The Ringer NBA Show - Wemby Saves the All-Star Game. Plus, Tanking Reform Gets Serious. | Group Chat

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

Justin, Rob, and J. Kyle Mann share their thoughts on the new-look All-Star Game. They discuss Wemby’s effort to make the game competitive, Kawhi’s impressive performance, and more. They also discuss the lackluster All-Star Saturday and whether there are any solutions to fix it. They wrap up with a discussion about different solutions to tanking after Adam Silver hinted in a press conference that reform could be on the way.(00:00) Intro(0:24) All-Star Game(24:18) All-Star Saturday night(30:42) Adam Silver’s press conference(39:47) Tanking reformHosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and J. Kyle MannProducers: Victoria Valencia and Isaiah BlakelyProduction Supervision: Ben Cruz and Conor NevinsAdditional Production Support: T. Cruz and Donald LoBiancoSocial: Isaiah Blakely and Keith Fujimoto The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to group chat. I am Justin Barrier and joining me, sitting right before me, Rob Mahoney, Jay Kyle, man on the big screen. Gentlemen, the All-Star game. It's back. It's good again. Look at that. Well, kind of, mostly good again. So Rob and I went to All-Star Saturday night, but we watched the game together in the big old screen in the office. Kyle, you were at home. Give us your thoughts just off the top here, Kyle. What did you think about the All-Star game? Are you feeling the juices flowing after the new format? Before the game started, I thought to myself, you know, if there's one person who has power, like, and by power, I mean the dominance, the option to choose to affect a basketball game of this capacity, of this magnitude, with this much talent on the floor. If there's one person who could do that, I think it's Victor Wimbunyama. And, you know, lo and behold, we go out there.

Yeah, tough, we can get to Denny. Lo and behold, we go out there and he wants to win. He's very intense. He's very serious. I think that Victor was the catalyst for, I think you could kind of trace back and make all kinds of conclusions about why we ended up where we were. We never ended up in any kind of sequence where we had like multiple runout dunks in a row. And, you know, people are going to take a pee and buy a beer at that point or just tuning out completely. I'll be honest with you guys, I hadn't watched the All-Star game in a while.

I just didn't give a shit anymore. I didn't care about it. And I think that Wimby was the single-handed catalyst that made this interesting. I think he's the only person that had the power to do it. What I wanted to ask you guys was, if you don't mind me starting the show this way, what do you think that means about the NBA? Because I don't think anybody else could have rolled out here in this situation and been that kind of a catalyst.

I know we all probably still agree that Yokic is the best player in the world, but how far is too far when you're like drawing a conclusion about the way this went down tonight in the league? I mean, I think it's very easy to project whatever you feel about the MVP class of players, both the guys who are healthy and unhealthy. Like, if Shea had been playing in this game, there might be people saying, oh, maybe he's too cool to be an instigator in the way that Wembe is. Even if Yannis is in this game, is that the exact kind of energy that this game, that the All-Stars need to, like, really red them up. I think there's something very specific about Wembe that is both invigorating and sometimes aggravating to people and they want to respond to it. And his great achievement in this game, in addition to just like ferociously posting dudes and going at Kauai and LeBron and anyone in front of him, I think is really getting Anthony Edwards going. And once Anthony Edwards got going, everyone kind of got going.

And so there was just like a chain reaction that I think you're alluding to, Kyle, in terms of, yeah, he has the power and the skill set to take a game like this seriously and really affect it. But he also is like exactly the kind of personality type that other players seem to respond to for whatever reason. Yeah, I think Wemby off the jump, number one reason why this was a good product, an entertainment product, which is time and time again, we're talking about how to save this and that. Like, we should think about this thing as something to sell to fans. And Wembe giving a shit trickled down to the point where Ants set outright, yeah, Wembe got going. And I really wanted to go at him as a result of that. When Wembe is barreling down on you in game two and trying to dunk on you. If you're LeBron James, you have to stand your ground and try to provide some sort of just a counterbalance to that.

Having said that, though, I agree with what Kyle is saying overall. My favorite part about All-Star is kind of how it maps on to the league, but also how it tells us about certain players when they're all together. It's the whole like throw the car keys theory that Bill kind of troughs around. But I do think like certain players step to the forefront. And perhaps that's more about a social quality to it. Maybe it's about popularity. Maybe it's about a domineering attitude more than anything.

Sure. But I do want to see like when the juices are flowing, like it's had had been in the previous instances. when we had the ELAM ending, certain guys stepped to the four before it was like Steph and LeBron. Here, Wembe, Ant, Kauai, three players who have dominated this season. I mean, it does feel like this is kind of aligning with the way the league is going and certain things that we're all kind of expecting from the regular season.

Yeah, I think there was a lot of good basketball playing deference among all of these stars. So it felt like we're legitimately trying to make the right plays. We're trying to set each other up. But it's telling when all these guys trying to set each other up just coincidentally ends with Anthony Edwards having the ball in his hands in every like crucial situation for his team, right? Like there's just a- He chose to be the period at the end of this sentence. He certainly did. He could have gone on longer several, which is aunt's way, but continue. No, it's absolutely his way.

But I think you see it even in the way other players responded, which I think is what we're talking about, like the ecosystem of stars. How do these guys place each other and rank and file? How, like, what is the political capital that a LeBron James has step. into a game like this versus a Deerrin Fox or a Brandon Ingram or whoever. Like, we saw players across the spectrum playing well. Like, Scotty Barnes had like an impact on these games, right? But he's not the biggest star in the world. And I think when push came to shove and when the moments kind of like shorn up,

it really was Ant and Kauai and Victor Webb and Yama. And there, you know, a couple exceptions here and there. But they were the standouts of the night for sure. Yeah, there was a moment. Justin was talking about Ant and Wimby, that dynamic in particular. You know, there was a moment before the game started that I think. got posted on social where there was one camera person who was just panning back and forth, like Edgar Wright style between Ant and Wimby in the tunnel. And Aunt was kind of just like John

and Wimby jokingly. And he panned over to Wimby and it was like, oh, Wimby's not joking at all. He's like dead serious. I had a dead serious look on his face. And it goes back to aunt. And it's like, oh, okay. And I really seriously wonder if that was the moment that the like chemical reaction of this happened. And I kind of was like catching myself, we as people who cover the league, you know, I'm, I try, I get caught up in like the broader, like the, the romance of the broader over the year's story of the NBA. That's the thing that lured me to basketball in the first place. I love it. Bob Kossis there tonight. Again, I reiterate my love for him. But I just, I caught myself thinking, you know, you don't want to be in the bag like overdoing it,

trying to myth make for certain players, because coming from, especially coming from the Jordan generation, I'm prone to that. I get caught up in that bullshit. But when I was watching it, I was just thinking to myself, would I be proud of mine itself for not appreciating? how special it is and how lucky it is, we are, quite frankly, to be watching the NBA and to see a player not only with Victor's crazy physical gifts, his crazy frame, for him to have the personality that he had. It'd be one thing if he was just this laissez-faire dude who was just kind of like, eh, you know, whatever, whatever happens, happens. He has like a Kobe Bryant spirit brain, whatever you want to call it. And it reminded me of 1998 when Kobe came in.

as a 18-year-old in that game and was like, I'm dead serious about this. And you could see Jordan was like, I guess we're going to be dead serious about this. That's what it kind of reminded me of. And I just love Wimby's approach to today. It really made a huge difference. It's a great point because another kind of theme going through this entire weekend was people asking Wembe how much he wants to be the face of the league. The face of the league conversation is so nebulous.

It ultimately boils down to who has the right sort of mix of popularity and excess. It honestly has more to do with curating than it does, like, just how good of a basketball player you are. It's why Yokic wouldn't be considered the face of the league, but we're talking about Wembe is someone who not only is in the running for that, but also wants it very badly.

And the one thing I do love about Wembe is he isn't backing down from those conversations. He's been very forthright, basically being like, yeah, I want to be a guy. And you don't usually hear that. It's very, like, Timothy Shalamey right now. Yes. It's just like, you have to at a certain point, if someone has that amount of self

belief, you kind of have to respect it, even though it does feel, I don't know, particularly 2026 as well, which I don't, as a millennial feels a little tough though, but like there's something very honest about that. And I do think honesty cuts through amongst everything else. Well, I think it speaks to, not to make this just pure generational warfare, but speaks to the millennial in us. Like the like very try hard, strifey part of Victor Webbenyama is something that I think appeals to a lot of people in our age demographic, whereas... Why are you looking at me? I'm looking at all of us. I just like, because so many people of his age bracket, like, it's very easy to be nonplussed. It's very easy to just be, like, tune down, toned down all the time.

Wearing their fucking big pants and not caring as they're doing. No, my point is not to tear down literally any other generation. Just to say that Victor Webbenyama wanting this stuff so badly does make him an interesting figure to try to attain it. And really one of the only people who can. And also makes him the target of criticism. and the target of a certain kind of cynicism as far as like what that stuff represents about him and what he means. That is a perfect

face of the league. Like you can't be so polished, you're unimpeachable. You have to be competitive enough to kind of be an asshole about it sometimes, including throwing up your hands at Carl Anthony Towns blowing a portion of an all-star game and also be so sincere that some people

almost want to try to see through it and to see what your actual motivations are to try to parse some part of you. Like, I think he has all of the ingredients in a really critical way. This was Wimby's Henry Muck app presentation where, you know, he says sincerity's in short supply. I keep making these industry jokes as if Justin watches the show. I hope you do.

Whoa. Okay, I didn't know. We've never talked about it. I've never talked about it. I didn't know. I don't love the season, but it's fine. I love the season. I have many thoughts, Rob, that we'll talk about later.

Now that I know that you watch, all three of us will talk about it. There we go. No, but I think it is interesting. consider it is an interesting marketing moment you know I know like over and over again I feel like this is an annual thing where number one Reggie for the love of God it's Wimbunyama please just say Wimbenyama

it's not Wimbana how has no one I maybe someone has said something someone has right also Reggie getting absolutely nuclear eviscerated roasted by Obama on national TV was incredible TV Also speaking of Reggie just briefly did you notice he was wearing two

sport coats he was wearing like a suit coat on top of a suit coat. Like a double breasted jacket with a blazer on top of it. I've never seen that before. He made history himself. Really on the cutting edge? Blazer or was it cold in there? Was it like a kind of a warmer blazer over a wait, what was on top? What was on top? And what looked like a full

again, I think double breasted suit jacket underneath it. And this All Star game, Blazer not on top. Didn't he not so good? Just want to say. I had a get that one in there again. Yeah, I was just going to say in the flow of this past week, which I think I was talking with somebody in the NBA who was like just saying that this is kind of the flow of the NBA schedule. We tend to do this where we're like, these games are great. And as they go on, we're just, we start to look around Will Smith style and be like, man, it's like, there's not as much going on here that I'm as excited about. And it's, we start to

pick it apart. It got very negative this past week. And you're speaking to like Victor's persona as a brand, I think, was an incredible swish and spit for the way things have been going this week. I was vindicated once again by that. But don't you think? I mean, I think that that was a nice palate cleanse. It really tuned out a lot of the things that people were fretting about. Well, let's say this. It's not just Victor Webbenyama and Anthony Edwards and Kauai and all the players who really like showed up for these games. This format, I think, was an unqualified success for the league. It made it so much more watchable. It's so very clearly from the opening possessions felt like actual basketball. And whatever it takes to make that happen, I think needs to happen.

And so in this alignment, having those guys on opposite sides of things definitely helped, but also just breaking it up and chunking up the teams in this way seems to have worked wonders. Yeah. So the number one thing here is people giving us shit. And I do think regardless of what the format was, that was going to make a noticeable difference. If you bothered to tune in. She also mentioned this happened in the middle of the afternoon, which is a little weird and just kind of disruptive for a lot of people. Even we didn't realize it had until it was really happening. Well, and happened in the middle of the afternoon because NBC made a business decision to air tape-delayed Olympic competition because that's going to draw a bigger audience than the NBA All-Star game in the form that it's taken. And frankly, like, I don't blame it because the All-Star game was down bad, even probably worse than the tanking situation.

But I think like the trying obviously matters. I also think the format, as Rob is alluding to, I also think that was a pretty, like, rousing success. Having a round-robin format where you have three teams, and they really had to give a shit in those 12 minutes, it does remind me of games past where if things were close toward the end, then you saw the juices start to flow and things turn on. You basically condensed certain games into that sort of block.

And as a result, I think guys were, like, trying to play for the win in ways that they typically have to wait an entire night for, an entire half-time concert for, which we also didn't get. So the breaks were a little bit long, I thought. But by and large, you were just getting a highly condensed dose of pretty good basketball. I wouldn't say it's like high-end regular season, but it also wasn't low-end All-Star Slop. It was that right sort of like perfect zone of like, they care enough, but probably not as much as the regular season.

That's exactly what the All-Star game should always be. Yeah. Kyle, I knew they had something when the games were close. I actually wanted them to go to overtime. Like, I felt myself wanting, like, let's get those extra five points. Let's get like a little extra juice. Like, this is actually going well.

And the first three competitions in particular were so close and so competitive. Like, that is just a world away from the instantaneous my eyes glazing over action of basically all of the All-Star games of the last five years. Yeah, when the World team was trying to close that second game, I caught myself being like, oh, I don't like this lineup. Oh, they got us. What am I? And I stopped myself.

I was like, whoa, this is the All-Star games. game like what is going on here like uh i was getting into it yeah i think one of the advantages to this game is that some of the biggest offenders for the jacking era i remember specifically being in indiana like lucca and yokic tend to fuck around a little bit too much in this format and so while damage done in jacking eras right jv we know yeah it's true but i just felt like getting rid of those sorts of guys i actually had a uh moment where i said to rob like if they had more depth on the world team as a result of those guys not playing it would have made it difference, which is a pretty big moment.

But those guys also are the ones left the fuck around. The only one who was really taking a copious amount of deep threes was really Carl Towns. But it was working. He was making a bunch of them. And then they kind of flipped it on the other side where Towns' goofiness kind of undid the world team that first game. Well, I also love the goofiness that the format itself lends itself to, particularly in the commentary.

I wrote down a couple quotes. One from Noah Eagle. The world needs a push. Tell me about it, brother. Reggie, the world is in desperation mode. absolutely. And our own Kyle Mann, globalist Kyle Mann in the group chat, group chat, I am full on rooting for the world. Would you like to explain yourself? Way to out me. No, I was rooting for them because they were the team making it interesting.

I knew they were the catalyst. I was like, we got to keep this going because we saw what happened when the OG team ran out of gas in the last game. And they were still trying. Totally relatable, unfortunately. Well, that's the one kind of thing I would probably change there. maybe don't stack an entire team with old guys who are going to struggle regardless or probably aren't going to give it their all this entire time regardless. Like, let's get more of a blend on the USA team, like divvy it up based off of maybe location. Maybe those go east-west and then the world itself is its own thing. But by and large, I think you want to make it north versus south?

I didn't say that. I said east-west, you fucked. You're the one doing regional ties. You're really trying to turn this into a different sort of podcast. This isn't the daily, my friend. I'm not doing anything. I'm just responding to what you're telling me. But that would be my only quibble here.

It's just like the old, that last game was pretty rough to watch. Kwai carried them in that second game. We got to talk about Kauai. I mean, that was incredible. Absolute killer stuff. So he had dropped 30 in an All-Star game before, and he beat that in one 12-minute session of this game. Absolutely insane.

I mean, it was as bloodthirsty as we've seen him, maybe all season. Like he's had some incredible regular season performances clearly, but hunting threes, hunting guys down, picking guys off in the back court of an All-Star game. This game needed that energy too. And I think it's important that it got it from him, that it's not all Wembe and Ant and the next guard of players who are up and coming.

Like, you had to get representation from the Kauai's and the LeBron's and the Durants. And those, the latter two had their moments, but Kauai, I mean, just grabbed it. Just grabbed control of the middle portion of this entire game. and put a stamp on it in a way that no other player did. Yeah, and I think he got pushed to that point where he, you know, it's like I'm going to, the stakes were there that it was worth him turning it on like that.

And I don't know that we would have gotten that in any other situation. I was going to ask you guys, did you think, do you think Jalen Brown at any other point where he was basically playing with the Team USA squad? Did he ever kind of, you think he was kind of looking for Steve Kerr in the, in the arena, and be like, yeah, you know, like maybe how you like me now, a little bit of that energy possibly. I don't know. I thought that might be going on

in Dailen Brown's head. If Dailen Brown had gotten hurt and Derek White was an injury replacement, I would have lost my damn mind. I got to say. Probably would have been better than Brandon Ingram. I mean, he didn't do much.

The All-Star game is weird. It's weird for lots of players. Yes, but I thought this was a success in the words of Scotty Barnes. Yay. Can I ask one more thing? I had one more question. Is that okay with you guys?

I was going to see, do you think that we had a Jamal McGlore Award for the player who is getting a rare chance to be in this game and trying harder than everyone else? Did we have anybody? I thought Norm Powell might be a candidate for this. Jamal Murray, probably, probably. But I think he's deserved to be here.

He's not in the McGlore category. I would also say he just kind of tried as hard as everybody else. The game was up to that, and I was glad to see everybody kind of chipping in and being involved. There were moments where it's like, even Deere and Fox, who had, like, technically a game-winning three. there are moments from like should Darren Fox be on the floor

with these other guys? Like he was turning the ball over. He didn't seem like quite up to the moment in the way that we're talking about the stars sorting themselves out. But to be honest, I didn't think anybody was completely out of their element.

I thought all these players clearly deserve to be here even though we're four and five injury replacements deep. But nobody, I would say, covered themselves in glory in the way that Jamal McClordid in Jamal McGlory. Yeah, I mean, The ones that come to mind, Chet had like a block and then

largely just kind of coasted the entire time. He got a sick dunk though. Why Tyler texted me like going crazy that Bickerstaff was playing Duren more than Chet. And I laughed and he was like now I'm not being dead serious. He was like I'm actually mad.

So maybe we can get Tyler's explanation on that one. I don't know. Do you think the fans of team stars got big mad that we led so hard with Wemby on this pot? You know? Why? I don't know.

Because they won? Well, who are they? That's my first question. But like, do you think, think literally anyone cares. Listen, they were trying to force the narrative, Reggie in particular, that like, this is like the young guys taking over the league. No, they're not.

Like, maybe a, and like a couple other guys are playing well. Yeah. But I just don't think this is Jalen Duren and Co's league at this point. But it's not Victor, it's not not Victor Webenyama's league. It's not Anthony Edwards' league. That's the headline. This is not not Wemby's league right now. That's punchy.

Okay. Why don't we take a break? We want to talk about All-Star Saturday Night and some other tanking stuff that was going on in the midst. of all this. So Rob and I went to Saturday night. Saturday afternoon at All-Star weekend. I got to say into it, lovely place. Unfortunately, I took fire immediately upon you did my seat. I got to nail. Lay this out for me. I need to know. Just tell me, do not spare any detail because Ben Cruz texted and was like begging for video and I wanted the video. I just wanted to see you

getting shot with a T-shirt can and so badly. If there's anybody on the show that would, that It's the funniest to see them get shot by a t-shirt canon. Just I'm sorry, it's probably you. I'm sorry. How did you make that decision? I don't know. This is a panel of the comments. I'm inclined to agree.

God damn it. So it wasn't so much a t-shirt canon. I should clarify so much as a t-shirt catapult. Because at the Intuit Dome, they have that giant ring of death going around the center court, which I have to say is big and beautiful. And I got to the point where it's like, if it looks this good on a TV screen,

why are we actually even going to games to see the thing below? the screen is just presenting the game way better than you can get anywhere else. But at the top of that, they have little t-shirt like catapult. Launchers, yeah. In order to serve, I think, the fans in the upper bowl so that the fans that probably want those T-shirts the most that are probably just the casual fans that can't afford $900 tickets to go to All-Star Saturday and get some goddamn T-shirts. Well, I didn't realize this.

We were sitting all the way up there. And so I had my head down. I think we're going to break during the three-point shooting contest. I was literally on my phone. All of a sudden, bam, right next to me, like right, my hand phone gets walloped by a densely packed All-Star LA 2026 t-shirt. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm under fire. God really does save his toughest battles for his strongest soldiers, Jesse.

Well, I happen to have an injury attorney on speakerphone here. Have you suffered any pain and suffering today? I have a neck hole just waiting for me back in my hotel room. You should have showed up with one today. I'm feeling the pain right now. Definitely pain in the ass from dealing with you guys. I got to say from the way you initially relayed the story to us, I thought you had actually been hit.

But it sounds like it just landed on the table next to you. My hand. Your hand? I need this hand to type. This is even funnier in a way. I was hoping you had popcorn and you were like looking at slack or something and huge explosion, you know. I hadn't visited the hydration station just yet. But if I had my big old cup of Coke,

all over my pants. That would have been great. I think we needed more of that like popcorn related or hydration station related explosion on your part. It can't just be a T-shirt hit you. I'm going to be honest.

You're being a little melodramatic about it. It hurt. I don't know if you guys have ever been like actually close to a T-shirt canaan that's being shot. But it's the stakes are high. You got to be, you got to be looking.

I was at a corporate event one time where they were just getting everybody. It was one of these. They were big on their cult. yada yada yada and just rah rah and youth group type stuff they run out everybody stands up and all these people love t-shirts i quickly realized no everyone's standing up because they're like in defense mode it's like be on your be on your toes so t-shirt canon man i'm sure i'm sure someone's been hit in the face with one at some point well especially the high-tech ones they have now that are not

just a self-standing canon like a gatwin gun it's like full on artillery yeah you know like that see if you told me you got hit by that i think we all understand okay how about i fucking chucked something at your head right after this. I'm just going to throw it at you. But here's the thing. You didn't even know it was coming until it landed on the table next to you. I get it would shock you. When you guys take fire, come talk to me. All right. I don't

choose how comedy works, Justin. Well, unfortunately. I just know in my DNA that it would you'd be the funniest to get hit. I just know that. I would say the most notable things to happen to us, for us, on All-Star Saturday. Number one, Justin getting hit with a t-shirt

by the T-shirt, Canon slash Caterpult. Number two, as we are leaving, passing by a very harried wolf blitzer on the concourse trying to find his group via cell phone. Number three, literally everything else that was supposed to be happening on the court. It was an awful day of events, I have to say. Yeah, unfortunately, Sunday had the appropriate amount of juice. Saturday had no juice whatsoever. I think there weren't a lot of people there to begin with. The three-point contest was fine.

Yeah. And I thought that it was a good idea at the very least to start with it. typically they kind of build up to it after the skills challenge, but all of a sudden the skills challenge wasn't there. I wasn't made aware of that. We have some sort of like pseudo shooting contest in between with teams. Well, that's always been there. Shooting stars has always been there.

They just don't put as much attention to it. Yeah. So in Houston's stroke, I have to say, still nice. Oh man, brought me back. I was like, I missed that. Unfortunately, that event sucked. It does. It was boring.

That's got to go. I do wonder if the real fix for All Star Weekend is just to either, diminish this to the point where it's just like three point shooting contest and out or just get rid of it all together just have an all-star game and don't worry about anything leading up to it is a little kind of against history because they made such a big deal about all-star weekend but like the slam dunk contest was huge to i just don't know what's left unless these guys start getting trampolines or moon boots or something in order to add some real zip to it and i would say keeshaw johnson innocent you know the eventual winner i thought he did like

everything he could to try to bring energy and charisma. He was dancing through every break. I appreciated the creativity of the dunks, but also the showmanship, which has been sorely lacking. You'll appreciate this. Rob, he started flashing his ab, Johnson then, and Rob was like, that's my move.

That's what I did not say that. That's not what I said. When I was getting married, I did the real, like, flash my ab move. That's never been a move for me, unfortunately. Can't picture that one. If only. But yeah, it was just a lot of blah dunks, which were used to at this point,

I did think there was a brief moment. You know, Jace Richardson took an alley-up off the side of the backboard and lost balance for a moment. I was like, is Jace Richardson going to die for the All-Star game? Is he going to have a life-altering injury? Because his head whipped back, like, I don't know why they didn't at least check him for a concussion or something. That seemed like quite a fall. And for what? For what are we doing here?

Isn't protocols now? He should be. Did he lose his balance, like, off the jump? Is that why it happened? because I was like, man, that was one of the worst, worst moments like dunk contest's history. That was dark. That was tough.

We'll have to check the tape. I feel like it was something involving maybe like his wrist hitting the rim. It's like something around the basket, I think, kind of threw him off balance in midair. And it was legitimately terrifying. Who among us, right? I mean, right? But also one of the only moments I felt literally anything at all watching the dunk contest.

So it's just a really sad state of things for that event. And I don't know how to fix it. And I don't think anybody does. Well, you guys wouldn't have seen this, but the Sports Center lead in from the dunk contest, the anchor, I forget which anchor it was, but I wrote this down. He said, we're not even going to show Jackson Hayes because his dunks were not good. That was what was said. The brutality. Yep, it was.

That was tough. So couldn't happen to a better guy. I guess the question is, like, what's the harm? Do you guys feel strongly about this either way? Like, if they got rid of it tomorrow, are you guys going to be up in arms? Do you think there are people out there just because of the sake of the history? of it all because this is the marquee event of All-Star Week and it has been dating

back to Jordan and Dominique and all that other stuff. I would feel probably a little wistful if it went away completely. But we're at the point where Mack McClund can't compete because he's the only one that actually knows how to do cool dunks. And he posted the dunks that he says he would have done. I got to say they were pretty sick. They were cool? They were very cool

dunks. That's enough for me. And stuff that we haven't seen before, but even he doesn't want to compete it anymore. He's been there, done that three times over. Been there dunk that. It should be like a taped situation where people have time. I don't know. Like put your best dunk on tape.

You want to take the live element out of live sports? Well, that's the problem. It's just like you're trying to do these highly technical choreographed moves, which are impossible to begin with. Then you're just hoping in the span of two minutes these guys can pull it off. Yeah. And so if you want something more technical and fun, which is where we need because there really isn't much going on right now, I just don't know how you get that unless like,

evolution happens and all of a sudden we develop like a third arm or something. Here's my suggestion. Look, we're just friends. We're just spitball in here. We're just trying to solve the NBA dunk contest. Maybe this is ice dancing on my brain. I want partner routines. You pick two dunkers.

You pick choreograph music and you have a whole routine that you do. We're not talking about individual dunks. You want a double dunk? You want a double dunk. Or a procession of dunk. It's not here's your one dunk. It's you dunk as many cool dunks as you can with. within a certain time frame and afterwards we give you the zero to 10 based on the arbitrary

and increasingly fishy criteria that apparently is used to judge all figure skating and figure skating adjacent events like how do you guys feel about this do like floor routine we could get some you know parallel bars why not with with a basketball goal right have you seen someone dunk off a pommel horse before i haven't it it could work for a year there we go that's one that's one placeholder idea we have. I just don't think that seriously though, like I know we're joking about the Jace Richardson thing. I mean, that's the kind of thing that is going to de-incentivize a star. Yeah. Because if you fall on your face in this event, it's just kind of like something that people laugh about. And it's tough. The goodness, he was fine, genuinely. Yeah. I mean,

we're not even at star level anymore. We're not even at rotation level. Some of these guys are bench players at best. Johnson who won it doesn't even, he's not on the active roster. He's a two-way guy, I believe. What percentage, what percent of regular NBA fans know who Kishad, Kishad Johnson is? None.

Very few. I think it's 0.01%. I think even what percentage of like group chat listener sickos know who Kishad Johnson is, right? It's like you can't ask people to be locked in on not even like deep rotation players, but two-way guys who are kind of technically only when so-and-so is hurt members of the rotation. It's not a reasonable expectation.

And if you're trotting out players who are supposed to represent the league, again, this is not his fault. It's the system's fault and it's the history of the competition's fault for taking us to this point where Keishaw Johnson has to be the one in the spotlight trying to save it. Well, I think overall, pretty good weekend for the league, in part because everyone finally stopped talking about tanking reform. It felt like going into Adam Selver's press conference on Saturday that the pitchforks

were going to be out. People were waiting to see what he was going to say about tanking, about expansion, but in particular about tanking. overall felt like he kind of dodged the bullet successfully, said enough to suggest that they were going to think the NBA down the road in terms of actually trying to eradicate whatever tanking has popped up over the course of this past week or two and also dating back over the past couple of years,

which is a good sign. I would say overall, successful weekend for Silver, especially today kind of getting it off the front page with a successful All-Star game. How are you guys just feeling overall? because last time we talked about this, I at the very least was up in arms on this subject. It felt like everyone got their wax in.

It got to the point where almost I felt like we went a little too far. Oh. But. So you fanned the flames, and you didn't like how far those flames spread. You didn't like what your revolutionaries

took the baton from you and where they ran. I mean, well, he also, I also noticed some, some ire over his comments about where streaming, you know, amenities are going to go.

I saw some people really upset about that. I was curious to hear what you all thought before we launched into the tanking. Like kind of right off the bat. I think it was in the open. Which always warms a crowd. It really typically does. Yeah. I think he's ultimately right, though, that we kind of are on the precipice of things

getting pretty wonky in terms of just everyday life. And he has been forward looking at the very least about the way that people consume the game. People have gotten critical in the past about him mentioning like highlights driving a lot of viewership. But ultimately, I think what he was like pointing out, was correct, which is probably not something you really want to beat your chest over. Like whenever they put out statistics about like their social media imprint, I don't think that's a good look. But he's right. People are by and large consuming things in digestible clips. And that's just a fact of life. That's how all of us like get everything at this point.

Our brains are rotted to the point of no return. And I think we have to at the very least be open about that. Yeah. And so I think he's right that AI is probably going to fuck some shit up even more. And I don't blame him for pointing that out. Especially the framework that he was talking about is like we're about to enter an era where broadcasting in particular and your access to NBA games is going to be more customizable than it's ever been before because of some of the AI like produced possibilities and also just like where we're at in the market in the marketplace, right? This is what people do respond to like it or not. Like they do want these customizable experiences. I think for the NBA and for all professional sports leagues, it'd be very careful

at this exact thing because it's one thing to give people what they want and there's lots of ways in which the NBA does that. What the NBA is selling fundamentally is communal experience. And it's this idea that you and I can be on opposite sides of the country and watch the same All-Star game and I can text you about Kauai Leonard and I can go to work tomorrow and I can talk about it around the water cooler. And we all saw fundamentally the same thing. But if we all get to choose how we're processing and being broadcast and fed these games and I want to watch the AI first person view from Khan Kinnipal's perspective and Justin wants to watch the version in which all the players have been reproduced

with like Scooby-Doo characters or whatever on the Nick Jr., I guess that'd be a Cartoon Network broadcast. I don't know. Who can speak to the IP? Stop looking at me while you're saying this. I'm just saying, hypothetically, if we all consumed dramatically different versions

of the same product, you're stretching out the core value of what it is you have to offer. Yeah. I just don't think that anybody's ever going to turn to that, though. Like perhaps. To which part? To just like alternative broadcast. Like, we already have this in different forms.

They've been selling 3D, like, oh, you're on the core. and you get to see this perspective, and no one gives a shit about that. It's way too expensive. It reminds me of like meta and all these tech companies talking about the metaverse, and that never happened. And so I don't think like how we consume the product

is going to be appreciably different in the near future. Like maybe 10 years down the road, but like I don't think anyone's turned into those sorts of things. Not in mass as of yet, but they're going to get better and they're going to get more polished and they're going to look a little less like lawnmower manny in terms of the 3D graphics involved. And I just the lawnmower man.

Are you not familiar with the movie the lawnmower man? Justin, come on, man. Don't even worry about it. Really? I got nothing. Honestly, you're better off. Watching the Scooby-Doo apparently too much. But it's one of those things that when that breaks, the ecosystem of the sport breaks, right?

Like everything that the NBA is based on, if it does go too far, there's no reeling that back. And so I think it's one of those like edges that the league has to be very careful in terms of trotting around. Yeah. A few things here. I mean, I think the viewing experience things that they've tinkered with, like the Vision Pro or meta or whatever, your delivery system or your software interface that you're using, I never thought that that was going to take off

because, you know, I do think that there's value to seeing an NBA game really close so you can appreciate the speed of it because I don't think that that comes across. But it's not a great place to watch a basketball game if you're wanting to see what's going on. But then the other part of that, too, where I thought that that was going to struggle was

one of the best parts about sitting really close to a game like that is the auditory experience of sitting near and hearing the conversations and hearing what such and such player says on the court or like you'll see these little breakouts where Kevin Durant like Jaws with like Timurant or Kevin Durant Jaws with T Morant on the sideline and says something funny and that's not captured on TV. The NBA would never sign off on that because it's like the the language would just never, it would never happen. And then I think another thing too is that undermining one of the core kind of human thing. about NBA that is about the NBA and basketball and sporting events is it's one of the last

monoculture things that we have that we experience live in real time like it's fun to go see a movie with a bunch of people who are also interested in it but that thing is not happening in real time like the theater and the drama of seeing that and experiencing it and hearing the same things on the broadcast and laughing about it on Twitter I just don't see them I don't see I don't see I don't see the appeal of diluting those those details of the broadcast I only I only think it kind of stands to hurt the product if they go that direction. Yeah, I've been thinking about this a lot because Portland is in a kind of arena dispute because the MBA and I think ownership that's coming in would like to see $600 million in renovations happen to the Modus Center. But I'm like

looking around. And so there's like a big turf war happening. Where is that money going to come from? It seems like it's going to be publicly funded. I as a taxpayer don't feel like I should foot that bill. But that's a whole other story. Yep. Tencent can cover that right. I mean, they got that rolling in it over there. I would do it. Yeah, if Yang starts starting, yeah, they got that bill. Start his ass. Just like, I look around at the modus at sometime. I'm like, what do people actually want from an arena experience? And they updated the big boards the other day.

Those were a little bit dated. Now they're all big, beautiful digital boards. Those were dated. I was shocked in person to see that. They swapped those out. And I think that was necessary. But at a certain point, I'm just like, this arena has bones and history to it. Like, what do you actually want as an arena experience?

If anything, like I think Intuit Dome is a completely separate thing. I don't know if anyone's going to like fit billions of dollars. in order to make as many toilets as humanly possible. But I almost feel like Arena should be going more analog and really kind of lean into this anti-AI idea where it's like you can only get this experience one way. And don't fuck around with screens or anything like that. If anything, I think you should really, as the NBA,

be considering this more like movies where it's like, yeah, it's more convenient to watch this at home on your digital screen. But doing it with people in a separate way, this communal experience is something different. And if we're doing that without the intrusion of all these, like, technological fancy pants things, like, I think that's actually better. I almost wonder if the future of the in-er-rina experience is actually being less technologically advanced, not more forward things.

Well, one can hope. And I think this is one area where to what you're speaking to, Justin, just like a lot of people in arena ops and game ops, a lot of people who run these buildings and these teams in those capacities have just really misread what the opportunity is. And you're right. It's like, you have the chance to draw people's singular focus to an actual physical. thing happening right in front of them. Anything you do that says get out your phone to like scan this QR code so you can appear on the Jumbotron or to vote in a poll or to place a bet, like all

of that is taking away and not adding to the experience of being in the area. They can do all that stuff at home. And I think what you need to be offering them is like, why is being here different? And the way it's different is because we're all sharing in it together, because you're feeling the energy, because you're locked in on the game. And there's ways in which like, to your point about the Intuit Dome, even just like changing the mechanism by which you would like vote on a Jumbotron pole from doing it on your phone to a button on your armrest like they have at the Intuit Dome, I think is a smart like analogization of that idea. Like how do we turn a digital process into a button? And I think that more teams need to like put more thought into that kind of process.

How do we put people in this seat doing things that they can only do in this seat? All right. Well, we take one more break and we talk about the tanking stuff that came out of the Silver Press Conference. So the big top line item coming out of Adam Silver's State of the Union address, he gives a few of these every year, one at All-Star, one at the finals, something at Summer League. There's a couple of these, which I think are important, if only to kind of track where the league is heading. At the very least, the questions being asked, I think kind of hit the hot button topics that

we're all kind of talking around, especially these days. How are you guys feeling about tanking after this big, full-throated week of everybody complaining about? I think that's a good place to start. I wish I could say I felt dramatically more confident than anything meaningful will be done. And I don't think I really feel that way. Okay. And a lot of that is most Adam Silver press conferences, in my experience,

have the same sort of like mealy-mouthed effect of, I'm going to say what I need to say to sort of swipe this idea aside. You bring up Janus and Kalshi. I'm going to say he only owns a minute percentage of the company and therefore it's not an actual issue. You bring up tanking, I'm going to acknowledge it's a very serious issue. in a very like politiciany manner and I'm just like waiting for the movement and I'm waiting for

the ideas and that stuff has been like reported and behind the scenes and unsourced and all that. That's great. I feel like we're in that cycle as we have been with expansion for a long time where it's like we're starting a committee to organize a study to potentially investigate and think about

doing expansion. No, the tanking problem has been going on for a long, long time and it's been not just the jazz but the Spurs getting Victor Webbin Yama in the first place. But really good and really successful teams who have built their model this way. This is not a new problem. Why are we talking about it

as if this is a new problem we're just breaking ground on right now? I'm no more optimistic than I was the last time we talked about it because the crux of this here is that I don't know how you protect the competitive balance of the league, which I'm sure we'll talk more about that

in detail with a lot of these ideas. I don't know how you protect that. And also protect the idea of teams that need the help. Like, that's the thing that's getting distorted. These franchises that sincerely do need help that have a lack of talent are trying to game it. You know, I don't see how you can disrupt those. Those two things are just in cohesion together are just such a tricky balance. And, you know, over this past week, I've heard, you know, I've heard so many different ideas.

and it's like every single one that comes back, you're just, it's, you're, every time you make some kind of provision to fix, you know, the black market, you just, it's like this in any arena of civilization. Whenever you, whenever you try to fix any kind of a black market,

you change the terms, you just establish a new one. And, you know, in sports, it's a lot of times it's cheating. You hear that. They'll make rules. Well, it's just like the cheating's going to adapt.

Whenever, or like piracy is a funny one, you know, like, well, we figured out this way to fix piracy. It's like, it's always going to be one step ahead. So people are going to figure out how to game the system.

I have not been encouraged by the ideas that I've heard that they're going to restructure that in any meaningful way. I don't know. If you guys feel any different. I agree. I think we could talk to you through some of the options on the table there. But I ultimately disagree that I think they're going to at the very least try to do something more extreme than they have in the past.

If only because the black eye is just so pronounced over the past couple of weeks, there have been just so much of a blowback. I think just strictly from a PR standpoint in terms of like the bottom line level, I think to not do something at this point really sacrifices and perhaps could impact the actual like money coming in. But we're talking integrity of the league. Yeah. And like I think people have scapegoated the jazz this week. Sure. In part because they are the big shining example of tanking this this year.

And I don't have many tears for the jazz because they did do it in a very extreme way. And it's not just this year. they broke down the Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert team, tanked, and then decided that wasn't enough of the tank, so we're going to tank on top of the tank on top of the tank. Can I comment on the jazz thing just really quickly here? Okay, so the defense of the tanking from the, and I have enjoyed watching the sarcasm on that word, I have enjoyed watching the death star of all the little things coming together and just creating one big beam of defense on social media from the jazz. Here's my thing. Don't try to like explain it with gymnastics.

You need to just take the mental gymnastics or whatever it is. Just take the Will Wade. I don't know if you guys are some familiar with Will Wade. Will Wade was this guy for LSU who got caught cheating for the basketball team. And he basically was like, you know, there was no getting around it. And Will Way was just like, do something about it. He was just defiant. He was just like, whatever, you know, didn't apologize.

Just do that, jazz. That's what I would say. If you're going to defend it, just take the Will Wade approach. That was my whole thing. Don't try to, we know what happens. So continue, Justin. I can't understand the frustration from anyone who's a jazz. fan or jazz adjacent to what you were talking about, Jave.

You have like, why are we, why are we on like holding the banner for this thing that has been going on for years and years and years? That part, I understand. They're the guy that pushed last. Yes. And they just got caught by the refs. And I get that. And got fined, we should say, $500,000 for their kind of manipulation of their rotation as a result. Like, not an insignificant penalty, but ultimately not one that really matters if you get Darren Peterson. So. And the, and the thunder of all people, that was funny too. I mean, that was, that was hilarious. But Just to show you the subterfusion, like the game within the game that's happening is everyone's just the crying tank and all this other stuff. Meanwhile, other teams are trying to make sure that they just get the best possible pick out of this fucker getting caught for trying to get the best possible pick.

Just to show you the level of like just people are just so cut throw in professional sports. But to get back to the kind of overall conversation, I think something is going to happen as a result of this. I would hope it happens as soon as the summer we'll see. I think the question is like what they end up doing. to Kyle's point, I do find it particularly naughty issue in order to find a more meaningful solution here, but not one that completely upends the entire league as we know of it. Rob, you've always talked about just abolishing the draft entirely. Absolutely.

I feel like that's in the air more these days. I wouldn't mind it if I felt confident that it ultimately would solve the issue. I'm just like, I find it difficult to wrap my arms around the potential side effects and everything else of doing it. And even like the practical implication of like, how do we even get to this? Like who gets like how many slots do you get as for rookies? Yeah. Who gets the advantage of getting those guys?

It's just a free market and everyone could just outspend each other like baseball. I mean, this is naughty. I think there's a lot of permutations as far as what it could look like. Yeah. I think the reasonable ones are probably that it would look a lot like normal NBA free agency in a lot of ways, which is to say, yes, there are definite limits on how much teams can spend overall. And within that, you give teams an allotment of a rookie exception that changes depending on how much you lost last season.

So rather than get the number one overall pick, you get the biggest exception to the salary cap or however you want to define that to spend on rookies. And I think what it does is a bunch of different things. One, we eliminate a system by which an 18 or 19 year old kid by and large coming into the leak is just arbitrarily assigned. You live in Boston now. You live in Miami now. You live in Charlotte now. You live in Minneapolis with no say really whatsoever from them. They can try to work the lines and, you know,

their agents can ultimately like try to maneuver them into a particular spot. I think it's not only the overall approach that would deal with tanking most effectively because it takes out the primary motivation for tanking, which is getting the pick to definitively get the guy you want. And it forces teams to actually be appealing to players. And it tells us right out of the gate something about those players as they come into the NBA. Wouldn't it be interesting if Cooper Flag enters into rookie free agency and decides to join the Minnesota Timberwolves, decides to join the New York Knicks, decides to join like the Oklahoma City Thunder for the minimum salary? Like you would be telling us something about these guys out of the gate and what's important to them.

And I just don't think the most qualified and most talented young players in the world are all going to sign up to be Luca Donchich's backup. I just don't think they're going to do that. And so overall the concern that, you know, the Lakers or the Knicks or who are. whoever are going to dominate this process, I find it to be unpersuasive because we see it in real for agency all the time. Players going all over the place based off of money, based off of opportunity, based off of the fact that those situations mean something to them for whatever reason.

Oh, where to begin with this? Yeah, please. I just, number one, like the boohooing about being told where you're going to go, the NBA is like there's a hierarchy of there's a, you earn your sort of your seniority in the NBA to the point where you can, you know, choose where you want to go and get that bigger contract. Those are things that you earn. So you earn human agency?

Dude, I mean, it's a tradeoff. I'm just saying. Like, I'm just saying you end up, you're making a lot of money. I don't think that that's the most brutal tradeoff of all time. It's a very, it's a lifestyle that is demanding of you. And I understand all of those things. And it takes a lot of work to, you know, stay at the top or stay at the level of an NBA player or whatever.

I'm not trying to diminish that. But I just think the thing that the biggest problem is just I don't, You were talking about people choosing not to sign up for Luca. I'm just like, I just feel like the class system. In college sports, it's different than the NBA, where there's definitely a class system in the NBA insofar as, you know, the free agent market like we were talking about. LA is always going to have a huge advantage over Utah or, you know,

what a X, Y, Z smaller market, less desirable place. I just think that like in the NBA, there's at least a sprinkle of hope that there is this way to balance the scale. the scales in terms of who can get an elite talent. Would somebody choose to go to San Antonio, it's a great city? I don't know if it'd be at the top. It's definitely cosmopolitan. I'm not trying to launch it to another San Antonio debate here,

but I'm just saying I just think the competitive balance thing would be a big problem. And these markets that are more desirable, they could see a Darren Peterson a year and a half because they scout these guys, two or three years ahead. They're planning for them in a lot of situations with their rosters and whatever it is that they do. and I just can't see how that would work because you'd have the Lakers getting a Darren Peterson pretty frequently, I think.

They would be figuring out how to do that. I just don't see how it works, man. I'm not in favor of abolishing the draft. I think we have the data dating back to a free agency when it was in an exception, that there have been pockets where players have prioritized other things. But by and large, they've happened in part because those bigger markets were just not viable options.

I'm thinking back to the Lamarcus Aldridge Free Agency or the Kamel Anthony where it's just like certain teams just didn't have it. The Lakers didn't have it at that point, the Clippers, the Nets, the Nicks. When those teams are just completely just not options, then the other teams start to come to the four. By and large, though, players will go there if there's any sort of opportunity to do so. And so maybe they would reach a saturation point after three to four years. But at that point, like, you would have the starting five of the Showtime Lakers basically

assembled because if we just go back to the past, two drafts. Like, would Cooper Flagg just immediately sign with the Lakers? Would Darren Peters say, I don't know. AJ DeBonse, if they had free will, just go. And then all of a sudden, it's, it's Luca and the three best players in the draft. But wouldn't you like to know? I think it would be cool. That's fair.

But I just don't, this is actually a good point. Like, is the NBA trying to sell a national product or make the local markets viable on the national stage? Does it matter ultimately to the bottom line of the NBA? Because especially as R.S.Ns go away. and as revenue sharing probably fronts the bill for a lot of what some of these smaller markets are doing. How much does it matter ultimately that Utah can compete on the level of the Lakers? They have to sell that silver does to Utah because they're paying billions of dollars and fees in order to get into the league. But does it actually matter?

Here's the thing is like all of these markets that were worried about, the people who are running those teams and the people who own those teams cry foul constantly, that the deck is already stacked against them in this way, that they are already. at a loss as to how to compete with the Lakers. So what is the problem that we're trying to like so delicately preserve you? Like the system is bad. The system doesn't work. I don't like that logic.

I just don't think it works as constructed and we have these two, we have all of these elephants in the room, including tanking, but not limited to that, that I think ultimately just eliminating the draft could straight up solve. I think it... This is a huge fucking elephant that you're like, we have all these elephants. What's one more elephant?

This is one of the bigger ones. This is one of the bigger ones. The elephant, to be clear, is that tanking has an outsized impact on the league, and it has for a long time. And we've just accepted that as a way of life because the draft has existed. And like, we are in that state of like, oh, this is the thing we know and understand is that teams have to be very bad to potentially get very good players. That doesn't mean it has to be that way. That doesn't mean we have to pretend that that's the only viable option.

When free agency literally exists, it's already part of the NBA. We are all, it's already a market economy. So why are we pretending that that's the thing that's going to sink it? I think it turns a disadvantage into, like it makes a lot of these teams just not viable. It will turn some of these teams into wilderness. Like it will. Which ones? Which ones?

Which player is going to, it would have to be a special circumstance for a Cooper flag to pick. Or Cooper flag, you're right about it would reveal something about players' personalities. For sure. Well, if you're just a loser, if you're going to, but players like money, players that win like money. Those overlaps do occur. I'm just like, how often is like Orlando? You just, I'm putting myself in the position. Memphis has awesome culture.

Love that city. I'm just like, yeah, New Orleans, Orlando. How many of the, like, how many of these guys are going to be choosing? These are the teams that are at the, like, not Orlando, but like Utah, New Orleans, Sacramento. Like, the teams you're worried about are already at the bottom of the standings every year. They are already in a bad place. Utah's highest points in their history have been so treasured because of, you know, the careful roster building that they did through the draft to build the best teams that

they've ever had. If you're telling me that in this other reality, that they're going to be able to lure, I just don't see it, man. I think you've got to find a way to fix. Granted, I'm a cynical, skeptical person in general. Like, don't look to me as a beacon of light for whether this can get fixed. But I think they have to fight someone smarter than me. There are plenty of those people around. Somebody's going to have to fix it. I just, yeah. I think if a team can't appeal to a player why they should sign there, that player shouldn't sign there. And so the idea that we're just kind of designating based on draft orders that you go there now does not really make sense to me. And there's lots of ways to do it.

One of them is, like, I agree with a lot of what you're saying, Justin, like all things being equal, yes, guys will gravitate toward a certain market, in particular L.A. All things are not equal. And the amount of money. Yeah, says the guy who just moved out. Well, I'm not being paid millions of dollars to lay for. I can assure you. But I think money is still the primary motivating factor. And if you're talking about, yeah, you can join the Lakers on the literal minimum or you can make 10 times that playing for even the Sacramento Kings.

I think you're going to see a wider range of decision making than you guys are letting on here. That will be interesting. I'm curious though, Kyle, as someone who's been through the wars recently of the NIL sort of generation, does the open market just perhaps lead to a bunch of other parties coming in and trying to pay guys? under the door. Does it just become a wild west? Even in the interim, where it's just impossible to get your arms around because then, let's say Cooper Flag, New Balance just wants them in L.A. for whatever reason. Or maybe they want them in Boston just because it's close to their offices. And they're like, you will sign a minimum to play next to Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown, but we're going to pay you $50 million under the table every year. We're going to

give you the internship deal that we gave to you on. Bill is like sign me up for this. New Balance stock. Cooper in Boston. That's not an unrealistic possibility. in this format. You're more familiar. Black market, that's what I'm saying. I mean, I say, I'm probably not a good example because Kentucky has the most expensive roster in the country

and just through money. I mean, kids followed the money. A lot of kids did. And, you know, but I just, I don't know if, I don't, NIL is, I don't know if it's really a great comparison. It's like speaking to the thing about, um, these big markets are just going to, if they know a generational talent, like a wimby is coming,

there's going to have a bunch of guys on one year deals. And like, they'll plan ahead for that and then and then try to get in. Yeah. Sounds a lot like the market we already have. Like, but not with the draft. Like, you know. Yeah. Like, Capspace doesn't exist in a meaningful form to sign free agents anymore.

Just like not the way that teams operate. And so I don't really see a harm in tapping back into that idea of a market, but just applying it to rookies instead. Like, if teams aren't going to be using their cap space to sign players in free agency, like that's not really a thing. Then let's create another avenue for. teams to actually appeal to these players. See, that's where I think the tanking part of this probably comes into play.

Because if it is a free market, and let's say Cooper Flag is coming into the league, you'll see teams raising their rosters down to beyond process levels, where Tony Rotin type is taking 50 shots a game, if only because you're trying to preserve the cap space in order to funnel it to Cooper in the next year, you'll still get very bad teams trying to load up with as much money as possible. Possibly. And they will probably have an understanding before. That was a nice catch.

That's goddamn right. You should be watching this on a video format because Justin just saved his laptop in real time. Mostly your laptop. Thank you for that. But I guess it's fascinating to think about the possibilities. For me, this just feels a little too unwieldy and it does, I think, nuke potentially a couple teams off the board. You can get into the conversation where it's like, I also love Memphis. I lived in New Orleans.

Like, I'm not saying anything about those places specifically, but NBA players, by and large, do not want to go there and live there. That's what we're talking about. Yeah. I mean, move those franchises. Yeah. I've had the idea where every team should play in only big markets. Yeah. You only play in L.A., Miami, New York.

This is not a good idea. Chicago. Every other market's gone and we just name them something weird. See, that's kind of where we're headed there because you would have to level the playing field. See, I think the counterpoint is teams like the Pacers, where it's like if you are a rookie coming into the league and you have the opportunity to play for a team that just went to the NBA finals in a small market. Yeah, maybe you're not a cold weather kind of person. Yeah, maybe Indianapolis isn't your first choice of city. Like, you want to win.

And maybe you see an upward. Maybe you're a starting small forward and you're like, I think I can beat out Aaron Nie Smith over time. I think if I had that opportunity, I could be something to a team that could go to the finals this year. And I think that, like, getting, having to bear your soul coming into the league and having teams have to actually pitch you on why you should sign with them matters more to me.

And I think the payoffs are higher than anything about that. the current system. All right. Well, we'll be tracking this very closely. As it does not happen. It never even gets on the table. It's, it is like, it's a competent, well-thought-out alternative to what we're doing. And I understand people are like, well, they can explain it. I just, there's just a few catching, like, catch points for me that are just

cascading failure. Like, would ruin the, would hurt the league really badly in a lot of ways. It's possible. Like, I'm not ruling out the fact that there could be terrible outcomes. I just think we're living in a world of pretty terrible outcomes when it relates to draft order in general. Rob's just like, why even deal with this? We have global warming to attack first. No, no, no, no.

I'm not even saying it in that sense. I'm saying like, it's already bad. Let's try to fix it rather than be paralyzed by the possibility that things could also be bad if we don't try to fix it. Well, at the end of the day, we have a reasonably cool All-Star game. We certainly do. And I'm rooting for the world. I want to reiterate that.

Yes. We're all rooting for the world in our own special ways. All right. When we wrap it there, thank you to Isaiah Blakely, Victoria Valencia, Ben Cruz. We'll be back on Thursday, schedule changing, so not Wednesday.

We'll be back on Thursday. We'll talk to you done.