The Zach Lowe Show - Clippers Punishment, Rookie Extensions, and Mike Schur on Sports Fandom!

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

Zach is joined by John Hollinger to once again look at the punishment given to the Clippers and question whether maybe they got off easy. Then, they look at the players eligible for rookie extensions and share what they think will happen. Then, Mike Schur comes on to explain how fandom works in sports, discuss writing the infamous basketball scene in ‘The Office’ and even rank fruit. (0:00) Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show! (1:43) John Hollinger joins the show! (4:01) Did the Clippers get off easy? (13:28) Why did the Clippers even bother doing this? (25:00) Extension eligible rookies (1:03:17) Mike Schur joins the show! (1:03:00) Is it possible to become a fan later in life? (1:14:42) How Tom Hanks became an Aston Villa fan (1:37:33) Zach ranks his top five fruits (1:45:20) Writing the basketball scene in ‘The Office’ Host: Zach Lowe Guests: John Hollinger and Mike Schur Producers: Jonathan Frias, Billy Gil, and Mike Wargon Social: Keith Fujimoto and Michael Szokoli The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

up on the Zach Lowe show. We've got the greatest to ever do it. John Hollinger of the athletic. We've got a lot to talk about. We have an Amen Thompson extension with the Houston Rockets. Is that a good deal? A bad deal? Too much, too little.

What does it portend for the rest of the class of 2023? We go rapid fire on Brandon Miller, Kiante George, Haimehaka Jr., Brandon Pajensky, Anthony Black, Scud, Henderson, Bilalcula, many more or some more. Bryce Sensibar gets involved. at the end. Just looking at the landscape, Assar Thompson, another one, looking at the landscape in general for extensions, for restricted free agency, Jalen Duren, not in the class of 2023, but impacting Assar Thompson's

deal with Detroit. We do all of that. We talk about Ben Simmons. Ben Simmons is back in the NBA with the Sacramento Kings. What, if anything, should we expect? And we also do a little bit of follow-up on the Los Angeles Clippers. The verdict came down last week. And I reread the report a couple of times. follow-up questions, things to look forward to, things to look backward at, all with John Hollinger. And then Mike Schur, yeah, that Mike, sure, from the office from Parks and Rec, Brooklyn 9-9, The Good Place, Many More. He wrote a book with Joe Posnansky, one of the great sports writers of the last 25 years called Big Fan. This is it.

It's about sports fandom and baseball and love and fathers and sons and traveling. And we get into all of that. Plus, we talk about the basketball scene in the office. That's all coming up on the Zach Lowe Show. Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show and look who it is, the greatest to ever do it, taunting me with the Milwaukee Brewers jersey from a 1983 Cy Young winner, I'm told. John Hollinger, you know what, John Hollinger? I am happy to throw my loyalties, tepid as they may be,

to the Milwaukee Brewers once the National League playoff starts, because it sure is how like going to the Dodgers, the Phillies, or my Arch National League nemesis, the Braves. So go Brew, crew. it's been a long time. Yeah. They got to the World Series when I was 12. It's been a long way.

Age will be redacted. Thank you. Okay. You wrote, we're going to do some extension stuff today. We had an Amen Thompson extension late last week. Jordan Hawkins from the same draft class just got traded. I think we're going to do about 45 minutes on that salary dump, which somehow involved. Some out involved Todd Gibson being traded again.

But I wanted to start with some Clippers follow-up because that's the last episode we did was right after the Clippers' verdict was rendered. You wrote a column for the athletic following up on it and digging it through the report, just like I did. Are you game for a few follow-up questions? Yeah, let's go. Follow-up question number one.

Did they actually get off too easy? David Sampson on Pablo Tori's podcast, I think the first person to really articulate this, it's something I've heard from a bunch of front office people on rival teams, all, of course, motivated by pure, ethical, moral, non-competitive, unbiased, you know, judgments, no, but all actually competitive with the clippers. And the basic gist of it would be, and Winhorse talked about it too. Is it really that bad?

They're going to get these two picks back from Toronto once this deal goes through, assuming it does. And that puts them, yes, still in a big hole pick-wise, but not in as big a hole as they otherwise could be. They are lucky, as you wrote in your piece, that this investigation dragged long enough for them to make that trade and for them to get Keaton Wogler with the number five pick. And, you know, there are people around the league that I'm sure you've heard, too, that say they should have to forfeit these Raptors picks because it's the proverbial fruit from the

poisonous tree from the very player that they engaged in this alleged corruption with. I guess it's no longer alleged. Do you think they got off too easy? Possibly. I mean, the league could have still gone after their swap with Philly. They could have gone after the extra pick that's coming from Indy, right? So they still had some fruit out there that they could have gone after their second round picks, too. So, yeah, it was the same penalty as the Joe Smith in terms of the five firsts. But for what you would argue, I think, was a worst crime. I get all of that.

I expect from everything I've heard, nobody knows for sure, because we're all waiting on it. I expect the Raptors Clippers Kauai trade to go through as it was outlined without any adjustments with those picks from Toronto, both of them and the swaps going to the Clippers. So I get it. On the other hand, I think there's like a larger existential cost to all of this for the Clippers that affects their fandom, that affects their standing with free agents and agents around the league. Although I guess it shouldn't because players should love the fact that they bent the rules for a player, I guess. But it just feels like existential clipperdom is back. Like this is just a JV franchise, a backwater franchise, a franchise that's going to be playing with one hand tied behind its back from a front office perspective for the next,

you know, whatever amount of years, a franchise that has won, as I believe 15 winning seasons in a row. But boy, does it not feel like that, even though this is the great Halcyon era of Clippers basketball. So I get the fact that, yes, they're net, net down fewer picks than it appears. there's even a chance, as Michael McCann said on my pod, that like to Joe Smith case, maybe they get a pickback if they're contrite from here on out. That's another wild card.

We'll see if and when it's Tuesday morning. We're taping this. By the time this goes up, maybe Steve Balmer has sued the NBA, in which case, they're not being contrite. But I do feel like just the gut punch to, like, imagine being a Clippers fan right now. I just, it's your, it's just back to the same old, same old, like JV. franchise. And I mean, the thing people kind of forget a little bit, the last CBA was 28 owners against the Clippers and Warriors. That's true. And, you know, they were basically going after Ballmer and Laker with that CBA and the aprons and everything and, and trying to

rein them in that way. And part of the backstory of how we got there was, yes, they were shooting money out of a fire hose, but there was lingering resentment from 2019 and how they got Kauai in the first place, because there's always been suspicions that that was not above board. And obviously, that's how it's played out. This isn't really a question, but in my immediate reaction to the verdict, I focused on the 36-page Wachtel report, the implications for the clippers. And I, although we're talking about it now, I didn't really go. explicitly come out and talk about how much like,

this just sucks for Clippers fans who are the ultimate losers in this. Their team has been kneecapped in a whole bunch of ways. Yeah, it'll be exciting to watch Darius Garland and Wogler and Niederhauser when he comes back and there's like cap space and stuff to hope for. But, you know, Bill, it talks about this all the time. You have been, you, the franchise, the owner, have been essentially convicted in what passes is the NBA's court of law for misleading everybody. and there should, I, Bill has mentioned like they should reduce season ticket prices.

There, there should be some recompense for fans who should not have to come and pay full price to watch a kneecapped team. But I don't know that that's just just not how business works. I mean, I guess that's up to the clippers, but I don't know what else you're supposed to do for the fans other than invite them back to watch games at extremely discounted prices. I don't know what else you can do. It is true. They ultimately bear the brunt of this because now you got to swallow hard and be like, all right,

the Kauai PGR era is over. It led to the only conference finals in franchise history and an otherwise disastrous outcome across the board. And now we're left with this. Like, Darius Garland's good, but Brandon Ingram's good. Grady Dick is not that exciting. Like, what am I supposed to do? Yeah, you gave up 10 first and a two-time MVP

to make one trip to the Western Conference Finals. Which we will talk about. Follow-up question number three. And this is the point that I thought that I had not thought about that you raised in your column. I did think about what if they had won the title at any point during this stretch. Now, they did not get close. The closest they got was 2021 when they lost to the Sons in the conference finals with the

value being the sort of highlight everybody remembers from that series. But your point was like, what about the Jazz and Mavericks, the two teams that the Clippers beat in what ended up being their longest playoff front? I believe they won three playoff series in the entirety of the Paul George Kauai Litterd era. two of them were in this year. And as you pointed out, particularly for Utah, that was kind of a turning point series in the beginning of the end of the Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert pairing. Now, I will say when you look back at the first round series against the Mavericks,

that was the one where the Mavs win the first two games emphatically in L.A. Go up by like 25 at the start of game three in Dallas under a rainstorm of Luca threes. And it goes from feeling very much like, is this already? going to be the end of the Clippers? Like, are they going to blow this team up if they lose this series coming off the bubble disappointment? Very similar, by the way, to like the 2012 heat going down three, two to Boston.

Like, is this already over if they lose this series? And then Kauai rescues them game six of, I've lost my, there it is. Game six, 45 points on 18 of 25, one of the best games I've ever seen anyone play facing elimination. And then game seven, kind of forgotten because they won fairly easily, 28, 10 and 9, a near triple double with four steals on 10 to 15 shooting to bail out the clippers in that series. Utah, he's out after game four.

The series is tied to two, and in classic Kauai fashion, he suffers a mysterious injury that the team sort of, you know, just like neglects to elaborate on for a long time. And they were down O2. Kauai leads them back to win games three and four, 65 combined points on 23 of 43 shooting shirt, just like classic peak Kauai. stuff and then goes out. And I, although that is the beginning of the end for the Mitchell Gobert Jazz, they do lose the next two games without Kauai Leonard playing. Terrence Mann goes bananas in game six. And then they have another year together where they suffer an even more

demoralizing loss to the Mavericks in the first round with Luca Dantritch missing part of this series. So that one feels less painful to me. But I like, I liked your idea of like, is there recompense for those teams? What did you have in mind? they don't do, you know, the NCAA, they take away wins after the fact of the NBA does really do that. You know, is there some level of cash compensation or something? You know, their playoff shares or something that, that Mavs Clippers, that was the best series of that whole playoffs. And I mean, the Mavs after that season, like Rick Carlisle left and went to Indiana. Like what changes, what changes if Dallas makes the conference finals or finals that season?

It's a really interesting kind of sliding doors moment. And, you know, I didn't mention in the story, but what about compensation or whatever for like Toronto and the Lakers were the two finalists for Kauai? And they didn't want to play Uncle Dennis's game. And so they didn't get him. Maybe they wouldn't have gotten him anyway. but maybe they would have, and their history would have been totally different. That leads to my next follow-up question. Before we get there, Kauai being injured in that Jazz series, I just, I can't say this enough.

I really like to Kauai trade for Toronto. It's going to make them a lot better. I'm super high on the Raptors going into the season. I'm not going to spoil my over-under picks. I'm doing that with Bill and House. But I really like that team. I really like how they're built. And there's that, that's all true.

And I also just don't have any faith that Kauai Leonard can play three or four playoff rounds ever again because you know what he hasn't since the bubble he hasn't appeared in a second round playoff series he hasn't finished a second round playoff series since the bubble and so yes i'm high on the raptors i don't know where you stand on the raptors but they're being painted as like oh they're they could like win the east and get to the finals i'm like i yes they could if kawai leonard does something he has not done in seven years yeah i know i'm with you i'm like smashing the over on toronto on on wins but as well as well as well you're not you're not i'm well as he played by April, they were in two very big important games against Portland that

Kauai was not able to impact at anywhere near a Kauai-ish level. And I just, I just don't think he had it in his body at that point after basically playing all year. That, what you said, I totally agree on what you said before this led to my next level question. Why did the Clippers bother to do any of this? Did they have to do any of this? Was, Was Kawhi Leonard ever signing with the Lakers? Was Kawhi Leonard ever actually going back to Toronto? Remember, he got traded to Toronto against his will. The entire year, everyone was like, well, he's going to the West Coast.

We all know he's going to the West Coast. Then the Raptors win and they fight for him and they were pissed off about how free agency transpired. But, like, was he ever going anywhere else? And once he got to the Clippers, was he ever going anywhere else again? Like, why? I have not really been convinced. Like, why did they have to do any of this?

Yeah, because he signed a short contract with the Clippers. It was two years and a player option. So he would have been a free agent again in 21, I believe, after he signed in 19. So I'm sure they felt some level of pressure from that. But I sort of agree with you, like when he's already in L.A., which is the place he wanted to be, you already got him PG, the guy he wanted to play with. How much of a flight risk was he really going to be that you had to pay him under the table on top of what you were paying him as a max contract?

I mean, it's a scenario that if you read the CBA, it's almost like they didn't even envision a scenario where somebody could be on a max deal and also getting paid under the table, because there's a lot of language in there that, oh, if the contract looks ridiculous, you know, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck like that, but the scenario they almost envisioned was like somebody getting a minimum deal and then getting a bunch of shady endorsement money on the side to be like five times as much as their contract. And this wasn't bad at all. This was a max deal that just had filler on top of it. And yeah, like, that's separate from the point you made of like my whole like, why did they bother

doing this is even separate from the point you made about like, why did they bother? Did they really have to do the Paul George trade, which cost him Shay and all the picks? Like was he where was Kauai really going to be like, no, I'm going back to Toronto. Maybe it was. I don't know. I just have never been convinced. Follow up number six or wherever we are. Why did they fight this from the beginning? Like, when did they know all of these Gillian Zucker emails and communications were out there? And these executives at other places were going to start talking to the investigators. And why did they not as soon as they knew, if they did know it any time, immediately become contrite?

And they have the easiest fall person, fall guy, fall girl in the world in Gillian Zucker, who they just could have been like, oh, I think. think you're right. This was a rogue employee. We'll take our medicine. And the medicine would have been a lower dosage than they ended up getting from the NBA. That's another question. And we'll see how they behave from here on now. But that's another question I've been thinking about. I think they were more convinced of their cover story. And obviously, they had no idea how much or it seems likely they did not know what deep shit they were in because they would have traded all their first this season. Right?

Well, I remember, I remember saying that, going along be like, okay, you want to take all our first? Fine, here, take from what's left. See what you can find, you know? And they didn't do that at all. They even did the do Zubot's deal, which brought a pick back. And so they clearly weren't aware of it. I think they were probably too believing in their little cover story about the introductions.

And then the other thing where I think their lawyers got clowned by the NBA's lawyers, is they thought they were going to have another round of this in front of a system arbitrator. And then when Kauai made his deal with the league on the side, it took the arbitrator out of play, and Adam Silver became judge and jury. Yeah, the league clearly ran an end around, around the Clippers in conjunction with the players union.

It's funny, I remember mentioning during the season, like if I have this investigation over my head, does game theory suggest that I should do what you're suggesting, like trade all the picks? We're going to have to forfeit some of them anyway. Trade them now, get players in the door, get good players in the door, or go get as many extra picks as we can in preparation for this. I'm not sure.

Like, there were all the theories that the Clippers made the Hardin deal and the Zubot's deal with an eye on the hammer coming down on them. I've never been convinced that that's 100% sure, even 50% true because I think those deals are really, are fine to very good, like on basketball merits for a team who clearly concluded this core has run its course. we're not going anywhere serious. But it is an interesting sort of like which which path do you go to. Follow up number seven, which is not so much of a question.

I think I was guilty all along in underestimating the DeAndre Jordan prior offense part of this. It's a penny pinching offense compared to what they're charged with now with Kauai. It's like a $250,000 Lexus sponsorship that they facilitated for DeAndre Jordan, who is not the status of Kauai Leonard, not coveted around the league. to the degree that Kauai was at the salary level he was with O'DJ, and I think this was 2015, was quite coveted. And the small amount, I just didn't think of, it's not that I discounted it.

I just did not think about it in connection with it at all. And the NBA clearly did. Like this being a second offense was like clearly very important to the league. Absolutely. And if you read, it was clear in the report. And then I guess I hadn't put together, these were the same people that were there in 20, also. It's not like the management turned over. So it was like, you knew. Like, we went over this.

Like, you guys knew exactly what the rule was and exactly how you violated it. So there could be no question about a misunderstanding or anything. This was clearly against everything you had been told. All right. Last thing, and it's not really a follow-up question, is I read the report again last night, because I really wanted to sort of parse the language to see, like, okay, who said what? what to the investigators, and where are they getting all this information? So I'm going to read you a couple, a few key passages that I think illuminates part of that. Passage number one, this is page 18 of the report. A former executive of one of these companies, and these companies means dactronics, Boingo, or Lockton, not aspiration. Aspiration has not come up in the report yet. A former executive

of one of those companies told investigators that the consulting agreement entered into by that executives company and the clippers was highly unusual for at least the following reasons. One, the company was not in the business of providing consulting services. Seems unusual. Seems like a right flag. Two, the services contemplated by the consulting remit were not worth the money the clippers were paying for them. And indeed, we're typically supplied by the company to clients for free.

Seems like a problem. So then we know, clue number one is an executive for one of those companies given anonymity He talked to the investigators. Okay, number two, this is the real damning one. This is Dactronics. In May 2020, the Clippers informed Dactronics that it was the team's preferred provider for this project, the scoreboard project, but that the team wanted to agree on a, quote, spendback arrangement whereby Dactronics would provide some amount of business to the

Clippers, which Daktronics told investigators is not uncommon in its industry. Ms. Zucker thereafter suggests. to a Daktronics senior executive that this spendback could be accomplished through an endorsement agreement between Dactronics and Kauai Leonard. So it's not exactly clear where they're getting that information from. Are they seeing emails from Gillian Zucker either on the receiving end by someone at Daktronics or from her own inbox or is someone for Daktronics anonymously talking to the to the investigators? That's a little bit unclear, but clearly one of those things has to be true. Okay, I'm going to continue. Later in May 2020, in a call with a

senior executive of Daktronics, so there's person number one, a senior Clippers executive, person number two, presumably not Gillian Zucker or Lawrence Frank or Steve Ballmer, since it's an unnamed person. A senior executive Daktronics and a senior Clippers executive specified the precise financial terms that the Clippers expected Dactronic to provide to Mr. Leonard in the endorsement agreement. Three million per year for two years. That appears to maybe be an anonymous Clippers executive or former executive talking to the investigators or could be the Dachronix executive. Somebody, right? Anything striking you from this that's interesting so far? Yeah, I mean, the identity of the unidentified Clippers executive, because only three Clippers

executives were punished, right? And no former executives or anything. no other names have come out. Well, that same Coppers executive is about to come up again. In February of 2021, before the end of the first year of the Dactronics Leonard Agreement, the same senior Clippers executive approached Daktronics again. This time the Clippers executive told Daktronics that because the team had decided to increase the amount it would spend on the scoreboard, Daktronics should correspondingly increase the amount it would pay to Leonard.

And Daktronics does that. again, those could be emails that they find from Dactronics people who Daktronics cooperated. They've bent over backwards to cooperate with the investigation. Boingo did not. And Lockton Insurance did not at all cooperate, which is interesting. I never even heard of Lockton Insurance. Or it could be that same senior Clippers executive talks to the investigators proactively or corroborates those emails.

But that's the sort of paper trail there. And I think I can leave it at there. I just did like this, the text message from Joe Sandberg about the, I don't want to belabor it, but the Clippers pay aspiration a shit ton of money to do sustainability stuff for the forum. And that shit ton of money happens to exactly match the money that aspiration is paying Kauai Leonard. And because the forum deal is taking too long to finalize, I went over this is last week. Joe Sandberg starts throwing bombs. And he says, do you understand how serious this is?

This is the ball game. If this isn't fixed, the Clippers-Balmers-Samburg aspiration relationship is being burned to the ground. And so is the Clippers-Kawai relationship. And I just thought of, perhaps it's because I have Mike Schurr coming on the fight after you, I just thought of one of my favorite lines ever in the office and in comedy television is when Dwight Shrewd says, then we burn Utica to the ground when Utica and Scranton are having a rivalry. So I think it's just going to be interesting to see those dots. connect as we learn more and more about who actually talked, who didn't talk, and how evasive

Gillian Zucker was. But that's where we are at the Clippers. Any parting thoughts before we talk about basketball? I think everyone was worried that Adam was going to go soft on Ballmer, and he did not. And I think there's a lot of relief throughout the league about this. Very much so. All right, let's take a quick break. And then we'll talk about some basketball players who play for basketball teams who have not been docked from multiple first. round picks. The next big coming drama in the NBA is contract extension season. There are a lot of veterans who have contracts that are extendable and various timetables

starting, you know, Steph Curry was just a couple weeks ago and on and on. There's tons of them. But also the class of 2023, the first round draft class of 20203, are now all out for extensions going into their fourth season. And boy, John Hollinger, it's kind of slim pickings. Victor Webbenyama at the top, his deal is done. Number four pick, Amen Thompson. His deal is done five years, $208 million with the Houston Rockets.

We will come back to that. The following players have borderline zero chance to definitely zero chance from the 30-person first round of 20203 at signing an extension. Jaris Walker, Taylor Hendricks, Jet Howard, Grady Dick, Jordan, Hawkins, who was traded today. Kobe Buffkin, Jalen Hood-Shafino, remember him, Cam Whitmore waived again this week, Noah Clowny, Doreek-Whitehead, Chris Murray, OMAX Prosper, Marcus Sasser, Ben Shepard, Nick Smith, Jr., Julian Strother, Kobe Brown.

Literally half the first round, at least, is either out of the league or no shot that they're signing a contract extension. And it's a really like every draft has its troughs of unproductivity. This is a pretty stark one. We're talking picks that start at eight with Jaris Walker. Let's start with Amman Thompson. Five years, $208 million. My first reaction was, that's a good deal.

I've always been high on Amman Thompson. I didn't really get the idea that last year was like a disappointing year on his growth curve, which was a popular narrative. some of it. The three-point shot didn't come around. Defense probably ticked from defensive player of the year candidate to first to second team all defense. Big deal.

He's one of the best defenders in the league. You know, it's 20 to 22 percent of the cap, which is really like shocking in terms of like how high the cap is now that a 40 plus million dollar deal is only that amount. Him and Alper and Shen Gung as like the core young guys on the team combined to only make up 40% ish of the cap for the entirety of their contracts. That's a pretty good deal. Like the jazz, on the other hand, who have Keante George, they have about 60% of their cap tied up into their two highest paid players, Lowry Markin and Jaron Jackson Jr. You toss in Jabari Smith Jr. And Tari Isson, that's about 60 to 65% of the cap in four young players. Those guys make

a lot less money. So my first reaction was, all makes sense. I'm super high on. I'm in Thompson. 18 points a game despite a complete lack of a jumper, blah, blah, blah, rebounding playmaking. my second reaction was when is the last time if ever and this is a great question for you that a kind of a defensive specialist who's not a center got paid anywhere near this amount of money and i realized calling amen thompson a defensive specialist is not fair once again he average 18 points and like five six or seven assists like whatever it was last year like he's a productive offensive player. But it's a question at least worth noodling about if your initial reaction is this is a totally fair deal for the Rockets. Like I do think offensively he's got to improve to live up to

this deal. And I was trying to think of comps. And there's not there's really like he's kind of Draymond Greenie in that he has to figure out a way to be a plus offensive player probably with the ball a little bit more in the style of Draymond Greenie. And Draymond Green is like an all-time genius passer connector. Amen Thompson is probably not going to get to that point. But they do. If the jumper never comes, he's got to unlock a little bit more offensively for this deal to pay off. Because I was trying to think like non-center defense first guys just don't get paid this amount of money.

But I still like the deal. Zach, Tony Allen never made more than the mid-level exception. Oh, there you go. You speak from experience. And it's the thing I worry about with this Amen deal a little bit is that. So his athleticism is at its peak right now and it's going to start, you know, going down. Is his skill level going to come up in order to offset that? And if not, are you paying $40 million for a guy that you have to like scheme around in the playoffs and kind of mix in?

And, you know, you might even have to take him out sometimes. Like that's the part that would worry me, you know, both him and his twin brother in Detroit. I think it's the same thing. And how high on the pay scale are you willing to go for that? I mean, I do think he would have had, like if he had gotten a restricted free agency, he would have had suitors and offer sheets, whatever, for sure. So I think, you know, Houston, right, like they didn't just hand the max out, which, I mean, we've seen teams do that, like just sort of automaxing any draft pick they hit on,

which is also the wrong move. And they showed discipline with Shangun, you know, know, last time they went, went through this, I still wondered if it was like a little, a little higher. I actually, I thought he would, because I had sort of, we were going to do this episode earlier and then all the clipper shit happened. So I had ballparked him in the high ones and not getting into the 200s. Yeah, it's, it's interesting because to be clear, like, I still like the deal for Houston. I'm a believer in I'm in Thompson. But I'm also not a believer in his jump shot. So that leaves me with the fact that, yeah, like,

You are going to have to figure out ways to make him effective offensively in the playoffs when people are not going to guard him because you also have a center whose game is mostly bound to the pain. Now if Shangoon becomes a real three point shooting threat and not a kind of token sometimes three point shooting threat, that's a game changer. But similar to Asar and Jail and Duren, who I guess will resign with the business at some point, it's just going to be, there are going to be games in the playoffs where it's kind of tough sledding. And the Draymond comparison comes up again because that's a guy who made it work in the playoffs with Andrew Bogot and Kavana Lune and like true centers, but also sometimes played center. And even when he was playing with the true center, also is playing with the two greatest shooters in the history of basketball. So it's just apples to broccoli as comparison. But I would still do the deal. Before we get to the other rookie guys, we should, we do have to mention Ben Simmons, speaking of defense first guys with shooting issues,

is back in the NBA with the Sacramento Kings on a one-year minimum deal. Do you have any – I mean, it's – it is like he was a professional fisherman for a while, so, like, it is just objectively kind of a funny thing to talk about. But it would be a nice story if Ben Simmons could get back to anything like what he used to be, which was an all-N-B-A player once in an All-Star multiple times. And, like, why not? The King's point guards are currently Darius Aikoff. Yeah.

And Darius Aikoff. So I see no harm, no foul in this for a team that's not going anywhere. The thing that I'll like never, the back issues, the health, all that stuff. I said this the last time Ben Simmons was in the league when he signed with the, when the clippers picked him up and everyone was excited. As long as he's afraid to get fouled, I just don't really care about anything else. Like in terms of like his, he won't be able to be an impact basketball player. if he plays with a fear of going to the free throw line.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there's always been the questions like just how much does he like basketball in general? You know, maybe his zero away reignited his passion. We'll see. I will say for the kid, it's easy to dunk on the Kings because they're the Kings. But they needed another person who could handle the ball. They can bring in Simmons with the second unit. Now, Monk is off the ball. Now also, if you look at their rotation, like they don't have to play Alex Caraband,

who is horrendous in Summer League. So I do think he, like, in terms of their roster, he checks some boxes that I think he wouldn't have for some other teams. So the fit is actually pretty good if he can, if he has anything in the tank. All right. Let's go back to the class of 2023. I think the most interesting guys are all the guards kind of in the middle to lower first round. There's four in particular that I want to group together. Kianti George.

Yeah. Kaysen Wallace, Anthony Black, and Brandon Pajemski. Now, I perhaps too quickly put Kiatte, George, in kind of a different bucket than the other three, which is not to say he's going to end up signing a deal that's like way richer than Kaysen Wallace's deal or whatever it ends up being the case. But 24.6 assists a game, he just reached a level of offensive productivity that these other guys haven't reached yet. And, yeah, the Jazz, again, have 60% of their cap tied up into two guys.

So if you tie up another 25% of it in Keante George, plus you have Darren Peterson, who's a pretty huge piece like chunk of salary as the number two pick. It gets tight pretty fast. You know, there were reports three, four months ago that the door was like closed on a Keonté George extension with Utah. I never believe that was the case. Doors don't close that early. I think the two sides will talk if they haven't started talking yet.

I don't know what a fair, I'd be interested in sort of what your system values Keante as. Obviously, the jazz aren't going to give on the. max otherwise the deal would be done. And so it's, it's that he's got to accept, you know, we'll see if he accepts something like is, is 30 plus a year too high for him? I think that's like probably where the jazz would maybe think about going. I,

so my system has him rated way lower than that. And I'd be a little concerned about committing to him if I were Utah, given where the rest of their payroll is and Peterson's presence. and I'm just a little concerned that he's like, how good is he really? I guess. Like, I'm still not completely sold that he's, you know, that he's a top three guy and a good team. So how far do you want to go for that? Well, and also, like, covering over all of this, I should have prefaced it with this is like,

I don't know what you hear around the league from your sources in the front office and agents and all that. there's a general like the way this restricted free agency has played out and you know cap space always looks bigger now than it ends up being once we get to the next fiscal off season because teams signed extensions and all that you know and and the apron panic that's gone around the league there's a general like could be a tough market next summer for restricted free agents or from the team perspective like we're happy to take this to restricted free agency if we don't get the kind of deal we want yeah i i i think i think you have to be from the team side. I think the whole point of committing early is to give yourself a little bit of some extra Vig for committing that early and given the player some security. And if you can't get that, you might be better off

waiting until restricted free agency, especially for when you get below kind of the all-star tier. I don't know what's going to happen here with Keante. I'm going to make predictions as we get closer to training camp, but like yes or no predictions. The next three

casein Wallace, Anthony Black, and Brandon Pajemski is a really interesting trio to me. I texted like 10 or 15 front office guys around the league. Just rank those three and give me ballpark salaries that you think would be fair for most of them. It probably won't surprise you that Casein Wallace was universally the number one rated player of these three by rival front office people. I never, I did not text anyone with these teams. I didn't want to put them in that position. And generally his like guesses. for his average annual salary or what would be fair ranged from 25 on the low end to like 33

on the high end. Anthony Black and Pajemski, it was like 6040 with black ranked ahead of Pajemski, but some people had pods ahead of black. And their fair salaries, according to this grouping of people, were well below Kaysen Wallace, somewhere between a little above the mid-level exception, like 16, 17, 18 to like 24 on the high end. Do you agree with that framing? I do agree with that framing, yes. And I think it's very interesting in all three cases

because of the team's positions with the salary cap and luxury tax, too, that there's more going on here than just the contract with this player. All right. Like, sell me, like, Kaysen, it's just so interesting because their team context are so different, particularly Kaysen Wallace and Anthony Black. I get the casein Wallace, like, his defense is much more proven and particularly on the biggest stage than Anthony Black's and Brandon Pajemskys.

I think he's regarded as a better three-point shooter than Anthony Black and has been by percentage. I think for their careers, let me see their career numbers here. Career, Casein Wallace, 37%, Anthony Black, 34%. Now, that gap actually kind of shrunk last year. Anthony Black was 33% on higher volume than Casein Wallace, actually. And Casein Wallace was 35% on lower volume than Anthony Black. Anthony Black drives more. He gets to the line a lot more.

Pull up threes. So off the dribble threes. Anthony Black 35 of 111.11. Casein Wallace only took 47 the entire year. And so there's like a dynamism to Anthony Black's game. I think that Casein Wallace hasn't quite had to show, but he hasn't had to show it. it because he plays with Jake Gilchus Alexander, a two-time MVP. So I think there's an assumption that there's more there than the 13% usage rate or whatever

and the piddling number of free throws and assists would suggest. But I do think, and his threes, I think, are a little bit more above the break than Anthony Blacks and a little less open than Anthony Blacks. Anthony Black has given threes. It is not quite the same. But I do think there's a world in which Anthony Black is being a little undervalued because he also hasn't been as available. Like he just hasn't played nearly as many games. Let me bring up the career numbers.

He has played 211 games. Case and Wallace has played 227. It hasn't it. It was worse last year. No. Yeah. And he's also started fewer games. There's a world where Anthony Black's being a little undervalued, I think.

He's only 22. If the jumper comes along, I could see. kind of an interesting player there, but the consensus is that Kaysen's defense is just so good and his shooting is just more proven than Anthony DeBlessman. So I get, but I guess you agree with that. And the Thunder are just going to, I mean, clearly he's going to start this year with Lou Dort gone

and have a lot more opportunities with Joe gone and Wiggins gone. I guess they're just going to pay him that amount of money. If you're the Thunder, given how their cap is set up, would you do, would you offer him say 25 million in a year, but it's only three years and there's a player option after year or two, so you can get out again. And the reason I'm saying that is because these next two years are the window where the thunder are going to be crazy expensive. It's why they had to get under the second apron this year. They have like a two-year run of blasting through the second apron

and shooting money out of the fire hose ahead of them, basically. And then on the tail end of that, they got to fix everything and hope some of these other draft picks hit by then, basically. So I'm wondering if you can offer something like that to Case and Wallace that says, we're going to underpay you for these next two years, but then you have your wings early and you can hit the market as a 25-year-old and get all kinds of cash at that point, whether it's from us or somebody else. And is that a deal that the Thunder would consider and just to manage these next two years where it's going to be really hard for them.

I mean, they've done shorter deals with guys who are not in the big three previously. My intel suggests that Kaysen Wallace would and should turn that down and say, if that's fine, I'll go under restricted free agency. What do you think of Anthony Black? Are the warts that that wordy that he's $10 to $12 million per year worse than Kaysen Wallace? The issue you run into here is not just how good is Anthony Black, but how good is Anthony Black on the Orlando Magic, where basically his strengths are mirrored several other places on that

team and his weakness is mirrored everywhere on that team, right? It's not just that he's a below average shooter, it's that everybody is a below average shooter, right? So he exacerbates an already existing problem. And with their money is so tied up in their top four guys that paying anyone else immediately raises problems for the magic as well. So you can say, even as a sixth man on this team, yeah, Anthony Black's probably worth 20 or 25 million or whatever.

I just don't know that Orlando can commit to that the way their payroll is set up right now or the only way they can commit to that is if they trade one of these other guys and their big four. Well, and that's the thing you mentioned 20 to 25 million and connected to the thing I said about restricted free agency being unkind to players right now is like those 20 to 25 million deals, They're just so interesting how they evolve, right? Like, A, you kind of need a deal in that range to make any kind of big trade. And like, you can't just have all max and all minimums. It's hard to make trades.

And B, when they happen, you're kind of like, oh, it makes sense. Rising young player, $20 to $25 million. And then in a blink, Christian Brown's deal is underwater. Shaden Sharpe's deal is underwater. Malik Munk's deal is underwater. Terrence Mann's deal way below this went like to like into the abyss with James Cameron's submarine vehicles. Like, they flip, they become hard to trade really, really fast.

And I don't think that will happen with Case in Wallace, but an Anthony Black deal at that level, and he's a six man, his minutes go down, he gets injured. All of a sudden, it'll look like a bad deal. To your point about the magic, like, maybe my math is wrong or my projections are not right. They just can't pay all of these guys much longer, right? Like, if they pay Anthony Black, they can't pay their starting their core four guys plus Anthony Black, plus Wendell Carter Jr. is not super cheap.

Like at some point, something is going to have to give with this roster. And maybe it starts right now with Anthony Black, maybe not getting an extension. I don't know. That to me seems like you at least are able to kick the can down the road for one more year and see what they have with the new coach. And then finally, I think they made the first hard decision when they moved on from Moes. And now if it doesn't work with these four with a different. and coach, I think they have to make harder decisions about, okay, does it really make sense

for us to pay over $40 million for Franz and Palo and Suggs and Bain? Or, and if not, which, who's the odd man out? By the way, Suggs another $20-something million deal that is underwater right now because he just doesn't play enough. And if I'm Anthony Black, that's the deal I look at and say, hey, look, this guy on your team who doesn't play as much as I do by at least a little bit makes X amount of money. I'm not taking a dime less than that, in which case, I bet there would be no deal. Pods is an interesting one to me because I think he's actually underrated. He got the curse of Joe Lacob talking too highly about him and too much about him publicly and the weight of like last young guy currently standing, at least with Moses Moody on the

injured list for a while of like the failed two timelines accidental experiment. 14 points, five boards, four assists a game, 46% shooting, 37% on threes, 53% on twos, like pretty rock solid as like a fifth to seventh guy on a good team. And yet he's kind of like a lot of the hardcore Warriors fans like, oh, pods, Joe Jacobs guy, such a disappointment. I think he's a pretty good player. But they are in an interesting situation where they're set up to have all this cap space. his cap hold is like 17 million, I think,

which is right around the mid-level exception. I could see the warriors being like, hey, we like you. We're just not going above that number or much above, too far above that number because it compromises our ability to get players X, Y, and Z, whoever might become available. And obviously the other 29 teams are looking at Denver

like Hungry Vultures, even though I believe, personally, like I'm going to take Yokic at his word until something else proves otherwise. but I think that's an it I think he's a good player I don't know what is your system your board system have him at yeah so I I have him as a $25 million player so yeah totally totally agree with you and it comes down to strategy for Golden State I don't think he's quite good enough and quite um kind of sexy enough as an archetype where you're going to get into bidding wars and stuff so I I do think Golden State might be able to buy their time here and say we'll do the cap.

hold if we can't get to a deal we really like. But another interesting case, because I do think long term, like Golden State needs to hang on to them. They have like, who else do they have in their pipeline? Which is his, which is his sorts of leverage. These are represented by Bill Duffy, who's one of the great, the most powerful agents in the NBA. That'll be an interesting one.

All right. Let's go to a group of four guys I have in the Prove It camp. Balal Kulabali, the number seven pick for the Wizards, has started most of his career for the Wizards and guys who are top 10 picks on bad teams who are full-time starters and have the kind of defensive potential he has tend to walk into their crappy teams front office and be like, hey, I should get all the money, right? Like I'm kind of the guy here. But all of a sudden, Tray Young's in town, Anthony Davis is in town, AJ DeBance is in town,

Keishon George is really good and probably has supplanted you as a starter. Like Balakulibali, I don't think opens training camp as a starter next season for the Wizards. And is a career, what, 31% shooter on mostly. wide open threes with like an off the bounce attacking closeouts game that sometimes flashes and sometimes goes dormant for quite a long time because it's a hard it's hard to attack off the dribble when you catch the ball and a defender is 15 feet in front of you being like hey I'm just here waiting for you like you can shoot or drive right into me um I don't think did there any meaningful discussions have really happened I think they're going to wait till till camp but

that's a prove it one to me hard pass okay I just don't see any point in extending him right now. Yeah, unless he takes a cheap deal, right? Which, why would you do that? Like a minimum? Wow. I mean, yeah, look, he's, what is he? Twenty, twenty, twenty-one years old. He is twenty-two, barely, twenty-two and forty-four days. So, yeah, I mean, I don't disagree. Minimum, maybe I disagree, but I just, like, no need for it. Derek lively, it's been a while. And when it's been a while and there are continued questions about your lower body and your health and continued optimism among your representation that like the guy who played a critical role in your finals run is still in there and still could develop into a whale of a player on both ends of the floor. That feels like a recipe for, yeah, we'll just everyone will just buy it our time. But I that I was so excited about Derek lively before the injuries and the footstuff really, really hit him.

I think he could be a really good player. But that feels like a prove it one to me. I would, if I could, if I could get him below the mid level, I might take the plunge on that. I mean, if I, if I, there'd be, you know, you'd have the exhibit six or whatever it is where, you know, with the injury protections and whatnot. You might not, it might not be fully guaranteed. But yeah, if I could get like a, you know, a three year deal, it's that kind of money. Yeah, I'd think really hard about that. I'd be much more excited about that than it would be about doing Najee Marshall at three for 52.

Let's put it that way. I agree with you. Like if I had confidence in his health, like if I'm a Siberia and Mike Schmitz and I have all the records there and I know what I know and I'm confident in it. I think that that level of a deal is like I would do that for sure. I don't know that Rich Paul and Clutch are doing that. That said for as often as Rich Paul gets a reputation we're playing hardball and taking things to the end with his restricted free agents, he's also done some deals. Shaden Sharp comes to mind where it's like, hey man, I know you. think you're like this level of player, but this is $80 million or $90 million being thrown

at you with like no track record of real NBA production. Like you should take that. And he's done, you can chart his deals and everyone focuses on the negotiations that go really hard and really for like months and months. There are other deals like that. Speaking of Clutch, I believe they also represent Scoot Henderson, the number three pick in, in this draft. I have no idea. John, no idea. He had a very interesting year last year when he was moved into more of like a hybrid off ball player. A couple of really strong games against San Antonio in the playoffs. The jumper seems to have come along. The rim finishing and turnovers, not quite as much.

The defense, not nearly up to expectations. But there's something in there. There's something in there. And I don't know if the Blazers are going to pay right now to see what it is, but he's an interesting candidate. Would he take like third guard money? I mean, you already have Lillard and Moran. there. You already have Sharp making 21.

You already have, you have Drew Holiday making 37 next year at least. And you have Tumani camera there too, if you consider him a guard. So there's just a lot of guys there already. Maybe they're not all there as long term as scoot is, but he hasn't really shown himself to be starting level quality. So, you know, three years of mid-level. money like that i can't imagine going any higher than that if i'm if i'm portland and i just don't know if that's that's a thing that he's willing to accept right now and if i'm his agents i probably

am not taking that only because sharps already hurt moran is a lock to miss a certain amount of games dame is coming off an achilles injury drew is aging seems like a perhaps a trade candidate i don't know I don't think they want to trade him. They love Drew. Everybody loves Drew. But my point is like it feels like there are a lot of minutes there to be had for Scoot. If he, their confidence in his health. And so yeah.

By the way, Brandon Miller, the number two pick is a very interesting one. I'm saving that for a separate episode because I'm so interested in him and his place in Charlotte. But do you have any quick thought you want to get off on Brandon Miller? Yeah. He's a different case to me because big wings who can shoot and handle. There's just there's always a place for the month. the floor. So you, you, you, you don't worry as much about paying a guy like that starter money because there's no fit questions at all. Like he's going to fit. No, no matter what the other

four players are, he's, he's going to fit. Like, that's not the concern. So maybe he's not an all stars. You don't want to pay him like an all star, but there's a level in there where a contract totally makes sense. You know, we talk about these guys making 30 or whatever, or maybe even a little more than that. But like he's he's right in that window. Yeah, I did to me, extending him is a is a no brainer for Charlotte. Yeah, I mean the max for him at 25% let's pretend no escalators or anything or in it. I believe starts at like 43 a year or 44 a year or something like that. You know, Charlotte strikes me as a front office and ownership group that's not just going to hand you the max that's going to negotiate a little bit. But yeah, if he came in

somewhere near Amen Thompson or even a little bit higher, I wouldn't be surprised. And like you, like I'm a big time believer in Brandon Miller. And I keep saying this, all the love Khan got, all the love Lamello got, including for me, their surge last season coincided precisely when Brandon Miller became healthy and available for their team. Jaime Hockes Jr. just got to the Bucks, totally unclear what his role on the team is going to be. They're just a mess of players with weird overlapping skill sets.

I actually think there's even a chance they start Kala Ware and Miles. Turner together from what I've heard, which would kind of marginalize Hockes to a bench roll kind of by default. That feels like a, hey, we're just getting to know you. Let's wait and see. We're not really afraid of, you know, restricted free agent stuff really hurting us down the line. Let's wait and see.

But maybe, I don't know, a sixth man of the year candidate, whatever. Last year, he was my pick for six man in the year. I'm a fan. How does he look outside that heat, weird, no pick and roll, no La Roche system that he thrived in last year? It feels like a wait and see to me. If you're the bucks, can you give him Gary Trent money? Oh, boy.

I'm so glad you brought that up. We all kind of, that's kind of been like, you know, hey, Clippers thing just happened and blah, blah, blah. I mean, one in the world, man. I've already talked about it, but that's like the most obvious chicanery. Yeah. I don't even know if that's the right word, but like, as you know, everybody's been talking about the Gary. I first started hearing about it when I was on my way to the combine in May, like, hey, have you heard about this Gary Trent contract that's coming down the pike?

Like, it's been the, and now it's here. Three years. No, four years. Four years. 64 million. I mean, look, it's 9% of the cap, big whoop. But like, yo, I'm okay. Good luck trading that deal.

Yeah. And obviously, I mean, the inside basketball on this, for those who don't know, They signed Gary Trent to a one-year minimum, where it looked like he might be getting more than that. And then he has the, I think he was early bird now, so that they could pay him more this year. So that's where the fissiness of this whole deal comes in, in addition to it being just a horrible contract on Milwaukee's books now. Assar Thompson is the last guy that we haven't really talked about yet. And I haven't talked about him in part because I don't even think they can start with him. until they finished the jail and Duren extension,

which is still, the new contract, rather, which is still going on. You know, that's been painted as like acrimonious and nasty. And I'm sure there's been moments of like extreme frustration on both ends. It's also like, according to Tim McMahon's reporting, which is from what I've heard accurate and actually maybe even a little bit, the gap he talked about between the two sides. The gap might even be smaller than that. That just feels like, oh, okay, really?

like we're all then we're pretty close we'll get it done it also feels like to kind of deal with whatever frustration might exist now as soon as pen has put the paper and jail and durin begins depositing checks that will eventually equal like 200 million dollars into his checking account i think everyone's going to be fine and move on with life and then then assar thompson's deal comes down the pike and i expect it to kind of be like like this where the where trade jen langdon goes to assar thompson and his agents and is like Hey, you know, we're trying to build a team here. Cade makes X.

Duren makes X. Defensively, you're A plus plus plus plus. Offensively like your brother. It's just a little bit wonky at times. But we believe in your playmaking. You know, there was all this talk at the beginning of last year. We're going to give him the ball more and see what he can do. That didn't really come to fruition.

Right. That's going to be a very interesting one. I don't, what does your system say on him? Yeah. I mean, it's kind of, it's a little bit. It's a lighter case of his brother, right? So my system isn't quite as bullish on Asar. I think there's less there, as you say, as an on-ball player.

But again, elite defender, transition player. Can you pay that guy 30 a year? Absolutely. If you're paying that guy 40 a year, are you worried? Does it compromise you in other ways? Yeah, I think you start getting into that. So I think a men's deal actually sets a little bit of a high bar. for a sr and his value like when i wrote this out i was like yeah 165 for a sar

and i don't know i might be on the low end of that now i think i do that if i'm the pistons like 5 160 5150 something like 30 a year because the offensive questions are real and again durran is also just 22 years old developing offensively maybe may have turned 23 by now And so like their development will rise together. And even so I don't see either one of them becoming like a quality shooter. So you're going to the development is going to have to be how do we coexist as passers, cutters, rebounders, screeners, you know, how do we put together more tick, tack, toe kind of sequences and then kill people on the glass and kill people on defense.

That's the formula. And they'll grow together in that sense. And that 30, 35, it sounds like, depending on your perspective, from a SARC's perspective, it probably sounds below market. From a casual fan's perspective, it probably sounds like, holy shit, that amount of money

for a guy who averaged whatever points a game. I think it's fair. And again, like, it's $165 million. Like, you can, egos get involved and like, where am I on the salary hierarchy

gets involved? But it's still a crap ton of money. Yeah. And it feels like fairish to me. But again, until they get done with Duren and see what his number actually is, I don't think that they can,

even start to do this. I agree with you 100% there. You got to get during the finish line first. John Hollinger, anybody, anything we didn't cover that you were dying to talk about? Stealth, nerdy extension guy. Bryce Sensible. Yes. I've always liked Bryce. Here's the thing about I think I looked up his stats because I looked up Cody Williams stats for like the last 20 games of the season because he had like a little bump and I was like Minnesota. It's a nice flyer. I was like Bryce Sensible, I averaged 24 points a game for like a month and a month. a half. And yeah, I remember some of those games and they were, you know, pretty tanktastic. The dude will get on the court and score. Now, sometimes he's going to score in ways that are

going to drive Will Hardy to kick a hole in the scores table, like six of 50. You'll take 15 shots in five minutes. The defense and playmaking may not be where they want it to be. But there is like something there. So if would you go to him? Like, where's your like, I'd do this if I were Utah, given the rest of my cap questions. Is it 12 million? Is it below the mid-level? Is it 10 million? It's below the mid-level.

If I could do three for 30, three-for-33, something like that, that's probably where I'm happy. He's 38% career on threes. Yeah, he can shoot, man. He doesn't really pass, and he doesn't really play enough defense. But I don't see any reason why at least, like, he's not a non-pass. who doesn't see the passes. Like he'll throw some passers like, oh, yeah, he gets the basic reads he's got to make.

He just likes to shoot. Defensively, I'm not sure what's there. But I agree with you. Like, that's a good number, and I would do that. I haven't even looked up who his agent is. But that's, I'm glad you brought him up. All right, John Hollinger, the best to ever do it. What's coming up for you at the Athletic?

Last week you wrote about the Clippers. You wrote a couple of pieces. You contribute to another piece about the clippers. You're contributing across the board at the athletic. But you have your own column. What are we writing about this? week. So I am banging away in all my season previews stuff. I'm going to be writing about some offseason moves, about some teams that I think are going to go under. And then we'll get into

my, as we get closer into training camp and stuff, you know, my exact predictions for all the standing so people can laugh at them in March. I love those columns. I read the over under one religiously because I want to see, I at the same time, I'm prepping for the big over under podcast that I'm going to do with Bill and Joe House. And so I, I have. my own predictions, but I don't have the formulas behind them that you do. So when yours come out, I'm like, let's see where we jive and where we don't jive. I believe last year we were aligned on a couple of key teams, all of which went wrong. I believe we were aligned on Boston under, which was not good. We might have been aligned on Indiana under. I was I was under on Indiana,

so that worked. That worked. And I believe we were heavy on Golden State over, which all. also failed badly. But it made me feel better that someone else was seeing some of the stuff I was seeing. So it's always a great read. And don't you predict like every playoff round too? Like don't you do a bracket? Or is that something you do closer to the playoffs? No.

So I don't do that until the playoffs start. Yeah. And Hollinger and Duncan weekly podcast with the great Nate Duncan, always one of my Peloton listens. If I'm not doing my Peloton movie. Zach's Peloton movie update. The last one I did was the French connection, which I had never seen before. A plus, love

the French connection, big black hole on my list. So that's my movie update. John Hollinger, the brew crew, I'm all for it. Let's go. Let's go. This is the year, Zach. It's a great story, and they're a really fun team to watch. They're not fun to play against

from a Mets perspective, but they can be my official national league team once the playoffs start. I'll see you soon, bud. All right, thanks, Zach. All right, it's time to welcome in. A special guest, Mike Scher, you know him from the office, Parks and Recreation, the Good Place. We did a whole podcast, me, you, Jen Statsky, about the good place back in the day.

Brooklyn 9-9, one of my favorite underappreciated shows. Shout out Captain Raymond Hole, one of my favorite characters of all time. And you are the author of this book right here, co-author with the legendary Joe Posnansky, big fan, two friends, 82,000 4 to 90 miles, and the wild, wild, wonderful sports we love. You are part, Mike Shore, of Zach went on vacation and read some books month here at Zach Lowe Show, and this was one of the books. How are you doing? I'm great.

Thank you for having me. This is a absolutely delightful meditation on fandom, a subject that has been newly close to my heart as a reinvigorated, once insane, then lapsed. now kind of a different sort of insane Mets fan, along with my clinically insane daughter. It's a beautiful book in which you guys try to figure out sort of why do we all do this? What choices do we make in life? Which choices as fans are binding? Why do we love these silly things that we can't control?

Why do they continue to linger in our life when other childhood pursuits vanish away with time? And you guys went to all sorts of different sporting events. oddball events all around the world trying to talk to fans about why do you do this um you go to the world darts championship you go to a midnight baseball game in alaska so i'll start there what's what's the best single thing you went to for this book well some of it we you know really carefully planned like the midnight sun baseball game is this like semi pro baseball game they play at midnight in alaska on the summer solstice when the sun never goes down so they play a baseball game at midnight with no lights, which is really beautiful and kind of special. We had a really

kind of magical night there, just experiencing this very strange event. But some of it was unplanned. Some of it was just like, let's just go see what this thing is about. I went to see, I went to the Olympics in Paris and ended up seeing USA Serbia, which I, for my money, I don't think I'll ever see a better basketball game in my life, a more exciting basketball game, a more sort of like meaningful and moving basketball game because it's LeBron and KD and, and, you know, Booker and Embed and all these guys sort of and Steph at the end, towards the end of their careers, having this moment where they all were playing for the same thing for the first time in a meaningful way.

And whether it was one of those events where I didn't know I was about to see the greatest basketball game of all time, I went to see Wemby in his rookie year because I just had to see him play live. Those were, in a weird way, those were the more meaningful moments than the ones we planned, like the World Darts Championship or, or I, you know, I went to my first Liverpool match. I've been a Liverpool fan for 30 years. I'd never seen them play. The unexpected moments were the more, were the more meaningful ones to me, because that,

to me, is the essence of fandom. Like, one of the reasons we do this is you just never know what you're going to see when you attend an event. And I, you know, in my now, whatever, 40 plus years of fandom of a bunch of different sports, my favorite games that I've ever seen are the ones where something came out of the blue. And I just was like, oh my God, I'm so glad I was here. You know, that is the most meaningful fan experience to me. What's an example of that that isn't in the book? I mean, when I was living in Boston, or actually right after I moved to New York,

I went down to Fenway. I'm a Red Sox fan to see a Red Sox game. And before the game, there was a message on the scoreboard that said, Happy Birthday, No More Garcia, Parra. And I was like, oh, my God, it's no Mars birthday. It was in late July. And then he hit three home runs in the game. And the crowd was just, like, losing its mind.

It was like every time he came up, it was like, we're just seeing something special and interesting. You know, the one that I do write about in the book is I went to see a Red Sox Dodgers game at Dodgers Stadium with a bunch of Red Sox fans. And it was the game where Shohei Otani hit a 483-foot home run to right center. And he hit, like, when he hit the ball, We were sort of behind home played off to the first base side. And so we had a perfect view of the ball just going supersonic and entering the ionosphere. And he like the ball landed over the designed the sort of old 60s deco designed outfield. I don't even know what you call it.

It's not a stanchion. It's like the way the stadium is built. I've been to hundreds of Dodgers games. I've never seen a ball hit there in batting practice. Like to see someone do something like that in live action. in a game, even though it was the team I was not rooting for, was still like, I'm so glad I saw that. You know, I saw Freddie Freeman's Grand Slam in game one of the series against the Yankees. Yeah. And I, and I just giggled. I remember just giggling and laughing. I mean, first of all,

because the Yankees lost, always great. But also, like, I just was like, oh, this is one of those moments. This is, this will be played on highlight reels for the rest of time. And I was actually here. My son was not with me. I have an 18-year-old son. And I had not given him one of the tickets that I got to the game. I'd gone with friends instead. And he's still to this day, has never let me forget it. But it's just those moments are so magical.

And it's like sometimes when your team, you're a Mets fan, you understand this. When your team is suffering, you do ask yourself the question, why do I do this to myself? What is the point of this? Like, it makes me miserable. And the answer is those moments, those times when you just can't believe what you're looking at it just it's you know it's unbelievable i'll tell you the other one since you're an NBA guy first and foremost i was at the nuggets clippers playoff game when yokic threw the shot up at the end of regulation and gordon tipped it in with less than point one on the clock and not only we were there

we had gotten my agents tickets and we were in the front row we were on the floor and yokic took that shot probably six feet from my face like i watched that ball head toward the basket from the same exact angle than Nicole Yokic watched that shot head to the basket. Like my son has a video of it. He was taking a movie the whole time. And we watch it like once a month. We just cue that up and watch it because it was so incredible.

So those are the times when I feel like fandom is worth all of the, you know, Sturm and Drong that we associated with. I think I texted you during or after that game because I saw you on TV. And just yet another great moment in Clippers history that you have in person. They've had a lot of them.

So you have now put in two, I was going to ask you, in the book you mentioned three iconic kind of games, and I was going to ask you to rank them as spectator experiences from, from like, not best to worse, but just like if you had to pick one, what was the best to be at?

You mentioned USA Serbia. That was going to be one of them. You were at, I believe, Clipper Spurs game seven in 2015 when Chris Paul hits the buzzer shot to, win the series, basically. And at Yankee Stadium, I believe, Pedro Martinez strikes out 17 in a complete game,

one hitter. I actually, one of my very good friends was also at that game and still, like, is still talking about it. It's 1999, I think. If you had to pick one game to like relive from scratch, like you could erase it from your memory and go again, which of the games is it? It's got to be the Pedro game. I mean, that was at a time when we really felt as Red Sox fans, like,

we were never getting out of the wilderness. Like we were never going to beat this team. They were at the absolute height of their power. And they had just steamrolled us like so often. Like in the regular season in the playoffs, they beat us again in the playoffs that year. You know, they would win the series that year.

They won the series the next year. Like, but I write about this in the book. Like that game was the first time where I was like, oh, we have a guy that they're scared of now. Like that's never been the case. And just that,

feeling was so meaningful to me at that moment that like, oh, we have, we have a weapon that we can deploy against the evil empire. I will say that the Chris Paul buzzer beating layup, that was a year, if you remember the series, I believe, that was the like five four matchup. That was the first round of the playoffs, right? And those two teams were both so good that no one could believe that this was a first round matchup. This felt like a Western Conference finals potential matchup. It might even been, it might even have been three six. Like the Spurs lost the game, game 82 randomly to the Pelicans, I think, and it completely warped the seating so that these two teams who were clearly title contenders

had to play. And what I still call it the greatest first round series in the history of the NBA, there are some other candidates, but that's one of them. Yeah, that definitely one of them. And I will say that the thing that game gave me, there's a long chapter in the book where I just write about my history of NBA fandom. Because, like you said about the Mets, like I was a huge NBA fan in the 80s.

it completely disappeared from my life in the 90s. And then when I moved to LA and started going to Clippers games, not Lakers games, Clippers games, and Steph entered the league, it started to come back to me. And that game, more than any other game, I would say, like lit a fire in me for the NBA. Like I was all in on the NBA after seeing that game live.

And since then, have been an insane fan. Like I watch pretty much every regular season, Celtics game, either live or on tape delay. I watch every playoff game I can watch. I'm like all in on the NBA and it was in large part because of the experience of watching those two teams play in that game. So as a singular event, the Pedro game, pretty close to that is the is the Clippers game as the Chris Paul game. And then USA Serbia is obviously like will always be special to me, but that only happened because I watched Chris Ball hit that layup. So that would be roughly, I would say, the order of me living them over again.

All right. A lot of this book is about the nature of fandom, how we pick our teams, why we pick our teams, when in life we lose touch with teams, can we pick new teams, et cetera. One of my theses of life is you can't pick a team as an adult. It's just not possible. And really care the same way. Like I have all these dad friends who are like, I decided I was an Arsenal fan eight years ago. And now I live and die with Arsenal.

I'm like, no, you don't. I just, I just don't think that that's possible. I think you have to pick a team as a kid for some particular specific reason to you where you live, who your dad or mom is a fan of. Some, there has to be some organic connection. And then you are stuck with that team for the rest of your life. You can't switch teams. You can't pick new teams. actually go through the exercise in this book of trying to become a fan of a team as an adult

and you go very enthusiastically about it. You pick a women's college basketball team and you realize it just doesn't take. So do you think it's like is there any circumstance where it's possible to become a fan as an adult in a real non sort of put on way? Yes, qualified yes, right? Like if you have never gotten into soccer before and you watch the World Cup and you got World Cup fever and you're like, I want to follow this sport now and you poke around and you look around at the Premier League or the Bundes League or whatever. You follow a player that you loved and you adopt that team and you're already, you're predisposed to sports fandom. I think you, I'm going to give some grace to folks who come to things late in life. But I also agree with you that part of I think what sports fandom does

is it taps into something very childlike inside us, right? And it's like a feeling of helplessness. Like you love this team so much and there's nothing you can do to help them. That's why we're superstitious, I think. It's why we wear the same hat or wear the same shirt or whatever. That's like a very childlike thing. And so I think that the bonds you make to teams when you're a kid are more intense and more powerful. I would also say that I do allow for switching teams.

under certain circumstances. Joe Posnansky, who I wrote the book with, has been a Cleveland Browns fan all his life. The Cleveland Browns finally just stabbed him in the back once too many times. And he went on a quest to say, like, I need a new team. Now, what's interesting is he didn't find one. He found that even when he tried, just like us in the book, when we tried to adopt a new team, it kind of just didn't take. Like, it's too deeply ingrained in him. In the book, what happens is we decide to see if we can become fans of a sport. we get a random number generator and a list of all the colleges in the world and all the sports. And we ended up with the Idaho State women's basketball team.

And it was like, all right, here we go. Like we're going to be fans of this team. We're going to root for them. We're going to watch them play in Pocatello when they take on, you know, Missoula State or whatever. And but after like a month of like really trying, it just kind of we were like, this isn't real. We're not, it's falling flat. Like I grew up in Connecticut, Yukon basketball, men's and women's. it was the biggest thing in the world.

I'm a Yukon women's fan. I'm a Yukon men's fan. Like, I'm not going to be able to just transfer that intensity and that emotion and that level of caring to a new team. I just don't think it's quite as possible as it is when it's something you're given or inherit or are born with or regionally is given to you. So I would say I mostly agree with you,

but there are certain circumstances where I feel like people, people are allowed occasionally to choose a new team. I guess I would amend it by, because I was very like every like the diehard Knicks fans had a love hate relationship with the bandwagon. Johnny Come Lely Knicks fans in this magical first time in 53 years, Tyler Run. And I was very forgiving of the Knicks bandwagon fans, like especially the ones that lost touch with the team for 15 or 20 years and jump back in. Even the ones that just like I never liked basketball before in my life and now I love this Nick's team. Knowing it's not going to mean the same thing to them as it is to the to the diehards.

But I don't, I don't think you can switch teams. I just don't think it's possible to develop a loyalty to one team and one sport as a kid and then switch to another team and another sport. But I guess, you know, so the adopting a team, like I tried with soccer. Croatia has this guy, Gardeal. My wife is Croatian. I guess the Croatian national team, I'm a fan of, but that, it's not the same. It's like a once every four years thing. They have this guy, Gardial, who was in 2022 was like,

a young up-and-coming superstar that all the Premier League teams were like trying to get transferred to them. And I was like, you know what? Maybe it's time for me to pick a Premier League team. I'll pick whatever team he goes to. But then it was going to be Chelsea. And everyone was like, you can't beat Chelsea. Chelsea's the Yankees.

You can't be them. Then he ends up going to Man City. I'm like, what am I going to become? Like, they're the best team in the Premier League. They win every year. I'm now going to be a Man City fan. And so it just, it didn't take for me. Yeah, it's hard because you run into problems like that, right?

when I chose my Premier League team because of the 98 World Cup because Michael Owen, I was rooting for England because they have a long history of failure. And as a Red Sox fan, I identified with long histories of failure. So I became a Michael Owen fan and that led me to Liverpool. And I was just like, all right, I don't know anything about Liverpool, but I'm all in on Liverpool. Then John Henry amazingly bought Liverpool like a number of years later. And it was just this wonderful coincidence. But if I had, if he had played for Man United, I wouldn't have chosen them because Man United at the time was the Yankees. And like, Beckham played for Man United.

And when I was looking for a team, I was like, well, that guy's like great. And he's roughly my age. And he is like famous. And he's, you know, he's got this movie that about with his name and the title. Like that was an obvious choice for me. But I just couldn't do it. I was just like, I'm not rooting for the New York Yankees of the Premier League. Forget it.

So I got lucky when it came to that. And if it's a little bit like if you are in that position where you're trying to find random team, you come up, you hit these problems like the ones you just described, where you know too much about sports to be like, oh, I'll just accept whatever this is. Sometimes it just doesn't work that way. And I know a lot of people, do you know the Tom Hanks story about Aston Villa? Like, this is one of my favorite. So Tom Hanks, he writes about this in the, in the introduction of the book. Tom Hanks is doing a movie and he goes to England to do press. This is years and years and years ago. And he has jet lag and he turns on the TV and he's watching highlights of soccer,

which he knows nothing about. And he sees that one of the teams is called Aston Villa. And he's like, what a weird name for a team, Aston Villa. So he's doing the press the next day and they say, what are you going to do while you're here in London? He goes like, I don't care about any of this press. I just want to see Aston Villa play live. And it just as a joke. And all of the, you know, not knowing it was a joke, all the press is like, why Aston Villa? What's going on? He was just like, they're my favorite team, you know? So then he gets reached out to from the Aston Villa front office and says, do you want to actually see a match? Come on up. He goes to the Aston Villa Stadium, watches a game and is hooked for life. And to this day

is like the world's biggest Aston Villa supporter. He goes to games every year. They celebrate him as their like celebrity. He is to them what Spike Lee is to the Knicks. Like he's just this, he's like this avatar of their team. And so, you know, there's no one way that you inherit these things or choose these things. Sometimes it's random chance, but it, it, it, it, it, it, it, you need, something special to, some magic sauce to happen if you're an adult in order for it to really become part of your life. I just don't fundamentally believe you can care that much as you, if about, versus a team you, you're a hardliner. I love this. I love this take. Well, but I've never felt more spoken to than when you describe different journeys of fandom. And one of them is called the bell

curve where you have a peak and a decline, and you describe it like this in the book. Something you discovered, and over time your fandom grew and grew until one day it peaked and then slowly fell back to Earth. Maybe you fell in love with comic books as a kid, but then you got married and had kids of your own, and comic books took a back seat to the rest of your life. You remember those things fondly, but now your fandom lies dormant. That is exactly what happened to me with the Mets. And I wrote about this in 2015 for Grantland.

my most painful moment as a sports fan. I was like an absolutely bad shit insane Mets fan, like in college, up through like my mid-20s. I watched every game when I was home. I had the wild card standings like on my whiteboard in my college dorm room. I was refreshing Netscape windows back when that was the only way to like see pitch count updates in like Mets games in college. And then like I got a job and a wife and a kid. And then the Mets made the World Series in 2015.

I was living in Long Island City of Queens. And the whole city was on fire. And I was like, man, I don't even know like one guy plays for the team. And it was so painful. But then you describe the double peak when you get the reinvigorated peak late in your life or later in your life. And that's me now. I got back into the Mets two years ago and I got laid off from ESPN and I had nothing to do. And I made a decision like, I'm just going to go back in.

I'm back in now. I'm going to stay back in. and that's okay. And that's what may be forgiving of the bandwagon, Nixon's. But then you find this woman, Linda Holmes, who works at NPR,

who is me. She was a Phillies fan as a kid. She lapsed out of it. They won the World Series when she was nine years old. The Mets won the World Series when I was nine years old. She lapsed out of it. She tried to pick a new team, the Astros.

She found herself emotionally unable to develop another loyalty. And then she went to a Phillies game. And she was like, I'm back in now. It comes back so fast. Every part of it, the rules of the game, the style of the game, but also the sense of community. Like the first Mets game I went to when I got back into it, Edwin Diaz came in and I'm standing up.

I'm high-fiving the people behind me where I'm like making the strikeout motion. Like you're friends with these people because you write in the book about how one of the reasons we're sports fans is to find a niche community of people like us. And when I was in high school, everybody was the Yankees fan, except like four of us were Mets fans. And we would like read prospect art magazines about Paul Wilson and Jason Isringhausen. And it was like Bill Pulcifer. And Bill Pulsifer, who was my favorite of the three,

Generation K, they were called. And we, and that's that bond. And you immediately developed that bond with strangers. But I felt so seen like, I felt like a phony getting back into the Mets after being out for 15 years. but I feel the opposite now. I feel like it's an actual organic way to go through life. And Linda Holmes, I want to have her on because her experience is just like mine.

And now she's insane about the Phillies again. Completely insane. I mean, this is what you're talking about really when you talk about, like how it doesn't work the same unless it's something you had when you were a kid. Like when you're a kid and you have a fandom that's intense, even if it goes dormant, you're basically like the winter soldier, right? Like at some, at any more the Manchurian candidate.

Like someone can wake you up and reignite. that feeling and that fire. And that's what happened to me with the NBA. Like that's from this section when I'm writing about my NBA fandom. That's what happened to Linda with the Phillies. That's what happened to you with the Mets. Like that cannot happen unless it was baked into you when you were very young and you have that that sense of like a timeless connection to something. But how fun for you. Like it's, I mean, obviously the Mets are a mess and they, you know, it's not great. It's not great. But it doesn't really matter because now you're back on this journey with them. And if, they can figure it out and Steve Cohen can throw money at the right guys instead of the wrong

guys, you're going to feel what you always wanted to feel when you were a kid, which is that feeling of like, I care about this so much and they came through for me and they made me and all my friends and in my community happy. Now, here's the twist that you're going to like. My dad is from New Hampshire. He is a lifelong, diehard Red Sox fan. What happened? So when I was about six or seven years old. I was like, I love baseball. It's time for you to pick a team. And he padded me on the head like a 70s sitcom dad and was like, look, I don't think you should be a Red Sox fan. Oh, no. It's just, no, but it's just like, it's just going to mean pain for the rest of your life. Here's what I'm going to suggest. First of all, you can't pick the Yankees. They're banned. You can't

pick them. They're evil. Good for him. He's like, how about a National League team? Here are your two choices. the Mets are the local team. This is like 83 or something, 84. Or your mother is from Pittsburgh. And actually the first game I ever saw was at Three River Stadium. And it was Mets Pirates. And it was around this time. And I said,

whoever wins this game will be my team. And the Mets won the game. But the point of telling me this is, as I'm lapsing out of the Mets, I so badly want my father to see the Red Sox finally win the World Series. that in 2003, 2004, I became emotionally invested in the Red Sox during the playoffs in a way that is perverse as a diehard fan of another team. Like I cared for those brief moments, I cared too much.

I just wanted to see them win for him. Right. And I like couldn't go back right away to being a diehard Mets fan because I got, I got emotionally conflicted. And in your book, you write about. the Aaron Boone home run. Please tell for people the prank that multi-time Zach Lowe's show,

low post guest, Joe Mandy, played on you. And was it the writer's room of The Good Place? Or where was it? Yeah, I believe it was the good place. Yeah. So we, the good place, we had, we would find, you know, people come in and say, have you seen this funny thing on YouTube?

And we would watch it. And if we liked it, I would bookmark it and put it on the bookmarked bar. And then if we were, you know, banging our heads against a wall and trying to come up with ideas and we're getting nowhere, I would just like randomly play one of these videos. And it's the same videos, you know,

it's the Rodney Stanger video where there's like the news report about a missing girl. And they say, we're looking for this man, Rodney Stanger. And instead it's a what comes up on the screen is a picture of like a hamster holding a sign. And it's like, that's not Rodney Stanger, you know.

And just these little bits of like internet detritus that, that, you know, everybody passes around. So I would click on them a lot and we would just watch them and enjoy them. So one day I had to leave the room for some reason, Joe Mandy, Minnesota Timberwolves fan legend, Joe Mandy, went to the computer and changed the URLs that were linked to all of those, you know, bookmarks on the bookmarks bar. So that every single one of them linked to a video of Aaron Boone hitting the home run against the Red Sox in the 11th ending of the seventh game of the game of the ALCS in 2003, the worst moment of my life.

Like, and I understand that that means I've had a very good life, but that really was the lowest moment of my life. So I get back into the room. We're talking. We're talking. We're talking after, I don't know, half an hour. I just randomly click one of the links. What comes up is the Aaron Boone home run. I immediate, like, my blood rushed to my head.

My eyes went black. My adrenaline and cortisol spiked. And I cursed at everyone in the room as they were, by the way, laughing because they thought, ha ha ha, ha, what a funny joke. I yelled at all of them and I stormed out of the room. And immediately it was like, that is not a rational response to this at all. That's the child in you though. That's what's in all of us. And by the way, since that moment, they won the World Series the next year. They won in 2007. They won in 2013. Like that wound should have completely healed. But because of how, of that, what it made me feel in that moment, seeing that image, I just had no ability to modulate my

response. And so I came back in after eight seconds and was like, really sorry. That was not appropriate. I apologize. And everyone was like, I remember the looks on their faces, which were like, oh, we thought this was going to be funny. And it was not received as such. So like, that's what this thing does to us. That's part of why Joe and I wanted to write this book is like, I mean, it was a, it was so visceral. It was so fresh in my mind, even whatever was 15 years later that I I couldn't control the way I reacted. And that is a very, like, what else in our lives is like that? It's almost nothing, I think. I, that game is one of my flashbowl memories as a sports fan, even though I am a Mets fan. I remember exactly where I was. I was at the Lions Head Tavern

on Amsterdam Avenue between, I think, one-tenth and one-11th or something like that. Yeah, I know it well. I used to live up there. And the same tavern where I once failed in an attempt to hit it on Julius Stiles, but that's a different story for a different day. It didn't go great for me. Shockingly, you might have a lot. might be shocked to find out. It didn't go well. But I was obviously cheering for the Red Sox. I had talked to my dad like before the game where he was, where he was going to watch it. How was he feeling about the game? I was there with like six friends. And it was the maybe the most electric non-stadium atmosphere for any any game I've ever watched. It was like 50-50 Yankees

fans, Red Sox fans in this bar out of control. And then, you know, Boone hits the home run off Tim Wakefield. Of all people, why did it have to be Tim Wakefield? Just like an unbelievably lovable guy. And all the Yankees fans started chanting in unison, 19, 18. Yeah. And in that moment, I'm not even a Red Sox fan, but I will say one thing I never did was I never wore Red Sox merchandise. I never let myself do go that far because I'm a Mets fan. I get that. But I'm so devastated for my dad. I hate the Yankees so much. These guys, these Philistines are chanting 1918 to me. And honestly, there was in my soul somewhere sprung up this impulse that of course I did not act on because I have other parts of my soul that put it, pushed it down to like pick up a

bar stool and slam somebody in the head with it. And just conjuring that image in my brain was like, I'm kind of disturbed that my even a little part of my brain can picture myself cracking over this Yankee fan, cracking them over the head with a bar stool. But that's my Aaron Boone game. Can I tell you a story that's not in the book is on 9-11, who's living in New York, obviously like the world just absolutely changes in a flash, devastating, like, terrified, exhausted, like people are coming to my, I lived on 16th Street and a bunch of people came to my apartment and we all gathered together and tried to make sense of what was obviously a senseless moment in our lives. And after like seven,

eight, nine hours of just like watching TV and trying to figure out what the world was like now. We realized none of us had eaten. So we went, there was a restaurant on my corner. We went out and we sat outside and we just ordered some food and we're just, you know, ambulances and fire trucks are rushing down 7th Avenue. And it just, it just seemed like we're just in a daze, obviously. And I'm sitting there and all of a sudden, you know, there were a bunch of people out on this patio. And all of a sudden, I hear someone go, 19, 18, and I was like, what is happening? And I realized I'm wearing a Red Sox hat,

which I almost never did in New York in the year 2001. I'm wearing a Red Sox hat, and someone is taunting me. And I look over and I see a guy like four tables away smiling at me and pointing to the hat, like where the hat would be on his head. And I looked at him like, what are you doing? And he goes, Red Sox sock. And I swear to God, I know this is crazy. I for the first time all day I felt better I felt better about the what was happening

because it was like the life goes on the planet is going to continue to spin Yankee fans will always taunt me for being a Red Sox fan the rivalry is intact like it was the first thing that day that happened that was normal and I think about that all the time about like in the in the midst of the worst disaster that any of us had ever confronted. It was like also Yankees fans hate Red Sox fans and Red Sox fans hate Yankee fans. And I think about it once a month. I think about what happened that day and think about how odd it is that that that's the thing that made me feel better about the worst tragedy that the U.S. had faced in my lifetime. That's incredible. I know you got to go. Let's let me just ask you.

It holds me for a couple other quick ones. Sure. One thing that I feel like is going to be a generational divide to some extent is fans of, we are fans of teams. I think a lot of young people are fans of players more than teams. Like I'm a LeBron fan. I follow him wherever he goes. I know Lamello Ball fans who follow him wherever he goes.

Can you relate to that at all? Is that curable? Like I do think that Knicks winning the championship cured that for like a bunch of people in the Tri-State area are now just Knicks fans. So maybe it's just winning, but I cannot relate to that. I guess Kobe is maybe like, the apex of that fandom, but he never switched teams.

So it was never tested like that. I can't relate to that at all. I don't understand it. But do you find that you hear that from like your son's friends sometimes? Yeah. I mean, I, when I was first getting into the NBA in the mid-2010s, I brought, I mentioned this in the book too. I brought my son, the first player he loved was Steph.

And I brought him to school one day and he was wearing a Steph Curry jersey. And he ran out to the playground. He was probably in second grade or something or first. grade. And he started playing, you know, playground basketball with his buddies. And they were all wearing Steph Curry jerseys. And I thought, this is L.A., man. This is like the center of the basketball universe. None of these kids care about the Lakers. Lakers weren't any good at the time. And these kids love Steph Curry. And I think that for young people, because everyone is more accessible now, they can watch highlights of every player on every team every day. I do think

there's a little more of that, that they bond with players and then follow the players and choose their teams based on the players. Now, will that continue throughout the rest of their lives? I don't know. I'm sure some of those kids became Laker fans or God forbid Clipper fans. But, you know, I, that's not something I grew up with. You chose your team based on the city you lived in or who your parents rooted for. But I do think that because players have much more individualized personalities, they have their own social media, they have their own media branding that is out there. I do think a lot of young people are just like, that's the guy I like instead of that's the team I like, which I'm with you. I don't understand it. I guess it's probably

more of a basketball thing than anything else because basketball superstars drive winning so much more than a single player and in other sports. And they move more now, right? So like you don't, they don't, you don't get a chance to settle into a team for more than three years because like, I mean, how much Kevin Durant is one of the 20 greatest basketball players of all time? How many teams is that guy played for? Like, you know, it's a lot now. And Steph will never change teams. So if those people became warrior fans by being step fans, they'll be Warriors fans for at least as long as he plays.

LeBron, I just know like a lot of LeBron fans. And I'm like, now you're a Lakers fan. And you after like living and dying with the cabs, after living and dying with the heat. And they're like, yeah, that's just how I roll.

I'm like, I just don't, I don't get that at all. Yeah. A couple of fun ones from this, from the book. You and Joe draft things often on your podcast. And in the book,

you talk about how you drafted fruit. I'm very passionate about fruit. So I made my top. five fruits. But what's your number? You have an argument in the book. I think it's grapes versus blueberries. You are team blueberry, I think, in that argument. I was, I believe I was team blueberry and Joe was team grape, but specifically red grapes, not green grapes. You have, you're correct. Blueberries are better than grapes. Do you have a number one fruit before I unveil my top five? Oh, I think it's blueberries for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think the versatility of the blueberry,

the number of different things you can use it for, unparalleled, in my opinion. Here's my top five. Readers, listeners can debate it if they want to. Number one, pineapple, controversial choice. And the only one among them that violates my rule of difficulty accessing the fruit. I was about to say. Like mangoes, get out of here with mangoes. I don't want to be like pineapple one, strawberry two.

Peach has now jumped blueberry for three. Wow. Although the ripeness can, you know, it varies. Blueberry four, pear, five. I think pear is the most underrated fruit. Okay, now when you say pear, though, are you going hard, crunchy pear or soft mushy pear? Soft, soft pair. Soft, soft pair.

Interesting. See, I only eat a pear if it cracks like an apple when you bite into it. I love them both. I love them both. But if you're asking me to pick, that's what I'm picking. I mean, that is a wild list, man. I mean, you think so? Yeah, you would have to do a lot of work to defend that list on the podcast with me and Joe, for sure.

Well, I would, I'm happy to do it. I mean, if you're impuning pineapple, I don't know what to tell you. It's delicious. I'm not imputing it. I'm saying as a number one draft choice, you're, this is like the, this is drafting Ted Ginn Jr.

in the first round. Like this is a, I thought you were going to say Anthony Bennett and I was going to be like, don't, don't do that to pineapple. Don't put that on pineapple. It's not darko, but it's also,

it's a candy. It's a, it's a reach. Like the other GMs are going to be questioning your pick. I would say for sure. That's fine. Fun thing number two. You have a great chapter in the book about finding,

I mentioned finding community with my fellow Mets fans as a kid and how affirming that is and how important it is. You have a great chapter about Steely Dan and Steely Dan fans and how you made fun of Steely Dan fans, but they find their community. I know nothing about Steely Dan. But it just you mentioned in there how you have, you love this onion headline about Steely Dan. And the onion headline is Donald Fagan defends Steely Dan to friends. And it just shows the guy where the beer like shrugging and being like what.

And Donald Fagan defends Steely Dan to Friends is such a great onion headline. Onion headlines are little bits of comedy masterpieces. Do you have a favorite onion headline that you know like off the top of your head or one that spoke to you? I mean, beautifully. The onion has done more for comedy in the last 25 years than almost any other institution. Like that book, Our Dumb Century, if you haven't read the book, Our Dumb Century, Run, Don't Walk. There's a bunch of them. I mean, they seemingly amazingly come up with new ones like every week to this day.

It's still happening. Yeah. I mean, in that book, Our Dumb Century, this is a, involve some cursing. But the headline from like July of 1969 is like, holy fucking shit, man lands on fucking moon. And it's like, it's just the whole article is written that way of just like, oh my God, look what just happened. It's hilarious. There's one of one of one, one I think about it. every sporting event I ever attend is from that same book. It's a headline from like early in the

20th century and it says like like non-melotic unsinkable tune becomes America's national anthem. It's just about how like impossible it is to sing that song and how un catchy it is. Yeah, I mean, I am an absolute onion stand. I think that there, that staff has been incredible at making jokes for so long. I'm very indebted to them as a fan of comedy. I'll give you two of my favorites. This one, I don't even know why it's funny or why I like it. The headline is just the photo is a guy with long hair in an ugly shirt holding a bong and making like a very angry point. Like he's pointing in like making like shouting it so much. And the headline is, hippie will tell you what the real crime is. I don't even know why that's funny. I just I just love that one. And then when they wrote

this article, and it's like a little paragraph article, I honestly was disturbed at how much I identified with what is supposed to be a satirical, embarrassing onion article. The headline is, and again, I identified with this as a real problem in my life. The headline is, man concerned he spread himself too thin between eating sandwich watching television. And I'm like, yeah. And he has, the man is quoted. I looked away from the screen for five seconds because some of the meat was coming out from between the bread. And I missed some stuff on the show. Like, that's literally me watching The Wire 20 years ago.

I guess I can't eat a sandwich and watch this at the same time. I just wanted to give the end, you know, a little shout out. Fantastic. Is there anything we did not cover from your, I mean, the whole book is filled with you go to a Grateful Dead show at this fear. You make Joe Posnansky play pickleball, which I absolutely love. because I have my own, I would say, negative experience with pickleball personally. And there's also beautiful, beautiful, like, old school Pazananski sports writing in there, particularly a moving part where you talk to a blind NASCAR fan and go with her to her first race

in person and the sensations of the track. She walks on the track and realize that it's banked even steeper than she thought. There's a lot of beautiful stuff in there. anything we didn't want to talk about that you want to hit? No, just that I, you know, it was a really fun way to spend two years. I mean, Joe, like you said, to me is the best sports writer out there. And when I had the idea for the book, the idea and the idea of doing it with Joe were simultaneous. Like I was like, if Joe doesn't do this with me, I'm not doing it because I just wanted his perspective on this stuff. His perspective on sports and my perspective

about sports are very different. Like he's been immersed in it professionally his whole life. I've just been a fan and I really thought that the book would benefit from having two different angles on this. And it was a real joy to like take this thing that I've cared about so deeply my entire life and do what amounted to like a, like a journalistic investigation of it. Like that's really how we approached it was like there's this is a question here and we are going to investigate the question, which is why do we love this? Why does this mean so much? Why do we love it so much? Why is it such a crucial part of it? so many lives. We talked to an actual academic who has studied this his whole life. And he said

something that's really sort of stuck with me, which is like, if sports were just like fun and diverting, that would be fine, but it wouldn't explain why this means so much to so many people. You're talking about a billion people, more or less, across the world who are driven to seek this thing out and care about it. And if that's true, then that must mean that it's meeting some kind of basic psychological and emotional need that we have. Like its needs are being met by sports. And to really dive into that aspect of it and really investigate that, it ended up being a very meaningful experience for me.

I lied. I have one other question. Hit me. Because we have to, we're a basketball podcast. We have to talk about an important basketball moment in American history, which is the pickup game on the office. The image of Stanley dribbling,

with his hand, flail pointing out behind his back and dribbling with his other, the dribbling hand is just flat and he's just bouncing the ball off the floor and he's crouched over. He's an iconic, goofy, instantaneously hilarious image. Yeah.

How did that is, did he just, did he just do that unprompted? Was he instructed, like, dribble in a goofy way? Because that, the rest of the scene is very funny. Michael Scott's very funny in the scene, obviously, like shooting airballs being mad and not really knowing how to play, but pretending that he does. But that image, that's the scene.

Like 50 years from now, that's the image people remember. How does one land upon that? I don't 100% remember, but I'll tell you what I think is the case, which is just, you know, that it's part of Michael Scott's kind of low-level basic, like racism that he suffered from, which was that he drafted Stanley, the only black member of the office. And is aghast that how bad he is. Exactly. Yeah. And so that was the story point. And I think probably what it said is simply, you know, he passes the ball to Stanley and Stanley starts to dribble and is terrible at dribbling. And then Leslie David Baker did something funny. And that would be my guess. I mean, sometimes, you know, as you well know, I played Mo's on the office. And in the first episode, it's, there was a stage direction that said, you know, Moes runs out of the room. And I don't know why I ran the way.

I ran, which was really weird and my hands are sort of like straight out. My palms are straight out. And I stiff. And I was just like, all right, I'm playing a weird guy. I'm going to run weird. And from since that happened, people have come up to me, go like, how did you choose to run that way? And I'm like, I didn't.

I didn't know what I was doing. I'm not an actor. I just kind of like did something that I thought in the moment was maybe weird and funny. And I would guess that that's what Leslie did in that moment. I don't think it described in the stage directions how he should dribble badly. I think it just said he dribbles badly. And then that was an actor making a funny choice. By the way, did they really drive a car into a lake, Michael Scott and Steve Crick? That was my episode. Yeah, yeah. I was there. It was wild. Now I'm just being a jerk and

making you stay longer. But like, I rewatched the scene today because I was reading like just refresh my memory on iconic office scenes and episodes. And I'm like, it pretty much looks like this really happened. And then you have to get it in one take. Right. So, Like, can you take us behind that process a little bit, especially since it's your episode? Yeah, that was a story that Jen Salada, who was a writer on the show, had found this story about how multiple people at the time when GPS was new had trusted the GPS over their own eyes and had just, they had seen that there was a lake in front of them or a river or something, but the GPS was telling them go this way.

And they were just like, okay, I guess the computer knows what it's talking about and had driven their cars into water. And so the story that we were telling was about Michael losing his confidence as a salesman, losing his instinct, and then just trusting the GPS. And so that's what happened. So what you do in that situation is we found this kind of ramp that led down to like what was, I think, a little mini reservoir or something. And so you do the scene, you do the dialogue with Michael and Dwight a bunch of times and they accelerate and then he just stops the car.

And the accelerating stops the car. So you get the scene. and then you put stunt drivers in there. And there's divers who were literally with scuba gear in the water at the time in case anything goes wrong. You put stunt drivers in and they is like, all right, let's make sure we get this because we only can do this one time.

And you get four cameras or something on four different angles. And then the stunt drivers just drive the car right into the lake. You get an old crummy car because you're going to ruin it for the most part. And they just drove it right in. I think we may have done it twice. I think we maybe did it twice because they didn't go so far in the, the water filled the car. They like they,

we got it in far enough so that it was like clear that that's what had happened. And I think we maybe pulled it out and did it one more time. But then they're climbing out of the car in the water. So do they go back in? Then you leave the car in the water. You put them in it and then they climb out. So the actual stunt of driving in is stunt drivers. And then after that you get in that that's why you have divers in the in the

underwater. So in case anything happens to the actual, the stunt performers know what they're doing. but the actors are at a little more at risk. So you make sure that they're safe, you know. The magic of Hollywood. All right. Well, I can talk to you for a million years about your shows,

but you have to go make another show. Mike Sher, the book is with Joe Pazanowski, big fan. It's right here. It is awesome. It's a breezy read, but it's super fun, super moving at times. It made me think about why do we still love these things,

but not like G.I. Joe or something from where we were kids. It's a great read. Thanks for your time, bud. Thank you, buddy. This is really fun. All right, that's it for today on the Zach Lowe show. Thank you to John Hollinger. Thank you to Mike, sure. Thanks, as always to Mike, Billy, and Jonathan on production.

And thanks to you all for listening to and or watching. The Zach Lowe Show will be back on Thursday with another episode as the NBA season gets closer and closer. And news on contracts and other things begins to trickle in. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you soon. 21 are over and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and over in president in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming, gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or 1-800-800-9-7-7-77, or visit ccpgagging.org and

Maryland. Hope is here. Visit Gamblinghelpline, MA.org, or call 800-327-50-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 1-8-Hop-N-Y or text Hope N.Y in New York for Louisiana. Call 1-877-7-770-7867.