The Ryen Russillo Podcast - CFB Patience, Plus NBA Ratings Decline: Real or Fake? With Ethan Strauss | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: December 11, 2019

Russillo rants about having patience with CFB coaches (7:07). Then Ryen is joined by The Athletic's Ethan Strauss to discuss the NBA ratings decline (16:48), as well as his upcoming book 'The Victory Machine: The Making and Unmaking of the Warriors Dynasty,' Kevin Durant's exit, and the Warriors' plans for the future (43:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

what's good fam ryan russell podcast today on the ringer and we've got ethan strauss from the athletic for the sbn for a long time he had a really interesting piece on the declining nba ratings what is real what is not and we're going to go over all of that stuff, including some time that he spent with the Warriors. He covered them for a really long time, still does, and a little KD stuff. So that's going to be fun. I also have an open for this week. This week's open is about patients, and it's about college football and coaches in particular. Today's episode of the Ryan Rosillo Show is brought to you by State Farm.

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Denver has to stop running pick and rolls with guards driving into really good defensive big men. The same thing they did against Anthony Davis, they did against Embiid. Jokic took his first shot with seven minutes to go in the second quarter. I think he made his first shot four minutes to go in the first half.

And Philly scored one point. They had 95. I think the last four plus minutes of the game, they scored one point. And it still didn't matter, despite their terrible fourth quarters offensively. And I'm starting to, you know, as I track it more and more, is it just because they take Embiid out? Because they have to take Embiid out in that stretch. The way they stagger his minutes, they take him out in the middle of the fourth and bring him back in to close fresh which could be a conditioning thing altogether but you know for sixers fans that always get upset which is every day understand the reason you get talked

about this way and more critically is because people are expecting really big things and almost everybody once we went through the preseason stuff said give me them and as absurd as that sounds now because milwaukee not only that ridiculous start, which we touched on last week, they smashed the Clippers over the weekend. And you go, okay, wait a minute. I was supposed to select this team from Philly more than Milwaukee. But Philly got the win. Denver.

And I know Jamal Murray went out with a trunk contusion. But, man, the TNT boys loved smashing Jokic at halftime. They kind of beat up on Fillion and beat a little bit there too, but the Jokic stuff, it's a bad start to the season. And I know Denver's won some games here, but whenever I hear someone say I'm picking Denver to win the West, I have no idea why. None. And Denver is getting really close to like, you can kind of have them. Should I touch on the Hawks, Kyle? Should I touch on the Hawks? Let's do it again. They were going to win against a good Miami team. Kendrick Nunn back. Is Kendrick Nunn back? He was absurd last night. But right when Trey Young, and the way Atlanta here's a heads up if the opposing defense is

running a trap at your point guard the entire game do something different okay and I give Trey credit here despite how frustrating it has to be to be that small and that's what's going to happen if he's ever in a playoff series I don't think you have to worry about that anytime soon. But when they run a big trap against a smaller point guard,'s offense. But then Hunter went absolutely crazy and Hunter looked like he was going to win the Hawks the game. Trey had some problems with the trap, but he also had some great reads off of it. And then it's really up to Atlanta and the staff to tell, especially a young point guard like Trey, like, hey, we need to figure out a different way. So have somebody else bring the ball up, do a handoff at half court, run Trey away from the ball, then come back to get it so that it's not just Trey dribbling into a design trap. And so that's something to think about if you're a Hawks fan, look for that. Our team's going to be just sell out trap against Trey because they don't trust somebody else to make a shot, especially with Herter coming back slowly. And Trey had a couple plays where he made the read perfectly. And then there were other plays where it was a disastrous half-court possession,

but they were up six at the very close. And then it was a 23-0 run at the end to tie it by Miami. And then I think it was a 17 straight points in overtime. And that was after Trey said, it's over to the crowd with like 50 seconds left to go in regulation. So it wasn't a great night for the Hawks. And I'm not going to turn this into a tails to the couch with like 50 seconds left to go in regulation. So it wasn't a great night for the Hawks. And I'm not going to turn this into a tails to the couch thing and write down all these plays that I looked at because that's all it was. I mean, the game was about how Atlanta handled the trap, and they handled it.

I mean, they still had 117 in regulation, so you're thinking like, what are you, nuts? But it's just if Hunter's not hitting those shots, it's just something to think about. Oh, speaking of hitting shots, Mathis Teibel, you're a rookie for the Sixers, 30% from three last year in about four attempts. But if you look at his progression at Washington, it just got worse all four years. He was a weird guy to project to because of what they did defensively, but he is hitting shots and it looks good. And

he's at like 45% now in the season for the Sixers. And it reminds me, as I tweeted out last night about the Gordon Hayward thing, the second year at Butler for Hayward, I'm like, wait a minute, this guy's 29% from three, but he can shoot, right? Like he can shoot. Is it just one of those years where the shots aren't going down? Dybal at times looked like he couldn't even shoot. And now his form looks tight.

It looks great. It looks confident. And he had productive shooting years from three it's just in his last year he was at 30 on those four attempts and the knock on him was that once he came in offensively for you your offensive net rating went way down well for a Sixers team that desperately always needs spacing because they're just a weird build they they just are that's that's it I I don't know what else to say I say too much but Thival hitting shots for them has,

has just really opened up the possibilities about what he can be. And it is kind of one of those lessons in, um, scouting AK watching video and not really scouting because you're a talk show host, you idiot. Um, it's, it's sometimes you can just look at a guy and be like, I think he's a good shooter, but the numbers aren't backing it up. And Hayward was one of those things where I'm like, I'm not going to sit here and say has a bad shot just because the number says 29% in that last year. Okay, before I get to college ball here, the Google Assistant is ready to help you get more done

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I don't know if that's how you would say it, but this week's open is about college football. I want to talk to you about patience, okay? Not the song. A little stat about me has nothing to do with what I'm about to talk about. I was never a big GNR guy. Never. And they like kind of blew up as I was growing up. Wasn't my thing. I want to talk about patience in life and specifically sports. Now there's nothing easier than giving other people advice. It's very hard to listen to that exact same advice that you give out. Like people will always ask me career advice, right? I get asked that a lot.

I guess I'm, I don't know, respected, which feels weird. But they'll say, hey, you know, what do I need to do to take it up a notch? How do I get to that next level, Rosillo? And I'll go, you know, look, kind of come up with a plan. You got to think of what you're capable of realistically. Sometimes it'll go a little slower than you want. And then all of a sudden out of nowhere, you feel like you've caught up and made all this ground. But if there's one thing I say over and over and over again, is that the world, the rest of the world is not on your schedule. Okay. And then as I say that to somebody the next day, when I find out something's going wrong,

I get super frustrated and not listen to any of this stuff I just said, but that's really important to remember. Okay? You can have goals. You can want to be at certain places in life, but it's not always going to go according to the timetable that you've set for yourself. Now, the difference is some people eventually get there and some people never do. And when it comes to coaches, there's a lot of fan bases in college football looking around right now at the end of another regular season saying, what about us? Do we have the right guy? And there's a handful of coaches right now at the end of another regular season saying, what about us? Do we have the right guy?

And there's a handful of coaches right now at major programs. Now, look, I'm not going to put Chip Kelly at UCLA in the same standard as Jim Harbaugh at Michigan or Tom Herman, who were less than a year ago, we thought after they beat Georgia in a bowl game that Texas was back, and then I guess they're not back and they change everybody on the staff. So you have these names that everybody wanted at one point. And now I'm supposed to collectively believe that none of these coaches are good

at doing this job anymore. But here's the problem is I'm speaking to college football fans about having patience right now. They're looking across the street at their neighbor going, well, wait a minute. Those guys don't have to have any patience when they win national titles. Why should I be patient in a place like in Ann Arbor? Well, you'd probably get me on that argument because if you go through the last 19 years of national titles, it actually has happened pretty quickly except for two different guys. Now, Mack Brown won his first title at Texas in his eighth season and Dabo at Clemson, it was his ninth season there. Okay. And he was an interim at the very beginning.

But every other national title has been within the first four years of that coach coming to that program. Okay, but let's look at the rest of the names, going back to Stoops' first title in 2000. That was his second season. Larry Coker got it done in his first season. Russell, give me a break. Larry Coker inherited a massive, nasty Miami roster.

Hey, shut up. The list isn't done yet. Trestle's second season. Carroll's third season at USC. Saban's fourth season at LSU. Urban's second season at Florida. Les' third season replacing Saban at LSU. Saban's third season at Alabama.

Chizik's second season at Auburn. Jimbo's fourth season at Florida State. And Urban's third season at Ohio State. Those are all your national title winners since 2000. Other than Dabo and Mack, all those guys get it done immediately. So now you actually feel worse, right, if you're a Michigan fan? Well, let's check in on the Michigan fan, because when you look in the mirror, you aren't honest with yourself, okay? And there's sometimes when my hair was still hanging around where I wasn't honest with myself either. But when

I look at you guys and I look at your resume and you're sitting there mad that you lost Ohio State again, which I get, you should be mad. But the idea that Harbaugh should be bounced, I just can't handle that. I feel like that's still another one of those things, despite how disappointing that Ohio State rivalry has gone for you with Harbaugh there since 2015. I just think you kind of need to accept it because Harbaugh is not really doing anything any different than anybody else who's had that job in a long time. He's 47-17 at Michigan since he first showed up. Your Wolverines are 1-15 against Ohio State in the last 16 times they've played him. One of those is technically vacated. I counted it, okay? The only

time you've beaten him is that disastrous Luke Fickle year before I guess he was a decent coach at Cincinnati. Harbaugh, in the beginning when the criticism was still happening, felt ridiculous. They were number three in the last week in the college football playoff ranking in 2016. They were number four in the last week last season in 2018. And people act like this guy's going five and seven. Now, yes, I am a Harbaugh apologist. He gets to three straight NFC championship games in his first three years in the NFL. He turned Stanford into what they are today.

And at Michigan, yeah, he's treated like it's a disaster, but that's always going to be the case when you don't beat Ohio State. If Harbaugh is happy to be there and the decision makers are still happy that they have him, then I think you're just going to

kind of suck up the idea that right now you're not Ohio State. And I know that you expect it to be, especially when Harbaugh comes out with videos and the khakis and who's got it better than us and all that stuff. If there's one lesson in all this is that announce your presence with less authority, perhaps. Don't have everyone hold you to an impossible standard or a standard that's not obtainable when the Buckeyes have been rolling like this, even with Ryan Day in his first year, which again gets back to that message of why should I have patience when the Buckeyes don't

even have to the first year after Urban leaves. But who are you, Michigan? You're 58-51-6 all time against Ohio State, but that's with a 19-3-2 advantage up until 1927. I don't even know what the hell those games were, all right? You have one national title since 1948 in 1997. Now, you're going to tell me that you have nine national titles, but you're really claiming seven. And by the way, Bama has a handful of claimed ones that don't make any sense either. So this is not an anti-Michigan or anti-Big Ten thing. This is an anti-SID sitting around bored just being like,

hey, how'd your week go? We won three more national championships after I went through this gemologist notebook. So if Michigan's being honest, yeah, it's disappointing, but it's kind of what you've been just with a guy that's paid more and a higher profile in Harbaugh. And again, if you want to start over again, feel free, but it really doesn't make any sense. There's a bunch of programs right now. Do you think USC wants Helton? No, they don't want Helton. The fan base doesn't want Helton, but they know they can't come up with anything better right now. Okay. Florida State was actually happy Jimbo left. They're like, ah, it's fine. Play for two

national titles. One, we're good. We need a better offensive line in here. Well, guess what? You just fired Taggart in less than two years. Now, Nebraska is entirely different because I think they actually do know deep down. It's never going to be what it was in the 90s. They gave Frost an extension after being in the preseason top 25 and falling all over themselves again this season. If you look around the country, there are pockets of programs everywhere

that are so unhappy and so impatient, but what I tell you is that you're not alone. And if we do look at sports in the way that we have been too patient in the past, there's a lot of stupid things, right? There's a lot of dumb things that we've seen before, whether it was baseball players in the 80s and 90s where they had to stay in the minors for seasoning for three years. Now we're like, hey, maybe we just bring them up if they had the best arms. play and I want to transfer because Joe Paul's like, sorry, I just don't want to play freshman a lot. You're like, okay, or this guy's going to go number one in the NFL draft, but you're too stubborn in your ways. There are plenty examples of being patient in sports that haven't paid off. But when it comes to having a college football coach that goes 47 and 17, all I can tell you is

if you look around the country, there are plenty of programs that are in the exact same boat as you. You aren't special, but I know it's tough to tell you to have patience when your neighbor doesn't have to have any. This week's Ryan Russillo podcast brought to you by Drinkworks Home Bar by Keurig. Much like a premium espresso machine, it makes cocktails instead. There are over two dozen different drinks to choose from, so there's literally something for everyone. If you like... I'm trying to think. I'm trying trying to think one of those things that's like hey make me something cool um kamikazes are cool cool you drink kamikazes kyle only out of those

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Ethan Strauss from The Athletic. I worked with him at ESPN. You just have him on the radio show all the time. Great job covering the Warriors, but has a new piece out today about the ratings decline in the NBA. So the headline, Ethan, would be what about the ratings? What are the numbers that we know as of now about a quarter mark of the season? Oh, man, you just threw something at me right there because I know there was a slight correction that obviously the NBA told the Sports Business Journal about because the Sports Business Journal produced one set of bleak numbers,

and then the NBA, I think, was countering, and Sports Business Journal said we were wrong, and the numbers were maybe 1% or 2% less bleak. But whatever it is, it's roughly 20% drop on TNT and ESPN for the national ratings games. And then there is a drop among RSNs. I know the Sports Business Journal said 13%. They might have downgraded that to 7%, but the issue is any way you slice it, if you

look at this as a multi-year proposition, the NBA ain't been growing ratings-wise. And it seems to be even declining. And it seems to run counter to a persistent narrative. And hey, I think you and I are aligned on this. We love NBA basketball. We love the sport. But it does seem like there is this boosterism from people who often cover the sport or like the sport that just hasn't squared with the reality of the actual falling interest in

the league recently. Okay, so there's all these great things already packed into that answer. And yes, I saw the correction after the Sports Business Journal, but whatever way you want to play with these numbers, and trust me, working in ratings for almost two decades, I would know, oh, that number's bullshit. Or I'd be like, oh, okay, hey, this is working out pretty bullshit. You know, or I'll be like, Oh, okay. Hey, this is working out pretty well. And then somebody would come up with a bad number and then

somebody would manipulate the numbers or one of my favorite phrases ever fastest growing show in sports. What, what is that compared to what, what is, what does that mean? Cause if I started zero and I'm not running, you know what I mean? Like that was always one of my favorite things. And then it would be great when it was like the third year a show was on saying it was still the fastest growing show in sports and it'd be like is it now um so it's basically 20 the tnt number espn number i don't know but like the espn thing i thought that was interesting is like to put it in perspective it's like 1.9 million viewers on a national game versus 1.5 um i know that the nba has kind of come back and said hey this is about streaming i think cuban said hey this is about streaming um i think we can get to

the streaming things because you did this whole breakdown but i i want you to give the listeners that bigger picture 98 season number versus what the number is now for the nba so like the last jordan year versus now and then comp that with the growth of what the n is now for the NBA. So like the last Jordan year versus now, and then comp that with the growth of what the NFL has done, because that to me was like the scariest series of sentences in your piece for the athletic. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for, thanks for highlighting that because to me, that's the reality check much as you might want to equivocate. And off the top of my head, the Michael Jordan, 1998 final, the famous one in Utah, averaged around 29 million viewers. And really, the best-rated finals in the modern era, we're talking about

that 2016 barn burner. I don't know why I said barn burner. I'm not 90 years old. But that 2016 incredible finals between the Warriors and the Cavs, Game 7, blew the 3-1 lead, all of that, that got to 20 million. So that's about as good as you can do in the modern era is 20 million. And that is, it's 9 million within what was done in 98 when the United States had far fewer people, I think about 50 million fewer people versus the NFL, which in its Super Bowls has added roughly 20 million people to what they would get in a Super Bowl in 1998. So there's this argument that the NBA would make that, hey, back then it was a different era. There were fewer entertainment options, only a few channels. I mean, 1998 wasn't that long ago,

but I think I'm just trying to give, trying to honor the NBA perspective on it. And while that might be true, there is some truth to it. Certainly the NFL has been impervious to it. Whereas the NBA's audience has shrunk. Right. And I'm sure the counter to that from the NBA would be like, are you guys going to be kidding me? You're comparing a series of games against one game, but you know, where did, where did the eight or nine million people go? What happened now? One of the reasons why the ESPN and TNT deal was so massive for the NBA is that even if you were to project this and say, okay, here's what the number was in 1998. The point is, is that there's still the greatest value in this product and all of this

inventory live and in the moment. And certainly for the regional networks too i mean it's a reason why and i know you're a huge baseball guy now ethan um it's a reason why it's the reason why these baseballs like everybody's saying nobody's watching baseball nobody's watching baseball like no you're not watching the national game but everybody in these cities is sitting at home all summer watching these games and it may be declining but it's still a great product um and I think that's the thing that people have to not lose sight of is that just because there's more competition and the overall numbers are down doesn't mean you still can't be one of the best products to buy. And that's clearly what ESPN and TNT were thinking. Yeah. In many ways, you're supposed to be impervious to these forces that are shrinking the overall market as live sports.

That's why there was a live sports bubble. And the idea not long ago, there was this idea that the social media, it not only just engenders a conversation about the sports, it actually makes it more popular and it makes people tune in. And the idea was that the NBA was going to benefit from that. And we just haven't seen it. And now it seems like reality has set in. People within the NBA are concerned about this. This is real. And

all the various theories of late of why it's not a big deal or it's not happening, you can still keep making them, but I just don't think it's so. I think some of them are silly, frankly. Let's go over them then. Do you want to just run through them? Because that's the whole point of your piece and where I think that, you know, just the simplicity and the beauty of it is, it's just like, hey, here are the theories, let's examine. So why don't you just run through them? Yeah, one of them is streaming that so many people are streaming

and that's not accounted for in the ratings. And I don't think everybody on NBA Twitter has a grasp on how rare that actually is. That's when people start to get anecdotal where, oh, my friend Jerry, he just streams all the NBA games and he's watching every Hornets game. He's not counted. And I'm sorry, that's just not a big population. And A, if it was a huge population, the NBA would never shut up about it. That's all we would be hearing about. They would

say, yeah, these ratings are down, but oh my God, did you see that 5 million people are streaming this for the legal streaming? Now, there's an alternate explanation for it. It's never been more popular, the NBA, but there are all these illegal streamers. And I'm sorry, I'm a fan of NBA Reddit and I'm a fan of NBA Twitter, but that population of people who, uh, you know, by themselves on their laptops are watching illegal streams of these games. I'm sorry. I just don't think it's that massive a population. I think it's Occam's razor. I think the ratings are a quick and dirty measurement of interest. NFL ratings have been going up because people are really into the NFL this season. The

NFL has got a lot of juice. There are these new star quarterbacks, the NBA rating, they've been going down because this season and maybe the season before that, a little bit juiceless. And I think if we're honest and we take a broader view, we can all admit that it doesn't quite have the draw that it had recently. a good occam's razor reference whenever we get one of those in um i know that's what cuban said and you know look cuban cuban was asked a while ago because the the the funny part about this whole thing and look it's not funny to anybody that has money on the line here but that when the nfl was having this declining thing it was like oh it's kaepernick oh it's concussions it's all these different things i was like was like, I'm not sure, you know, get on a plane. Like sometimes

I think that being in new England, the Northeast, New York city, maybe a San Francisco, certainly Los Angeles, that when you're living in, that's basically the only places I've lived other than San Francisco. Um, you can have the worst perspective on what this country is about and where their heads are at. And lucky enough, I've, as you have traveled and when people will talk about the death of football, I'd be like, you know, get on a plane, go to the South, go to Texas, go to Midwest and tell me you think football's over. Cause it's not, it's just not over. Um, you know, you can have a wall street journal piece come out about concussions and then run into somebody at a coffee party at a Greenwich film festival. And they're sitting there saying,

I don't let my kids play. And honestly, that's a true story, by the way, for me. And I was in a room with all these people at this film festival being like, I don't play. But yeah, we can't play football. We don't play football. And I'm just like, well, OK. Because guess what they're doing in Tuscaloosa today? Guess what they're doing in Hoover?

Guess what they're doing in Lafourche? And so the NFL ratings thing is like, wait a minute. Now it's back up. And while that struggle was happening, Cubans saying, look, the NBA is this franchise to buy. There was age charts that made you feel good about it, the growth and all these things, certainly social media thing that you mentioned. And yet, you know, Cuban in this case, despite his brilliance is probably one of the worst sources to have because it's his business. Like you wouldn't sit there and ask, you know, a realtor, Like you wouldn't sit there and ask, you know, a realtor, is it the time to buy? Because the realtor is going to say yes.

So, you know, it's always great to get a quote from Cuban, but on this one, he's the last guy I want to hear from because of his motivation on his answer. Well, I think he's right and he's wrong. I think he's right that the squeeze of cord cutting has impacted the NBA. The issue is when it becomes an excuse, when it becomes about excuse making, when people who have overcome incredible obstacles become these tycoons in their respective industries are employing an external locus of control rather than an internal locus of control and saying, well, those are the external conditions. Whatever happened to the NBA is on the up and up and this persistent narrative of ascendance and look at the demographic charts. Why couldn't this sport persevere despite that? You know, why, why is it just, why is it just a victim to this? Why can't

it be the biggest thing on streaming? Why can't it be such a big thing that people would even pay a pay-per-view to watch it? Um, that's, that's what annoys me a little bit because I don't come at this from the perspective of hating the NBA. I come at it from the perspective of loving the NBA. I want the NBA to be the best sport or the biggest sport in America. I want people to see what I see in it. You know, it kills me when I've been watching these LaMelo ball games when he's playing for the Illawarra Hawks out there. And I think to myself,

if the NBA was distributed to the masses in the way that Australian basketball is, which is a far less athletic league, it would be America's favorite sport. But it isn't. Instead, it has this overlong season, this overlong schedule, and we're trying to prop up this thing that I don't think necessarily can hold the viewer's interest.

And this is another aspect of where we are. I think the broader view of this, whatever the NBA's problem, and whatever people think about flopping or how the game is called, the sports that stuff a schedule have dealt with shrinking interest and the sports that are rare, they command even more interest and they become an even bigger event. I think that's the bifurcation that we are seeing in sports. And the NBA has to take stock of that instead of just blaming the market conditions, the blaming cord cutting maybe adjust accordingly okay so we we've established this is a big deal at least as of now um because i think we're both going to agree here that if you look at some other factors you know the ratings are going to go up once the football thing is over um we don't believe that it's

strictly the numbers just shifting because they would be adding that number up and right now the numbers don't back up that the missing numbers are just due to streaming. As it's been pointed out, a bunch of different pieces. You can look it up. What about the more simple explanations that just, hey, LeBron's out of the East Coast? Well, not the East Coast, but, you know, the Eastern Conference and more Eastern time zone tips.

Now he's with the Lakers. And Golden State's the worst team to watch in the NBA. Yeah, that's a big part of it. I mean, the Warriors being bad. I would say that last season we saw ratings drop, for instance, and yeah, LeBron went to the Lakers, and that was part of it. But in my piece, I just find the Laker explanation to be a little crazy. I disagree with it.

I know Adam Silver said it, but they talk as though LeBron joined the Kings. No, he joined the Northeast than who live in the West Coast, but we're still talking about the biggest franchise in NBA basketball and the biggest star joining it. That just doesn't wash to me as an explanation. It just doesn't. It doesn't. It seems like it's something that actually should be explaining why the NBA is thriving and the fact that it isn't is a dog that didn't bark. If you're not getting any juice out of this, maybe we need to look at the LeBron, the Lakers situation and learn some things broadly about the NBA and maybe why it's not

connecting. Now to be clear, the Lakers get the highest ratings relative to other teams, but the fact that this isn't the biggest story right now in sports, I think says something, you know, it's incredible what LeBron has done. I mean, 17th season, he is playing at a level that is just far beyond what anybody could reasonably expect. Anthony Davis is showing us the defensive dominance that

it seemed like his Kentucky career would have suggested. The team is just locked in the place and yet people aren't that interested. And I think this might speak to a broader cultural issue, which is that the players seem rather mercenary. They move around a lot. It seems as though the teams they join are almost vanity projects for themselves or empty vessels.

And it seems as though many of the customers have caught wind of that and aren't as liable to resonate to it. And maybe that's why the Lakers situation really isn't connecting. And the NBA can't say that. And NBA partisans can't say that because that would be to admit to a problem. So instead, they're going to say time zones, which just doesn't wash for me. Not when the Warriors, who had the latest start times of any team, were seeing insane when the ratings were going up at the beginning of that 2015 run. Yeah, the Warriors thing is too good. Like, I don't have a counter to it.

And I also understand why so over anybody from the NBA. And just so it's clear where I'm coming from, I'm just simply searching for answers and the truth and whether or not this is a trending thing that will continue to be a problem or if we're looking at a very early like a quarterly report here that we'll look back on and say hey remember we were worried there well it really wasn't that big of a deal there's one argument to be said that in 2018 the opening of the nba season went up against one game in the world series and they went up against four on different opening nights depending on tnt and

espn schedule this year with a really fun competitive world series. Okay. Maybe that's it. You know, as you mentioned the LeBron thing, I, I agree with you, but if I'm silver, I'm pointing to these things that I may know are not even true. Cause it's a hell of a lot better than saying, Hey, it looks like people don't like our product as much, but make sure you hit up our sales department for sponsorship opportunities, right? Like you just... Or they're negotiating the TV deal right now. You know, he doesn't want to go into these rooms and tell Amazon or whoever that,

yeah, get in on this. People are leaving. That doesn't really work. No, no, you're not going to do that. I mean, you're just going to sit there and anybody that's in sales or anybody that's in anything that people are keeping track of, you're going to sell a version of the story that works out best for you. Even if you know, deep down the story you're telling isn't true. I mean, I'm just kind of one of those realizations you have about the way things work and it sucks, but it's just the reality of it. So, um, you know, if you want to include the Zion thing, Oh, Zion, sorry. If the reason the ratings are down,

arguably 20% is because Zion Williamson is hurt for the ratings are down arguably 20 is because zion williamson is hurt for the pelicans then he is perhaps the most important athlete on the face of the earth where i had i was excited to watch him but if that's the reason then man like we got to figure out a way to just keep him in a iron lung and just give him a max deal and not even have him play the first four years we'll we'll do it. Ben Simmons times four was Zion. If he's that important. So I don't agree with that. On the one hand,

on the one hand, it's a good argument because he was an uncommon draw at Duke and people like watching him play. On the other hand, if you do step back from it, it's a rookie in our smallest media market. That one, that one's where I go.

Yeah. Like sometimes guys in my business will do the thing where it's, let me make two good points, but I'm going to make five more bad ones. So I have seven points that I've made, even though I could have just stopped after two. So the Zion one, I'm not having. But you did touch on something here

that I'm going to throw at you. I have a theory. I know it may be wrong. I know some people may not like this, but the headline of it would be the unlikable player. And you know, the, the public is very weird in the way. I like the ball player. I like this. I want, okay. Okay. Okay. So here we go. I've always had this feeling that like we want, and I don't mean this specific to me but i think most of the consumers out there want everyone to be the thing that they're supposed to be and the athlete fan

relationship has always been a very odd one very selfish um any friends that you have that play pro sports like they have moments where like you know you guys are kind of the worst sometimes. And then it gets cranked up even more so with football and fantasy. Like the idea that because a guy's hurt or only had two catches, you would start tweeting threats at him, you know, is absolutely absurd to me, but that's kind of the way society is. And that we don't really want to know more about you as an athlete, other than just put the ball in the hoop and you know run and get me a

touchdown and the nba has been the most intimate and i think the audience getting to know all of the players and i'm not sure they like them and it's a trend whether it's as you mentioned i don't think most people think it's fun when 30% to 40% of the league decides to change. And if you look at the top 10 to 15 guys, we're talking like 75% of them have either asked for a trade or left in free agency, which again, these are all different things, but people don't like that. People don't like people taking control of their thing that impacts their emotional investment.

And whether it's sitting games, we're now at the start of the season, I believe 60, let me make sure I have this number right. 63% of national games have been missing one star. So now they've got to hear about players who get paid way more money. Their salaries almost doubled with the cap spike who now don't want to play all the time. They want to rest. They bitch about the schedule. You look at the top of the league, and this is something Simmons and I were talking about very early on last season, is that if you look at all of the content coming from some of the biggest names, it's how unhappy they all are.

So now these guys are paid more than ever. They want to play less than ever. They leave as mercenaries, and yet they're still telling us how unhappy they are all the time. I'm not saying this is a direct correlation to declining ratings, but I don't think it takes Freud to figure out that a lot of people would be turned off by that. Yeah, I completely agree.

I didn't go into it because there is an inherent subjectivity there, but I agree with that assessment. And I think that many of the stars are projecting a certain way of being that turns off the fans and that we in media often almost encourage it because we cheer on the players and they advocate for themselves. And in some cases, they're totally right to do so. And maybe we went way too far in the other direction where we called these guys divas and were judgmental in ways that were unfair. But it's almost been an overcorrection where we encourage a certain level of selfishness. And if anybody says they don't like it, we pounce on that person and say that, well, don't you get it? You know, don't you get that this guy is a business? He's his own corporation.

I mean, that's just not how fans want to relate to the sport at all. And it looks bad when Anthony Davis goes on the shop and it's not like much of America has any sort of relationship with Anthony Davis or, or has had one since the Kentucky days. Um, and says that he finally realized that he's his own, he's his own business and he's his own corporation and he's going to be calling the shots. And that might be all fine and well and great for Anthony Davis, that maybe that's the perspective he needs to have to manage his affairs properly. But I don't think that the NBA fan is really getting the message that they're at all important or the players even like them. And I can understand that the players don't like them.

If you walk through a tunnel or if you walk anywhere with an NBA player when it's crowded and you see fans screaming, the expression of fan love looks like freaky horror movie stuff in person. They look like ghouls grabbing at these guys. I think that's how they experienced it. And it's something that they don't actually seem to care about that much. And now with all the access, as you say, fans are finally getting a little bit of a flavor of how little these guys think about them. And that's ruining the entire league dynamic. Yeah. Cause if any of us were players, we would all be doing the same thing. Okay. We just would. But as I present that theory, I am still more

sympathetic to the player of the two. But all I'm telling you is if you're one of the top players in the league and you're doing interviews, talking about how bummed out you are, how bad you have it while you're making 40 million a year. And then also deciding to shut it down on a team for a season, because then you want to go play somewhere else. And you're just like, you know, and I'd love, I'd love a break i'd love more of a break the average guy who can barely afford a couple tickets for he and his kids to a game and i'm not trying to go like midwest sob story here but you like those two parties do not understand each other right now and i think there's a bigger gap there than ever before but i still

don't even know if that's the reason why guys are watching less TV at night. Like it's only a theory and there's absolutely no way I could prove it other than an observation. That's it. Well, the, the other thing you said that I think is very true and I hate to plug it, but it's, I wrote it in my book. Um, by the way, I'll send you a copy, uh, but on the warriors dynasty, um, and Kevin Durant, um, if they're unhappy, we're unhappy. The whole idea of this is that you are selling a certain life image and people are almost renting self-esteem from you, that they're enjoying your journey, that they're with you

when you win the Super Bowl and you say, I'm going to Disneyland and you're living happily ever after. And if you're projecting the sense of reaching the absolute apex of glory and everything you were fighting for makes you miserable, then what are we even doing? Why are we even watching this? What are we even invested in? This doesn't seem as appealing, not nearly so. And I think Kevin Durant, um, Kyrie Irving, maybe guys went through a similar, uh, psychology in the past and they achieved what they wanted to achieve, but being exposed to it on the

fan level makes the whole endeavor seem less appealing and less worth investing in. And I think that's another dynamic and the decrease in interest. We'll make sure we get the, let's get the book plug in now. So I don't forget it. Cause I know it's coming out when I was, I was jealous seeing some people tweet about advanced copies. So let's get one down here, but what's the title? Victory machine, the victory machine. It's out April 14th. I'm on the rise and disruption. We use the Silicon Valley term of the warriors dynasty. So yeah,

we'll get you a copy. We'll send you one. All right. Sounds good. Okay. I'm done with the ratings thing. Other than one of the things you say at the beginning of this interview and the piece is just, yeah, if you went by Twitter, you'd be like, this league is absolutely on fire. And it's another example of how incredibly misleading social media can be on to what people are actually paying attention to. But when you're in it, it's always crazy when you're in it and you're closest to it, that can be the worst perspective to have. And I think those of us that are obsessed with the league watching it, you know, some nights where I'm like, okay, you watched it every night this week. And I'm, I'm the wrong

person to ask about. Like I've had, I've had a theory that the Rockets are to blame for the TV ratings being down. Just take them off all the national games. Problem solved. But I know that's not true, but I know that's not true. But I know it's not true. So it's just me being at home being frustrated. I want to ask Ethan about Durant and the exit and a lot of that stuff here in the last few minutes we have with him before we do that. Today's podcast is sponsored by ADT Commercial for Business. ADT Commercial serves businesses ranging from midsize organizations to large scale enterprises. Think of them as a special team who has one focus, your business security,

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Speaking of Durant, where are you at with him? Did you guys ever did you guys ever mend fences there? Because for those that don't know, when Durant, where are you at with him? Did you guys ever, did you guys ever mend fences there? Cause, uh, for those that don't know when Durant got really salty at one point last year, he was going at Ethan. Yeah, it was, uh, I had the crazy idea that he might leave. Um, yeah. Uh, yeah, I don't think fences are mended. I reached out to him for the book. Uh,

we had an interesting exchange about it. And that is in the book. But the long story short, he didn't want to talk to me, which is what I expected. But you have to give the guy the opportunity, obviously. And with him, I think I feel the way a lot of people feel where we just all want him to be happier. We just want him to be more fulfilled by what he's doing. And regardless of how mad he got at me, um, and you know, it took shots at me. There is this sense of, man, I just, I just hope you're okay. I hope you're okay. Because the thing nobody says, nobody says about him is that he's a bad guy, right? They might say troubled. They might say sad. They might say moody, but when he's happy,

he's a really engaging guy to be around. He's actually somebody I've told him he would be really good on a sports talk show. He's got tons of takes and they're interesting takes. They're informed takes. Some of them are crazy to me, but he's somebody where you go up to him at the locker and he'd just start riffing on what guys are talking about on sports radio, which makes it ironic that he's always attacking that industry because he would fit in perfectly. And so I think with him, there's just always this sense of, I hope you can get back to that guy who's engaged and happy and just not so much the mood that he's admired in of late. Oh man, you nailed it. Because I look, I love the guy

and I've never heard anybody say, hey, this dude's a bad guy. And even when he got busted with the burner account, it ended up being a win for him because of his explanation of it. You're like, yeah, exactly. Like that's real. Like that's not just some slogan on a hoodie, man.

Like that's a real thing. And you can just tell. And as you were around him all the time, like you just, you wish you were happier. you know, you wish, cause you know, and I know this is being older, but like, you'll know Durant 10 years removed from now, he's going to have a moment. He'll do this. I guarantee it. He'll say, you know, I wish I just enjoyed it a little bit more and had a little bit more fun because hell, if that guy's not having fun when you're arguably the best player

in the world and you know, but can you give us the best behind the scenes without giving away the reason people would buy the book, but give me your best behind the scenes story that maybe is revealed in the book. Uh, the thing everybody's going to be asking you about once it's out, I'll just get in front of it and ask you now, whether it's learning about Durant moving on, um, whether it's about the Curry flight to come talk to Durant, Durant blew him off, the Draymond Green fight with Durant, that some people think that that was the reason why. I don't know. Look, I think he was gone all along. I think that the Warriors decision makers were always sort of hinting at and preparing for it. But what's kind of the thing

that you think maybe is the most revealing that most of the public doesn't know about? The Warriors players after that whole situation with Durant going at me in the press conference were effectively trying to broker a piece where I went to him and I apologized to settle down the situation, which to me was very revealing and interesting because the manner with which they conveyed it to me, it was almost like they were projecting what they have to deal with onto my situation. And it was the sense of, yeah, so you don't think you have to apologize, but you just apologize to them. And, you know, come on, you just, you just do it. You just, you just do it just, you know, and I, I remember, um, DeMarcus cousin looked at me and he said,

man, it looks like you, you got some apologizing to do. And I go, how do I apologize to somebody if I don't think that I was in the wrong? And Cousins laughs and he goes, shit, that's for you to figure out. And there's this sense of you've got to mend this situation because this is what we have to do because superstar makes the rule. That's just how it goes in the NBA. And if the superstar is moody and even if he's not being rational, you just have to go with it and you've got to work within that frame. Now, I think that might be true for certain media members. We all do the job a bit differently.

it differently. But I just always looked at the situation as, yeah, ideally it'd be nice if Kevin Durant forgave me and it would be good to have a nice working relationship with him. But I don't think that whatever I do is going to be made or broken based on that. So I'm just not, I can't, I can't really do that. You know, even if it would fix the situation, even if groveling would do it, I don't like lying. And I just think it would be dishonest because then I would, I would mend those fences only to write this book and then he'd be angry yet again. So, uh, it was just always interesting behind the scenes. I think people see that press conference and they assume that's the only interaction that the athlete has with the reporters. That's just not how it goes with,

with KG. I mean, he's very open. There were many more interactions and some of them in the, were in the book. And some of them frankly were just completely, completely bizarre. He's a fascinating guy.

I mean, I think we all see that he's a fascinating guy. And I think in many ways he might be illustrative of just the modern moment in social media and the sport itself. Do you think they cared that he left the players? I think the players did they care that he left? I think a lot of people at the time it happened already knew it was going to happen. And maybe Steph had some sort of sense of

maybe just maybe I could make a pitch. But the reason Steph Curry is Steph Curry is that he's delusionally optimistic, right? There's no way looking at how he was in middle school, his frame early in high school, that you would have thought this is an NBA player, but he thought that, and he's got a power of positive thinking, you know, Tom Cruz level. And that's what's enabled him to have the career that he's had, you know, before he, I think even after he broke his hand in the press conference, he's talking about, you know, maybe we go on a run.

When I come back, we try to make the playoffs. We're just looking at each other going, I mean, no, that's not going to happen. So I think he might've maintained a sense of it's possible, but everybody else, everybody else knew he was gone. That was just a foregone conclusion. They knew he was out. So if you have all that time to adjust to it, I don't think that you care about the result. the result. Ultimately, I think their primary focus was how do we get this guy who's already out the door to keep engaged and still be part of this project we care about in the present? I think that's what they were far more concerned about than him actually leaving. They'd price that

in. Okay. So going into the season and I'll, I'll throw you my understanding of it was that the team was like, look, we're just going to see how this thing goes. The team was never going to rush Klay back, but if things were going better than they thought and they're looking at kind of the seedings and how they're lining up, then maybe, maybe. And there wasn't something to trade D'Angelo Russell because it felt like, hey, at that price, at that age and that production, you know, this isn't a bad player. But we needed to kind of fill the asset slot, you know, instead of just losing it all together with Durant moving on. And Steph goes down immediately. And now this thing is borderline unwatchable. It's almost like a Villanova alumni game out there at times.

What is this team? What is the plan? Is this the blip where we go, this actually ends up being the blessing in disguise because of where the pick ends up and everybody's happy and they come back and get this thing running again. I mean, I know that simple answers to some of this stuff and how it could all break,

but what is this franchise right now? Relieved, number one. They can't come out and say it, but behind the scenes in the immediate aftermath of Steph breaking his hand, it's not like anybody was doing a happy dance over the fact that Steph Curry is injured and experiencing pain, but just the ability to finally give up on the season and just stop fighting, I think was a tremendous relief to them. And, you know, you know, you know how GMs are, uh, they, they, they tend to have the long view basketball ops tend to have the long

view on these things. And I think they were delighted to talk all about that summer. I, I talked to basketball people who talked to people in the lawyers when they say all these guys talk about in ops this summer, that's all they're focused on right now. And so I think it was a tremendous relief to them. And I think that when you talk to people around Steve Kerr, that he's happier, which he has the reputation for not being a young guy's sort of coach.

But I think it's been a nice experience for him to transition to that and to do all of this absent any sort of expectation to finally be free of expectations, I think is just such a relief to these guys who have all been living under the highest expectations for a half decade. And they love having this gap here. Now, as to whether they're all going to bounce back and whether we're going to see that the Warriors, this is merely a blip, or maybe the age is finally caught up and they've lost it. I don't know.

I mean, that's what makes next season really interesting. And beyond that, what to do with Russell is an interesting question. The Warriors, I think, to win a championship need another wing, another high-quality wing. They have an abundance of guards. Wings take a long time to develop. If you want to draft them, I think that's what we're seeing is that they might take three, four years, if not five in the case of Wiggins. So that's not going to fit their timeline. So what are they going to do? I mean, this is a point, this is a point guard draft right now.

So do they move Russell? Who do they move him for? These are big questions right now. And there's certainly a team to watch as far as the off the court moved or concerned. You can follow him at Sherwood Strauss, all of his work on the athletic and the book coming out again, that title, the victory machine, April 14th.

Awesome. Hey, thanks a lot, dude. I really appreciate it. Hey man, I loved it. Thanks for having me.

All right, cool. I hope you enjoyed the versatility. I think on Friday, workshopping some guests here, I should do the, before it gets too far down, and look, I could have done this Monday, but we're going to do it with Chris. Could have done it today, but had some hoop stuff I wanted to get to.

If you really look at the 18 playoff and what it would be right now, I'm going to spend some more time on this as I'm going to be on a flight. I'm gonna break down some of this stuff. But I actually it's nuts because I never was one of those guys. It was like, hey, keep the BCS. I hate the expansion of the playoff. But when I start thinking about the arguments for what teams 8, 9, 10, 11 would be and then the non power five team like you really want Memphis to have a chance to win a national

championship. Well, if you're from Memphis, you do. And that's not even specific to Memphis, but I don't know. I'm anti that. I'll explain further, and that'll be on Friday's podcast. So please subscribe. Tell your friends. I'm still meeting people all the time,

despite how well the podcast is doing, that don't know what I'm doing. And so let's get the word out. And I don't know. Thank you.