The Ringer NBA Show - What Needs to Happen Before the NBA Officially Returns? | The Mismatch

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

Now that we have a date for when the NBA will be playing games again, the focus has narrowed to what happens in the interim. We discuss the NBA’s evolving thought process on COVID-19 testing, how many players will be with their teams in Orlando, and more (0:34). Then, we briefly discuss the wing prospects in the coming NBA draft that Kevin is most excited about (49:58). Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to The Ringer MBA show. I'm Chris Vernon and joining me as he does every Tuesday from the Ringer.com. It's Kevin O'Connor, A.K.K. Kevin O. Bomber. Kevin O'Connor. Kevin O'Connor. Kevin O'Clylamour. Kevin O'Climber. Kevin O'Brien. What's going on, Chris, this Tuesday morning. How you doing, man? Well, there's obviously a lot of news going on in the world. Still, as we talk, rather inspiring weekend to say the least. But when we last talked, the Board of Governors and the NBA had just voted on the 22 team deal that is going to be going on in Orlando with the resumption of the NBA season. That being said, today we will kind of go through the details that have started to come out since because we knew there were a lot of blanks that needed to be filled in.

And it seems like a lot of them are starting to be filled in. So let's start with yesterday, and you've done a lot of reporting on this in the last couple of days, one of which is kind of the timeline. knew that the Players Association was going to be having their call on Friday, and you knew that they were going to be talking about this. And it's one of the things that had come up, like, hey, okay, this looks okay, and we'll probably approve it, but we do need to discuss this timeline of things. And so what have you found out about the timeline of the way this is all going to play out? So for teams over the coming weeks, the NBA were like international players to come back to

their team cities on June 15th. Players currently in the United States to come back on June 22nd. And then testing would resume or start for some players on June 23rd for coronavirus. And I was told that families are also eligible to be tested as well, considering the fact that there's a possibility in the future that those families would end up going to Disney World to join their team, to join the players. But that wouldn't happen until after the first. round in terms of dates for actual basketball being played this is all tentative it can all be

changed uh but it seems like the likelihood is that players would arrive at disney world between july seventh and ninth they would come at different times as to limit the chance of an infection happening with everybody coming at once so over a two or three day period you'll have all 22 teams arrive first game on the 31st playing tournament on august six 16th and 17th, first round, August 18th, second round, September 1st, conference finals, September 15th, and then NBA finals, September 30th. Those dates can, you know, be changed if, you know, something bad happens with coronavirus or if a series ends early, as would normally be the case, but that's the rough estimate that

the league put out there and calls over the weekend and yesterday to agents detailing a rough estimate of what the schedule could look like moving forward and families could join after the first round and those families just like the players will have to go on undergo a quarantine upon arrival at the site for players it seems like that quarantine will be around 36 hours so when they arrive at Disney World if you show up on July 9th for the next 36 hours you stay in your hotel room you receive testing and then after you test negative hopefully test negative at that point you were able to go back to practice and rejoin your team for basketball activities. And if a player test positive at any point, that quarantine will be at a minimum seven days,

10 days, that number is not finalized yet. 10 days was the number cited on the call yesterday. Seven days is the number that's been cited by various people across the league. It doesn't matter. I mean, in all likelihood, if you test positive for coronavirus, it's a two-week thing for you or longer sometimes. But that's what the NBA is saying, seven or ten days at a minute

if you test positive. And hopefully, hopefully we don't have a lot of those, but we're likely at least going to have a couple, a handful, maybe 10 or 20, who knows? Well,

and the reason that is ultra-significant, Kev, is because if you're in the middle of a playoff series, you might miss two, three games. Oh, man. Of a playoff series.

Imagine tested positive before like a game seven. Right. Oh, my goodness. And so it's just, constant testing? Is it daily? Daily testing. Daily testing for players and for everybody with the team. Everybody who works

on, you know, that's on the coaching staff, every family member who's there. If media is allowed, which I believe a small amount will be, media will be tested every day. The positive thing is is that it sounds like and again, nothing's finalized to. Right. Nothing.

It sounds like the NBA is going to be able to give like a mouth swab test rather than the deep nasal swab. Like I'm sure a lot of people see the videos of those deep. Anybody who's had them, I saw my mother get one in January when she got tested for the flu and she had, you know, flu A at the time. And because she just had heart surgery, went to the emergency room just to be sure, you know, because she tested negative at the doctor's office.

I'm giving too many details. But like I saw her get the test. Oh my goodness. Oh, my. I never want to have to have that done. The thing looks so long. Oh, it is long. It goes from into your nose to the back of your throat.

I mean, it's long. So like for players doing that every day, I guess on a daily basis getting that test could like have negative effects too. So having, because the physical aspect of something going in your nose into the back of your throat every day would not be great.

It could agitate it. So they're going to do the moth swab at all likelihood or a shallow nasal swab. And that's good for the players. That's good for anybody who needs to get tested. So it seems like we're starting to get some clarification of what things are going to look like over the coming weeks and the coming months from a basketball standpoint. But again, man, like all of this is tentative. Every single bit of it could be changed if like something goes wrong here.

And we don't know. We don't know what's going to happen moving forward. But it's great to see that the NBA's plan is really developing because July 35, first is still a long ways away. And we're a month away from July 9th, today's June 9th, as like the likely last possible date for people to arrive. So it's nice to have a plan now. All right. So two things on this. First of all, when you were talking about the players getting back into town and then going down to Orlando, is the idea that they will work out for like a week in their home markets and then your training camp, as it were, is going to be taking place in

Orlando because I was a little surprised. I figured that, you know, the training camps or whatever they were planning on doing as a lead up to, I figured that you were talking about them getting to Orlando, you know, three weeks before the first game. If you're talking about the 7th through the 9th, well, clearly that's where they're going to be doing these things. So they want to already have them underneath their guidelines and under wraps that far in advance before they're ever going to play a first game rather than teams doing it in their own local markets just because I guess the oversight of it all.

So everybody's training camp is going to be there and they're just going to figure out how to share the gyms? I mean, like there's two almost really like training camp A and training camp B. Training camp A, you know, in their home cities. And for what it's worth, I just want to clarify that Toronto and Brooklyn, those two teams may not actually train in their home cities. because of the complications with international travel, Brooklyn because it is one of the cities in the world with the highest coronavirus rates.

So the Raptors and Nets are working with the NBA on possibly finding another city for their players to go back to and to work out from. And that remains to be seen where that would be. But, you know, over that, you know, two, three week period for when teams have players in, yeah, they would undergo testing. And that's important, though, you know, because even if you're only having small workouts or a guy passes by somebody else on the gym or, you know, you're not supposed to be in the weight room together. But I mean, let's be serious here. Like, it's stuff's going to happen. You're sharing everything, right? Yeah. And I think for the NBA, it's also kind of a trial run for like figuring out, you know, this process here with testing, with like getting players almost adjusted to it before getting to Orlando. I mean, I'd want to. go through that, like rather than just, you know, cold turkey, you know, going into daily testing and this whole weird regiment. So for the league, that testing is going to start June 22nd, June 23rd, for every team and every player that's invited to the Disney world, even though they're not at Disney yet.

Oh, wow. So, I mean, these guys are going to be getting tested every day for over a month before they ever play a game. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's important. It's important, though. Like, you've got to stuff it out early. If you've got to catch somebody who, who has it as soon as possible. So daily testing is critical here. And that's like in the story I reported last month about the whole process of testing here with the amount of tests that it will be required. It still remains to be seen. I reported on group testing, which is like using 20 swabs in one test, right?

As a way to conserve the amount of tests needed. It's a, it's a solid approach for saving tests, which is good because for the NBA, they could theoretically, you know, donate. other tests or whatever that they ended up not using, you know. But it remains to be seen if they're actually going to do that. Well, and I've thought about this a lot. Or if it's the best thing to do. I've thought about this a lot, Kevin, I'm sure everybody has. Whether it is in every state across the country, there have been massive protests that have

gone on with all manner of people together in confined areas. You've seen the pictures in L.A., in New York and Chicago. and you name it. I mean, and you can't help but watch those. And as we are been going through this global pandemic, it has struck me if there is not some kind of massive outbreak that takes place in the coming weeks and months, I do wonder how much that is going to guide thinking

on everything, including sports, right? Like, I mean, I was thinking about this the other day. You know, there obviously is not a granddad. difference between being at a football stadium and being, people, there were, there was no distance between most of these people that are at the protests. Trump tweeted this morning that he might have a rally next week. Yeah, I mean, we're going to, I guess we're going to, you know, I guess we're going to find out, right?

Like, I mean, obviously this is going to take time. But if there are not massive amounts of outbreaks in cities all across the country where clearly thousands of people were in very close quarters amongst each other and not practicing social distancing as they have been talking about for so long, you do wonder like how much is this going to, how much are people going to become a lot more liberal in their thinking of how to deal with this, whether it be fans in stands or whether it be, you know, how we conduct ourselves on a daily basis. You know, this is really, you know, you can't. get a more significant case study than like everything they told us not to do was just done,

you know, for the past week. And so we'll find out. This has been sort of like the overarching problem the past couple months here is like the amount of contrasting information. Like one day it's wear masks. One day it's don't wear masks, including from Fauci and the Who, you know, these places, people and who are supposed to be trustworthy and are supposed to give the right information. Yesterday the WHO says like it's very rare that asymptomatic people spread coronavirus and then today they're like, oh, we regret saying very rare. It's actually between 16% and 40% of people who are

spreading coronavirus are asymptomatic. It's like so like one day it's this, one day it's that, one day it's don't go in groups, one day it's it's okay to go in groups. It's confusing for people when they're being tugged in one direction or the other. I will say that. Even with everything that was going on, you heard people say, ah, well, outside's not really, nearly as big a threat as inside. And I'm like, well, okay. I mean, and it might not be. I mean, like, there are many scientific studies that, like, I have, you know,

seen smart people talk about or, or write about on Twitter that do say it is less likely in a low likelihood of spreading outside. So is there a difference between a mass gathering of tens of thousands of people on the streets of Los Angeles outside as there is like 17,000 in an arena? I don't know. I'm not a doctor. I don't know the answer here. I have no clue.

Well, the other thing is... To your point, though, it's like people seeing, if there isn't a massive outbreak after the protests and everything, or, you know, in three weeks, people will probably be like, well, wait a minute,

you're telling me I can't go to church. You're telling me I can't go to a basketball game. And people already are saying that. You saw the video of Tray Young playing at that AAU or maybe, I don't know where it was. Summer League. Yeah, it was a game in Oklahoma. It was a packed.

Jim, not a single mask in the crowd. Not one. Not one in the whole crowd. And they're already like, understandably and also like frustratingly. It's both people like questioning, you know, well, what's what's really the deal here? Because of the fact that people are not told straight

one thing or the other. They're told contrasting pieces of information. And like in terms of like, I don't think the NBA or NFL or MLB or anybody, is going to have a problem getting people back in seats, considering the evidence we've already seen from the willingness for people to gather together. For good reasons, like with the protests, also for like just entertainment reasons,

like with some of the gyms we've seen across the country like Tray Young. Well, and even as recently as last week, I was reading something about how, okay, like, because obviously you always think about it. I have a family and I have four people in my house, and then my parents who are much older live down the street from me. And so I've always kept the distance, even with my parents, that live right down the street from me.

But I was reading something last week that even within households, the rate of transfer has been like 15%. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, with my, just my immediate, I am, I can't be any closer to these kids. I mean, these kids and my wife, everybody's using the same stuff. You know, we're using the same silverware. We're using the same cups.

You're giving each other hugs and you're right next to each other on the couch. That's right. And if the rate of transfer is that low even within a household, they still haven't figured out how this thing moves from person to person. I don't know. I mean, let's pray it ain't a sweaty basketball. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know.

And I think that even as far as we are into this, you still don't have unbelievable information as to how you, how you're getting this, right? How people are acquiring it. In some ways, it's understandable because, like, it's a new virus. That's right. Nobody really knows anything right now. We're all learning as this process goes. People talk about, will there be long-term immunity?

I mean, we don't know until time passes. Well, I'll tell you this. This is the original point. If it spreads because a lot of people are in a confined area together, inside or outside, we will find out and we will find out in the next three weeks because you saw it. There are pictures all over the globe of thousands of people all together with very, nobody's six feet from the other person. You know what I mean?

And so we'll find out. And then I do wonder how that affects sports too. Oh, you also see Las Vegas too. You saw the videos of the Vegas Casinos opening too. That's right. Nobody wearing masks inside, no social distancing except for like the plexiglass, Like at poker tables. Well, and to that point, we talked about it and we lauded and praised guys last week.

There was an immense amount of the NBA involved in this, even this past weekend. You saw players, you saw everybody from Steph Curry and Clay Thompson to Jalen Broughton. To their credit, virtually every person I saw that was an athlete was wearing a mask, almost every, like from Bonn Miller to Clay Thompson and Steph Curry. And I'm sure you could probably find some people that weren't. But what I'm saying is generally I saw them all wearing masks while they were out, but they were all involved. You know what I mean? And I mean, you know, I can only imagine the amount of people that came up to those guys. It's impossible for them to be out anywhere and not get recognized and then people want to come up, shake their hands, whatever it may be.

And so you had a lot of, you had a lot of the NBA involved in this too. And so I guess, look, it's one of those things. Only time will tell. But I do think it can, it can maybe change the thinking about how all of these sports react. If we can get by with not a massive outbreak after we saw the massive collections of people, you know, maybe things change a little bit. It'd be a good sign if that were to happen. But who knows? I mean, you mentioned household spreading.

It's like, I don't know what site, what study you're citing. there. I haven't seen that. But like, it's, it's true that, you know, my mom got, with my mom and I got tested for antibodies on Saturday, her results came back on Sunday as negative. So she didn't, has never had it according to the tests. Mine haven't come back yet. So either they did hit her test quickly because she's at her 60s or they got to do mine for longer for some reason. I don't know. But my, my results haven't come back yet, even though you did go get tested for it. Yeah, for antibodies. Yeah. So that's to find out if you have the antibody response to coronavirus, which would suggest that you have had prior exposure to it.

How long did it take? It was just simple. I mean, like, it was basically it's like you call before you walk inside. And this is what it was like here in Massachusetts. I don't know. I can't say what it's like for all 50 states or around the world. But here, it was you call when you're outside. You give them your information as you normally would, like written out on a sheet,

you know, your insurance information and all that. they opened the door for you. Walk inside. They bring you straight to the room. We sat in there for maybe 10 minutes, just waited for someone to come in. They drew blood. They had their mask on and gloves on and all that.

Drew blood, handed us a sheet of how to receive our results, walked out. They opened the door for us as you walk out. Don't touch anything. So you say the whole thing was less than 20, 30 minutes? Just less than 20, 30 minutes, yeah. just a little blood draw through a vein puncture, you know, through your arm, you know,

right there. And you just went to a testing center or your regular doctor? No. So like this was like a through a hospital, uh, they have an urgent care center site. Gotcha. So like through an urgent care place, you call ahead and advance and then just go straight in. You don't need an appointment or anything. It was easy.

It was simple. It was free insurance. Conference. But I mean, I haven't received my results yet. But it would be interesting though, like to your point, though, if I were possible. and my mom were negative, despite the amount of time we've spent together the last seven months since December, really. Right. It cannot be, as far as I've read, it cannot be contracted through Zoom. So even if you have it, I would not be at great risk, right, doing these podcasts with you.

I mean, we never know, man. I hope it cannot, you know, capacity airwaves. I hope you cannot transmit it through Zoom. There are those BS 5G conspiracy theorists. All right, let me ask you about a couple other things. So you ran through when they would do the first round, second round, conference finals, and then also how they're kind of talking about testing tentatively. Another thing that you covered was kind of when draft timelines for all of this. And then in conjunction with that, free agency timelines and kind of the way that would play out. So if you can kind of take me through that and the way we're thinking about how a draft and a lot of

and then a draft and then obviously free agency after that would all take place in this what is now going to be a radically different schedule than we've ever experienced before. So I believe we hit this Friday, but just to briefly go through it again, August 25th is the tentative date for the draft lottery. October 15th is the tentative date for the NBA draft. And yesterday I had heard that the NBA free agency date could be October 8th. 18th. On the 18th, like it could technically actually be 6 p.m. Eastern on the 17th like it was last year to get the earlier start just, I don't know, for excitement reasons rather than starting at midnight. But with that said, if Rehancey is October 18th, that raises the question of, well, what does that mean for

teams that had player options or trade exceptions for certain particular dates like in June or July? And so, for example, this is pretty simple here. The way it's going to work is that the date changes in proportion to the original calendar. So a guy like Gordon Hayward or a guy like Andre Drummond, the both of them had player options on June 29th. They had a do it by then. Now, so that was two days before July 1st, the original date of free agency. That date when it's said, now just move to October 16th. Two days before October 18th, the new free agency date.

The Warriors have their massive trade exception that they got in the Andre Goodala deal that was originally set to expire on July 7th, six days after the 7th, six days after July 1st, sorry. Now that exception would expire on October 24th. Simple. For all exceptions, team options, player options, non-guarantee dates, they just move in proportion to the original calendar date. And that's not finalized, but that is what's being negotiated between the NBA and the NBA Players Association. Have you talked to anybody about this? We know that one of the first things that came up when they were talking about resuming a season and they were talking about the way this stuff could play out was we don't want to turn around and start going to training camp six weeks

later. Right. And so while it is hopeful that you were going to be able to start a season and then hopefully be done by July because you got the Olympics and there's a lot of guys that, you know, the NBA obviously wants to support the Olympics and wants their guys to be involved with the Olympics. On the other hand, you know, for injury risk and for a myriad of other reasons, NBA players, it sounded like kind of threw up a flag on that one and saying, hey, hey, hey, hey, hold on now. Well, let's negotiate. We'll figure out when we want to start back. So this idea of when you would be able to start back, and I say that in conjunction with this morning, Travis Slank, the general manager of the Atlanta Hall.

said that the NBA GMs that were not participating in Orlando, those eight teams, were told that next year's schedule could be condensed in order to try to keep the league as close to its usual timeline as they have had for so many years. So the idea would then be, hopefully we can kind of get back to what was normal rather than create a new normal. What do you make of what Slank said? obviously those eight teams are fighting to try to be able to play in some way somehow and not just not be playing basketball from March until December as a team.

And do you think the most likely scenario is this just becomes very condensed for next season, possibly even a lower amount of games, I suppose. What do you make all this? Or just more back-to-backs. Yeah, what do you think? Remember the 2011-12 season, the season, the same. 66 game lockout short and season where there was like four games on five nights, you know,

here and there. And they don't want to hit. No, well, I mean, from a, from a health perspective, they don't.

From a fan perspective, that year was kind of a thrill. Well, the interesting thing is, from a money perspective, you know what I'm saying? I mean, you're seeing this fight,

you're seeing this fight too, obviously that's going on with baseball vomiting all over itself. But the whole idea is, okay, what percentage of salary are we getting it? doing it different ways. I mean, it's kind of a balance. Like, let's say next season, they want to finish in time to start in October.

So the 2020, 2020, 2021 season would end, like, let's just say still in June or July for a October start for 21, 22. For the league, like during that stretch, you know, it's a balance between do you want to cancel games and have more back, fewer back to backs and more. more time off, or do you want to compact and condense the schedule in a manner that allows you to still complete a full 82 game season and not have to sacrifice some money financially for individual players and teams, um, but have a some undetermined amount of increased risk of injury because of the amount of games, the frequency of games being played like the 2011, 2012 season and for what it's worth. I don't, I don't have the clearest memory of like some of the injuries that happened this year, but it is worth noting that that was the year where Popovich rested Tim Duncan

of a back to back to back. That is the year where Derek Rose did tears ACL in the beginning of the 2012 playoffs following that busy condensed season of 66 games with those four games and five nights, back to back to backs for the league. Playing 45 minutes for Tim, Tom Tibido every time. Yeah, I mean, it's a difficult balance for the league. league, you know, is it sure it may be more entertaining from a fan perspective to have all

these games being played, you know, crazy roller coaster ride. But for the players, there's that fatigue that builds and the injuries, long-term injuries that can occur. And as we've seen with Derek Rose, that may never end up being the same player. Because, you know, I don't know, I don't know if that torn ACL happens as a fluke or if it's partially because of like the amount of games that are being played. I don't know. I don't think anybody can answer that question. But it's just something that the league will have to keep in mind for next season. Never mind the financial aspect with an October start versus a December start. I don't know what's better.

Personally, I think December with a season inning in July or August with the finals has significant upside. We've talked about that a bunch with like for youth, the youth watching basketball, staying up at night during the summer is more likely than staying up at night in April or May when they're in doing school and they have tests and they have to wake up early and all that. I don't know. But for the league, like, these are the things that have yet to be determined. I wouldn't read overly into what Schlank said because it remains to be seen. We just don't know what's going to happen over the coming month, month for the prep up the games. Never mind what's going to happen over the coming year.

It's just hard to say. Yeah, but if the NBA did mention it. If the NBA did mention it, though, to those other teams. They mentioned everything, though. The league is considering everything. They mentioned all these that they were considering so. many different plans for resuming games in different formats. They're considering so many different testing sites, places to do the testing for coronavirus.

They're weighing everything. And they're obviously going to weigh keeping the season at October. Of course that's in consideration. But they're also considering keep moving into December. Just like there are a lot of people high up in the league office, maybe even Adam Silver himself, the guy who wants to install tournaments, a mid-season tournament, who wants to install playing tournament, who wants to overhaul the game to make it even bigger than it already is. I mean, of course they're considering October, but it remains to be seen.

Look, man, like if this summer, let's say, you know, the NBA comes back in Orlando and, I mean, this is a unique year. Ratings are high for everything. But if ratings, like, are through the roof, if interest in basketball is greater than ever before with the finals this year and with everything happening, the league's obviously going to look at that and say to themselves, well, what if we had the finals every year, you know, in late summer, you know? and this year's different though because they're going against they're going against the NFL though so this is going to be the toughest now this is going to be the toughest

for sure because you're up against college and professional football if they're both going on simultaneously is college football coming back I mean we know that right college sports they say it is

they say it is I mean look if it doesn't you're going to see how awful lot of sports be gotten rid of but at universities I mean football pays the bill. End of story. Like, they pay the bill. And

again, you have so many billions of dollars of TV contracts involved with them too. You know, with these big conferences. You got entire networks now, you know, that are based upon these collegiate teams. I, yo, there's a long-horn network. There's an SEC network. There's a Pact 12 network. I mean, it's crazy.

I haven't thought about that too much before. Like you mentioned, if like college football weren't played other sports and ended up being canceled, you know? Oh, 100%. Or like, some have already. Yeah. It's same in a certain of the universities where college basketball is what pays the bills, right? That's right. You know, like, and then, I mean, you think about it. It's like, I understand the conversation about paying college athletes and all that and, you know, being compensated. But part of it is also just the fact that if sports aren't played, then other people who otherwise would have been college athletes may not get opportunities at schools or by fewer opportunities.

if those mean sports, the cash cows get canceled. I hadn't thought about it in that context. Oh, make no mistake. Make no mistake. Those football teams at those big schools, they pay for everything. True at high school. No, that's what high schools too probably. Yeah, I know.

But it pays for everything. It funds the whole thing. There are very few that the basketball team is the one that brings in the money. I remember my friend Christy Dash, who works for Forbes now. she did a long study on this years ago and I mean it was it was very very small the amount Louisville was one of them Memphis was one of them there's very few in the country that actually basketball

kind of foots the bill the rest of them it is overwhelmingly the football team and the football team basically pays for all these other sports that is going on within an athletic department it is the majority of the funding that takes place there And obviously, you look, and even the funding for the school, because so many of your biggest donors are those that have tremendous relationships or care deeply about the sports that are going on, right? Like, I mean, these people are also the ones donating to the school.

So who knows? I mean, obviously that is a big question. Your buddy Garrities, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're the ones that care so greatly about what's going on at those universities. So anyways, who knows? I mean, because I do think if you're going to be up against the NFL and you're going to be up against college football, you're not winning that. You're not going to have more viewers than that.

And you are people that would, if this was going on a little bit earlier prior to football getting back, you have no split of the audience, which is what we just saw with the last dance. There was nothing to fracture that audience. But football, you don't want to get in a ratings deal with them. they'll bury you. And now they're talking about, I guess, if baseball ever gets their shit together, they'll be back too. You know,

so we'll have a lot of sports by the time, you know, theoretically these NBA finals are going on. I wonder how these networks balance scheduling. Like, how does ESPN from a broadcasting standpoint? Who knows? And TNT ballot having a game's on starting noon to midnight.

It's going to be crazy as hell is if on one channel, we're watching a Bucks Lakers NBA Finals, with nobody in the stands and then we flip over and we're watching Kansas City versus Indianapolis in front of 65,000 people. You know what I mean?

Like it is going to be, it is going to be strange. Who knows? Because I mean, is NFL playing an empty stadiums? I don't know. It's hard to predict. It's like earlier this year

the Los Angeles mayor, I think he said like until 2021 there'll be no fans and arenas. And then I believe recently, Bobby correct me if I'm wrong about this. I believe he said like they'll have like up to 25% capacity. or something like that in Los Angeles,

or they're at least open to having sports. So it's like things can change very quickly. A couple injury things that we do need to touch on. First of which is we have found out that Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are not going to be participating whenever the league resumes. Clearly this is big news because Brooklyn is one of the 22 teams that is going to be there. And more importantly, you know, if those guys are going to be able to play, it's a different world if you're Toronto, right, sitting at the two seed.

You know, if you're drawing Brooklyn without those guys, you've got basically a buy. Brooklyn with those guys, now that's a different deal. But they're both not going to be playing. And one of the issues that has come up and who knows the way this is going to play itself out was that if you're not going to be there with these rosters and you are going to be somebody on the injured list, that they don't want you going down there being with that team. rehabbing down there, you just basically will be separate and apart from your team. Kyrie has already said he wants to be there. He wants to be there and he wants to be able to root on his team.

But we've had those two guys. And then yesterday, out of nowhere, it's announced that Lamarcus Aldridge had surgery like a month and a half ago on his shoulder. And he is not going to be playing for the rest of this. season, as it were. We already had one earlier. That makes the spurs a lot interesting. Yeah, well, and it got lost in the shuffle because we talked about it several weeks ago, but obviously we've talked about a million things since then, but Bogdanovitch, he's done. You know, he had his surgery, so he's done for Utah. So we already know, we kind of presupposed

that maybe Durant and Irving would be out, but now we know for sure. But now, like, if the spurs we're going to go on some kind of run in the eight games, you know, like, right? Not anymore with Aldridge being out, you would imagine. And then you've got the Bogdanovitch thing, which we covered a couple of weeks ago. But what do you make of it's so strict that even guys that are on the team, if you're not playing, you're not going to be there? Yeah, I mean, it's the right call. Fewer bodies, the better.

Simple as that. I think so. I mean, I think that's true for everybody. I mean, it sounds like teams will be restricted to about 35 per team, which is not a lot at all. We're talking 15 players and then 20 personnel, including the coaching staff and trainers and strength and conditioning and maybe one front office member. It's going to be limited, man.

There's not going to be, they set a maximum of 1,600 people at any time. That's going to include family once they're introduced. It's going to include, you know, a handful of. of media members, you know, probably mostly represented from ESPN and TNT, the networks that are actually going to broadcast this event. It's not going to be a ton of people.

Agents won't be allowed. That was said on the call yesterday that I reported about. Yeah, man, like, there's just not going to be a lot of people there that don't have to be. And so if you're injured already, like, there's just no reason for you to be there. I mean, there's just not. And maybe unless you're already there,

like, if you get hurt when you're there and hopefully that doesn't happen, I mean, we'll always wish for no injuries. But if a guy gets hurt while he's there, then that might be a different story. But if a guy's hurt right now, I mean, I don't think there's any use personal. And one of the things they're trying to figure out, because you had mentioned earlier, it stands to reason probably we're going to have somebody test positive for coronavirus, one way or the other, right?

And so you have to, and they don't want to shut the whole thing down. You reported on getting whoever test positive, getting them away for 10 days. and one of the things that clearly comes up on the heat. Yeah. So comes on the heels of that is, okay, well, how are we supposed to replace these guys?

Right? Like who is going to be available to play for us? How are we going to be able to acquire players? And it seems like, I mean, you got your two-way, so you better hope you're two... This is where it really matters

if your two-way players are good. Because they absolutely could be used. you know, especially given the situation at hand. You catch a couple of injuries and you catch somebody with coronavirus or God forbid three guys that are been hanging out a bunch, all test positive, and you've got to try to throw together a roster. Like, we know that the two-way guys are the first ones. And so having good ones, having guys that can actually play on an NBA level,

certainly that becomes much more important now than it might have been ever before. That's actually worth noting as well that two-way players, there's some confusion or lack of clarity from the league to the teams right now of whether those two-way players will actually be allowed on campus at Disney World or whether they have to fly them out, quarantine them, and then be able to use them in games if somebody gets hurt as a replacement player. I would assume it'll come down to the point that like those players will be allowed there from the jump. That just makes more sense to me personally. Like I mentioned, I just said like don't introduce more people, but they're part of the team. So like it does make some sense to have them there in the first place. But it is also worth noting that there will be a transaction window possibly starting around June 22nd in which all 30 teams will be allowed to sign current free agents. it remains to be seen what free agents that will actually include.

Right now, it seems like it could be guys that were either on a G-League roster at any point during the season or guys that were on an NBA roster during training camp. So that would mean I got like DeMarcus Cousins, who was with the Lakers but waived in February, would be allowed to be signed by a team. However, somebody like J.R. Smith or Jamal Crawford would not be allowed. to be signed because they've been unsigned throughout the season. Again, this is not finalized. It could change.

And for the league, it's really about balancing what is fair to the eight teams and aren't playing because some of those eight teams would logically want to sign some of these guys, right? But if you're one of those players, why would you sign with the Atlanta Hawks or the New York Knicks or the Golden State Warriors if you're not playing basketball this summer or even having an opportunity to play basketball this summer compared to one of the 22 other teams. But also, like, why is it fair for DeMarcus cousins to sign with a team, but not J.R. Smith. J.R. Smith is logically a player that teams would want to sign as a three-point shooting wing,

the guy that they would have signed in March had they had the opportunity to that month. Right? Like, why wouldn't a contender have signed them? So it's like, it's a tough balance here. Especially if you just want somebody to protect your car. man he whooped that dude's ass man he whooped his ass that was the best

I watched that video a thousand times great oh my goodness but to your point I saw Bobby Mark's tweet about this and it's one of those where you go you never know how significant

those moves can end up being sometimes for some of these teams because at the end of the season last year, when this is available, the Miami Heat went and they signed Duncan Robinson and they signed Kendrick Nunn, Keedrick Nunn, and look now.

I mean, those guys are like all rookie caliber guys that have played major minutes and had really good seasons for them. And so when you realize that that is the type of guy that might actually, when you're signing them now at the end of the season, like it's not just through the end of this, these are guys that could theoretically have a significant impact for you going forward.

And that's why I'm saying when you bring up like the Hawks or somebody, like clearly it's a great opportunity to acquire talent, you know, for the years going forward. You mentioned two-way contracts, guys that were two-ways, Duncan Robinson, you know, Alex Caruso on the Lakers, Chris Boucher on the Raptors, some quality reserve players. None is going to be in the top three for Rupertons. of the year. None's going to be probably third, right? Maybe second, depending on how many people

hold limited amount of games against Zion, you know, but Nunn's had a fantastic year for Miami, and he's one of those guys too. Bull bowl is on a two-way contract, bowl, you know, I mean, there's some quality players are for like the Rockets. I used to love this prospect, Michael Frazier out of Florida, and like he can shoot the lights out. And for Houston, he's gotten a couple opportunities to play this year as a reserve for them. Like, if they have a guy get hurt, you know, I mean, Michael Frazier is realistically a guy that they would want to call up and get an opportunity to play. Well, and it's interesting because you're going to see how these teams utilize this.

Yeah, the way I read it, the nets are going to get to replace Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving's spots on the roster. You know, they're like, if you got guys that you're saying they can't play anymore, you get to replace those spots. So this could be very, very significant. I mean, I'll give you just a, for instance, right, with the team where I am, the Grizzlies, Grayson Allen has got a hip injury and he's done. And they signed right before this all got shut down.

They signed Jonte Porter. Jonte Porter is not going to be able to play until next year either. And so there's a team that is currently in the playoffs. They're going to be able to add, theoretically, two more guys to that roster. and if your scouting department, you know, was really good and you've done the work. I mean, you could really, you could, because of this, this could really alter some teams going forward if they hit. Because if you catch a Robinson or you catch a nun, you know, I mean, you got a starter and an eight-man rotation guy maybe for the next five to ten years in some cases. No doubt about it.

It's an opportunity. and that's where for the league, like, it's going to be very interesting to see what they actually end up agreeing on with the PA. Because right now, it's undetermined. It's, as I stated, seems to be what's most likely. But we'll see if they just open up the entire pool, you know, everybody and allow like the Jamal Crawfords and J.R. Smith to sign with teams or not. Maybe they just restrict it strictly to G League. And that's it. Remains to be seen.

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And now back to the mismatch. Last thing, it does feel kind of minor, like all of the stuff that has come up that is going to be negotiated or, you know, fought over as it were, right? I don't gather that there's going to be anything that is like a huge point of contention, huge fight on it's, yes, the details need to all be worked out. But don't you get the impression that this is going rather smoothly? and we juxtapose that against some of these other sports where it's like, oh, God, like, you know, is baseball ever going to play? You know, and this is already,

you see them at each other's throats, and they've got a pending CBA to deal with in the meantime, too. It feels like they've taken their time with this, but that there's not going to be anything that is too big of a fight. No, no doubt. This is a baseball here.

There's not going to be a lockout because of negotiations. This is all minor stuff. that can be figured out. Like, you know, one thing I didn't report yesterday, but I was told with like current contracts this season, you get all these guys with bonuses, like weight bonuses or like three point percentage bonuses or, or, you know, point scored bonuses, all this stuff, right?

That stuff is going to be determined simply by extrapolating it out. So like if 65 games were played and through those 65 games, they've played, they've hit 103-pointers. And let's just say their bonus is, hitting 120. That 65 games would be extrapolated out to 82 games, which would mean that player would get 126 threes towards their contract. So they would get it.

But if that player had a bonus for 150 made threes, they wouldn't get it because, you know, 65, 82 games projected out would not reach that mark. It's really great, though, if you were playing out of your mind, right? If there was like, because like, take for instance. there are some players that for sure they'll shoot 50% from three for a whole month, but the next month they might shoot 30% right. And so for those that were having really good seasons, that it was going to be hard to keep up the rate in which they were doing it,

it certainly will work out. Now for those that still had a chance to reach those bonuses by playing great for the last month and a half or whatever it would have been, it kind of sucks for them, but it's fair's fair. Yeah. You know, just extrapolate it out. I mean, it's still not like perfect here, though, because like, then you have guys like Clint Capella who had bonuses for, for minutes played, but he had missed time because of an injury

and all that. So there's probably some weird little quirks that need to be figured out based off, like, time that a guy's already missed. But, I mean, we'll see what happens. The point is, is like, that's something that's easily solvable. Before we get out of here, since we do have a tentative. draft date, etc.

Um, you wrote about the draft and wrote about some intriguing wing players for those that have not read your article. Just give me two to go look up on YouTube this week. No, no, you don't look them up on YouTube. Look them up in the ringers 2020 NBA draft guy.

Come on, Chris. And then go to YouTube. I'll go to YouTube after. Yeah, go to YouTube after. Uh, but yeah, I wrote about,

um, the headline is, this is a good headline by my editor, Justin Barry. You can't fly in the NBA unless you have wings. That's good. Very poetic. So two wings in this draft class.

I'll just mention the first guy up top that I talk about. Tyler Bay, a wing forward, maybe small ball, big from Colorado that has like shades of a PJ Tucker. Because that was sort of the hook for the article talking about the way PJ Tucker and Robert Covington are used by the Houston Rockets. And their importance to that team of round their star players, their star guards. And Tyler Bay is just a really. really, really interesting guy, a little bit undersized, you know, in the past he would have been called a tweener, but that dude just bust his butt on the court. And he can defend at a real high level. And for him, the question's going to be like, how good is he as a three-pointer? He only attempted 59 three-pointers throughout his three-year college career, hit 30, only 31% of them,

shoots well from the free throw line, has good touch around the rim. But for him, like, I look at him as a guy who could be that PJ Tucker style wing who can defend on the perimeter, but also be used as a big interior player. And there's a handful of guys like that this year,

you know, some that are going to go in the lottery that have versatility. Devin Fasel from Florida State, who I love, very versatile, a little lean, can defend guards and wings, can do quite a bit for you on offense as well. This year's draft class, man, like it is weak on stars, but it's strong on role players, and there's going to be quite a lot of wings for teams to choose from that have different looks, some guys that have iffy jump shots, some guys that need to work on defense.

He just never know who's going to pop, though. P.J. Tucker goes second round, spends five years overseas. before returning to the NBA. Robert Covington goes on drafted, signs with Houston, gets waived, goes to Philadelphia, becomes a good player.

You just don't know who's going to hit. Not everybody has a clear cut path to success as a wing. And this year, though, the teams that nail those picks for wings are going to have a guy or multiple guys that are positive contributors to their teams for many years to come.

All right. So Tyler Bay and then the kid from Florida? Devin Fassell. Vassell's probably going to be a lottery pick in all likelihood. Tyler Bay. maybe late first round, but like there are some teams

are going to have him in the midfirst. There are some teams are going to have him in the 40s or 50s. This is that type of year. One guy, one, one, one team's trash is another team's treasure.

You know, I think you're going to see that even, I think you're going to see that even with top tens. Yeah, top 10. I mean, I bet if, I bet if you're on the league,

there's 30 teams. The, there might be a consensus on maybe four or five that are probably in everybody's top. top 10, but certainly once you get past, you know, when you get the six through 10, I'd imagine there's a lot of different names on a lot of different boards. I talked to a GM last week who said to me, he's like, I don't get Anthony Edwards. I don't get how people would ever draft him top three.

He's like, what's the difference between him and some of these other guys that are going to be drafted later in the first round? He's like, he's like, asking me, like, what's the difference? What's the difference? He's always bigger? He's stronger? Is that, is that the only difference? What about his skills in the court?

and I don't necessarily feel that way, but that's the way some people in the league feel about a guy who could be the number one pick. It's that type of year. Oh, it is that type of year. Look, and I'm in, like, look, I saw Edwards play enough in the SEC against other teams, but he came to Memphis and played here

against a team that had a bunch of guys that, you know, certainly were very highly recruited players on Penny Hardaway's team. He did nothing. Seriously, he did nothing. if you did not tell me that he was you know there's a lot of these guys that I've seen the past whether it was the Aaron Fox in person I saw Lonzo in person I've seen I've seen all manner of college players that have gotten drafted very highly over the years um in person but if you didn't tell me

that that kid was supposed to be a top 10 pick you at the game that I saw him you would not you would not have known unless somebody told you going into it now on the other hand I him in other games. I mean, he's dropping 30 points. And I mean, he looks like he is so far the best player on the floor, clearly, in some of the other games that I watched. And most everybody I've talked to talent evaluators, they've either got him or ball. And now you're starting to get a little Wiseman heat recently, you know? I mean, but then again, you also have the report, uh, from last week or two weeks ago. And I don't know how this information ever gets out there, if it's even the truth. But someone saying that the warriors have.

Iowa State sophomore guard, Tyrese Halliburton on their board ahead of the mellow ball and ahead of Killian Hayes. I don't know if that's true. Hey, Keff, the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday,

there was an article in there reporting that if the Warriors get the number one pick, they're taking Anthony Edwards. It's in the San Francisco Chronicle, and I'm like, it's like June. What?

Who knows, right? We're all bored. We just want to talk about something, right? All right, Kevin, have a great week, and I will talk to you on Friday. Have a good one. Thanks to everybody for listening to Another Edition of the Ringer NBA show. Thanks to Bobby Wagner, as always, and we will talk to you later this week.