The Ryen Russillo Podcast - CFB Conference Talk. Plus Remembering David Stern With Jack McCallum. | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: January 2, 2020

Russillo talks bowl games and how the Power 5 conferences stack up with each other (2:40). Then Ryen talks with novelist and sportswriter Jack McCallum about working alongside David Stern, how Stern grew the NBA in the 1980s and '90s, some never-before-told stories, and more (18:42). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Keep energy. This is the keep energy podcast. I heard a DJ who can speak English say that over the week, a pretty fancy party, but it was before the bowl game. So didn't want to stay out real late, but there was a rumor that the DJ was from Marrakesh. Couldn't be confirmed. Dudes were trying to hit up Siri for the titles of some of the songs. Siri had no clue all night. Siri's like, look, give up. I don't know.

But the DJ did tell us to keep energy throughout. So we're going to try to keep energy in 2020, and I don't really have any other resolutions. So there you go. But um but yeah it was one of those out of a movie deals where it was that kind of a party and you're like wow this stuff really happens and it exists and despite you know a lot of you listening out there i normally always say no to these things that are like up in the hills or you know downtown you're like i don't know and it's just the rule of la like i bought somebody a gift card to a hotel a few towns away these things that are like up in the hills or, you know, downtown. You're like, I don't know.

And it's just the rule of LA. Like I bought somebody a gift card to a hotel a few towns away. I now realize it's the dumbest gift you could ever buy for somebody in Los Angeles. Cause they're like, Oh, a free night at a really fancy hotel. How far away is it? Yeah, no, no, it'd be nice. You can get there a little bit later yeah yeah so anyway it was worth it but keep energy is is incredible because everybody's like did he what what did he say what happened um so anyway good night but a great day a great day of college football i was in atlanta for the peach bowl we know this i'm headed to new orleans for the national championship game we knew that would happen uh as far as me getting out on the road. I don't know if we're going to be doing technically a remote from anywhere, but maybe I'll tell you guys what hotel I'm in and you guys

can just stop by. I'm kidding. That'd be great. Like a live studio audience of five in a one bedroom with a king, maybe even a queen, depending on which booking site I used. So the plan today is I'm going to talk a little bit about college ball and the games. And then we're also going to have Jack McCallum on long time NBA writer on the passing of former NBA commissioner, David Stern, sad news, obviously all the way around. And considering I just read a profile on Stern, you know, within the last year and all of the next things is investing and all the stuff. And he's just a really interesting guy, very successful, a lot of opinions on Stern. And I think it'd be just fun to talk about Stern and tell some David Stern stories.

And of course, around the holidays, thoughts with his family. But let's start with everyone's favorite argument. Who's good when it comes to college conferences now uh i used to argue with danny cannell about this to the point where i hated it uh he also you know he one time got so mad at scott and i because we were like you're the worst on twitter with this anti-scc stuff like we get it that's your thing there's also a little level when you're playing for a team like florida state acc where you're going to be really prideful. Like if I were somebody that played at Ohio State and was sitting around listening about how great the SEC was all the time, yeah, it would just annoy me because competitively, I wouldn't want to think that I played in a lesser version of what it was.

And granted, if I go to Ohio State, I'm right there with anybody else. Talent-wise, I am right there with any other program. So, you know, even though Ohio State's not playing in the national championship, which we'll get to here in a little bit, I would take it personally. So I understand the pridefulness from guys from other programs, from other conferences that get really tired of the SEC thing.

Now, I think the SEC is the best conference, but when I look at a stretch of games like we've seen from the Big Ten and Minnesota beating Auburn and destroying Auburn's defensive line, which made no sense whatsoever. I mean, they really pushed those guys off the ball. Anytime they needed really a conversion, they were able to get it, whether it was being aggressive with just straightforward stuff or aggressive with creative calls.

I thought that was a really nice win from a Minnesota team that I've been kind of like, eh, considering who they were when they were 4-0, the teams they beat barely. And then once they get to Wisconsin, like that wasn't really that surprising. Now, Wisconsin, Oregon, I actually, look, I'm happy for the Ducks, happy for Cristobal, but I thought Wisconsin was the better football team. And Justin Herber, if you're sitting there

talking about him as like this all-time prospect, I don't think you've watched him enough. Because if you have watched him enough, it's very underwhelming at times. He almost disappears, which seems impossible as a quarterback. But then he runs it in for a bunch of touchdowns, including the third one, which was incredible because he's such a good athlete. So I can see teams maybe talking themselves into him, but I would not put him in a Trevor Lawrence category. I wouldn't put him in with Burrow. I wouldn't put him in with Tua. And we know that Tua is making some news here too, which I'll get

to. Rapid fire news, Kyle, Just keep me honest because I got to be on top of all of it. So I look at the bowl results and I try not to do this. I say, hey, I have an opinion. So let me go in. Confirmation, bias, evaluation. Hey, I really like this player. Oh, this player did something good. I am right. He is good. Oh, I hate this player. Oh, he had a turnover. Yes, I knew I was right. I hate this player. He's not very good. I mean, we really, we all do it. It's hard to avoid it, but sometimes it's had stretches where the East Division was really a walkover. And I had opened my mind, I think, two or three times in the last few years to going, you know, does the Big 12 actually have, like, better teams, one through six, than the SEC does?

Did it feel like the ACC had a little bit of a blip there? I'm not just talking about Clemson winning a title. I'm talking about the entire conference going, you know, maybe Virginia Tech, maybe Louisville, but it was just too many maybes and then that conference has completely fallen apart. And then there have been two seasons where I know for one

I came into it going, I think the Big Ten is going to end up being the best conference this year. And now that Wisconsin lost the Rose Bowl, Alabama beat up on Michigan, and the score makes it look worse because Michigan was competitive with them, but my gosh, Shea Patterson hey that was just once again like you think I don't know that I've ever seen a quarterback in one game overthrow that many guys they actually kept track of it at one point it was seven I thought I counted two more after the fact do you know like if you're

throwing the football up 30 40 times and you have nine like 25 I don't know off the top of my head like they stopped running the football. So let me go ahead and pull that up real quick because I want to get this stat right. And it really isn't that important, but this is just how I work. So you're going to have to deal with it, but they lose 35, 16, that last minute touchdown. I don't know if that was a little Saban Harbaugh thing. All right. Yeah. Shea Patterson threw a 37 times. So that's 25% of your throws on a day where you're not even close. Like, it would be out of his hands, and you go,

that's not going to work, right? So when I think about the depth of the Big Ten, I'm not going to do a segment where it's like, all right, you know, look at that. Wake Forest, they're not even that good. Michigan State beat them. I actually think considering how bad Michigan State was this year, I think beating Wake is kind of a nice win for them.

We know what happened with Clemson-Ohio State. Yes, I thought Ohio State got hosed on the fumble and touchdown, which would have given them a lead in the third quarter. I thought that was the wrong call. I was shocked in my hotel watching that after I'd left the Peach Bowl going, they're really going to overturn this? They don't overturn any of this stuff anymore. The targeting thing is really frustrating, but it's what it is.

They just don't want you doing that, and they don't care if it seems unfair at times. And despite all of that, Ohio State still had a chance to throw the football into the end zone to win the football game, and Fields on really just a miscommunication with the receiver. I wouldn't even know if I put that on fields, but he throws a pick. Next thing you know, Cheryl Lawrence, the whole deal. And now they're playing LSU for the title game. And Ohio state Twitter has let us know about it the entire time. They're, um, they're still letting people know. And look, I agree with you. I thought that that call was terrible. I don't know that it

automatically gives you this invite. Um, if that call goes the other way, that all of a sudden you are playing LSU for a title game. Because I think really good teams, you know, score is a great indicator on how you have to play in that moment. So just being down, does that mean Clemson's playing a little bit different? Here's one thing that I do love about that Clemson game, though, and just how we talk about all this stuff. When Clemson was down 13-0 to Ohio State, everybody on social media is going,

well, ACC sucked this year. There's no other way to say it. It doesn't mean Clemson by association is bad because they're not. That's a really good Ohio State team that they beat. Their skill guys are terrific. They're so different on defense. Some of the stuff that was happening when they called the screen against they knew it was going to be a Venables pressure play, and you're like, they got him there, and then there was another play where Venables gets him. That was a high-level game-calling type of game. But when Clemson's down 13-0, this is all we do, man.

We just hammer the results and then come up with all the stories after the fact. It's like, oh, well, you know what? Clemson's getting tested for the first time ever and figures that it was going to go this way. Well, then what happened? Does this mean that they actually were sneaky tested all year? No, they weren't tested. We know how bad it was.

But at the same time, like down 13, nothing. If it was because they hadn't been tested, then they lose the game, right? Like what happened? Hey, we've been tested now for 20 minutes. Okay, now let's start playing some football. And the key there was, was tightening things up enough defensively in the red zone and having one of the best college quarterbacks, the least we've seen in a two-year stretch in Lawrence. So running through the rest of their scores, Penn State destroys, you know, look, it was 53-39, but I've never felt like Penn State was in control.

I mean, it was 35-23 at the half. They put up 28 points in the second quarter. Illinois, Cal. Cal's good. Cal's good on defense. Oregon, Wisconsin. Congrats to the Ducks. Again, I think Wisconsin was a better football team. Really impressed with Minnesota in that one. And then Alabama and Michigan. We have Tennessee and Indiana, too. Let's not forget that.

So going into the games yesterday, you had Big Ten versus the SEC, 3-9. So since 2015, Big Ten, 3-9 against the SEC. The Big Ten fan is going to tell you immediately the weather and travel is a big part of that. Then you're going to accuse academic standards, and then you're going to say cheating. The Big Ten hat trick of accusation.

Here's the deal. I think the Big Ten's good. It is. I don't think it's better than the SEC, but I'm not going to say cheating the Big Ten hat trick of accusation. Here's the deal. I think the Big Ten's good. It is. I don't think it's better than the SEC. But I'm not going to sit here and do, well, you know, they lost all these bowl games. And look at what happened in Michigan, Alabama, and all these different things. Now, look, if Ohio State had lost to LSU, like, what does that really do? It's confirming that, well, the SEC was maybe a better conference.

Or at this point, LSU, who, again, who I've told you all season long has a misunderstood defense, improved it in their demolition of Oklahoma. And if Jalen Hurts ends up being a first round pick, that team in the NFL is making a big mistake. I cannot emphasize that enough, but here's the exercise. With the ups and downs of the SEC, the thing I always get back to and people that kept tweeting out, remember if the SEC loses a bowl game, it's because they didn't want to be there. That joke's been made so many times now. I can't believe people still retweet it and think it's original.

It just isn't. But the Big Ten, this is the game. Can you name five teams in a conference that could be playing in the college football playoff and ultimately win a championship or play for a championship where you wouldn't start laughing because that's what the SEC has done. And yes, the four teams in the seven straight years, that was a while ago now. The SEC isn't quite that. But if I give you five teams, say Bama, LSU, Georgia, Auburn, Florida, to play for a national title and to win it,

I don't think you would start laughing at any of those five. I just don't think you would. The Big Ten, Ohio State, Penn State won the conference. Some people might push back on this, but I think if Wisconsin were in the playoff, it wouldn't be shocking, right? I wouldn't be. Michigan State's already been in it,

so don't do the recency bias of, I can't believe you picked Michigan State. They've played in the playoff. Now, granted, they got housed. And then I put Michigan down there, but that feels a bit like a reach. But it's not laughable when we know there's been two seasons where Michigan felt like they were in the playoff right up until the last week of the season. Now do it with the ACC.

Clemson, Florida State. Both have won it. Both have been fixtures. Now who? Louisville? Virginia Tech? You know? Are you laughing?

I mean, I'm not trying to be funny. I'm just going, you know, are we trying to do this exercise? NC State? Right? Pitt? I mean, it just doesn't seem fathomable. And before you do this and say Miami, I think you need to score one point against Louisiana Tech

in the Walk-Ons bowl before we do that. The walk-ons independence bowl. I want to make sure I get that name right. Big 12. Oklahoma Baylor. Texas feels a little bit like Michigan in this case where we know what they are and what they're capable of, but there's not really been anything that tells us that's going to happen. Although Texas, is Texas now, after not being a good win for LSU,

a good win again because they beat Utah? You guys can work that one out on your own. Oklahoma, Baylor, Texas, and then who? Again, you're also talking about a conference with less teams, so it's not entirely apples to apples on this one. TCU? I don't know if people are chuckling as I say TCU.

Texas. Yeah, I can't really do this. West Virginia. Oklahoma State. They finished the team, or excuse me, the team finished ranked in the top 25. They had a really good year that year. They played Stanford in a bowl game. Pac-12. Oregon. Washington, who's been in it.

So those two teams have been in it. Utah was right there until last week, and I think they would have been in it over Oklahoma. And by the way, the Oklahoma thing, because they get trashed by LSU and have four playoff appearances, let's not do this thing where the guy who doesn't win the Heisman has a great national championship game, and then we act as if the guy who won the Heisman in the regular season doesn't deserve it now. And it's

like, well, no, we all voted at the same time. Excuse me, I don't have a vote. I don't mean that to be bitter. I'm just pointing that out. Correction. We do that a lot with the result, and then we go, wow, that shouldn't have happened anyway. Now, I do think if Tua hadn't gotten hurt against Mississippi State and played against Auburn. Alabama beats Auburn. And I think Alabama is going to be in the playoff. I really do. If you look at the way the committee was voting on that team with Tua, I think they would have been in there over Oklahoma.

And then we can get to the whole point of would they have kept LSU at one and shifted things around because they kept telling us Ohio State and then we're close. But after the conference championship games and LSU and what they did to Georgia to have them be behind Ohio State didn't really make any sense to me. But I don't know if they would have moved those things around because that's what everybody said they were going to do. And then if they don't, then what happened? It's not this manipulative thing here.

So that's just something to think about. With Tua, that team would have been in the playoffs if you go back and look at the previous weeks before the final polls. All right, so the Pac-12, Oregon, Washington, mention that Utah. I know people will laugh when I say Stanford, and then USC, you can throw them in the Texas-Michigan bag here as well. That's the whole point with this, is one-year snapshots of your conference and their bowl record is not always the best indicator.

Hell, the SEC had that weird stretch where all those SEC West teams, I think except for one, lost. And my man Cannell was just running around in a one-man UCF parade. Now, did that mean the conference was down? Sure. Does it mean that it was vastly overrated? I don't know. What's happened now is if the SEC, the funny part about it is if the SEC has a competitive game in a bowl game, clearly against another conference, then it's like, oh, I thought the SEC was all badass.

Like both sides can't win. The team that loses to the SEC team is told, you suck. As I've mentioned this tweet joke that's out there all the time, like, did Utah not care? Like, why would Utah not care? It's not like Utah is playing

for a national championship every single year and Georgia was missing everyone. But then you go to did Georgia care this year because it looked like they didn't care last year against Texas? Or was Texas just awesome last year? I mean, all this stuff is really hard to figure out. Hey, whose group cares? Whose group doesn't? I've heard, look, all week I was like, Georgia is missing.

Everybody, who knows what kind of team you're going to get that shows up there from the end of the year. And they were awesome against a Baylor team that very well could have won the Big 12. So it's all kind of hard to collectively sift through and come up with this definitive stuff just in 2019 and say, okay, I know exactly what it is. It's trends. It's bigger pictures. You look at the draft classes. Last year, the NFL draft by conference, the SEC 64 players. The Big Ten was second with 40.

And the ACC used to be close to the SEC all the time. Pac-12, 33. ACC, 28. Big 12, yes, 26 players because of a smaller conference again. But just tell me all these great defensive players that are getting drafted out of the Big 12. It's not really happening. And the Big 12 has had a disastrous bowl season right now. So does that mean it was really, really overrated?

I don't like to do those one-year snapshots with it, as I've said, over and over and over again. But that's just kind of my rule with this whole thing. And we've got one more big one to go, Tennessee and Indiana. Just a minute here, we're going to talk with Jack McCallum about David Stern. But first, the regular season is over, but your fantasy season doesn't have to be. With the start of the playoffs this weekend, you can still get your fantasy fix with DraftKings, the leader in one-day fantasy. And if you've never played before, there's even more

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Download the DraftKings app now and use the code RASILLO, R-U-S-S-I-L-L-O. New users enter the code RASILLO at signup and play for your shot at the $1 million top prize. That's code RASILLO. Play for your shot at the $1 million top prize only at DraftKings. Eligibility restrictions apply. See DraftKings.com for details. One of the guys that's done the best job of covering this league, the NBA, a long time with Sports Illustrated, Jack McCallum. Okay, let's get to the start of Stern because we know when he took over, we know that really, I mean, this is a guy that went to law school,

loved the NBA, loved the Knicks, hooked up with this one law firm because of their association with the NBA, which is pretty amazing that this guy ends up basically running the league. But where does the Stern with the NBA story start in your eyes, Jeff? It starts a long time ago, Ryan, because he became, I think he became connected with the league, as you mentioned, shortly after he went to Proskauer Road, which just sort of happened to be the NBA, the law firm signed by the NBA then to represent them. And David quickly became the NBA guy because he was smart, because he was young, because

he, you know, loved to, you know, follow the Knicks, followed the game. And he was involved, you know, he got his hands dirty very early. I mean, he was the attorney. He was the losing attorney for the NBA way back when Spencer Haywood filed a suit to try to, you know, it's a complicated story like most free agencies, but David represented the NBA, which wanted to kind of restrict free agency a little bit, wanted to restrict Spencer Haywood's ability to join the league when he did not complete a college. So Stern was on the losing end of that. He then was

involved in the Oscar Robertson case, which sort of over the course of years resulted in free agency in the NBA, which ended up helping both the players and the league. So he was, you know, he's always mentioned 1984, he took over. But, you know, he was all over the place in the 1970s. And I think one of the defining things about his tenure was that he was around when the league was in dire straits. I mean, that's kind of what you have to remember about Stern, that he did not take over this billion-dollar enterprise. He was with an enterprise that was really struggling, and that's always kind of really important to what he was and what he became for the league. A lot of times when I think about commissioners now, it's just,

keep the ship, just point it in the right direction and don't screw it up. And remember, you know, you work for us. Stern really felt like, even though he technically still worked for the owners, I don't know that we'll ever have a commissioner again that felt like the owner still somewhat reported to him, despite the fact that they were the ones that wrote the check. No question. And I think that has to do with the fact i mean i i guess i'm not as expert on on this as i might be but i mean i always compared him as did others more than i did to roselle that they both came in at a time when yeah the owners have power because the owners have money and rule number one when you're a commissioner, man, is that you work for

the owners. But both of them were at leagues that needed shepherding. You know, what the hell does Goodell have to do? I mean, you can't mess that league up. It doesn't matter. Concussions, scandals, you know, problems with old players, disability issues, labor strife, bad calls, officials. It doesn't matter. It's hard to screw up. But David, like Pete Rozelle, came in at a time when the league needed some shepherding. And I think that is why he always had, quote, control over the owners. And one of the few owners that he didn't, I think

tellingly was, was Jerry Colangelo because Jerry had come in when David did. Jerry was a basketball guy. Jerry was not a billionaire who brought in. Jerry knew the same problem that Stern did. And of all the owners he dealt with, uh, early, that Colangelo was sort of an equal because they came in at the same time. And I think that's a very defining thing about Stern's tenure, that the league needed some help. It just didn't need a caretaker commissioner. Give me a few of your favorite stories on what it was like to work for David Stern. Because, you know, you shadowed him, you've done pieces on him, and I'm going to get to some of that stuff there.

But I always think that maybe the most honest perception of a man can be from those that have to work around him, because it wasn't easy to work for this guy. Yeah, the first thing I remember, I started the beat right around the same time that Stern became commissioner in the early 80s. And I would say one thing to make clear, Ryan, thank God I didn't work for him. and the B, you know, 83 or 84, 85. And it was like, you can't believe how small it was. I mean,

it was like a few offices. Stern could shout down the hall at people. I mean, it was really a mom and pop type of operation. And that's kind of how he operated. I always thought that because he came into a league that was very, very small, that grew exponentially under him, but he came into that league and he always kind of, quote, ran it like his parents' deli. You know, he grew up as the child of deli owners in Manhattan. He eventually moved to New Jersey. But that's, you know, he looked at it as kind of a mom and pop thing. So the first thing I remember was how small it seemed when it first started.

And therefore, Stern, because he was trying to sell the league, he had a kind of personal relationship that other commissioners didn't have with reporters. And selfishly, this was a good thing. I mean, Stern knew, for people like me, Stern knew that he had to kind of play ball because he needed the publicity. We're now in a situation where, you know, I'm sure Roger Goodell doesn't give a damn if anybody writes another story about, you know,

they don't need it. But back then, they did. And when I first got to know him, I had tweeted about this the other last night. I went to an All-Star game. I took a friend of mine, and we were at this party. And I was wearing a T-shirt underneath the sport coat, which I thought was acceptable. Stern's like across the hallway, yells over, hey, McCallum, you know, nice job wearing a t-shirt to an all-star party.

Now, my friend, who I just saw on New Year's Eve, he will never forget that. That's the guy that he had this kind of, I don't think Stern really had a common touch, but he sort of knew that he had to have a common touch. And I think that was one of the defining things about him that he kind of knew, you know, that even if you're a power broker, you're sort of supposed to have this kind of, you know, common touch to things. And, have this kind of uh you know common touch to things and and that was really a great thing uh when i really got to know him was i had cajoled him to try to get behind the scenes that's why what everyone really wanted to do because stern was a genius in dispensing you know odd bits of information without telling you the whole thing and i I finally convinced him, well, convinced him that's wrong.

He finally saw the value in having me accompany him on this European tour he was doing before the 2007-8 season, I believe. And therefore, I could travel on the plane with him. His wife, Diane, on the plane with him. His wife, Diane, was there. And I will just never forget this ongoing sort of testosterone-laced battle to see who was going to be less tired on this trip. Because it was like we went from Barcelona, I think this is right, Barcelona to Moscow to Rome to Paris to Cologne in like five days. I might be missing something in there. And all along the way, Stern's thing was, I'm less tired than you are. I have more energy than you do. I'm doing all this work and talking to people, and all you're doing is fluffing off behind me, you know, taking notes.

So that was he was very, very competitive in a, you know, I guess you would call it enjoyable way. But it was never you could never turn your brain off around him. You know, you couldn't like take a, take a minute off, uh, from the guy. And if, when I look back on all the stuff that I was able to do covering the NBA, I think taking that trip with Stern was as insightful as anything, you know, that I've ever done that really gave me an understanding of how somebody in power kind of works the room. You know, anybody that's ever done sales, like it is, it is about selling the product. So it's, it's likely more about magic and Larry and then Michael, but there still has to be somebody

making decisions that capitalizes on that. So even though it's a legal background for Stern, I mean, how hard was he pushing to sell this product? Like, how did he make the most out of what was this incredible level of talent that spiked and arguably saved the direction of where this league was going? Right, yeah, good question. And I think one of the key dates in the NBA

was that Stern became, I think, assistant commissioner. Larry O'Brien was the commissioner. Larry O'Brien was a power broker, but he was like a Washington guy. You know, he got the Kennedys on the phone, but I don't know how much he really cared about the game. And he made, well, that's not fair. I just don't think he, the game wasn't the same to him. He was a power guy. And in 1980, in 78, he appointed Stern as the assistant commissioner.

Then in 80, he appointed him as, I don't know, something that put Stern in charge of public relations, business, marketing. So that all became Stern's kind of purview. And your question speaks to an interesting one, which is the same thing as coaches. Was Phil Jackson successful because he had, you know, Jordan Pippen, Grant, Rodney Kerr, or, you know, did it work the other way around? And was Stern successful because he had Michael Magic, Larry Barkley, Isaiah came along all at the right time? And the answer was that he leveraged every bit that he could get out of the fortune of having those guys around. And one of the ways he did this, and one of the things I really admire about him was, this is not exactly a revelation, but

international. And in the early days of the 80s, Stern made all these, I mean, he's looked upon as this business genius, which he is, but he made all these sort of He made a deal with this guy in Italy for a few thousand dollars. He made a deal in the 80s to get their games on in China. So he sort of, he wasn't a, he was a leverager. You know, he took every advantage he had and kind of maximized it. And that's why he was brilliant. he had and kind of maximized it. And that's why he was brilliant. I mean, I think inside of him, you know, the team that he always admired was the 1970 Knicks.

That's why, of course, anybody who followed basketball then still worships at the altar of the, you know, Frazier, Bradley, the Buescher, Monroe, Knicks, you know, Holtzman, Knicks. So he liked that kind of basketball. But when it became apparent that the league had to be promoted or was best promoted as a league of individual stars, you know, it was Michael's Bulls.

It was Magic's Lakers. It was Larry's Celtics. Stern went along with that. You know, so he was always able to compromise maybe what he felt inside with what had to be done with the league. And that certainly speaks to his, you know, I mean, nobody's more of a classic left-leaning liberal than David Stern. Yet he lobbied for age restriction. He maximized

business relationships with China, you know, repressive country. And he always kind of understood this idea that, well, I'm here to make the league better and whatever I feel myself, I can put temporarily in the background. Yeah, it's an unbelievable collection of contradictions because of the job. And I'm not talking about Stern like as if the man, because he's certainly left politically. And I think he was kind of brilliant in the simple nature of just going, hey, you know, most of my players are going to be left politically. simple nature of just going, Hey, you know, most of my players are going to be left politically. And it's not because I aligned left. It's just because I'm not going to get in the way of letting these guys express themselves a little bit more. Right. You know, why am I going to fight some of

the things that I'm going to fight? Um, and, and make it like, why do I want to even start that fight? Whereas when it became a CBA thing, he made the players, the enemy, he spun it so that the players were the bad guys. I'll never forget him threatening to just void everybody's existing contract, which immediately like every single labor lawyer was like, there's no way that's even possible. And he was somebody that was right about the team part of it. And one of his favorite lines would be, who did Dave Winfield play for? And then you'd have four or five different answers and that he loved the idea that players weren't moving around. So he had it at all times. And even as you mentioned the civil rights thing, like when I was reading your articles from 15 years ago, it's him talking about his uneasiness with Russia after a Russian journalist had been

killed and the secrets around that and that China needs to do a better job with civil rights. And again, this is like 15 years ago, but he goes, I have to make money. I have to work for my owners. So how is it even possible? Maybe it was just better because it was 15 years ago. It almost feels impossible to be able to navigate through all of that and be able to have the job for 30 something years. Yeah. I mean, look what happened with, uh, you're exactly right. Look what happened with Adam Silver. I mean, Adam tried to take some kind of position after Daryl Morey issued a, you know, 13-word support of the Hong Kong protesters. Adam tried to walk some, it would have been interesting to see if David

would have been in charge then. I don't think he could have done any better than Adam, who basically first said, oh, we value our relationships with China, but then said, oh, we value, you know, free speech and we support Daryl. It looks like they've ridden that, you know, that he's sort of walked that tightrope. But it is impossible now. And I do wonder if Stern, if all this would have been happening back when social media exploded, if Stern would have jumped into the middle of, they've gotten themselves into hot tweet water, hot Twitter water more than he did. He always kind of presented himself as a,

uh, a semi semi Luddite. And the last time I, the last times I was with him, he still was one of these guys that carry around heaps of, you know, he would have like articles from Business Week and, you know, he'd carry around a pile of magazines and he was very analog in his kind of approach that way.

So, yeah, that was, he probably, he certainly spanned at exactly the right time i i think adam and stern knew it i mean that's one of the things you got to say you know he knew he knew when to got out get out of the way he was let's see it how many years ago david would have probably been 71 or 72 when he left and that was it was the right time you You know, Adam, Adam had been there under him a long time. And that's probably one of the things you could give him credit for was he got the hell out of the way. And you mentioned labor. You know, again, one of the central contradictions of him was that the impression was always given that he just crushed the opposition in these labor talks.

And you'd have to say that was true, except for the fact that it would be hard to exaggerate how well players did under his tenure. It's very hard for the forces of union to argue and we're getting screwed when revenue goes up, you know, like so much. Does he deserve all the credit for that? Of course not, but he certainly deserves some of it. Okay, more with Jack here in a second, including what I thought was maybe the most interesting thing in the aftermath of Stern's passing, the Michael Jordan rumors about being suspended. Jack had some insight on that one.

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That's ADT.com forward slash game day. One of the tweets that you had, Jack, that I thought was really interesting was about Jordan because your dream team book is incredible. I really enjoyed reading that a bunch of summers ago. And the thing that's always been weird, I know I'm not as much of a conspiracy theory person,

but there's always been that Jordan didn't retire. He was banned because of gambling, following the father of his death. I mean, we've all heard it. You've heard it a million times. You probably have much better perspective on it than I do. And my counter to that would be if David Stern suspended Michael Jordan for two years and you think that story would never have a leak at some point, then it

just seems impossible to me. And yet you had this conversation with Jordan. So can you tell me more about that? Well, uh, to set it up for those who don't remember, you know, Michael, Michael left the game after 1993, after the first of his three peaks when they beat the Suns in 93. Right. And it was kind of sudden. I remember interviewing Jordan after the final, and I remember saying to somebody, damn, he seems tired. He was worn out with years of carrying the Bulls. He was worn out by right around then was when revelations about his personal gambling issues. There was never, let's be clear, never a doubt that Michael Jordan would be the last person on earth to throw a game.

I mean, he wouldn't throw a ping pong game for $10 million, you know, but his personal gambling was getting himself in trouble. That was, by the way, totally ridiculous. I mean, Jordan was making $35 million off the court in the 90s. So he's still making about $145 million, by the way.

He hasn't been in a pair of sneakers in 16 years, and he's still making. Anyway, so all this happened, and then his father is murdered and left in a ditch while driving from, I can't remember where, I think he was driving, he might have been driving to see Michael. And the perpetrators, when arrested, one of them was wearing, you know, cruel irony of ironies, a Jordan t-shirt. So when Michael went away from the game, announced that he was going to play baseball for the Birmingham Barons, there was a flood of what something must be going on that Stern must have whispered to him, hey, we don't like all these revelations about gambling and some people tying it to the death of your father. And I had to make my dutiful phone call

to Stern to ask him about it. And, you know, i still have the the ringing in my ears that is scurrilous why are you i mean why are you even asking that how can you do that uh and it was partly an act because i'm sure he got the question from i'm not the only person who asked the question it just sticks with me and one could argue well does he protest too much in the Shakespearean line that he's trying to protect something that would actually be true? If you got me on a stand and said, look, you have to declare this one way or the other. Did David Stern push Michael Jordan out of the game or did Michael Jordan leave himself? I would absolutely say the latter. Because as you said, I've never had a leak. No one has ever told me even secretly double-double off the record that Stern pushed him

out. I just don't, I just have to think that it did not happen. And when I went to interview Jordan for the Dream Team book, I wasn't even thinking about bringing Stern into the conversation. I just wanted to talk about Michael and his father and what he meant to him and all that kind of stuff. And Jordan really got angry and started talking about how this talk of his gambling went on. And he said David Stern could have stopped it. And I said, I just don't agree with you, Michael. Every time I asked Stern about it or somebody else did, it seemed like he told him, you know, go F yourself.

It never happened. And Jordan cut into me and went, no, man, if David Stern said put a lid on it, they would have put a lid on it. And I don't believe that for a minute. Hey, me and you are in the same business. You don't stop us from talking. And I thought Stern certainly had, you know, much more to gain, in my opinion, by Michael continuing to play.

I mean, the league wasn't exactly helped when Michael Jordan left. So I don't have any definitive proof, just like you don't or anybody else does, but I don't think David Stern pushed Michael Jordan out of the league because of gambling. Yeah, I agree with you. And so many people are going to listen to this and still just disagree because it's too exciting. It's too exciting. All right. Do you have, before I let you go here, do you have one more Stern story that you'd like to share? Whether, you know, I know there was a time where you wrote a piece that he said he didn't want you to write and then you showed it to him and he still got mad or, you know, I think. Oh my God. Go ahead. Oh my God. Go ahead.

Yeah. It was, I was, I happened to be in his office. It was a total coincidence. I was, I was writing the Stern, the year Stern got into the hall of fame.

I was going to write the piece to that went into the program. I mean, I had left, uh, you know, I was a couple of years retired from SI by then. I just, you know, somebody asked me to do it and I wanted to do it.

And I, I always look for an excuse to see Stern. Well, I always, I loved it. It was sort of like, you know, I described it in a tweet as like trying to do the New York Times crossword puzzle while someone shouted insults at you. You know, that's sort of what it was interviewing Stern. You were kind of always engaged. And it happened to be the day that Adam Silver was going to do a televised press conference on what was happening to Donald Stern. So I said, oh, my God, what a great story this is. I'm sitting in Stern's office. And he's taking phone calls.

I swear he must have left the interview 15 times. And I know Adam was part of it. I know it was Adam sometimes calling him. It was other people, what was going to happen. There was a sense of tension about the day. And I practically begged Stern to let me write it. And, you know, somebody tweeted at me, well, why didn't you write it anyway? This is America. Well, there are standards. I mean, you're in somebody's office and he says, hey, man, it's off the record. He could have kicked me out of the office. I'm sorry. This is the day when I just can't see you. And I have to deal with this stuff. But he didn't. He let me hang around. And it was killing me because I could have written the press conference from David Stearns.

As he sat there, he went at a boy, Adam, you know, tell him. And he was like sort of rooting. I'm now I'm even revealing, you know, betraying confidences. But, you know, in memory of David, I'm going to do it anyway. You know, he was sitting in his seat like a kid at the peanut gallery cheering Adam on, you know, in memory of David, I'm going to do it anyway. You know, he was sitting in his seat, like a kid at the peanut gallery, cheering Adam on, you know? So as I left, I said, look, uh, you know, commissioner Stern, I'm going to go back and write something and do my best to, you know, not betray anything you told me. He goes, no, it's not going to work.

Don't, don't even fucking think about it but i said well i'm going to do it anyway i have to uh and and i went back to over the sports illustrate office and i wrote this thing and i said you know but i was obligated to tell him i mean it was you know i was in an off the record situation yeah so i said all right i'm going to call you in an hour give me time to do it it. And I called him, and I read him the thing. And like halfway through, he just starts swearing. If you run that gut, I told you not. I said, okay, okay.

I had to take my shot. That's what we do in this business. And one of the regrets I have, not that I wouldn't have won the Pulitzer Prize, but it would have that, even though I was pissed off that he didn't let me write the story. So just in conclusion, you know, I'm sure you've had people in your business who feel like this. I just felt like the guy was a giant in the business. You know, he was a giant in that world. And that, you know, it made me feel good that I had the chance to, uh, interact with somebody like that. Yeah. Cause that was the thing I really took away from it is that you explained in your piece about this piece, he wouldn't let you run that it actually showed

Stern in a great light. And most everybody that's in the public eye would be like, yeah, okay, go ahead. Like you think ceiling would have told you to not hit send on that. And yet David, yeah. And I, cause of the transition,

like he didn't want to, he didn't want to make it seem like what I took from that is he didn't want to make it seem like he was puppeteering Adam whatsoever. And he thought that was really, there you go. There you go. That is the exact reason. That was the respect that he,

and, and, you know, maybe I'm over, I mean, we all end up when someone dies over praising them. We could have spent 10 minutes talking to them. You know, Stern certainly was a, you know, certainly made some bad decisions. Certainly the Chris Paul can't go to the Lakers was a bad decision in retrospect, both for probably for the league and for the Hornets, you know, that the league was running that. There were a couple of things that we, you know, there's time to do that, but he died and he was a giant and he was very, very, very important. And he leveraged everything he could do out of a league that was in trouble. And he produced something now that, you know, when I talk to kids now,

when I teach classes and everything, and they look at me with blank eyes, when I talk about, you know, 1980, nobody gave a damn about the NBA, the league finals with magic Johnson against Dr. J was on tape delay.

That's what we were. That's what Stern was facing when he took over. So proof is in the pudding there. Just think, what a great storyteller you still are because you ended it perfectly with that. And I agree with you. I don't think it's old school.

I think there's something about just being a little respectful when somebody passes. I'm not going to do the podcast of all the things I don't like about David Stern. There's certain things. I mean, whenever you're running a league for this long,

and I remember one time asking him what, retrospect was one of the dumbest questions I've ever asked a guest. Um, but I was young, I was new and I asked something that was just sort of stupid and he still answered it. He told me how stupid I was. Um, there were times I disagreed with him vehemently, but I don't know. I just, something about when somebody passes, I think it's just kind of, it's, it's not the time. So I'm time. So I'm glad because the full scope of the story, yeah, we could do that too, but I'm glad you didn't want to because I certainly didn't want to do that when we're talking less than 24 hours after somebody's passing. So Jack, awesome job. Yeah. And enjoy Middlebury, teaching a class up there. I'd love to follow up with you and see what that's like because they have a great professor there. You're a University of Vermont guy? like because uh they have they have a great you're a university of vermont guy yeah i went to vermont we um we did not have a journalism program so you just you get that went skiing no i said you know

what's funny is i didn't ski either so i don't either i'm up here in january i don't see and don't really like the cold but i enjoy uh my son's a professor here. So I enjoy, uh, you know, we babysit the grandson and I really enjoy doing that. Well, that's great. And, uh, make sure everybody listening, check out his dream team book because it is full of every kind of story you'd ever want. And I was lucky enough to interview for that one as well. So Jack, thanks a lot, man. I really appreciate it. You can follow Jack McCallum at McCallum, that's two C's, 12, at McCallum, 12. And like I said, the other book is Golden Days on Jerry West, Lakers into the Warriors. So I have not read that one.

But the Dream Team one is seriously one of the best sports books the last few years. Okay, a couple things, announcement. Please subscribe, rate, and review to the podcast. We'll be doing a Monday from LA and and then a monday from new orleans after the title game and then likely a bonus tuesday recap of the title game so that's kind of tentatively what we're planning doing other plans include a new video series that i'll be releasing we've been working on these and taping them they're basically a little bit like sports monologues, but they're not always going to be about sports. Probably a lot of election coverage. Kidding. No, I'm kidding.

No, you know, we got a couple sports ones. We've taped four, I think, three or four, and a couple more coming. So a lot of really good stuff coming from The Ringer. Make sure you check out The Ringer. And by the way, the Quentin Tarantino on the rewatchables on the Dunkirk thing, that is unbelievable that those guys got him in and that Tarantino's sitting there talking about Dunkirk. And I know a lot of you didn't the Dunkirk thing. That is unbelievable that those guys got him in and

that Tarantino sitting there talking about Dunkirk. And I know a lot of you didn't like Dunkirk, but I don't know. Not like every movie has to be the exact same and the way they shot it and feeling like you're drowning when the plane is going down and all that kind of stuff. I just was, it was a different kind of movie, but I love the way they did it. I am all the way in. If you think I'm biased about certain teams i'm the most biased about christopher nolan he could probably he could have directed bad grandpa and i would have been like yeah but you guys there's a lot of themes that you guys didn't pick up on was it bad grandpa kyle uh it was a movie is that what it is though because i feel like i'm in johnny knoxville no yeah um bad moms bad teacher there's a bunch of those

out there bad grandpa is that's right jackass um did do that one how about that i why would i ever go up against a millennial on jackass material dirty grandpa what is that? Dirty Grandpa. That's Zach Efron, my neighbor. Who plays the grandpa, though? Not Zach Efron. De Niro. No, Johnny. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Dirty Grandpa is, that got an 11% on Rotten Tomatoes. That's not on a scale of 1 to 15.

That's out of 100. One hundo. So it didn't do great. My point is that Nolan could have done Dirty Grandpa or Bad Grandpa, and I probably would argue for them. So to have Tarantino, check it out. I can't wait to listen to the rest of it. I caught some of it.

But yeah, Quentin Tarantino stopped by and taped with the dudes from the rewatchables. And the rewatchables, I get more text and notes from people going, hey, are you going to do that one again or whatever? When people check it out for the first time, I'm like, wow. And the other two dudes, Sean and Chris, are so into it that it's definitely a little over my head. So I enjoy being challenged when I went and did.

The town with Bill was a layup, but Wolf of Wall Street, another level. And Tarantino, you know, after Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which I just found out the other night, a friend of mine like i heard you raving about it i go yeah i just love it eight goddamn motherfucking whiskey sours sorry for the kids under the back seat that caught that um my booze don't need a buddy the dicaprio lines are awesome dicaprio is awesome in it once again but the scene where dicaprio is like a bad actor screwing up and then

has the breakdown where he yells about how many whiskey sours he had had that's not just random but he DiCaprio went to Tarantino and said we need to change this let me screw it up and then screwing it up where Tarantino looked at the edits and was like okay now we have to do this and it changes the character arc and then his redemption but he he has to have that meltdown. And that was all ad lib. And that was DiCaprio telling Tarantino, Hey, we should change the dialogue here so that I'm screwing it up and freaking out. And then I have a breakdown and Tarantino's like, okay, no problem. And then on, um, on the interview that I saw Tarantino's like, he's the best actor of this era. I wonder what Brad Pitt says. Like, does Brad Pitt go,

seriously, dude? Like, you just called him the best? Or does Brad Pitt go, yeah. Like, come on. Because I can't tell if, like, Brad Pitt would be like Dwayne Wade, where he's like, well, you know, I'm pretty good too.

Like, this isn't just about LeBron. Or if, I'm trying to think. Which second... Or would Brad Pitt be more like Chris Middleton, where he's like, yeah, dude, I mean, you know, I'm pretty good, but Giannis, give me a break. Please subscribe, rate, and review the Celo podcast

so everybody's having a happy new year, and we still have, as we said at the top, a couple more big bowl games to go. you