we hopped on that phone call the first time we obviously like the chemistry is better now than it was then but we definitely connected for those foundational reasons, as you said, Chris. And it's been a blast doing this show. This is now fourth season doing it.

It blows my mind. It's been that long. And hopefully many, many, many more to come. And we've done two a week during a damn quarantine with no sports. That's real love. All right. Let's go to do it for another edition of the Ringer NBA show. Thanks to everybody for the great question.

Thanks, Bobby, as always. Kevin, I will talk to you on Tuesday. Have a good one, guys.