The Ringer NBA Show - What’s the Future of the NBA Cup and the All-Star Game? Plus, NBA Comeback Player of the Year Award. | Real Ones

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Howard is joined by Rachel Nichols of Fox Sports 1 and ‘All the Smoke’ to discuss a myriad of NBA topics. The NBA Cup is in the closing stages as teams head to Vegas before the semis and finals, but what’s the future of the NBA Cup (4:22)? The All-Star game got yet another revamp, but will the competitiveness of the game ever return (20:14)? What’s going on with Joel Embiid and the knee (39:53)? Howard and Rachel give their NBA pardons (45:51). Plus, mailbag on Clippers and Knicks, as well as Howard and Rachel’s favorite interviews ever. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Howard Beck Guest: Rachel Nichols Producer: Clifford Augustin Additional Production Support: Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody. Chris Vernon here and welcome to a new season of the NBA and the mismatch. And huge welcome as well to my new co-host, Dave Jacoby. I can't wait to link with you twice a week every Tuesday and Friday right here on the mismatch to break down everything that's happening in the league. Who's playing well, who we loved, who we loathed, trade rumors, team dysfunction. We've got you covered right here. So follow us, subscribe and hit us with those five-star ratings on Spotify or wherever you get you. your podcast. And also don't forget to follow us on social media. That's at Ringer NBA. And check out the full mismatch episodes with the two handsomest podcasters in the history

of podcasting read in the Ringer NBA YouTube channel. What up? It's the real ones. Howard Beck, senior writer at the Ringer. Rajah's out. Again, he's a little under the weather. Got the word yesterday afternoon. So I did what people here in the big city of Gotham do. In times of crisis, I sent up a bat signal confident that a superhero would answer the call and restore sanity in order to this podcast. And here she is today, my friend, my hero, Rachel Nichols. How are you? That is the best introduction I have ever gotten.

So now I'm coming every week. And I think I look like Raja, so no one will notice. No one will notice. Thank you for being here. I was trying to figure out how to introduce you because I think you've now officially overtaken our friend Chris Manix for the most number of things in your bio on social media. Fox Sports One analyst, open run, headliners with Rachel Nichols, all the smoke productions. The Emmy winning hometown with Rachel Nichols on Monumental.

All the things. You are doing all the things. There are no things that you are not doing. Honestly, it's the first time I've done something like this. I've always just worked for one company, Washington Post, ESPN, T&T, that kind of thing. And the market's changed. But frankly, I have also changed in what I wanted and the idea of not having just one thing and being dependent on one network or one thing was really appealing. And you've been in that position recently too. So it's kind of fun to play in this sandbox and get to sort of just whatever makes me excited people I want to work with. That's what I'm doing right now, which is pretty great. I thought you were just trying to beat Manix for most employers at one time. I mean, who isn't really? I mean, you know, it's, he sets a high bar.

I was trying to figure the last time you and I podcasted together, which I don't remember if we did this when I was at SI. So it may be as long ago as my last podcast with feature report, which was four plus years ago when it was you mean Zach doing our last drunk with power. Is that possible? No, I think we did do it when you were at SI, but not was X. So, you know, those drunk with power podcasts remain near and dear to my heart. I hope we can revive them at some point. because, you know, there's nothing better than sitting around, getting drunk, and recording all your thoughts. Preferably in a teaky bar in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas. It's a strip mall. Not the cool part of Vegas. A strip mall tiki bar. It's great to see you. I think the last time we actually even saw each other was when I just ran into you randomly in my neighborhood. So that was wild.

It's like a month or two ago, so that's good. Yeah. There's a lot going on. Before we get to all the things that we must discuss today on the NBA, a quick, just programming note for the listeners, I will be out for the next three shows. I've got some family travel coming. And Michael Pina will capably hold it down with Raja. I think hopefully Raja will be back healthy by later in the week.

So Michael Pena and Raja on Friday, and then both shows next week. I will be back on December, December 17th, the day of the NBA Cup finals, which. as the listeners know, always thrills me. So I'll be back just in time for that. Looking forward to it. In fact, that's why you're coming back, right? Oh, yes. Scheduled the entire trip around making sure I'd be back for it.

Speaking of the NBA Cup, there's a segue. It wraps up tonight. By the time this pod drops, it's going to be very close call. So we won't get into all the mechanics of it all. But let's talk about the mechanics of it all just for a second here, Because yesterday, the NBA put out a couple of graphic cards showing that going into the final night of the group play rounds, here are all the scenarios. And oh, my God, were there a lot of scenarios for age? I would read through them, but the podcast would be over by the time I finished. No, we don't. When I posted it to Blue Sky, a platform again that everybody should be on instead of the other one, the responses were mostly negative. I was not trolling for anything.

this happened. The best one was from somebody named Rory H.R. who said, I'm using tenant rules. I mean, the film. There's no logical under, there's no logic underpinning it, but it's too complicated, so I'm going on vibes. I liked that one. But then amidst all of that, I really enjoyed this other response, which might have been to a different thing, but I just, I liked this. He says, tonight I will proudly walk, this is from the chef Nico. I will, tonight I will proudly walk in MSG, adorned in Orlando Magic Apparel as I have for years, I will be heckled and booed as I have for years. But tonight, with the winner advancing to the group stage, I think he means the knockout round. It will just mean more. And for that alone, as a magic fan, I'm grateful.

So there's the flip side of this, no matter how confusing, no matter anything else. Some fans really love this because there are stakes. And if you're a magic fan, you haven't had stakes in anything for a very long time. But I've talked a lot about the cup on this pod. And as it is a kind of pronounced skeptic, Rach, I don't know how you feel about it overall. But let's just talk about the group play thing for a minute, because I do think it may be to the NBA's detriment that there's so much up in the air on the last night. A lot of stakes tonight, that's great. But trying to figure out what any of it means with all these different groups and all these permutations and point differential coming into play, I don't know if that

actually enhances the drama or if it actually just leaves people with a migraine. So the headline, Howard, on maves.com today. On baths.com, the headline is Mavericks advance with a win, dash, probably we think. That is the headline. So when... I appreciate the rightness. So when their own website is confused or not, you know, adhering to a simple, clear direction, you know that you have a problem.

They clearly have to figure this out. There has to be a better way to do tiebreakers because... The point differential stuff, not just knowing clearly if they win tonight they're in, that kind of thing. That is, I think, one of the big hangups and all of this. And then the larger question is a little bit about time of year and what your goals are, right? I think for a team like the Orlando Magic that just hasn't won anything, as you said, in so long, the experience of, hey, it's elimination if we don't win this game.

They haven't experienced that. Some guys, you know, college is different now. not everyone has played the, you know, the NCAA tournament. Not everyone's advanced very far in March Madness. So for some guys, this is the real first shot at that on a high level. And it gives them some confidence. Hey, we won something. You know, if the end of Anna Pacers had won last year, I think it would have like given

that team a bolster in confidence. The downside is a team like the Lakers win. You're getting the same rating that you would for any Lakers game, right? So they were like, oh, my God, the rating was incredible. Guess what? Ratings for the Lakers are pretty incredible compared to the rest of the league. So I just think it kind of depends on who wins. There's the question of does it take too much out of you for the end of the season?

Again, with the Lakers, it was kind of hard to tell what was what in terms of what kind of undid them toward the end of last season. But that was certainly a factor that was mentioned. And the NBA just decides to decide what they want out of this. Because if it's competing with the NFL in the fall, that's not going to happen. Not in America, not in these next few decades. So that can't be the goal. If it's just spicing up this part of the season for the die hard. NBA fans? Well, I think they've done that to some degree. Ratings have been good for the NBA Cup

games. They've been not good. I mean, I don't want to be too quick to judge here, but I mean, ratings for ESPN. They're down 28% for the regular season so far. And we're already more than a quarter of the way in. This is not a tiny sample size. So it's not doing the thing that they wanted it to do in terms of bolstering ratings across the board. It is bringing them in money, though. you know, Emirates is a sponsor now. And I believe in the next TV deal, the NBA Cup itself is like a separate package. So they're making money. But what do you think the goal is here? Because that's what we have to decide to see whether they're meeting it. Yeah. And that's the thing. I feel like when they went into this whole endeavor, it was very easy to see it as well. They've got a new TV deal coming up.

They want one more piece to sell. Like that's clear. The business part of it is clear. It's undeniable. I don't think they would even try to deny that. I do think also that there was a, a concern by the league or at least a goal of saying, hey, let's try to inject a little more juice in the early part of the season. We are living in a time where, and this is some chicken and egg stuff here, is it the fans who started this? Is it the media? Is it the players? Who started the idea that the regular season doesn't matter or doesn't matter enough? We can say it's load management so we can blame the medical people. We can say it's the stars because they're trying to preserve their bodies. We can say it's all of us in the media for over-emphasizing championship or

bust, right? It's a lot of everything. And so trying to inject some drama, some stakes in the early part of the season, I get it. Again, I'm agnostic on the cup. I know I always come off as negative on this and then people like smack me around for this from both league office and some of the fans and listeners. I get it. I don't mean to say that we should scrap it. I don't think it hurts anything. I'm just not sure it serves much of a purpose. I think the cup itself, as I've said many times, I don't think it means anything. I do think like if the magic were to win the cup for a young team that needs to get some experience

in higher stakes games, stakes are all about psychology. You can psych yourself into thinking, I don't, that cup may not mean anything. It's not going to get me to the Hall of Fame, but it is a thing to win. It's a new thing to win. Okay, cool.

So the goal is all of these things, obviously. but I do think first and foremost, let's be honest, it was having something new to sell and to make more money first. The rest of it, I think they're trying to figure out. Like the WMBA, I think is interesting. They've gone to this version of their commissioners cup where they play all the qualifiers, the group play over the course of a couple of weeks.

So it's all consecutive. The NBA has this thing where it's like, you know, Tuesdays and Fridays, it's Tuesdays and Fridays. Tuesdays and Fridays are Cup games for a few weeks. and the other games are just normal games, and we switch back and forth from regular course to other course, it's hard to follow and the groups are not the divisions. So we're trying to remember who's in which group is hard.

I just think if you're going to build momentum and suspense and stakes, it has to be easier to follow. And I think it should also be more compact so that you are progressing from point A to B to C, to lockout to semis, to finals consecutively. because the dragging out of it just makes it really hard to follow. And I know there's all kinds of arena issues and other scheduling issues that go into those two. It's not easy.

It's easy for us to say that they should change it this way. But I think it's hard for people to get their heads around until after tonight, right? We'll know who the knockout round teams are. Right. Then there's a bracket. Then you can be like, great, if they went tonight, they're in the next round. If they're not, they're not. I mean, you know, you talk about the factors with the arenas.

Yeah, that's constant. That's always going to be there. So when you are trying to accomplish the goal of, in addition to the money, spicing up this part of the season, you have to take that into account when you decide what to do. And it might be that that's too big a stumbling block for an NCAA, I mean, for a in-season tournament, because you can't do that consecutive thing that, of course, would make a lot more sense. You're also dealing with some like unwritten rules in the NBA that you've got to kind of get around. I mean, the whole point that the point differential is what separates these teams in this group stage. it's a problem because NBA teams, there is sort of an unspoken general woman's agreement.

We're not running up the score on you. We're not going to embarrass you. And I believe last year there was a Celtics Bulls game where Joe Missoula was having his guys hack a drummond, and they were up 32 points. And the Bulls players and coaching staff, they were angry. And you don't want that. You don't want the players or fans to have ill will against this.

I do think when you look overall at what's happened to the NBA. and sort of regular season interest, I do think it's every single one of those smart, you know, points you made. It's all of those together. I also think it's a little bit of the NBA's fault because the NBA really took the forward step of all American sports of saying players, players of the stars, players of the stars. And it has suited them incredibly well. And even to this day, now that it's sort of reached its logical conclusion, you have fans under the age of 30 who largely say they're not a fan of teams, they're a fan of players. And the good news about that about the NBA is every time a player switches teams, there's all new gear that everybody gets, where it used

to be that you had your Celtics jacket or you had your Lakers jacket and like, that's what you wore your whole life and that was meaningful. Well, now these guys are, you know, it's, oh, I got this jersey. I got this jersey. For all the benefits of that, the negative side is that something that is a team event. You know, the championship, the stats don't even count for the players. So it just, you're trying to leverage into a thing that you've kind of left behind. And that could be a problem with this too. Look, our friend Brian Winhorse says that if they move the NBA Cup and the championship games are in that week between the NFC, AFC championship and the Super Bowl, that that would provide more interest because no one has anything to really watch at that point. I don't know if that

means, though, that the preceding games have to be during the NFL playoffs, and then that's a problem. So it's complicated. I like that they try new things in this league. I think that's a real asset to the NBA leadership. This has not taken the way the plan has taken. It took immediately in the first year everyone was like, oh, we love this. This hasn't taken like that, but you've got to give them room to work it out. And I don't think they're abandoning this anytime soon. So we'll see over the next five years if they can figure it out more. And I'm curious to see how much they tweak it, how much they are willing to kind of experiment as they go or just as they go.

They've sold it so they have to keep doing it. But I do think, like, and I said this a few weeks back, it's for the fans, right? Like, that's the whole point of this. If the players buy in and the fans buy in, I have a hard time with it just because, like, since I don't, I'm not rooting for anybody. So I have no emotional investment in any of this in the first place. So I'm, I look at it through the lens of what's newsy and what's significant. And I don't feel like the cup is all that significant. But I'm curious about the ripple effects of how it motivates or does not motivate players, how it, how teams look at it. And so I talked to a GM in the Eastern Conference recently and I said, look, if I gave you truth serum, Because everybody's raw, raw about this, right? They have to be officially. No one's going to crap on the cup. But I said, give you a truth, sir.

Your true feelings about the benefits, pros and cons for your team. And one of the things this GM said was, listen, I like it for the idea that it will give my team a certain amount of experience in these kinds of games, blah, blah, blah. Anything that gives people something else to shoot for is all fine. but because this person is running an Eastern conference team, the idea of like making the semis and having to fly out for maybe just one game or two games to Vegas, crossing time zones and then to play an extra game, it's hard. Plus,

we had like last year, the Knicks and Bucks ended up playing each other, I think, five times. So like being successful in the cup means you end up playing a harder schedule. Losing in the cup means you will probably get an easier schedule. So there's all these other weird ripples. And so the GM was basically saying, yeah, it's kind of mixed bag. Like, I think they wouldn't mind winning it.

But it's not the same as like, I want our team to win 60 games. Or I want our team to make the second round this year. Or I want our team to win the championship, of course, and the June championship, the real one. It's not at that. The Lakers raised a banner, Howard. Don't disrespect that. Oh, God, that banner. That banner.

Oh, my. Well, look, maybe it'll settle into kind of the way, you know, players right now, now really care about this still. And we've heard that over and over again. And by the way, that's great. It's cool to have something early in the season that they care about. Even teams like the Celtics, you hear the guys being like, no, I want to win. I want to get to Vegas. I want that money. You know, all of that stuff. There may be a time, as we've seen with, well, the All-Star game. I know we're going to talk about that soon. The players decide if you're at a certain level, if your team is competing for a championship, maybe you don't try to win all these games or try to win them by a lot.

or you just see what happens, but you don't put extra effort into them. And maybe if your teams like last year's Pacers or this year's magic, you do because you have that feeling of this is our title, this is what we can win right now. Maybe that's how it settles out down the road. And so, you know, to your point about the GM, like maybe there's some teams that'll be like, you know, we don't need to push all the way on this because it'll mess up what we're trying to do overall this season. Who knows?

That could happen to. We'll just have to see how it kind of plays out and adjust. Yeah, my last thought on it is just this. Let's see in a couple of weeks who's in that final because it's not going to be LeBron this time. And it may not be any of the other headliners. And it may just be, with all due respect to these teams, like, I don't know, magic versus blazers or something. I don't know. Yeah.

Throw out any of two teams that are toward the, you know. Not the Lakers or the Warriors. Who are not the Lakers of the Warriors, who are not the ones who drive interest and ratings. And let's see how big of a success it still is when it's just two random teams that's not LeBron, who's. who's playing virtually in his backyard because Vegas is like a Laker country. The NBA is back and Fandul, America's number one sports book, wants you to catch all the action because right now, Fandual is giving everyone three months of NBA League pass.

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Fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help.com. Speaking of MBA experiments, though, one that I actually do like. very enthusiastically, even though we don't have all the details yet, except for just what's been reported by ESPN and elsewhere, the All-Star Game revamp. I know, like, I wrote about this recently in a blurb on the ringer.com.

By the way, quick aside, ringer.com site refresh today. We had a redesign. It looks freaking spectacular. Everybody go to the ringer.com, pause this podcast, go admire the hell out of what are people built, then come back, Rachel and I will still be here, but it looks incredible. All right, that's a very old mentality. Don't you know that everyone has three screens going at once and they're listening on this?

And they're also going. They're checking out this website right now and they're doing all of that. You could actually, I think, listen to this podcast within some little frame within the website now. So maybe they are looking that and listening to us and admiring our wit at the same time. So I blurbed about this the other day. I'm actually very happy about, or happy about, I'm optimistic about what the league is working on with the All-Star game, where they're basically going to scrap the game as a single game.

It would be a 14 mini tournament. The 24 All-Stars still picked by conference, I assume. They'll be divided into three teams of eight. The fourth team in this mini tournament would be the winner of the Rising Stars, the rookie sophomore game for Friday night. Single elimination, bracket style, two semifinals, one championship. Instead of a clock, they'll play to a target score that's going to be 40 points in the semifinals, 25 points in the final.

Here's what I love about this, Rachel. And you tell me if you think they're on the right track here and if I'm on the right track. I like no clock because the game is too damn long, especially for an exhibition game. It shouldn't be 48 minutes in the first place, especially with all those long timeouts and commercials and a long half time with the whole show. Yeah. Playing to a target score means we know exactly when this sucker is going to end. I think it lends a little bit more urgency to it because if you're down, you're now scrambling to get back. Maybe you're chucking three.

Just like in a real NBA game. I like the target score. I like the lack of clock. And I like that these will be shorter. And with an eight-man team, you're not doing that thing where it's like these weird, like this guy's in for five minutes than this guy's. that everybody will play and the winner of the of the first semi that's going to have to play potentially the rising stars or whoever plays the rising stars in the first game and then potentially in the championship there's going to be more proud in the line because the veteran team

is not going to want to lose to the young pups so I think this is all very promising I am not wedded at all to the traditions of the all-star game that you and I grew up on it's it's it's it's it's it's outlived it's it's whatever it's just it's a dud and anything would be better than what they've been doing um what do you think well one question i have that i haven't really been able to glean but since you're clearly an expert you can tell me are they going to play three games on one day on that final sunday are they playing are they changing the schedule around so some of it happens on saturday or three games on one day my my sense is and i have not asked my sense is it's three games in one because I think you can.

In which case, my concern about length of time of the old All-Star game maybe comes back, but at least if you're playing multiple games in a row, three games in a row, semi-final, you at least have an endpoint for each of those. I mean, yeah, but an endpoint that lasts how long? I mean, I feel like in the last All-Star game,

they got to 40 in the first five minutes. I mean, how short are these games going to be? Cool. Great. There we go. There we go. There you go. I mean, yeah.

I was going to say, I think that trying new things is good. We said that before. I think that clearly this needs a fix. We all know it. I appreciate the league. It's just still trying here. I heard someone say the other day like, oh, they should just give up. It's not happening anymore.

And I don't think that. I mean, the All-Star game, to me, has always been one of the most exciting weekends of the year. You get to see all these players in the same place on the first. same court, stars, you know, dishing to each other, locker room, the locker room footage from these games is always incredible. And it's really the only time the whole league is involved. And an NBA finals, it's just two teams. So I think it is worth trying to save. I just don't know if this is the way to do it. It feels a little gimmicky to me. But again, you know, I'm certainly willing to take the shot and see if it works. I think some of the structure with the way All-Star

weekend goes until that changes, I'm not sure any of this tinkering is going to work because you have spent time at All Star Weekends, so have I, and the game is literally almost an afterthought. Players get in there on Thursday most of the time. The NBA has set up that weekend as sort of sponsors opportunities to sort of do things with their players. That's kind of part of baked in at the moment. And so these guys have sponsorship obligations Friday. They have sponsorship to the population Saturday. There's big parties and guys like to go to big parties. So they're doing that.

Also, you know, their families are there because it's All-Star Weekend and they want to be there for something so special. So they're dealing with family stuff. By the time you get to Sunday, guys literally have jets waiting on the tarmac running, waiting for these guys to ditch out and go back home. I mean, I've tried to interview players after the game. And it's almost a lost cause because like half of them are gone before the, you know, literally before they open the locker room.

And the other ones are like, yeah, I got to. go, I got to go, I got to go. So if the NBA is setting up for the players to feel like it's an afterthought, and the fans to some degree don't get that interaction because, again, it's all set up for the sponsors. So you know that lower bowl especially, it's all sponsorship tickets. I was sitting the other, I think last year's game, and I was in a box for a while with someone who is a major sponsor, the president of a company of a major MBA sponsor. And he told me in the first quarter, he goes, oh yeah, we're only staying until half time because we made dinner plans. And when that's happening with that guy, I just don't know how engaged the other fans are going

to be. And the players feed off that. If no one is yelling at them, hey, you're bummed. Get back on defense. No one's doing that. So they're not feeling that little push from the crowd or that big ovation when they hit a shot and they do well. It's the vibe of the game itself is churchlike in some ways. So if they changed which day the game was on and kind of made it in the middle and did some of the other stuff on either end of it, I think that might help. I don't know if they're ever willing to do that with the way the sponsorship stuff works. If they are willing to give the entire lower bowl to like schools and local communities so that it is raucous and like Rucker Park and like crazy there, I promise you, guys have pride. They're not going to want to play La Dada in front of people

that are that are really cared and invested. And if you have like a, you know, MSG style crowd that's, you know, yelling and doing and into the game, I think that will make a big difference too. And all these gimmicks of what, what's this team, is that team? Are we doing international? Are we doing this? I think until some of those fundamentals are changed, I don't think that they're going to get where they want to go, in my opinion. We should just have like all guards versus setters or something. How about that for gimmicks? Well, well, part of the problem, you said east west is that you and I both know, with all this talk, you know, every time one conference is worse than the other. There's all this talk of like, it should just be one through 16 for the playoffs. They shouldn't do

by conference. You and I know that will never happen because the team that's not good, I mean, the conference that's not good, in this case, the Eastern Conference, those owners, they don't want to give up playoff spots. Playoffs make money. Playoffs give their fans hope. Right now, they have eight guaranteed playoff spots. They're not going to give that up so that the West can have 10 and they can have two. That's not going to happen. So you have to wonder with All-Star slots, is it going to happen where they no longer choose from East and West, will ownership and Spars and the Players Union go with that? Because I think if you had the international players

versus the American players, that would be the best game right now. It would be fun. The hang-up I've always had with that one, Rach, is that because they are about a fourth of the league, right? The international crew is now about 120 players, I think, out of the 450. So somewhere around a quarter, the best of that group is probably going to be pretty constant for a five to ten years span.

Whereas on the U.S. side, I think there will be more variability because there's just more players cycling in and out. So it might just be like, you know, Luca, Janice, Yokic, Shea, who, like, that group may just be the team for years in a row. And so it might not be as interesting on the voting side. I don't know. Is that even a problem? Maybe it's not. I will say, like, the easiest fix, the one that people always snarkily trot out is, but the players did just play harder than the All-Star game is fixed. Just play the way that they did in the early 2000s. And the problem is, as you noted, by the time they get to Sunday, they're tired,

they're worn out from corporate stuff and appearances, and yes, the parties too. And they also just don't see as much motivation to play hard as their predecessors once did. And so you do have to manufacture something different. You do have to try to infuse it with something else that motivates them to play hard and maybe play a little bit of defense. Because without defense, it's funny when people, like, they snark at that and say, well, why does it matter? It's just an exhibition. Yeah, because games of any kind, exhibition or not, are only interesting if you're trying to stop the other person from doing something. Yeah.

Otherwise, it's just a glorified practice. It's not even an exhibition game. It's a practice at that point. Yeah. I do think a different format with the target score, shorter game, all of that, it has a chance. So that's all. There's my MBA optimism for the day. I look forward to the old. It's great that they're trying. It's great. They're trying. We like them trying. I was so I was kicking this around the last couple of weeks Rachel that we've had this

speaking of optimism and more positive talk because I've spent a lot of time we were like we did a panic meter last week we've been dumping on the sixers producer Cliff is going to pop it at some point with another sixer rant I think I was looking at the more positive side which is that we have a lot of like really great comeback stories this year both ball brothers but Lonzo in particular. Lanzum has two full seasons. He has been limited a little again, but he's played six games. He still looks like himself in shorter doses, but Lonso ball on the comeback here.

Lamello ball only played 22 games last year. He's at 18 and counting, so he will surpass last year, and he's looking great, especially on the scoring side of things. Ben Simmons, say what you want, folks, but he's already played more games than he did all of last season. John Morant, Marcus Smart. there's a lot of guys who missed most or all of last season. And it got me thinking, should we bring back the comeback player of the year award?

Which it's funny. So you and I, we grew up around the same time. We don't have to talk about our ages. But I thought of this, Rachel, at one point, is like, oh, this was something they just had for years and years and years. And then they got rid of it. No, it actually only ran for six years. Yeah, that's funny. But it's, it's a large and average.

imagine our NBA fandom in childhood because it was when we were teenagers or whatever it was or elementary school. I don't know. However old we were. Elementary school, yes. I don't want to date myself too much. Let's just say we were babies. Infants. We were infants. And we were very aware of the comeback player of the year award at that time. 81 through 86. There were six winners. And unfortunately, three of them were actually

comeback player because they came back from drug or alcohol abuse. That was Bernard King, Michael Richardson, and Marcus Johnson. two of them were contract holdouts, Gus Williams and Paul Westfall, who had also been injured. And then Adrian Dantley was the other one who came back from injury. They got rid of this for official reasons were that Russ Graddick, who was deputy commissioner back then, said, we phased it out because it became very difficult to determine with any kind of clarity exactly what the requirements were. So that was the league's way of not saying the thing, which was comeback player of the year was too often going to. somebody who had been in trouble off the court, usually for substance abuse.

But the idea of having it for the way we're talking about it, the way I'm introducing it today, which is like guys who lost a season or most of a season or multiple seasons and have been able to have an inspiring return to play, to a high competitive play, I think is kind of worth kicking around again. We have the comeback player or we have the most improved player, which literally replaced comeback player of the year. And by the way, let's not pretend that the criteria for that is clear either. So that can't be the excuse.

I know. No, no, no. For anything, right? All of them are kind of murky. But most improved is not the same thing as combat. And I think you could have both. I don't know. Is it worthwhile?

Is it something the league should discuss? Is it something that would hold value? Look, I think it's a great idea. And I think especially in an era where the sort of rep of players among fans is that they're not playing enough, that they don't, you know, the effort isn't there, that they're not trying to get back from injuries or anything. Highlighting the guys who did, who are, is a good PR move for the league. And it's also nice for the players to sort of guys who have come back from injuries or things that have lasted the whole season or most of the season. That's hard work, man. I mean, we don't see it because we're busy watching the players that are playing and going on.

But these guys, I mean, we're talking about six, eight hours of PT every day by themselves, cut off from the team and being able to reward guys for sort of going through that, I think would be good. And frankly, I get it that in the GoGo 80s, you know, the league did not want to highlight. It's all intercept with that thoraconic culture, the overlap, the Venn diagram, as it were. But I think even with the off the court stuff, it's kind of worth celebrating. Like John Morant, obviously a chunk of what he missed last season with was an injury, but a chunk of it was a suspension. And with a problem that, you know, looked bad for the league, you know, repeated gun use in a way that is just against their rules. The fact that he has been able to make that change in his life and that we have not seen him in that environment in what is probably a year at this point, look, I don't know if it deserves a national medal of honor, but it's still something that I think the league should celebrate.

It's real that people go through hard stuff off the court. It's real that people have addiction problems. It's real that the place they grew up and the culture of where they grew up and the friends they grew up with are not quite the friends that might suit them in their next phase of their life and that that adjustment is hard to make. It's not just professional athletes who go through that. So I don't have a problem with humanizing that aspect of the guys as well. And if that with one year, you know, that's the kind of Jamerant because of sort of a mix of issues

is he's the comeback player of the year. I don't think that's a bad thing. I think, again, it highlights these guys' dedication to playing and doing the right thing, the right way and working hard to get back on the court. That's a win, man. Yeah, for sure. And I think you're exactly right, Rach, that at a time when fans are often fixating on the fact that players aren't playing, that we're constantly talking about load management

and the league has gone to extreme measures to try to get guys to play more often, right? We've got these player participation policies and the 65 game rule now for rewards, all this stuff. Yeah. Rewarding guys for grinding back and reclaiming, you know, their game. I think it's the right message. It was interesting, especially like with the with the John Morant piece of this, the GM survey before the season that MBA.com, our buddy John Schumann always does. John Morant in that survey tied for second in the question of the, the, question that was posed to GMs was which player is most likely to have a breakout season.

And Jha ended up tweeting about that, basically saying like, what? Why am I? Like, he broke out. Like, multiple times already. He's a, he's a superstar. He's a star. He's not breaking out. He's not going to win most improved player again. He's already, but I think it was that the GMs, that that many GMs named him to the point where he was tied for second in the GM survey for that question, I think speaks to maybe the need for comeback player as an award to come back because it's a fundamentally different thing, but the GMs themselves were kind of conflating it with breakout season, most improved. Like, it all gets kind of mushed together. I don't know if every season we would have enough candidates, but I think just between,

and again, we've got a lot of season to go here. But if Lonzo, Lamello, Ben Simmons, John Morant, Marcus Smart, and I made me missing some, that's a decent pool right there. I mean, we have enough to go with each year for the best teammate award. So if they can sort of figure that out, I think they can figure out enough candidates for the comeback player of the year award. And especially if it's recognized that it's not just injuries. It's all kinds of things. Maybe a guy gets traded and he's in a bad environment and then he goes to a new team and he's a breakout star. And, you know, those kinds of situations come up in the NBA all the time.

And if there is a catch-all to reward guys who seem down. either physically, mentally, off the court-wise, and then revive themselves and revive their career. That's a win for the NBA to celebrate. So I say, this is now a campaign

and that it is our job to relaunch the NBA comeback player of the Year Award. I will join you in this. We will go for it. I would prefer it over the clutch player of the year award, which I still don't quite know how to figure out

the last. What do you mean? There's numbers, Howard. There's numbers. numbers. Nope. But I always say like with anything that can be done by the numbers, well, then we don't need to vote on it. Just the numbers will just tell us who the clutches player is and just give it to them. We don't, it's not a, we don't have to vote. So they shouldn't have defensive player of the year either or MVP? No, but you can't quantify defensive player of the year or MVP as

easily by the stats. It's a mix of stats and impact and all kinds of stuff. Clutch player the year, you can literally just set the thing to, you know, five minutes and under, three minutes and under five points and under three minutes, whatever you want to set it to. And presto, that guy's controversy over that last year, right? You know, Steph Curry, I think, had the best numbers. Am I remembering that correctly? Yeah. And yet the team was, what, 11th or 10th or something. And so a lot of people voted for a different guy on that top five because of what the team had been able to do. And right, there's still some judgment call. And stuff like that. So I don't know. I like it all. Like, again, there is enough of a

lull in how fans are treating the regular season that anything you can do to sort of create some stakes, I think is real. They don't want to get silly about it. But that kind of stuff's real and players care about it. Producer Cliff, if Joelle Embed comes back and his MVP season next year, are you, we can make him comeback player the year and then you would feel better about it as a sixer fan, right? No, man, I need a championship that happened.

We don't care about a comeback player. Imagine telling an MVP, a player that won an MVP or trying to convince me a player that won an MVP should be happy with a comeback player to year award. That's maddening. That's insane. I'm just trying to come up with some silver linings for you, man. I just, I'm working my butt off here. I am trying to make you feel better.

We've spent way too much time on this pod dumping on your team. There is no, man. But Cliff knows that that's never going to happen, by the way. Right, Cliff, you know that Joel and Bede is never going to play 65 games again. So it's completely illogical, this question that Howard is asking you. He will never win comeback player of the year. Why are y'all doing this to me? What did I do to you?

Like, what is all this for? I just want the guy to just be on the court again. Like, more, what do we do it here? We don't even know where he's at. Well, I don't, yeah, this is a big problem. And this is a growing problem. And I'm seeing more and more from the Sixer fans and folks in Philly about this. Cliff, I'm sure you are in this camp too, which is just like, listen, just level with us already.

What the hell is going on with his knee? Could you just tell us the truth for once about Joel and Bede's knee? And a lot of this is Joel himself being intensely private and a little weird about, uh, but about his health. So if he doesn't let them tell us the truth, then they can't. But it's a problem. The NBA has a transparency problem, which is funny considering that Adam Silver has styled himself as the transparency commissioner. Well, Cliff, I have a question for you, seriously, as a fan. So I am obviously, I don't play for the Sixers. I don't work in the Sixers front office, so I cannot say this with authority. But by piecing together some of the comments that different

players and coaches have made over the last month, month and a half, and even some of the comments we've heard from Joelle himself, it seems like, yes, there's a legitimate problem with the knee. But part of the problem, too, is that Joelle has been injured enough. It has impacted his career enough. It has caused, you know, I talked about rehab. Like, it has caused him to have these years of terrible rehabs and things like that. He's a little nervous about playing on it, someone hitting it the wrong way. He's had a lot of, like, crazy fluke injuries, too, in the last couple years. So I get that anxiety. And teams don't want to talk about their players being mentally vulnerable in that way.

Would you prefer if they were honest and said, you know, hey, look, he just is kind of skittish sometimes and we're working through that with him with, you know, I talked to Draymond Green the other day about working with the sports psychologist. Like, they're working through that with him and that's what's going on? Or do you not want to hear that from a player and we're going to get a bunch of like pushback of like, oh, it's so hard to play in the NBA. Oh, I get a real job. Like that kind of thing.

What do you think? Yeah, you know what? As a rational Philly fan, because a lot of us aren't rational, as a rational Philly fan and rational person, I would like some more transparency from the team from Joelle and B. Here's what I'll say. Just as a representative of Philadelphia, I'm born and bred here, live here, you know, with the high school, college, every single level of school in here. I've been at all these games. I talk to fans all the time here. I don't think the fans want to buy that, especially after the dude just got extended $193 million.

And remember Howard, I had to correct myself from the 150 to the 199 through three years. And I'm just like, if people, people don't want to hear the sports psychology thing, I mean, there won't be any sympathy for it, right? Like, it's just been too much injury, too much disparity, too much hurt, too much turnover from Doc Rivers to Ben Simmons to Tobias Harris to Brett Brown. I mean, goodness. Sam Hinky, like, he fell on a sword for Joelle and B. There's been too many people that have fell on the sword for this guy.

And now, I'm sure no one wants to hear about a sports psychologist. They just want to hear about, hey, is it? Is this knee going to be ready to play at some point in time? If not, let's shut it down and let's tank for Cooper Flag. And by the way, I'm not reporting that he has like a mental issue. I'm just saying that you can kind of infer that that's at least a little bit part of that for me, from my chair here. I don't know.

Absolutely. And you got teammates calling him out. You know, you got Tyree saying, hey, we need you to come back to work. Like come on time. Do stuff like that. That to me is a, all this is bad. Like all his situation is bad. But at least we got Jared McCain his rookie at a month.

Like, this is awesome. Yeah, like that's some silver lining right there, right? Jeremy McCain rookie the month. Average 19. Let me pull up the November stats here. I think you average, what, 19 and 2 and 2? Yeah, so, you know, Jared McKay, 19, 2 and 2. Steve 4 percentage was 37%.

So there, this is a silver lining with that. There we go. See, Cliff, you feel better already. I don't feel better. Look at what you've reduced him to, Howard. He's talking about winning a title, and now he's celebrating rookie of that. the month. Come on. This is a tough season for Sixers fans so far. The Sixers won the NBA

championship in the offseason and the season starts and they're currently what three and 14 or whatever the record is right now. You could just live in that moment in July. Just stay there. Paul George came here. Everybody's oh, we're about to compete. This is about to be lit. Philly's on fire and then everybody gets hurt once the season starts. I still say, I still say, assuming that there is nothing crazy wrong permanently with Joel in Bede's knee, there will come a moment when Joelle Abed and Paul George and Tyrese Maxie and Jared McCain will all be on the court at the same time and they will be really good for some stretch of time. Howard, that type of hope has left my body for a long, long, long time.

I've done my best here, Cliff. I've done what I try. I know you're trying to console me in this, but it ain't looking too good for us right now. All right. Well, we'll give it another shot when I get back from my quick vacation. I will be brainstorming the whole time in ways to uplift the Sixer fan base at especially Eucliff. There we go. We will have a, we're going to close the mailbag in a few minutes.

But before that, I had a thought, Rache, over the weekend as people got into a frenzy about Joe Biden pardoning his son, which came just days after pardoning a turkey that nobody got in a frenzy about. Pardonings. Partons. I thought about for a minute Like that's what's an interesting concept We're like who could we pardon if we got the presidential power Pardon and so I thought about like well who would that be like anybody Anybody who's been like unfairly convicted essentially

You should specify that you're talking about the NBA Yeah in the NBA Unfairly convicted in quote marks Quote marks I'm holding them up even for the camera here I mean you're not talking about John Wilkes booth here You're talking about MBA no No. No. Because screw that guy, man. Exactly.

What if in the NBA world we had the power to pardon people who are somehow unfairly convicted or treated in the court of public opinion? This could be players or coaches or refs or media members, GMs, past, present. We're not absolving anybody of anything. But my assignment to you, Rach, when we were texting about this, I just said if they've somehow sort of been wronged, or, you. or just misportrayed or portrayed too harshly, just judged too harshly. And with the benefit of time and perspective, we can just give them a little bit of grace. Who would you like to pardon by the power not vested in us? First of all, this is such a good idea that I came up with so many. So I'm going to apologize that my list is long. I'm just going to give you a few on my list. You can go, I'll have more after that. If you want to hear them, we'll see. But I love this idea. Let's start with like two weeks. And then we'll see where we go. All right, all right. So anyone who knows me knows that my favorite player ever is Alan Iverson. In fact, I believe he's our greatest living American. And you can argue me with that, but I will not fit. So I will say that all the fines that Alan had to pay for the dress code, which we have in hindsight realized was, you know, a bad idea. And even in the moment, realized was somewhat racist. I would like to absolve him and pardon him for all of those violations.

and fines because there were a lot of fines. He paid a lot of fines for that one. And also the teams, by the way, I looked it up. The teams paid 50 grand each for every fine one of their players got. So I'm pardoning them all. There you go. The teams, I don't remember this part. The teams were deemed for the dress code as well.

That's interesting because there's not that many, there are not that many rules in the NBA where both the team and the player get thing. Yeah. So that's interesting. I'd forgotten about that. Yeah. That's a really good one. Yeah.

I'm pardoning them all. And then I would like to pardon Amari Stademeyer, Boris Dio, and maybe even Robert Ory for those suspensions that they got in that Sun Spurs game four playoff where, you know, there was the shot from ORI and then the benches, melee and all of that stuff. Nobody got violent. Nobody, it was never going to get to be more than the NBA sort of, mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-pushing and shoving thing.

Like the idea that, come on, most fights. those quote fights, that's what it is. Yeah. I get that some players left the bench and there's this slippery slope idea and if they leave the bench and then they could leave the court, malice in the palestyle, all that stuff. That's not what was actually happening. And so to suspend players in the middle of a hotly contested high level at that time two to two playoff series for that kind of thing, I always thought was tough and I, in hindsight,

would like to pardon them their suspensions and that whole series could have gone differently or not, but at least we would have gotten to see what happened. So those are my first two part. In real time and probably to this day, Mike Dantonie and a lot of other people associated with those teams felt like if not for that, maybe they actually do win a championship. Maybe they do get to the finals. So that some guys step two feet into the court, you're costing some of the potential title? I don't get that. The NBA, just the background for our younger listeners. You know, after the 90s and all the brawls that had happened, heat, nicks, and

any number of pistons incidents or Celtics, Lakers, whatever, when they cracked down and they decided on this, don't leave the bench area rule, they decided to interpret it as basically letter of the law, that if you just put a toe over the line, literally sometimes a toe or two over the line from the bench area to the court, that was enough to get the leaving. the bench suspension, which was like an automatic one game. And the rationale was sort of a, well, if we leave it to judgment calls, then we put ourselves in a position of now being accused of favoritism or in being a little bit more lenient on example A versus example B. Why did you suspend these pistons? But you didn't suspend these heat players. And so I think they're,

they're out for this was, hey, if we just make it hard and fast, you step over the line, period. A toe, a foot, an inch, done, out, suspended. But it was, it was too strict. It was too harsh. It was just too rigid. And that's what happened in that Suns Spurs series. That's what happened. There was a time in that one of my favorite series of all time that I covered, 2000 Western Conference Finals, Blazers, and I think it was that series where maybe as Rick Fox and Scottie Pippen got into it. And Brian Shaw was waiting to come into the game at the scorers. table. So he was already sitting there mid court and like something flares up and he like stepped over and then pulled himself back. And I think he got suspended if I'm remembering correctly. That's how rigid they

were. That's how dumb it was. So yes, I agree there. Speaking of fights. Speaking of roles, I want to pardon run our test, Germain O'Neill, then run our test, later met a world piece. and the rest of the Pacers for the Malice at the Palace. And again, this is not absolving. This is pardoning. No. Yes. There were wrongs.

Wrongs were wrong. Stuff happened. Bad things. But if anybody has not watched, they should. The 2020 documentary untold Malice at the Palace where you really get for the first time a very, just a deeper look at what was going on there. and it was fans, drunken fans, obstinate fans, fans who to this day in that documentary are not sorry for what they did

for running on the court or for throwing shit. That was a fan riot first and foremost. There were players involved, but the fans started it, the fans escalated it, the fans threw chairs, fans ran in the court where they don't belong, there was no justification for any of it. If you're defending yourself when a guy's coming at you, that's one thing, but you don't belong in the court and you should not be throwing chairs.

So the brunt of the legacy of that moment has fallen on the league broadly and the Pacers specifically and the Pistons to a lesser extent, but mostly to Better World Peace and Germain O'Neill and Stephen Jackson, the rest of them. And I think through the lens of history, maybe there's a little bit more charitable view of it now, but I would want to pardon them because they for too long have taken too much of the brunt of what happened there when it was really a fan. No, totally good. My second one's going to be a little bit more controversial, which is funny because it's a much more benign circumstance. I think I'd like to pardon Billy King for the 2013 trade for Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. Wow. Okay. So here's the thing. And listen, there's no question about the consequences here for the Nets. They were bad and it even considered hopeless for many years after this when it did.

didn't go the way that they had hoped that it would. And they did give up, they gave a bunch of nominal players. The players didn't matter, but it was the three first rounders at a swap, which eventually becomes among other players, Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum, builds an entire Celtics championship team. You don't know what those picks are going to become at the time. That's not really my, my premise for the pardoning, though. It's more about this. One, the Nets had invested everything at by that point. They were so sunk cost already on Darren Williams, Joe Johnson, and Brooke Lopez. In an era of big threes, they'd come up with a pseudo big three that was never going to be as good as obviously the Hedels or other various versions. But they'd already done everything

they could. And guess what? That freesum was just good enough to win like in the high 40s in the regular season, maybe went around, but they lacked toughness. They lacked leadership. Garnett and Pierce provided both. Pierce was 35 and Garnett was 37. They had played reasonably well the prior season for Boston. But the big thing is this, because the front office always gets thumped for these things now and forever. But this really goes back to Mikhail Prokerov and his ownership. He, everything they did back then was about trying to accelerate the nets as they moved from Jersey to Brooklyn and trying to put them on equal footing as if that were possible with the Knicks. And so Kurokrov did that by emulating all of the dumbest things that the Knicks had done under Dolan, which was just reaching

for shiny objects. So yes, Billy King and that front office did make a very ill-fated trade, but at the time, there was a solid premise for doing it. They gave up too much. And a lot of it had to do with pressure from ownership because he wanted it all right now. And that always leads to bad things in the NBA when you're trying to microwave a championship overnight. Well, not always, most of the time that leads to bad things. So I would like to pardon Billy King and then that's front office of 23rd. You almost have me convinced, but no. So I do think, look, I do think the proger off thing is 100% real. And part of the investment in those guys wasn't because they thought at 35, 36, 37 that they were going to dominate the world.

It was, hey, we have big stars here. And we're moving to Brooklyn and we're trying to court an entirely new fan base. And people want to come out and see Kevin Garnett. They want to see Paul Pierce. These guys had just come off the championship in Boston. I get all of that. You don't have to make that deal for that many picks that basically set. I mean, that deal is, I work with Paul Pierce.

And Paul's always saying, yeah, it was my trade that led to this championship. Because it's true. The picks that they got from that deal. is what enabled them to get the guys. Now, obviously, he's not taking credit for it. I don't want to say that. I just mean that, like, the ripple effect for both teams was very real, Boston in a good way.

Then that's not so much. That's not so much. But circumstances. There were things. Things happened. By the way, they weren't the only ones who thought that this might be a really power shifting trade. That group of nets,

Darren Williams, Joe Johnson, Brooke Lopez, Garnett, Pierce, and rookie head coach, Jason Kidd were on the cover of Sports Illustrated. I think we're by our buddy Chris Mannix. People thought they were going to be really good. It's like the Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, grafted onto the Lakers thing, the one.

Like sometimes it looks good in concept that at the moment it happens and it just should happen. Who else would you like to pardon, Rachel? Okay. I have a few more. I'm going to combine one just so I can squeak it in there for you. Ridiculous finds. I think that I can think of two particularly,

egregious, ridiculous fines for things that happen off the court. So I'm going to group these together. I'm pardoning Darrell Armstrong back in 05. I don't know if you remember. The team itself, the Dallas Mavericks, find him $1,000 because at the end of the game, he picked up the in-house microphone and he said, how about those redskins? And the reason was because he was a Washington fan. They had just played and beaten the Cowboys. You know what that rivalry has been through the course of the last, you know, decades and decades. And the people in Dallas were not happy with him that he was promoting a non-Cowboys team that beat the Cowboys. They find him $1,000. That is ridiculous. I do not remember this. I am pardoning Daryl Armstrong. I am also in the same note of pardoning

someone for something that has nothing to do with basketball. I'm, I never get the pronunciation right. Redmonovich. Will I remember Redmonovich? Am I doing that right? I hope I'm doing that right. Yes. Yes, Lakers, obviously. He was fined half a million dollars for snowboarding. Oh, that's right. The NBA has a clause in contracts that you can play some sports, but quote extreme sports. I mean, it all seems a little silly now, but, you know, extreme sports, quote unquote. So he got fined a half a million dollars for snowboarding.

So those two fines, I am pardoning because they are ridiculous, and guys should not get fined for things they do or say that have nothing to do with basketball. This is my point, unless it's something like, you know, we can go back to John Moran, does it damage the game and the league overall. Snowboarding does not damage the NBA. So I'm pardoning both of those guys. And then I do have one more if you'll let me squeeze it in. Yeah, go for it.

All right. I would like to pardon every NBA player who has ever gotten a tech, a fine, an ejection for looking at an official. This is one of the most ridiculous things the NBA has. And by the way, I'm always a strong proponent of our officials. I've covered a lot of sports. I get it can be frustrating with the refs, but go be a fan or cover another sport and come back to me

because the NBA really does have excellent officiating overall compared to what else is out there. But this part of things, Tim Duncan got thrown out of a game, for laughing. He got ejected, thrown out of a game. Joey Crawford had to go like,

go to like anger management or train something after that. But he still was out. It's not like anyone brought him back on the court, right? Anthony Edwards got a tech, I think, for looking the other day.

It was within, I think, this season, maybe it was the end of last season for looking, staring. Yeah. You should be rewarding

those guys for having the self-control for keeping their mouth shut. Stare all the way as much you want. Like, I just, those are my two last kind of contributions in that ridiculous fines for things off the court that don't impact the league and officiating for looking or laughing. I don't know. I'll extend that even further, Rachel. It drives me nuts when guys are getting teed up. And every tech, by the way, comes with fines automatically, folks.

It's like a few thousand bucks or whatever, but still, fines or fines. The ones that are like the, and again, this goes back to the NBA's parents. about fighting from 30 years ago. Yeah. You looked at a guy wrong, the stare down, or even like a, you know, a DeKembe type of finger wag or whatever, like a big dunk and then like a quick look. And because they're worried that guys will be offended and pride and ego gets involved and then guys will.

No one's throwing down in today's NBA. We don't need to tech a guy for hanging on the rim. We don't need to tech him for staring. Sometimes they're staring at the crowd or sometimes they're actually motioning to one of their own teammates as a way to kind of subtly do it so it doesn't look like you're trying to taunt the guy, but you still get the taunting texts. The taunting texts are just dumb. Like, let's, we're, we're beyond that. This league is beyond that now. No, no one's fighting. It's fine. No. Everybody will be fine. I mean, can you imagine that the DeKambe finger wave was just edited out

of NBA history? No, no, but I mean, Stern tried to to outlaw that too back in the day. And then it became, DeCembe could do it, but he had to do it toward the crowd instead of toward a player. And so it became a little bit of a gray area and you got cutesy about it. But like, man, just let people do their thing.

Speaking of which, I'd like to pardon Messiah Jiri for the fine he got, 25 grand, for yelling fuck Brooklyn. Which, listen, I say this is a proud Brooklyn resident of the last 20 years. That was an incredible moment. for a GM of an NBA team in suit and tie

to be so overcome with passion about his team and what was at stake and what they were doing and the intensity of the playoff series that they were in, let it fly, man, that's fine. I mean, as you know, I'm really cool. Language, I know. What about the fine that Mickey Arison got for calling his own fellow owners greedy bastards

during one of these lockouts? I think the last lockout. Like at some point, like people talk. This is all I'm saying. Just, yeah. Well, and while we're at it, while we're at it, while I'm pardoning everybody for all their F bombs, being a big fan of F bombs myself, as you well know, having known me a long time. Yes.

I wrote a story a couple years ago about the fact that the NBA had this big crackdown on players saying fuck in press conferences and other places just in front of the media. Even if you were quoted in print and hadn't sent it on camera, they were giving guys warning. or something's finding them, I think. So I would like to pardon every player who's ever been dinged for just expressing themselves colorfully in public. It's a competitive game. Passions are part of it. It's why we love the game.

Just let it go NBA. We're not living in the 1950s, all right? I mean, I could stare down Cliff and no one's going to find me. I mean, you got to get reasonable here. I would never do that, Cliff. Never. Look, I appreciate it, man. It's all love for me to you, so you already know how it is.

Cliff, you're going to pardon me for giving you more Sixer PTSD 10 minutes ago? No, don't do it, Clef. Don't pardon now. Listen, I've already been through enough hell with the Sixers as it is, you know, lifelong six. First of all, shout out to Rachel for the AIS shout out too. That's the reason why, like, I love basketball. It's because of Allen Overson, obviously. But look, there's nothing you could do that could add on to this trauma that the Sixers have given me throughout the years.

I promise you. I'm sorry. All right. Well, Cliff is back. So let's let's get to the mailbag before we close this out. All right. You all ready for this first one right here? One serious question and one joke question for Howard and Rachel here.

Serious question. The LA Clippers are 13-09 while having the sixth toughest schedule in a league high five back-to-backs in that period, while missing Kauai Leonard for all of it and winning four out of five games that Norman Powell was injured for as well. Obviously, you need Kauai back to be better, but what do they need to do at the trade deadline of further improve? joke question is who are the NBA people who haven't made the jump to Blue Sky that need to? That's not a joke. That's as serious as anything as far as I'm concerned. That is from Logan Chance Rap, by the way. All right. I'm going to answer the not joke question first. Who else do I want to see on Blue Sky?

Everybody. If you are an NBA fan, player, coach, GM, media member, and you're not on Blue Sky yet. We'd love to see you there. The NBA community there is absolutely popping. It's been great. But Worldwide Wob, we could use you. Shea Serrano. Yeah. Steph. The NBA officially, I don't know what the NBA's dragging its feet for. Some of your teams are already on.

The NBA officially should be on Blue Sky for all kinds of reasons that I don't need to go into right now. But yeah, everybody should be on there. Rach, do you have anybody else? Or should we answer the Clippers part of this, which I think one of the more remarkable early stories of the season. Yeah, no, I mean, the Clifford's part is super interesting. I'm not pardoning James Harden for some of the things he's done earlier in his career. I would not have handled things quite the way he did in some situations. But I'm actually kind of glad that people are getting to see this because as a player, strictly as a player, I think he's been underappreciated

and over-criticized. And I understand that the style of play he was playing in Houston, which, by the way, was a long time ago at this point, was not as eye-pleasing as some people would like. But, What? It worked. He got MVP. He was stronger on that team and propelled them places that they weren't going otherwise. So I just think, you know, he just passed the three point record. He and Steph now have the most three-pointers of all time. I don't think people, because of all the other stuff, have appreciated what he has brought to the game. This is a Hall of Fame player. If he never wins a title, he will make the Hall of Fame. There's no question about it. And so I kind of like, I obviously don't want to see Kauai Hurd. I would love to see them to get.

and what they can do kind of just two of them. I live in L.A. And it's been really cool to see, you know, sort of when that has gotten going. You know, why gave us some great playoff games. And James obviously knows how to give great playoff games and excitement there. So I'd love that to happen. But until it does, I really have to compliment the Clippers overall, the Clippers front office, for finding some of the role players that they did.

And James Harden for saying, okay, now I'm going to be this version. Because he actually, when he promised in Philly to be a different player, he was. And when he first came to this team last year, he was a different player. He had to fill a different role, a third role. And now he's kind of a little bit back to his first role in the NBA and the stratosphere, but also slightly different. I think that ability to be at the level he's currently at still to this day in all those

configurations, I think it's underappreciated. So again, not pardoning him for the other stuff, but I just think strictly as a basketball player. I do think it's a great question because I think we're getting to see that and I like that. I think there was a possibility that this Clipper season, their first in a new arena, the Intuit Dome was going to be like one of the more awkward bummers and bad contrast we've seen, right? Because they chose to let Paul George walk away. And you don't know what Kauai Leonard's health is going to be from day to day. and here we are again, hasn't played yet this season. They're nowhere without James Hardin.

And so credit to them for not only making the deal a year ago, but deciding that we can move forward with Hardin and Kauai or Hardin and a just really solid group of defenders and shooters around him and Zubach doing what he does. Like they've just, it just works. It just fits. Tailu, the coach of the year race will be proud as always. But Tailu, Kenny Atkinson, Jamal Mosley, Jordi Fernandez,

Emu Doka, like, I think are all worthy of that conversation right now. I don't know where it ultimately leads to the, to the reader or our listeners email. I don't know where it all leads because are the clippers ever going to be good enough even with Kauai back to leapfrog, you know, all, everybody. I mean, it's, you know, I don't know how if the warriors can keep this up or not, but the thunder clearly are the class of the West right now. The Mavericks are still going to be heard from. the nuggets will still be heard from. The rockets look fantastic. I just don't know if the clippers have enough,

but I also don't think that's the plan anymore. Once you let's let's let's put Paul George walk. I think the plan is basically, let's see how much we can get more, how much more we get out of Kauai. He's got two seasons left after this one on his contract. Hardin's got one season left after this. They're both in their mid-30s.

I think you're just kind of biding time and trying to be good, respectable, be a playoff team if you can be. but I think the contention window obviously slammed shut once you let Paul George walk. And so now it's just a matter of staying below the aprons and staying flexible and trying to be opportunistic. That's about the best face I could. One team wins here. This next one.

Hello, this question is for Howard. Obviously, Rachel, if you like your time on this as well, who is your all-time favorite player to interview? Thanks, Anthony. See, I actually, we missed, we did not get a chance to get to this one last week, Rach, and I immediately told Cliff we got to resurface this because with you on as well, we've got, I'm sure, both very long lists here. But who popped to mind first for you? You go first on this one.

So this is always a hard one because, you know, I think when fans ask this is always like, they're thinking about like Steph or LeBron, who are both great interviews. But my mind immediately goes to the role players who helped fill in all the blanks and explain everything along the way. So I start my career covering the Lakers in the late 90s, and it's guys like Rick Fox, Derek Fisher, Brian Shaw, Robert Orry, really smart, thoughtful guys who when you're trying to figure out what's really going on with Shaq and Kobe, or explain the 16-game winning streak or explain the three-game losing streak or, you know, whatever it may be, or explain that, that end-of-game sequence there. It's those guys who were always really

explanatory, right? The stars have so many demands on them. they're they're sometimes worn out by us. But the role players are always a little bit more willing to kind of just have a longer give and take. And Kobe did at times for sure. And I really appreciated that from him. But my mind immediately goes to those role guys. And then later, as I'm covering a lot of warriors during their dynasty years, Sean Livingston, Andre Agadala, those are the guys I immediately think of as my favorites.

It's the guys who just always have, you know, perspective and the patience, obviously too, because we have a lot of questions and we need a lot of time. Extra patience for you, Howard? No? Very much so. I would go a slightly different direction. I'm going to name star players, but I'm going to specify it as players who are willing to show the public and fans and through the interviewer the side of themselves that we don't see in the perfectly wrapped package for consumption out on the court or from the marketing department or anything like that. And it's not

the longest list because a lot of guys, they're not necessarily giving the, I'm just happy to be here platitudes, but they're still not like giving you in-depth look at who they are, what they think, how they think, you know, just sort of that tangible stuff of how to get to know them differently, these guys that people, you know, thousands of people are screaming for each night. So I would say that Dwayne Wade was one of those guys, definitely gave you sort of the sort of fuller picture and had a lot to say about things, not just off the court, but sort of the mechanics of how things were working. When we had the heatles, when we had one of the great stretches of big threes that we've had in the last however many years, he was the guy, I like to say, almost

translating, right? He was the guy who was sort of giving you the extra stuff in interviews that you didn't see as a regular fan. And I think that's just so, not as regular fan, but in his regular moments to fans. And I just think that's so invaluable. It's funny to bring up Kobe. One of my favorite interviews I have ever done was with Kobe and Tracy McGrady to get. after Kobe retired, unfortunately, not long at all before he passed. And those two guys in that moment were able to show you all of that, all of the ways that they were actually thinking and feeling in a way they never were able to when they were out there with their bravado on the court.

And I'm not promoting my own stuff because it's really about Kobe and TMAC. I would, if you haven't seen that interview, they're the stars of it and it's worth looking up on YouTube. I think it's like chopped into a couple parts, but you learn so much about those guys, guys that have been covered their whole lives and who were huge stars and going back and forth with the scoring title and all that stuff. I mean, they're telling stories about, you know, Kobe took Tracy on a roller coaster and Tracy was completely terrified and sort of some of the things that they've done. You know, Kobe, why he, you know, took Alan Iverson out when they were competing for things and his strategy and all of that. And some of that stuff we've heard

trickle down through books and other stuff. but just the interplay between the two of them, and you saw just the guard not there anymore. And I think when players who are big names who have been covered to death are willing in an interview to like really talk and really sort of give fans aside that they don't see in the pre-packaged court stuff,

those are my favorite interviews. Guys going through changes are always really good interviews, right? You've gone through this change. What is that like? I think all that stuff's just sort of where you get to the really good stuff. Good stories. Yeah, no, let me second that. And if you hadn't said it, I would have.

People should go watch if you haven't seen the McGradie and Kobe interview. It was, it was fantastic. Even after guys are retired sometimes years later, they still don't necessarily want to be that open. And that one was, that one was really fun. That was, yeah, great call. Yeah. And by the way, like, there are always others along the way. Like, yes, Steph has been fantastic and has been one of the more accessible superstars of this generation.

He's great. LeBron, I've had some great one-on-ones with him over the years and I've appreciated those because he's always really thoughtful. And then the most controversial answer I could probably come up with is Draymond Green because Draymond is awesome to talk to. And whatever you think about it as a player. Yeah, I get everything that you might think about him as a player, folks. But he's super smart, super thoughtful.

And it could be about any topic. It would be the nuts and bolts of the game all the way to whatever, trends, across the league, societal stuff. Like, he's just, he's incredibly smart. And yes, he's had some issues on the court. And again, we move past our pardoning segment. I'm not pardoning him for any of that. But he's always been one of my favorites to talk to you as well.

All right, time for what? Yeah, go ahead. Oh, I just want to say one quick sentence on that, because I mentioned earlier in the show that I talked to Draymond Green about sports psychology. I asked him a question about his three-point shooting because it was in the 20%, you know, a few years ago, and now it's at 45% and has slowly been increasing every year.

And he just, without me even asking, went into, this is what I work with the sports psychologist on, this is how it was mental, this is what I was thinking when I had missed three in a row and how I had to go hide and couldn't do it anymore. Players who give you that stuff and give fans that stuff, I think that's all we want. Yeah, no, there is a lot of value, I think, for the fans,

not just for us. Obviously, we love when guys are more candid. But the whole point of rooting for your favorite players and watching sports, It's not just the wins and losses and cool out of balance plays. It's you want to understand them as people. And you can't unless guys are willing to be more forthcoming. And a lot of them are really too guarded or sometimes insecure to do that.

I appreciate guys like Draymond who are willing. All right. One more out of the mailbag before we go, Cliff. All right. Last one. Real ones. Huge Knicks fan. What do you make in the next first 20 games of the season?

As I write this, they are ranked number one in the NBA and offensive rating at 121. 121.21.2nd defensive rating and sixth and net rating. Cat and Brunton are each averaging 25 plus points per game and having career highs and assists and rebounds respectively. One, do you think the Knicks are legit contenders when their two primary interior defenders return, Mitchell Robinson and precious at Chua? And two, what moves if any, do the Nix make at the deadline to improve their roster? Or do they stay the same after a busy offseason? Best Liam Fowler? Ah, good stuff, Liam. I don't know that you can rely that much on the idea that their defense is going to be.

And yeah, it's in the in the 20s there. I don't think you're getting that turned around by just the mere fact of Mitchell Robinson, getting healthy and returning whenever that is. And we don't really know when for sure that will be. And given his history, you don't know how long he'll be back in the rotation either. And precious at Chua, definitely valuable. But I don't think you're counting on him to turn around your defense either, provide all the interior rim protection you need.

What's fascinating to me about this next team and about how far they might be able to go is whether they can kind of reverse engineer the defense sort of the way that the Nuggets did, right? So when the Nuggets win the championship, they're kind of middle of the pack, or maybe they were like the 12, 13 range in defensive efficiency in terms of their ranking, but they were absolutely elite offensively and had guys like Aaron Gordon and KCP. So their defense was built from the outside in, from the perimeter in, as opposed to the traditional rim protector anchoring an elite defense because Yokic is not that. Passable, but not your classic rim protector. So this is a, it's a, it's a, it's a iffy analogy, but I kind of have viewed the Knicks ever since the cat trade in that way.

Can you can you do this with OG and Anobi, McHale Bridges, Josh Hart, and everybody, you know, else pitching in. and have enough defense on the perimeter that it won't matter as much that cat is not your classic rim protector or that Mitchell Robinson isn't always available. I don't know. And we don't know what Tibbs' plans are because he's not about to tell us. Are Cat and Mitch playing together? Cat back to the four like he was playing next to Gobert in Minnesota? Or does cat stay as the starting center and Robinson comes in off the bench?

there's more questions that answers right now, but like that's part of my curiosity. Like if they're going to be able to make the next step and go deep in the playoffs or try to knock out the Celtics, which by the way, right now doesn't look like anybody can. All due respect to the cavaliers and anybody else. But I just, I don't know that anybody's beaten Boston if they're at full screen. Yeah. I mean, look, I need to see kind of more of what Mikhail Bridges turns into on this team before I could really make a judgment.

I absolutely believe. I know Josh Hart kind of came out and there was, oh, he dothed protest too much and all of that stuff. But everything he said is true. And of course, Bridges had a great game, the last game as we sit here. I think he had 31 points. It takes time when you are playing for a new team in a new environment to figure out how you fit in. And Bridges has been very open about the fact that his defense has really been affected by his offense not going well. So I do think the Knicks, even by virtue of him steadying himself,

will have a better defense, no matter who else comes in or out, because he is a very good defender. We haven't seen it so far this season except for this last game, and he was getting benched for parts of the fourth quarter and everything. I just think that people, you've lived in New York for such a long time, Howard. I lived in New York for two decades. I'm not sure people outside of that area really can understand how crazy the environment is for Knicks players. Every time you walk in the building, people are yelling and screaming at you and you can hear them. And then it goes way beyond that. You walk a lot more in New York, right? You're not in your car all day, all the time. Guess what? People walk up to these players on the street and start to get into them. When you're

walking, you pass the newsstand that has all these screaming tabloid headlines about you. That doesn't exist in other places in that way. And you were playing with a group that in this case was very united and very together and you have to figure out how you fit. in there now that they've made some changes. It's a lot, man. And playing for Tibbs is a whole different experience. I believe that Bridges is the highest minutes on that team right now, which is saying something. I think he's up there in the top few of the league, maybe top three in the league in minutes.

I mean, that's a different thing for him. And this is a guy who's had that incredible Ironman streak, but it's going to be tested under tips, right? So this has been, I know it's just across the river. I get that for people outside the area. it doesn't seem like a big deal. It is a really big deal to move over to the Knicks. And it's great that some guys just take to it right away. But even Jalen Brunson, there was a period of adjustment for him.

We just weren't watching him that closely at that point. It wasn't quite the microscopic. Is this guy worth the picks that they gave up? Is this going to turn him into a championship team? You know, all of that stuff that Bridges is getting. So hopefully that last game he played will give, you know, him some steadiness. And hopefully just over the next month or two, he will be able to figure things out.

I think until we see that, we can't really judge the championship sort of aspirations or contention of this team because it'll affect the defense and it'll affect the offense. Well, maybe they'll beat the magic tonight and they'll get to the cup and then they'll go and they'll win the NBA Cup and then that will prepare them to then knock off the Celtics next spring. There we go.

How about that? There you go. Full circle, baby. Rachel, this has been awesome. Thank you so much. I love it. great seeing you again. Great chatting with you again.

Great potting with you again. It had been way too long. Next time, let's get drunk on the air. No, that they probably don't do that in the room. And they don't care. That's,

you know, it's fine. I would say we should rope in Zach as well because that was our old drunk with power cast, except that if I say that on this pot, as I just did, then fans get all in a frenzy because they start speculating about

where Zach's going to be. And folks, I don't know. I don't know. I don't ask, don't ask Zach either. Just leave him alone. Let Zach be. He is on blue sky, no, though, now.

He is posting on blue sky. So he's on blue sky. Yes. Where the skies are bluer. Folks, you can go find Rach on all of her other places. Fox Sports One, headliners, all the smoke. Hometown with Rachel Nichols on Monumental. There's lots of things.

I'm everywhere, Howard. I'm also on blue sky, by the way. Yes. And Twitter. and threads and Instagram, but you know, TikTok. But, you know, I'm there. I'm out there. All the places.

Thank you, Rach. Thank you, Cliff. Thank you all for listening. Michael Pina and Rajabelle will be back on this show on Friday. I will be back in a couple of weeks. See you then. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C.

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