The Zach Lowe Show - Media Day Headlines, X Factor Players, All-Stars, and More!

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

Zach is joined by Mo Dakhil to cover the latest from NBA media day. Then, they reveal their under-the-radar X factors, share who could be a first-time All-Star, and review Jalen Brunson’s 'SNL' performance. Then, Keith O’Brien comes on to share stories about Larry Bird from his book ‘Heartland.’ (0:00) Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show! (1:30) Mo Dakhil joins the show! (2:05) Media day news (30:32) Under-the-radar X factors for this season (53:35) Who can be a first-time All-Star? (1:04:11) Jalen Brunson 'SNL' review (1:10:44) Keith O’Brien joins the show! (1:21:00) On Bird almost quitting basketball (1:29:26) Larry Bird got into some fights Host: Zach Lowe Guests: Mo Dakhil and Keith O’Brien Producers: Jonathan Frias, Billy Gil, and Mike Wargon Social: Keith Fujimoto and Michael Szokoli Learn More at Lincoln.com 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

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anything 30, 30. Get almost, almost anything with Uber Eats. Order now. Order a minimum of $30 required, valid on grocery, convenience, retail, specialty foods, or flower delivery orders only, Terms and conditions apply. On the Zach Lowe show, it's Media Day across the NBA, which is generally not that interesting to me.

But Mo De Kiel and I found some fun tidbits to talk about from Kauai being back in Toronto and kind of just yada yadaing a whole damn thing in Los Angeles. From the Knicks Media Day as defending champions, Nicola Yokic committing to Denver, really kind of blah media day in Golden State with some bad news about Christop's Porzingis, after the good news of the Steph Curry extension, Janus versus iguanas, much more. And then the real meat of the podcast,

Mo and I pick, each pick three under the radar X factors for the season. They were supposed to be players. Mo cheated and picked a coach. Fine, I respect cheating. I picked a duo is one of my three players. So that is in the can. And then we also pick our, we go through the landscape for who's going to make their first all-star team,

if anyone could be no one, but we both make picks for that. And then Keith O'Brien is here. He's the author of a book called Heartland about Larry Bird and the Indiana State Sycamores. It's awesome. I loved it. I enjoyed it so much more than I even thought it would than I thought I would. And he's here to talk about that book and his process and Larry Bird and all that. It's a fun show.

That's all coming up on the Zach Lowe show. No, the Zach Lowe show. It's Mo DeKeele. And we may not see you for a little while, Mo, because you've got some exciting news that can happen at any minute. If this podcast ends abruptly, it's because Mo had to flee for the best possible. reason? What is the reason, Mo? Expecting my first child. My wife is pregnant, and we are literally up on the day. Very pregnant. Very pregnant. And it's going to happen sometime soon in the very

foreseeable future. Well, hopefully we're not at during this podcast, so let's get going. We're going to discuss a lot of things today. Let's do a media day roundup. Media Day weekend news roundup. Are you ready, Mo? Let's go. Item number one, Stefan Curry signed a two-year $116 million extension over the weekend with the Golden State Warriors, $20 million south of what he could have gotten total, so about $10 million per year, could be very important in the Warriors potentially, potentially opening up max cap space, depending on a whole bunch of things like does Jimmy Butler want to be on the team a year from now? Do they want him? Is Draymond Green going to be on the Warriors? Would he take the room exception so that they

can really maximize the room? Is Brandon Pajemski coming back? I would bet on him coming back on an extension? We'll see. What about Christos Porzingis with a $20 million player option next season that is sneakily only $3 million guaranteed? The Warriors could have max cap room. They could have not much cap room at all. They could use their cap flexibility to make a lopsided trade where they take in more salary and use the picks they have. I frankly think that seems to be the more likely outcome, particularly considering Nicole Yolkich's comments today, which we will get to. But the Steph extension plus the Porzingis news today, which is that Christop's Porzengis will miss an indefinite period of time with the health issue. And that's all we really know right now.

It's an interesting sort of double piece of news for the Warriors. Look, the Porzingis thing, we don't know, right? We're recorded this. All we know is it's a health issue. They're not saying anything more. Obviously, we hope it's nothing serious. As a basketball issue, Mo, it is just the latest blow to the Warriors team that I was already low on to the point that when I did one big question for every Western Conference team with Rob Mahoney last week, my question was, is there a magical 60 game Porzinga season left in his career? And if so, is it this one? Because that's the only way I could see the Warriors with Butler out for a while, aging roster. It's Moses Moody out, et cetera, et cetera. That's the only way I could see them really treading water in a serious way.

and now that may be off the table. I mean, this is a, the idea of the spacing five, unlocking everything. Yeah, they still have Horford. Horford's 40 years old. Obviously, reaction number one is knock on wood, Porzengis is okay. Reaction number two is, man, I was already low on the Warriors, Mo. I think there's a clear top six in the West, you know, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Minnesota, Lakers, rockets, nuggets, depending on whatever order.

I think after that I definitely would put Portland, Phoenix, and Utah above the Warriors. That's nine teams already. So I guess I'm looking at this. I'm like, I think there's a world where they just missed the play in completely and our 11th are worse than the West. Yeah. I mean, I think you just look at how good the West is underneath them and these other teams that are going to start kind of climbing up. You know, we, listen, Memphis is going to be better. I don't know if they're going to be playing better, but they're going to be better.

Dallas is going to be better. Like all of these teams that are behind them where I think there's a legitimate chance. And if Curry misses like any extended period of time and knock on wood, we don't want that. But if that's the kind of thing that happens, I mean, they're toast. You know, if he misses a stretch of 15 games,

like I don't know what they look like. I don't know what they, I don't know if they're watchable at that point. You know, and I know we're excited with, you know, the rookie and everybody that's coming in. and you're having everything, you know, it's all Steph. It's all revolved around stuff at this point.

And we never got to see the five out dream really with for Zingis, you know, because like you said, they have Horford, but even he's playing limited number of games, limited numbers of minutes. It's not something that we've sort of got to see and explore. I don't know there's a way you could feel comfortable or confident in this Warriors team going into this season and think, I mean, at best they're playing team. me. Well, there's no, I mean, there's no question about that. I mean, I think I said this last week with Mahoney. I'm, I'm higher on Memphis than, than consensus. It's hard to really

believe in the Pelicans, but I think like so, so right now, this is as of this morning, so maybe it went down. Warriors over under was 38 and a half on Fandul. I was actually ahead of Utah's at 37 and a half. I would have taken Utah over Golden State before, before this, before this Porzingis thing. Phoenix 39 and a half, Portland 41 and a half. Portland's got, It's a little bullish on Portland to me with all the questions they have in the Morant fit, but whatever. Then it goes all the way down to Dallas 33 and a half, Memphis 29 and a half clippers clipping around at 29 and a half. And I just, in New Orleans at 28 and a half, I think one of New Orleans in Memphis is going to exceed that win total and maybe by a decent margin. And that's the team that to me, if I'm the Warriors, I'm looking down at and being like, oh, uh-oh.

And also or or do you go the other way and be like, yeah, you know what? If we if we have to pick in the lottery in the new randomized lottery and we have it, we're a three ball team, you know, that's that's not bad for us either. Yeah. I mean, it's going to get interesting. It's going to get really fascinating for them in terms of how they handle the season. But like this is a problem. And we've kind of seen this coming, right?

Like this has sort of been the slow crawl that's been, you know, coming to an end. It's great that stuff took less money on the extension. We'll see what Draymond does. As you said, we know Porzingis's deal is only 3 million guaranteed for next season with the player on the player option. You know, there's opportunities there for them to build. But none of that will help really that much this season. And you can talk. Yeah, you can talk me until like, oh, De Anthony Melon's back.

Great. Pajemski is a good player. I like Landeberg. They have Guy Santos showed real flashes last year. George Nyang is here. You know, can they cobbled together some backup five out of those kinds of guys and play super small? Charles, bat, whatever. Like, it's just talent-wise, it's just not there with the rest of the West. His greatest stuff is. He missed a bunch of games last year with runners knee. He's 30, what,

36, 37 years old, whatever he is. Like, you can't count on him to be healthy for 80 games, 75 games. And the games he and Butler are both out are going to be extremely difficult for Golden State to manufacture enough points to win. I just, the Porzingis thing is such a bummer. It's been a bummer for a long time now. It's the story of his career. The guy is, a Hall of Fame talent who is just not his body in myriad different ways has not held up. And so there we are. I mentioned Yokic, media day headline number two, is Yokic saying flat out, let me bring up Adam Morris's Twitter, or I had it up and now it's gone, basically saying I'm not

leaving the nuggets. I'm going to resign if they will have me back next year. So, I mean, look, I've been saying all along, and I've been saying this to people in the league, keep asking me. about Yokic and whether he's going to leave. He's a guy that I take him at his word. If he says that, I believe that he means it. And he says, this is the tweet.

Yokic said very definitively, I'm going to sign next year if they want me. Okay. Then he's a nugget and we can put this all to bed. Yeah, we don't need to do a whole season of, oh, you know, every city he goes to, what do you think of us? And we're, you know, we don't need that. It's over and done with. I think it was, I was kind of with you in the beginning of the summer when he said, like,

no, I'm going to resign. I'm coming back and all that. And nothing about Yokic makes me feel like he's flighty in any way. So I, can we preemptively just not do the thing where in two years there's a segment of the media that's like, this guy's content with losing. Why doesn't he ask out and go to this other place and just be like, he's fine. He won a championship. He likes Denver.

It's cool that he's going to be in Denver. Just they need something to do in August sometimes. We do. As for the Nuggets this season, we'll see. I'm not, I'm optimistic about them winning a lot of games as long as Nicola Yoakitch is healthy, because that's just what they do. I am not optimistic about them competing for three rounds in the Western Conference playoffs, given that Aaron Gordon seemingly cannot last one round in the playoffs, despite

trying his damnedest and being as tough as they come. Remember that game seven in Oklahoma City played on one leg and played pretty well? But, you know, you can't ever totally slam the door on them as long as Yokach is there. But I don't know where you will are in the Nuggets. I think they're like really solidly in the three to six range, probably on the high end for me. But the idea that they could win three playoff series as presently constructed. And maybe they are, they got this pick from the calves in the Payton Watson trade. But I don't, I don't see.

They will not be my pick to make the finals. Let's put it that way. Losing Peyton Watson was a big blow for me in my book in where I stood with them as actual contenders. I think, yes, they're going to win a lot of regular season games, assuming good health. And as you said, currently constructed and they don't make a major trade. I think we're going to have a better Cam Johnson year. They really need Christian Brown to kind of have a massive bounce back and find his shot again and be able to kind of get going. But I just worry so much about this team defensively. And yeah, at the end of the day,

how much can you really depend on Aaron Gordon's hamstrings at this point really lasting long stretches. It's brutal and that really kills them defensively even more. So I'll be curious to see how it plays out. You've been on top of this where you've been talking about with I like the De Rosen signing so that that's less Murray and Yokich being split up and DeRosen kind of coming in and may I mean, it's a great concept in that way of let him man the second unit so Murray can get more rest with Yokuch and you can maximize their minutes together. That's going to be important. But at the end of the day, I just, their defense is something I'm really going to be keeping an eye on. I mean, again, conceptually, that's interesting.

That's why I keep bringing it up. I also think that's a regular, like, that can't work in the playoffs. The back of the opposing lineups in the playoffs when the rotations are going to be sure are too good for that. But maybe in the regular season, they sort of get through the season. Media Day item number three, Kawhi Leonard was reintroduced in Toronto. And boy, did he look chipper, Mo? And the very first thing he did was say, I know you guys want to ask me about

the clippers and aspiration and all the extra money I appear to have pocketed in. I've been advised by the league and the players association that we should just move forward, talk about the Raptors, how excited I am to be at the Raptors, and, you know, that's it. So let's talk about basketball. And there were basically, I'm not sure if there are any follow-up questions about it. I certainly didn't watch the whole media availability. I haven't seen any quotes other than that. And that is a tough environment to press somebody on something like that.

But that better not be the last time the Toronto media asked him about it. and hell, I'll do it when I go to Toronto for the holidays if nobody's done it by then. It was, it's so chicken shit of him to preemptibly be like, I'm not answering questions about the other thing where the other franchise that I chose is like ruined for a long time now. I paid $700,000. That's not nothing. Like people are papering over $1,000. It's almost a million dollars.

So it's a big fine that he paid. Obviously, he allegedly pocketed a lot more than that. But this idea that just because he says so. that it's time to move on, that we shouldn't ask any follow-up questions about it. Did no one, that he should not have to have a little bit more of a, like, look at, look at people and say, I, the idea that he knew nothing and it was all the rogue uncle, like, I'm sure Dennis was doing stuff he didn't know about, but like, it's obviously nonsense. Clearly he knew something. He still won't answer for it. And I think at some point, like,

it's fair to be like, hey, how much money did you make? Why did you do this? What were you aware of? What were you not aware of? I just thought just laughing and transitioning from that to like, hey, you guys remember when I laughed? And it was really funny. Want to talk about that again? I can laugh again if you want. Let's talk about that. I know who's not laughing or the Clipper fans who had to actually, you know, have endured now this massive pain where not only does he basically kind of dime out the Clippers in this, in this investigation, and to basically, he turns on them to get a lesser penalty, but on top of that, then goes sign a $15 million contract, you know, extension on top of that.

Like, then you're kind of looking at it and then it's just go on and laughing. Like, that's just really kind of, you know, really sort of just fitting in the face of the Glipper fans that really did rock with him and support him from the moment he got here. And I think that's really something we're pretty frustrating. And I'm with you. I hope he gets, he needs to get those questions all the time. And when he comes to LA, if he does decide to. come and doesn't take that game off when he comes to play the Clippers.

Like, I hope he gets bombarded with those questions of like any remorse. Okay. So that game, I haven't looked at the schedule, see what that game is. All the jokes have already been made about video tributes and whether there should be a video tribute. Bill joked about the video tribute should just be images of Kauai and street clothes on the bench and like forestry shots and stuff like that. I mean, all joking aside, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

threshold for getting a video tribute is so low that I'll bet they will for sure have meetings about like, I don't know, like this guy we got, we like helped us made the conference finals. Like he's got some buzzer shots. It was a huge deal when he came here. Clippers, do not even think about it. No video tributes, no pomp and circumstance. The PA announcer just introduces him like any other player at small forward number two, Kaua Linder, and move on, nothing.

The more interesting thing, by the way, because it was Toronto, they asked him today about his decision to leave in 2019 and free agency. And if he ever looks back on that, now I'm quoting Michael Grange, quotes Kauai saying Michael Grange of the legend in Toronto media. I don't go back and think about it much. I made the decision to go back to L.A. based on family. I had older people I was able to see who have passed, have seen babies being born, all those times I cherish. And he went on to talk about how family was the reason he went. And that's it. This to me goes back to the question that no one has really given me an answer for. It's like, where else was he signing? Because I don't think he wanted to go to the Lakers with LeBron. He's indicating that he was going to L.A. come hell or high water. Why did the Clippers, like, continually go out of their way to do all this stuff that they're getting docked draft picks for now? Like, what was the threat of him not going there or leaving to go elsewhere? I haven't found a credible one yet.

Obviously, he could go wherever he wants. he's a max player, he's a superstar. If the minute he decides he wants to leave, teams would be after him. And obviously he's been traded now. But I just thought that was interesting. Yeah, it just never felt like, even I remember in 2019, it just never felt like he was going to sign with the Lakers. And it never felt like he wanted to actually be in Toronto, even this during the season

when he won the championship. It never felt like he wanted to be part of that organization long term. It was always felt like he was. coming. Even when the trip, before he got traded to Toronto, he wanted to come back to the West Coast. He wanted to be on the West Coast that whole time. So it just felt like it was kind of assonine for the Clippers to have sort of just not

called his bluff. But I also think that just showed you how desperate the organization was at the time to make a splash and we're so afraid of the Lakers signing him. That's all it. It's fear and desperation. It's the idea that if he doesn't come here after. we've been tracking him around like a jilted girlfriend stalking somebody or a jilted boyfriend stalking somebody, Lawrence Frank, just appearing out of nowhere at every Raptor's game.

And if he leaves after he comes here, it's too embarrassing for us as an already embarrassing franchise to take. And I just have never been given a credible, you know, alternative. Media Day item number four. LeBron James is a Philadelphia 76er wearing the jersey speaking at Media Day and said an instantly iconic quote. I didn't leave my family to lose in the second round, which just feels like he's very knowledgeable about how far Joel Embed and the Sixers have gotten in the playoffs during the entire Jewel

Embed era. I just thought it was a cool quote. I have no notes on that. And he did confirm through Dave McMedman's exclusive reporting at ESPN, what Rich Paul had said on the game over podcast, hashtag Spotify Ringer, that had the Knicks not won the championship, he likely would be a New York Knick. but he decided that would not be a great look. And also, like, why rock the boat?

I don't know. Cool alternative reality that Jalen Brunson, S&L star, has driven into the ground. Yeah, and I think that's just a fun sort of little, like caveat of, you know, it'll be a fun what if. If the Knicks didn't win the championship, what would have it looked like with LeBron going there? It'll be fun to kind of have that.

He's going to be living in, you know, New York part time during this. I was in the story from Dave McMendon. you know, as well as having a place in Philly. So he's going to split his time there. Let's see how that kind of works out. I'm excited about the Sixers teams just because there's so many different teams within one. I'm so curious about this squad. How could you not be?

And it also recalls the sliding doors moment of game seven Oklahoma City Golden State, 2016, game seven Cleveland Golden State, 2016, and the Durant like decision to go to the Warriors who had lost the finals. And I don't think he ever would go there had they won the finals. But be that as it may. Media Day item number, whatever, you pointed this out to me. Janus has a rivalry with iguanas in Miami and has come out with a very hot take that iguanas are not cute. They're scary. I guess iguanas are appearing at his apartment. You sent me a video of an iguana. I don't know if that specific iguana has approached Janus's apartment. I'll say this, and you know what?

The iguana defense fund can come at me. Come at me. Janus is right. Iguanas are not cute. They are scary. And I would like them to get the hell away from me. I don't want an iguana approaching me. They're not cute.

Does anyone think they're cute? The people of, what's that show that Seth Rogen is in? There's like a pet giant lizard involved. Those things are scary. And they might eat me. I don't know what they do. I don't want them around.

No, I'm not saying he should commit violence against any intruding iguana. I'm just, saying he's right. They're not cute. The only thing I really know about iguanas is that in the wintertime in Miami, they freeze and just like sort of fall like off trees and stuff like that. And everybody assumes they're dead. But then once they thaw, they continue on running around. What? There's zombie iguanas? They're like white walker iguanas? That's a real thing? From my understanding, I could be totally wrong. I'm not fact checking that. That's too good to be

fact-checked. Item number six, GQ, because when an athlete wants to talk honestly about basketball, why not go to GQ has a story about Steph Castle and Dylan Harper is the back court of the present and future in San Antonio. And in it, Mo DeKeele, is an interesting little exchange where Dylan Harper says, I'm going to win six man of the year. You're not going to be six man, Castle said. Who are you going to be six man for?

I don't fucking know. God. Harper answers? Don't really get that. Does God need a sixth man? Are there five gods? I don't understand. And then Castle says, you don't actually think you're coming off the bench, right? What's the political answer here, Harper says, looking down at my recorder again, according to the reporter, Cam Wolf, he calibrates his voice into its cheerious pitch. I'm going to do whatever the team needs me to do, man. If that's come off the bench, he stops. Harper stops. That's crazy. Fuck no. I ain't coming off no bench. Oh, all right? Okay. And then Mitch Johnson, is then asked about this, the head coach of the Spurs said, I don't envision anybody being in the starting lineup before adding Dylan and Steffle have very big roles. That is, the door is officially open to Deeran Fox coming off the bench at some point. I've been assuming all along that he will continue to start.

He is a low turnover, sort of low risk bellwether for the Spurs' offense, a stabilizer. But Mitch Johnson had the opportunity to definitively say that. Maybe he'll say that Media Day today while we're recording this. He did not choose to say it there. There's the idea that perhaps the three guards could play together more than they did in the regular season, which was not very much. Per minute, they used that lineup a little bit more in the playoffs than in the regular season because Harper was just too good. But it was not a big part of their toolbox. And yet I think they're going to play Carter Bryant more.

They added Tobias Harris alongside Harrison Bards and Kelton Johnson. It's not that easy to just get to those three guys together for eight minutes a game. I forget what. I know, Harper, I get, like, I guess he just, I just felt like saying that. And then Mitch Johnson, given the opportunity to, like, walk it back for Dylan Harper does not do it. Look, Fox had a bad playoffs and a bad finals. He was injured. He had the all-time, like, mental block on the layup attempt against Andobie that he should not have taken in game four. We need to Andedobie's tip and all that. I said after that series, I think he needs a year to rehab his trade value. you. But I do think if the Spurs got a better than neutral offer for him right now,

they would have to at least hold a long meeting and consider it because the contract is just really prohibitive and you do risks just having it be stuck on your books. That, this stuff is like a red alarm to me. He's not like available now. I don't think they want to make them available. They want to see what this team looks like. But it's interesting, Mo. It's interesting. Well, I mean, there was like hints of this stuff during the finals, right? Like after the after they lost the championship, I think it was Julian Champany mentioning it in his press conference of them having these conversations with Harper through the course of the year. There's, it's kind of been floating around. And I think part of it is it's sort of a good problem for the Spurs in the sense of Dylan Harper was further advanced than anybody expected when he came in.

And I think that sort of caught everybody off guard. And it has put the situation where, all right, you're going to have Fox for two to three years. and then when Harper's ready, we'll hand it over to him. Well, he seems certainly ready now, especially by his performance at the final. So, you know, it's going to be really curious for how the spurs juggle their rotations and how do they figure that stuff out. And like, when we watch this stuff, like, the most important thing for me is when

Fox wasn't playing in the games, the spurs were a turnover machine. Like when he missed those games, when he was out those games with the sprained ankle, in Minnesota and Castle had 20 turnovers, I think, over two games. It's a brutal number. And it's that's, he still has value for this team. So unless they found a way to fix that, like it's going to be hard for the Spurs and just be like, you know, we're not going to play Fox big minutes and we're going to give most of his minutes starve or it's going to be hard if it's still a problem of like,

we can't keep the ball in our hands. Well, and then another guard has to step up and maybe play more minutes and who is that guard that has a handle on their team, you know, Jordan, Glockland is going to play more? Okay, it's fine. That's the dilemma, right? Like, the Spurs very clearly can win the championship right now, as is, with the Aaron Foxx as their starting point card. I might actually pick them to win the championship. I haven't decided yet. Imagine that they decide, let's just get off the Aaron Fox, Dylan Harper's ready. We'll trade him for two expiring contracts attached to players that, like,

don't really help us now in a couple of draft assets just to have. Well, then you've downgraded your championship hopes for this season and probably upgraded your championship hopes for the next four seasons. Is that worth it? How close do you think you are right now? It's a very tough dilemma. And of course, they could find a different kind of trade where they get a helpful player who replicates some of what Deer and Fox does. But you mentioned the turnovers. I think you'll have a better jump shooting season this year than he had last year. But we shall see. Okay, last media day item, Jalen Duren, as expected, did not show up at Pistons Media Day. Mark Stein reported he's actually not allowed to as long as he's not signed a deal.

Coming across the proverbial wire just five minutes ago, Trajan Langdon made a statement where he said, basically, I expect Jill and Dern to be on the team where I'm going to be thrilled with his contributions. He has until Thursday, Mo, to decide whether to sign his $9 million qualifying offer and become an unrestricted free agent after this coming season, which would be kind of a disaster for the Pistons, or sign something like a five-year, $200 million deal to, remain a piston or the pistons could try to open up sign and trade talks if they really believe he's going to sign the qualifying offer and execute that before that. I mentioned last

week that base year compensation rules really complicate that. I should also say there's the possibility of him holding out into camp even into the season. Tristan Thompson did this many years ago with the calves. And people have asked me, well, what if he sits out the whole year? It sits out the whole year he's a restricted free agent again. So like that doesn't really help you. I don't know, man. tick, tick, I've been assuming all along. Cooler heads prevail. $200 million is a lot of money. I think you should take it. If I were advising him, I'd advise him to take it. I think it's a fair offer. If I'm Detroit, do I up it like a million

more a year if it gets it done? Probably at this point I would just to do it. But we shall see every day that ticks away the potential for something crazier happens. Yeah, and I think the hardest thing is like just looking at it from Durant's side as, are looking at it if I was advising Durand's camp, there are way too many stories of guys who have taken the qualifying offer and it not worked out for them afterwards. You know, that next contract wasn't as big.

You're looking at $200 million sitting on the table right now. Like that's really hard to kind of turn that down and you have to be absolutely sure that, hey, I'm getting that $200 million back in free agency next season. And that's going to be there. And, you know, if you take the qualifying offer, what's the view? How do you walk into the locker room after that?

And how does that affect the locker room chemistry? What happens if you have an average year? Not a down, you're just an average year, you know? And I think it's really going to be a situation where you have to, you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself. You're betting on yourself. We know all the cliches that come with that. But it's a huge risk in a way it works. You're betting pretty big.

Yeah. It's nine. million versus, I mean, I don't know the math off the top of my head, what, like 40 million a year? Like, that's, if you assume a max is waiting for you. And how would you know that? No, I don't know. If you assume a max is waiting for you. By the way, what if you play like, what if you, what if you suffer again from a massive slump

where you look at old and out of sorts in the playoffs? Is that max still going to be there? Okay. But if the max is there, a four year max from another team next off season. That plus the qualifying offer is equal to more or less over five years, the same amount of money that the Pistons are offering now. So there's not a big financial upside. It's just a, if their relationship is that broken, we shall see. We'll all learn in three days.

All right, let's take quick break. And then we're going to go around the league with some season preview content with the great mode to kill. This episode is brought to you by Lincoln. What if your vehicle could help give you a reset? Lincoln Rejuvenate is designed to do just that. This multi-sensory feature combines expansive visuals, digital sense, and a seat massage for the driver, and is available in the 27 Navigator SUV. Visit lincoln.com to learn more. Lincoln Rejuvenate does not operate enlisted vehicles in park when the vehicle is off or if any doors open.

Do not use the feature in a closed garage or in any other enclosed areas. See Owner's Manual for Important Operating Instructions. All right, Mo, you came up with this idea and we were batting around fun segments. Let's pick some under-the-radar X-Factor. kind of players for the season. I define under the radar as pretty damn under the radar. And I said, let's focus on the contenders so that we're talking kind of chalk guys who could really swing the championship equity picture. We each picked three. Actually, pick cheated and picked four because one of mine is like almost a tandem. I'm going to bet we didn't tell each other

who we picked. I'm going to bet we at least have one in common. Let's rapid fire go through our picks. Who is your first whatever you want to call it, X factor impact guy? Matisse Thibble. All right. We're 0 for one, but I like the pick and he was on my long list. Yeah. So do you want me to go there? Or you on my whole list? No, let's go to, let's dig into Matisse Stibel for 90 seconds.

I think it is just so important for the Lakers. Like, this was such a huge pickup for them because when you looked at their roster before they got him, who was defending on the perimeter that you felt comfortable with? Vanderbilt, like, that's okay, great, but like we know the offensive limitations with what he has. I'm kind of off the whole experiment at this point, like it was fun for a while. But getting Thibel, I think really changes the situation for the team. He played a limited number of games the past two seasons, but it's shot incredibly well. When you look at it in cleaning the glass, his numbers surprisingly better in the above

the break threes and not in the corners. And I think those are things that for what this Laker team needs, a guy that could defender along the perimeter, and he is their best perimeter defender. smart cutter, being able to kind of do all that stuff off ball and then knock down some three balls for them. It's such a valuable position for them, such a valuable need for them that I won't be surprised if by the end of the season, he's in the starting lineup. I know there's a lot of questions of what their starting lineup's going to look like. You know, JJ said, you know, he knows three spots for sure. There's two that are wide open.

I think there's going to be a lot of juggling through the year. I think he's going to cement himself as that just because they need his defense along the perimeter. It ain't going to be Austin Reeves. It ain't going to be Luca defensively. Who's going to chase down the guys like Shea and so on? To me, this signing went under the radar. It was a late signing in the off season. And I think it's so huge.

And just the pure fact that if he can continue to shoot and the shot is actually real, this is going to be a huge pickup for the Lakers. And he's a great case study in how long does he have to make open shots before he's guarded like a guy who can make open shots because he's not going to be guarded. People are not going to care about this percentage. And they're not going to care that the volume has been actually pretty okay, particularly last year in Portland when he came back at the end of the season.

They're not going to guard him. They're going to clog the paint. They're going to clog the paint. They're going to clog the pick and off the playoffs and off the pass when the ball is kicked to him. But I think he's a great pick and wasn't under the radar signing. Okay, I'm going to go. My number one pick was Jalen Tyson of the Cleveland Cavaliers. I don't know.

Was he on your list? Not on my list. So I talked about Sam Merrill as my sneaky under the radar six man of the year candidate last year, last week. Jalen Tyson is neck and nick with him simply because from the playoff rotation out went Dean Wade, Max Struce, Dennis Schrooter and a little bit of Keon Ellis. And in came really just Peyton Watson unless Malik Thomas is really ready to contribute. And so that's going to be more on Merrill and it's going to be more on Tyson who has flashed

the potential to be. a three and maybe some defense, three and D guy, plus a little bit of secondary playmaking. He's been a short role guy when they have played Mobley at center and he can screen and roll with Mobley space on the floor. He's been a little bit of a secondary playmaker for them, like dribble handoff, both the handoff guy

and the ball handler. It's not great, but he's got a little interesting on ball ingredient to his game. He can guard up in size pretty well. like he can jostle against bigger guys in in the post. I like the idea of Harden, Mitchell, Watson, Tyson, and one of the bigs on the floor. And most importantly, he shot 44% on threes last year. That declined to 24%, 9 of 38, I believe, in the playoffs,

where if you look at the tracking data, he was not guarded as closely as he was in the regular season teams, just ignored him in the playoffs. Not ignored him, but he missed open shots and contested shots in the playoffs. I just think he needs to have a big year. Like, there are not very many teams that are under more pressure than the Cleveland Cavaliers. I mean, they broke through to the conference finals last year. They've now doubled down. They've re-signed Mitchell for a gazillion dollars over four years on an extension.

They're going to need Joe and Tyson to be a steady, steady contributor on both ends of the floor. He's got a lot of skill. I just want to see if it translates. So that's my number one pick. Yeah, no, that's a great one, just as a sense of like, I kind of, the more I look at the Cavs, or Oscar, I kind of like the way they're getting kind of set up. They have a lot of rotational flexibility in terms of, you know, there's so many different little things that Kenny Atkinson can do, so many different lineups he's going to be able to throw out there

in combinations and how does this work. I mean, it's going to be an experiment early on, try to figure out, and this is the case for pretty much most teams, figure out who works well with who and whatnot. You know, I think Peyton Watson coming in was a great pickup for them. I think he slots in immediately as the starting three, but then being able to bring Tyson on. off the bench. And, you know, the defense is not the same as Watson at that level, but it's still pretty good. I think he's actually more physical than Watson, but he's not in this, this manifests on both offense and defense. He's not like the quickest guy changing directions in small spaces. He can be a little flat footed. So I actually think that meshes with Watson who can guard the quicker

ball handlers and Tyson can guard bigger guys. Obviously on the other end of the floor, people will hide small guys, big guys, whoever on him. And he's got to punish that as a screen setter, as a playmaker. And the release on his jumper is a little slow. But who knows? By the way, we'll see about Cleveland. It's something, you know, I was super high on the Cads last year. It took the over. It was a lock for me. I don't know what their line is this year. Obviously, I think their floor is super high because the talent is just the talent. When it clicks, it really clicks. There's just something about the way they got a little boggy on offense in the playoffs, a little dribbly, didn't like Donovan Mitchell's playmaking in the playoffs last year compared

to his usual standards. Something just kind of smells just a bit funky about them. And I'm interested to see if they find the right combos to defuncify it. By the way, speaking of the Cavs, I just want to note, I am wearing my Mets hat today. We did not make the playoffs. I'm not sure you know that. the Mets had tied with the Houston Astros for the best run differential of any team that was in the American League West. So analytically, the Mets were a playoff team this year, Mo. Okay, your second pick in the impact guys draft. My second pick is I'm heading east.

I'm going with Aaron N. Smith with the Indiana Pacers. Interesting. Wasn't on my list. Had a pretty bad year. First off, everybody with the Patriots had a bad year last season. And again, it was limited games, didn't play a bunch, was hurt a lot. But it's funny when you go looking through the numbers and when he was on the floor, like his at the rim number was according to cleaning the glass in the fifth percentile.

That's not good. That's not where you want to be at all. And it's not like he's normally in, you know, the 90th or something. But he was, he's normally like at least league average. And for that to be that low. and maybe that was a product of just the way the team was set up and the scramble and the tanking and everything. He is so important in the way I think they're sort of set up is that, you know, if Halliburton's back to normal, you know, it's Halliburton, Siakum and Zoo is going to be their main core right there and getting everything going. But he's so important for them defensively.

He's so important when one of those guys goes to the bench kind of picking up the slack, making some big shots, being able to keep. everything going and in rhythm. Like, I find that when I watch him, when I watch the Pacers, I do end up finding his energy when they were going on that run really being contagious and part of what sort of set them apart from everybody else. And I think it's really important that like this is an underrated guy that may not get talked about as much. I know he had that big game against the Knicks in game one years ago. But like at this point, like we've kind of forgotten about the Pacers in general. And I think that's led to us to kind of forgotten how important Niece Smith is going to be to this squad just because he kind of ties everything together

sort of as that role player that sort of around the margins makes them so much better. Yeah. And all the focus justifiably on that Pacers run on the the pace they played with, on the egalitarian style of the offense with just so much ball movement, quick, quick, hitting passes, cutting all of that. It was a little bit lost. Like what a great shot making team. They were from all over the floor. And Nemhart and Neesmith kind of rounding out that starting five as reliable jump shooters and defenders was just like a huge part of that. It's funny. I'm pretty confident in what Aaron Neeswith is and what he isn't. Like I think this is about what he is. If I had to have picked a pacer, I probably would have picked Obie Tappen just

because I wonder he was so emblematic of the pace and the spirit that they played with and played so well for them two years ago. Might need to play a little bit more backup five this year than he did then, given their backup center situation. I like Jayhuff. Fine. He would have been my pick. All right,

I'm going to go. We're going to get to my cheat pick where I have two guys. They're not even really related. They just play on the same team and they come off the bench for the same team. I took Terrence Chanon Jr. and Johann Barron Jay as a pairing for the Minnesota Timberlowe's for obvious reasons. Like Barron Jay is now going to be thrust into a role as the, no doubt about it, back up five to Rudy Gobert after playing limited minutes and showing a lot of

encouraging things and showing a lot of youth in limited minutes. And Terrence Shannon, Jr., for better or worse, sometimes better, sometimes worse, just shot out of a cannon every time he gets onto the floor. And he is going to have to figure out how to be shot out of a cannon playing with a rim running center, pretty much all 48 minutes that the most play. They're going to have Gobert or Bergerie on the floor. There's not. He, Shannon looked most, comfortable in those like Randall plus Reed minutes when the floor was a little bit more open. Look, like, Barron Jay is very young. He's untested. And Terran Shannon Jr. is a little bit, a little bit wild at times, gets some tunnel vision when he has the ball. Defensively, Chris Finch

has spotted enough mistakes that he kind of gets fed up with it. But he did shoot 41% on threes, fairly open threes, but he made his threes. And I just think, you know, if the wolves, by the way, both of these guys is, you know, a total non-shooter in Berreje's case. He's a rim runner. That's what he does. He has real gravity as a rim runner.

Like, that's undeniable and great hands on the offensive glass. A little bit of a glimpse even, both, like a one dribble, catch one dribble, put it on the floor game, a little bit of a glimpse. But like both of them are going to have to figure out, like the Kaminga question is tied up in this too. Like how many shaky shooters can you, put on the floor at once. But like, these guys are pretty high on the death chart now

with Devencenzo injured and stuff that if Minnesota is going to hit the way they think they might be able to hit, one or both of them need to be real good for 15 to 18 minutes a game every night. Yeah. And the thing for me with Shannon, that worries me a little bit more is how much of it is the ball has to be in his hands more? Because that's really when he, you know, that run in the playoffs where it's because those guys were out. And, you know, he had the ball in his hands a lot more, he showed how much more comfortable. Finch, Finch even said it in one of his post-game press conferences, right?

Like, you know, I played major crunch time minutes in pretty much every close game against the Spurs and scored 24 points in the close-out game against Denver. Yeah. I mean, so it's, you know, but now when you're, when he's going to be on the floor, you know, with some sort of combination of aunt or lamello, how often is the ball going going to be in a sense? Can he make him, can he figure out now how to play a little bit more off ball? Now that we've seen what he can do when he has the ball in his hands,

but he's not going to be, the ball's not going to be in his hands a lot. And I think that's where I'm concerned about with him. With Barron Jay, it's, you know, these are great picks because these are guys that like, like you said, they're going to have to play major minutes for them. There's not really another alternative. Can they step up to the level, which the wolves were going to need them to, to be able to make this stuff all look, hey, we made all the right decisions we need

to make in this off season. Because if Barron Jay doesn't pan out or has, you know, the sophomore slump type of season, it's going to look really rough. Because who do you go to as your backup big after that? Like, you're really just in a terrible position. You're going to play incredibly small. It's going to be difficult. That's what it is. You play small.

Yeah. And that's just, and at that point, like, it's tough. Like, you're really going to be challenged at that point if you're Minnesota. So these guys have to hit for them. It's a great point about Shin and having the ball and how Ant, was out a couple of those games where he really thrived. And by the way, credit to the wolves for gutting out some big wins without Ant in the playoffs last year. His first step is like outrageous. And you can imagine a world where he has the ball in a five out environment.

And like you can play off of him if you want, you're not going to be able to stay in front of him. And like when he runs pick and roll, which he does like actually more than I thought when I went back and grinded some of the tape. When he rejects picks and goes the other way, if teams aren't being smart and playing back and going under, he's like at the rim in a blur. Now he only shot like 54% at the rim last year, which is really bad. A lot of his, for his position,

a lot of his takes are a little bit wild. Like once he gets going full speed, he's not stopping. And a lot of his passes are sort of desperate last minute kickouts that maybe get intercepted or deflected. And when he misses it, the room, he falls over and their transition defense is compromised. And it's the kind of stuff that drives coaches nuts.

But there's something there where you can see him. You talk about off the ball. Like he's going to have to improve as a cutter mover, all that. But like he's going to have to do things like Aunt Gobert pick and roll. Ant hits Gobert in the pocket. Gobert rockets into a handoff with Terran Shannon Jr. Coming from the empty side corner where the reeds are a little simpler.

Defense is already compromised. He's going to have to be able to execute that stuff. And Baranget, the defensive rim protection is real. the role gravity is really got to get better as a screener. And his defensive rebounding, I think, was a little weak last year because he's trying to block everything. That's typical young guy stuff. But yeah, I mean, like, this is a really interesting team, but these guys have to hit

to at least some, I'm not expecting like all-star turns, but they've got to hit to some degree. All right, you want to make your last pick? We haven't overlapped yet, Mom. I'm disappointed. I don't think my third guy is going to be one of your picks. Well, I know we're not going to overlap because you cheated. So did I. Oh, okay.

I cheated. Maybe we'll half overlap. I went with Billy Donovan, who came in as an assistant coach. You really cheated. I really cheated. I really cheated on this one. So I was a little bit happy when you told me you cheated.

I was like, okay, cool, because my cheating won't have looked as bad. But just the pure fact of the Spurs, him coming in as an elite assistant, the Spurs offensive numbers look good. right, especially in the regular season. Their offensive rating, all that stuff looks there. There are so many times where the offense looks rudderless at moments where they kind of

don't know where they want to go. And I think there's a level of like, we need to kind of figure out our offense. Their crunch time offense was terrible in the playoffs, right? In clutch games, their net rating was minus 10.8 and 11 games over the course of the regular season. And don't fact check me. It's MoMaff, so it's close, but might not be totally accurate. We accept MoMath.

they blew about 14 to 15 double digit leads. And that's a product of being young, but that's a product also of not really understanding, you know, how to play with the leads and things like that. I think having a guy like Billy Donovan as your lead assistant, I think kind of brings that. Like,

I'm excited for that. It was funny because when the news was announced, everybody was like, oh, Mitch Johnson better watch out. I was like, no, this is actually the opposite. This is going to help them so much. Just allowing Billy Donovan and just, hey, let's focus.

on our offense. Let's figure out how we want to use, how do we want to deploy Wembe? Where's the Wemby spot? Like, that's the one part of his game that hasn't quite been figured out. I think we're all, I think it'll end up being the high post and be kind of like a Dirk-esque type thing. But they still haven't figured out their flow offensively. And a lot of times it look disjointed. And I think for me, like an underrated X factor is the effect Billy Donovan's going to have on their offense because I think that's going to be the goal. They know how they're going to defend. Sean Sueney gave them the defensive package, the blueprint, what not.

Now they need to figure out their offensive system and blueprint. And I think that's what Donovan's going to do while he's there. And I think it's really important. And if they get that part figured out, like, man, everybody's going to be in trouble. Sean Sweeney would have been good coaching, cheating, wild card pick, you know, if we're going to cheat this exercise like you did. But that's a good pick. I have a lot of respect for Billy Donovan as a coach, only additive.

for the Spurs. I'm going to make my last pick. And I forgot to mention this about Terrence Shannon. A lot of the guys that I'm picking at least, and even like a guy like you picked like Tybal, I pick Jailon Tyson and Terran Shannon Jr. And now I'm going to pick Jacoby Walter from the Raptors. A lot of these guys, when the going gets tough in the playoffs,

are going to be the guys that other teams put either their smallest defender on or their worst defender on or, hey, can we hide a big man over there? because he's not so dangerous and we can then switch pick and rolls because we won't have our big man defending the opposing big man. And the commonality is any of these guys to really hit

has to figure out how do we hurt that scheme? How do we can do? Can I bully a smaller player? Can I go into a DHO if I'm guarded by a bigger player? Can I be active on the second side? Jacoby Walter to me

won that shooting guard derby over Grady Dick and to a lesser extent Jameson battle last year. And I just think he and Colin Murray Boyles, whether they start, whether they come off the bench. Now I'm assuming they will both start the season coming off the bench are just so critical in rounding out the Raptors. Like quickly Barrett, Barnes, Leonard, Pertle, tons of size, tons of physicality, lots of ball handling, kind of lacks a guy who doesn't need the ball, is willing to space the floor. can maybe make enough plays off to dribble against closeouts. And I think that's the next frontier for Walter.

But look, he hit 41% on almost seven threes per 36 minutes in the regular season, down to 33% in the playoffs, but took almost like eight and a half per 36 minutes. That's and defends really well at the point of attack and on the wing too. That's like the starting template for an important player on any serious team. And again, I don't know how many minutes he's going to play. role is going to be. I've talked about RJ Barrett's, you know, kind of future in Toronto. He's up for an extension. Kauai just got paid. The math is what it is. I don't really know what's going to happen there. Nobody does. But Jacobi Walter to me is like everyone's high on

the Raptors. I'm high on the Raptors. He's one of those guys who if the Raptors are this 50 win team that people think they can be, he's going to have a solid year in a lot of, like, maybe not starting, but closing a fair amount of game started in the playoffs because of injuries. Like I, there's something interesting brewing there. The, the, the thing about it too is like if he rises up to that level, it really changes the calculus of what you do with RJ Barrett. It's almost like you can't really give the extension so much to RJ until you know what you have in Walter and how do you kind of play that out and how does this work out and how are we

going to figure these things out. And so it's really kind of important not just for how they can play and win in this season, but almost how they're building out over the next couple seasons of what they're going to do because, yeah, like, they're, I mean, the, the, the Yakupurl contract extension kicks in next year. Like, is he eligible for an extension again? The Raptors, we got to get ahead of that. Like, we can't let them get. Got it got it before. Can we extend them now?

Five years, 150 million? So I think this is, I think this is like a, this is a great pick in the way of, again, this rounds everything out. And if he does figure out how to attack the close out, he's going to get so many opportunities from that. not just from Scotty Barnes creating from it, but everybody's going to double Kauai. Like if he can kind of create those, if he can figure that part out of his game or flesh that out,

like things are really going to open up for the Raptors. It's so critical for what they're going to be. And how are they going to be, you know, going into the Eastern Conference. It's going to be ridiculously tough. Like it's funny how we talk about all the big names. It's how the margin guys respond really are the ones that make a difference,

especially when we get to the playoffs. Absolutely. And every team needs a guy like this sort of actualized version of Jacoby Walter, whether that guy. And the next step is even being a little steadyer as a three-point shooter, but he doesn't drive the ball a lot. And I went back and watched a lot of his drives because what a loser I am, this is what I have time to do.

And he is like, there are a few scattered in there where he looks kind of explosive. And it makes you think it's a decisiveness confidence issue because he's. He looks kind of tentative and a little slower to attack closeouts than he does on those other times where he like, whoa, where's that guy who just drove baseline and made an up and under. And it makes you wonder, like, as he begins to register, like, I'm getting closed out on or the defense is really tilted away from me. I've got a runway.

Why don't I just take it? Is there something else there? So he was my pick. All right. Let's take another quick break. We have one more fun thing to do. And then Moe, he'll go on baby duty. You know, I've never done this before, Mo, because it's a segment everybody does, but I figured

what the hell is kind of fun, particularly with the new All-Star format. First-time All-Stars, who is going to make an All-Star team for the first time? A reminder, assuming the NBA uses the same format as they did last year, which everyone seemed to like with the two U.S. teams and the One World Team, there will be 12 All-Stars chosen from each conference. 24 total. Got that? 24. That's it. Not 29. Not necessarily. 16 of them must be American players. Eight of them must be international players that can play on the world team.

If that first batch of 24 does not meet either one of those quotas, i.e. if it's 14 U.S. players and 10 world players, Adam Silver will add two more All-Stars so that it gets to 16 and 10, so they'll be 26 instead of 24. So I really wanted to sort of do this properly, which was like, let's see how many spots really are up for grabs because it's hard to make an all-star team whether there's only 24 spots. So I sent you this over email.

You may disagree or whatever, but there's no all-s. There are very few true all-star locks given injuries and underperformance, whatever. I made a list of guys who I called it, I would be pretty shocked if they didn't make the All-Star team this year. And it totaled 16 guys. So already 16 of 24 spots are gone. Here are my, like, I'd be shocked if they don't make it, guys. Your mileage may vary, people.

Jalen Brunson, I'm going east to west, Jalen Brunson, Jason Tatum, LeBron James. LeBron James is going to be an All-Star as long as he plays. Yes, period. Carl Anthony Towns, because I just think that the Knicks are getting two All-Stars right off the bed. Donovan Mitchell, Yonison Ticompo, Kauai Leonard. Now that's one you could quibble with, but I'm putting him in.

Cade Cunningham and Tyrese Maxie. In the West, Nicola Yokich, Shegildes Alexander, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Luca Donchich, Anthony Edwards,

Victor Wenbenyama. There are lots of great players who I didn't put as like stone cold locks, like if something bad happens, they can't make it. Like there's no second Thunder player. There's no second spur. There's no Kyrie Irving.

There's no second piston. There's no second Cavs, whatever. There's no Scotty Barnes. But those are my, and if you reminded me that Kat played for the world team last year, because he's Dominican. So that would be, I think, what do we have? Nine U.S. players and seven world players out of the 16 that I just mentioned. And so we got eight spots left.

If I have nine players from the east and seven from the west, sorry, I mess that up. It's 10 U.S. players, six world players. 10 U.S. 6 World and 9 East, 7 West. If I do, if that all proves right,

the best kind of person to be is an American player from the Western Conference. I have the most openings for you. But do you have any issues with my 16? I'd be shocked if they weren't All-Stars, All-Stars.

No, I think that's the right list. You know, apart from like, okay, maybe a second Thunder player. Maybe, you know, it's hard. in that vein to kind of figure it out. But I think that's the right list. The other, the one guy I thought was like, oh, maybe Jalen Brown, but the problem is like, or three spurs or three sixers going to make it. It's just like Embed, same thing. Well, Embed may not play enough.

Like, so I have, and then I wrote down after those 16 guys to again put in perspective, how hard it is to crack this as a first timer. I wrote down pretty much every other name I could think of that are you either have made an all-star team already. like the guys you just mentioned, or I could see like a plausible path to making the All-Star team this year for the first time. That was 48 guys for eight remaining spots. I had a lot of guys on there.

But there's a, there are super-duper stars on this list. Tyrese Halliburton, like he's, Pascal Seacombs, a multi-time All-Scars, Scotty Barnes, Anthony Davis and Troy Young, on and on and on. So that's Devin Booker. Like there's just Lowry Marketing and tons of guys. That's how hard. And they're all, have either made recent All-Star teams or, like, plausibly, I could see you

getting there. So that's what we're working with, Mo. Give me your, like, top two picks. If you had to bet money, actual money, which I do not keep going, I don't bet money. But if you had to bet money on a first-time All-Star, who would your number one pick be? I have a, like, Stone Cold number one. Let's see if we have the same idea. I have Stone-cold Cooper flags a lot.

Wow. number one pick going to be an all-star this year. Second year player, I think there's going to be so much. I mean, just having Kyrie with him, I think is going to free him up so much. I'm so excited for the second season of Cooper Flagg, where he really started to kind of come into his own a little bit at the end of the season. I'm going to be really fascinated to see what Dusty May does, first time NBA head coach, getting that opportunity and seeing how that kind of.

kind of flows through everything. I have it as a lock, Cooper Flag. And I have another guy that's a lock that he just edged out. All right. We'll see if I don't name him because I bet it's going to be my guy. Because Cooper Flagg was not my number one stone cold. Like if I had to bet one, I'd bet one.

He's on my very, very short list. He's in a highlighter and everything. My only worry would be are they under 500? Because sometimes the coaches won't vote in somebody from a losing team. And Kyrie also will be on. on this list is not a first timer, but an all-star candidate. I, if I had to pick one, I would pick Austin Reeves. American player, Western Conference, high-wadage team with the Lakers.

LeBron is gone. The hierarchy is clear. He's already shown that playing next to Luca, he can average 25, 27 a game with efficiency up the wazoo playmaking. I think the Lakers are going to be good. I look forward to the day when, the Spurs get one All-Star and the Thunder get one all-star and the Lakers who are 10 games behind them and the standings get two and everyone goes crazy and it's a lot of angry takes all day

long and by the way, the Thunder are going to get two All-Stars for sure J-Dub, Chet, one of those guys will make it. But Austin was like he was your number two pick? He was my, the other guy. I had two guys in my notes. I write my type my notes. So I had the lock emoji next to it. Those are the only two guys I've had as locks who I think will be first time All-Stars. All right. I'm just going to name. I'm going to name. I'm going to name some other guys. Steph Castle, Michael Porter Jr., don't think

the Nets will win enough games. And now I'm being very generous and you're going to see how high unreasonably high I am on one particular Western conference team. Evita Zubats, don't think he's going to do well enough in Indiana to make the all-star team in these.

Okay, so I'm just going to preemptively say, just don't laugh. Don't laugh. This was a long list. It's an extended list. It includes 48 players. One of them is Zach Eady representing the world team. With that dude plays, he puts up numbers.

That's all I'm saying. And the other is my pick for rookie of the year, Camboozer. I think Camboozer is walking in and putting up big numbers. And if the grizzlies are at 500 when the voting happens, who the hell knows? Long shots. Now, now, and then I have Amman Thompson, con caniple, Brandon Miller. Again, a little worried if Charlotte's like 10th, 11th, and the east, are they getting an all-star? I don't know.

And how is there? In cons, obviously, now there was this hamstring thing that came up last week. Not sure how long, if any, he'll miss. Miller's, excuse me, always injured. And now I'm going to get, ooh, now I'm going to get to my two other candidates that I think are interesting. The most obvious one is Franz Wagner. I think he would be neck and neck with Austin Reeves for me for like, my one of my like number one or two picks in this draft. Did you have him on your list?

I had him on my list, especially with the Euros, or the world team, excuse me. He's, I think that's a, that's a good guy to have on that list. I mean, he's almost disadvantaged because they're just the eight world spots versus the 16 U.S. spots. It's hard to crack. But I thought he was the best player on the magic last year when he was healthy. I think they probably win that series against the Pistons if he doesn't get hurt. I think would I take him over Paolo if I were starting a team? I might. I actually might because I have a little bit more confidence in him fitting into a secondary role than I do with Paulo.

But, you know, your mileage may vary. My other one, I just wonder, Mo, there's a lot of shine, a lot of residual shine on everything that touches the Knicks. And for good reason. I just wonder if they're the number one seed in the East as the voting takes place or the coaches make their picks. And this guy is doing mostly what he did last year when I thought he had a pretty good fringe All-Star case. If O.G. and Anobie cracks the All-Star roster, was he on your list at all? He actually was. And he's actually like those were the kind of the two spots I had was Franz and OG. Part of it is on that thinking.

If the Knicks are the number one seed and they're rolling and just coming off the championship and just the residual of the OG tipping, you know, from the rafters, like I feel like that's something there. It's challenging because there's even the two world spots could be up for grab that may not go to first time All-Stars. You know, we still have Denny Advia in Portland. There's tons of guys. If your guy has not been named, no disrespect.

There's just too many guys to name. I'm not going to see her and say, Domana Sabonis, just to say his name. There I said it. The king's stank, he's not going to make the All-Star team. It's just like, but it's just the way I look at it, you know, O.G. versus Denny, I would, I would, I got to go OG in terms of if they have the similar type of seasons. I think it's him. And then just off the weight of coming off the championship, I had him as my, my eighth year world player.

A very good role. A very good job by OG on SNL. I did you catch it. I did not catch it. I think you should catch it. You wanted me to give you my brief review of the jail and place in SNL? Please. O.G., great cameo in the opening monologue where all four of the other starters asked questions from the audience. The question from the audience thing is always the gimmick SNL goes to when they're not sure how good the guy doing the monologue is going to be or they have and or they have no better ideas. O.G., very funny. He asked Jill and Brunson, hey, remember when you missed that shot toward the end of game four against the spurs in the finals. And then Joe Marn said, yeah. And OJ is like, do you remember what happened after that? And the crowd went insane.

Have you seen the clip of the office MVP sketch? I have not seen anything. I've been in wallowing in pain and misery with my college football team. He plays kind of a Clark Kent. Yeah, sorry about USC. I'm not that sorry, actually. He plays kind of a Clark Kent office worker trying to make. make, you know, trash can baskets and he can't do it. And then he reveals himself as actually

Jalen Brunson and says he just wants to be a common man working in an office and make garbage, make trash can't do it. He has a great line directed at Sarah Sherman, who I love and I will not split the line. But he misses a million shots with papers. He's missing on purpose. And then he has won at the end where he reveals himself as Jalen Brunson. The crowd starts cheering. Smoke, mist comes up from the ground. And he shoots what's not a paper. It's clearly like a ball at the trash can. And now they have used Mo pretty much the biggest office trash can you could possibly imagine for this. But he made it. And then everyone goes crazy. They chant MVP. I wonder, they must have planned an altered ending in case he missed it. But in true, Jail and

Brunson fashion, just nothing, didn't even hit the rim, just nothing. There's a great high school musical parody where Jalen Brunson is a new kid coming, coming to the school and wants to join the basketball team and they're eventually mean and standoffish to him and then, of course, he dominates them. I'm going to give Jalen Brunson's full grade as S&L host a B minus. He was fine. He was, he seemed kind of nervous, which I would understand. It takes some courage to get out of your comfort zone in front of a giant audience that's very season premiere, all of that.

And it does make you appreciate, like, you really, like, actors are super skilled at a million different things, but one of them is talking loudly and clearly in a way that regular people in their regular lives do not do. And he was rushed a little bit in some of his dialogue. But I think he nailed some of the lines he had to nail entertaining, entertaining overall and the monologue with OG and Kassie. and McHale Bridges and Josh Hart, of course, is very good. I recommend it. It's a good, watch it before the baby comes, Moe. I'm going to have plenty of time holding the baby and watching stuff, so I will be putting that on the area.

I'll make sure I get on that. Shout out to Jane Wickline, who, you know, is a little hit or miss for me, but she had an incredible impression of the CEO of Anthropic on Weekend Update. And Jeremy Colhane, who I think is very funny as the star, the other star of the high school musical parody who is victimized by Jalen Brunson. He's fantastic. And now it's over and it's back to the season. And Nick's had their media day today.

And Jalen Brunson was basically like onto the next. I think everyone on this group is on to the next. Kat talked about his looming extension talks that have kind of stalled out and how it's just kind of a thing. They do strike me as a group mode that is on the one hand, every team that climbs the mountain top can rest on its laurels a little bit because it's like, all right, 82 games, a lot of games. But they don't strike me as a team that's going to just be like, oh, we did what we set out to. I think they're like, I think they're, no, we haven't had a repeat in eight years. I thought the Celtics had a great chance to do it after 24.

Obviously, the Thunder had a great chance to do it after 25. Neither did it. I think the Knicks probably have less of a chance than either of those teams would appear on paper. They are my pick to make the finals out of the east. And thus I changed my mind before I make my official official picks. but I think they're pretty hungry. And they strike me as a team that's going to chase it, which I absolutely love. I think they're going to.

I think they're all in on this stuff. They still have a few things to figure out. Andre Drummond's a very different backup center than Mitchell Robinson and sort of presents that stuff. It wasn't just Kat, though, who brought up his contract. It was, you know, Josh Hart also mentioned it. McBride also mentioned. And it's going to be interesting to see where those guys kind of, a guy that could have been one of our underrated X factors who had to be curious about is Diora.

Diora. Yeah, I like Dior. I like him. He was a guy that I was thinking about before I decided to go off the wall and cheat. And I think the, I think there's going to be a lot of stuff that they still have to sort of figure out and fill in. But I don't think they're resting on their laurels. I think they want the juice. You saw how juiced up the city was. I think they want to continue that. run. And I think that's what we're going to get from them. All right, Mo, who knows when the next time we'll pot is? You're going to have a wonderful event happen for you.

Best of luck to you and your wife. Enjoy it. And I, you know, I don't wish the Dodgers any ill will in the playoffs. But I will be the low family will be throwing its baseball loyalties for the second consecutive season behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League. And, of course, my dad's favorite team, the Boston Red Sox in the American league, doubly so because the Boston Red Sox are playing the evil empire in the first round of the playoffs. That would be our official allegiance. My daughter has agitated for watching playoff

baseball, even though the Mets are eliminated. I could not be happier about this education. So that's where we are. Mo DeKiel, best of luck, preemptive congratulations. Have some fun. Thank you. Thank you for having me. And I'm not going anywhere, Zach. I'm still going to be potting throughout all of this. So I'm ready. Maybe take a little time, Mo, okay? Just You're not the MVP here, okay? Just set some picks and come back to us in a little while, but we'll see you soon. All right, excited to welcome in our next guest, the author of this book right here, Heartland, about Larry Bird at Indiana State University.

Heartland, a forgotten place, an impossible dream and the miracle of Larry Bird. Keith O'Brien, you are the best-selling author of five books. This is the most recent one. I loved this book, and I just want to. have you on to talk about it. It's been out for what, nine months, so I'm late to the party. I read it a long time ago, but I've never too late to talk about a good book. Never too late. It's only been six months that. We're good. We're good. We're still in the promotional tour. Okay. So it is a bold decision to go to a publisher and say,

I want to write a book about one of the eight to ten at worst, greatest basketball players of all time. And that player is Larry Bird. And it's basically not going to mention the Celtics at all. It's not going to extend it to the 80s. Magic Johnson is going to be a peripheral character just in the championship game in 1979. And I'm going to write a lot about these anonymous dudes who were his teammates at Indiana State and had very unlikely backgrounds and connections with him. And yet that is what I loved about the book. I loved digging into all of these guys lives before Larry Bird, after Larry Bird, the community, the sports bars that they go to. But was it a tough sell? Or did you already have like a book deal, like multi-book deal already done? Like, did they try

to dissuade you from this and be like, can you write something more obviously commercial? I love it. Great question. So yeah, I mean, there were lots of questions. You know, everybody wants the bird magic thing, it feels like, right? And certainly the big publishers want to hear that. And no, to answer your question directly, I didn't have a multi-book deal, so I was shopping this, you know, shopping it fresh once again. And certainly there were some places who passed on it. They, at one point somebody said, why don't you do a whole, you know, Larry Bird biography

from start to finish? And my answer was simply, I feel like we've done that. I feel like we've heard that. And for me, anyway, as a sports fan and as a storyteller and as a reader of stories, I want to tell something new. And I just didn't know what new ground could be covered with yet another bird magic story. And so what I always wanted to do from the beginning was what I did here, which was tilt the camera in that slightly different direction. You know, all these years, the past 50 years, while we've been telling the bird, magic story, this other story's been sitting right there. And it's always gotten short shrift

because when you always do the bird magic thing, you know, where do you fit it all in? And so to me, it was an origin story. And I always thought about it in my mind as, you know, I'm not writing, you know, Star Wars episode four. You know, I'm writing like Rogue One, you know, I'm writing Rogue One, a backstory before the story that gives us everything we need to know about this guy who will know later. I think if you asked engaged NBA fans, hey, what do you remember about Larry Bird's college basketball career? I think most of them would say Indiana State.

I think most of them would say landmark championship game, undefeated run to that game, and they lose to Michigan State and Magic Johnson. I think most of them would say, wait, wasn't there the weird thing where the Celtics drafted him a year early when he was still in school and had to wait for him? How did that work? I think some percentile of them would be like, wait, didn't he go to Indiana for a hot second and hate it and leave? And I'm not really sure what happened there. And then there's a vague, like maybe he was a garbage man at some point. But I think fleshing out all of the, like you have a lot in there about.

his time is his recruitment, which is fascinating. His decision to go to Indiana under Bob Knight and why that didn't work, I think fleshing out all of those things leading up to the Indiana State Sycamore's team was super interesting. And I definitely learned stuff that I didn't know about his recruitment and his time in Indiana. But my favorite thing about this book was that it feels extremely lived in. Like you go to Terre Haute, you go to French Lick. It's very clear that you spent a considerable amount of time there. You outlined the geography of it. So you've clearly driven around, probably stayed, God knows how many nights there. There's a bar called the Jubal. Is a, am I pronouncing it right? The Jubal bar? Which you describe, like, lovingly as a place

where people would all congregate, including Larry and his family and his dad, who you get into his dad's suicide, which is another thing I think probably people would know. But so, and it just, it's, it's rare to find a nonfiction book that take that I can close my eyes. eyes and really picture the streets, the roads, the bars, the houses, that houses that all of these players lived in growing up, how much time did you spend there? And how much time had you spent there kind of gathering stuff before you even had this book deal signed? So, you know, I'll take the second half of that first. I didn't set foot in Indiana until the book was sold. You know, I'd sold, sold the book.

sold the idea. You know, I had done a lot of phone interviews. I had done a lot of legwork. I knew, I knew the story. I could see the story and I knew exactly where it ended. And so I knew all of that. But I don't set foot in Indiana until I know I've got a book to write. And at that point, I'm spending a lot of time there. You know, I spent a lot of time in French Lake. I would stay at the best Western on the edge of Texas. That was my place. I spent a lot of time in Terre Haute. I always sit at the same hotel right downtown, right by the Larry Bird statue.

And, you know, I wanted this to be a story that was more than just a story about Larry, but a story of a team, a time, a place. And in order to make it about a team and a time and a place, I got to know that place. So, you know, it was a lot of time. And take, for example, the Jubal Bar. This was a bar on the little country highway in West Baden Springs, Indiana. West Baden Springs and French Lake are two little towns right next to each other. Big time Larry Bird's fans who've been down there, you know this.

Bird grew up in both of those towns, you know, throughout the course of his life, not just French Lake. They're essentially one community, go to the same high school. And I didn't know the Jubal Bar was a place. And the Jubal Bar isn't a place technically anymore. It's gone. It was only in the library, you know, in French Lick, going through the old Springs Valley Herald, the old newspaper page by page day by day, that I begin to see stories about the jubel bar, see advertisements for the jubel bar.

And now I'm starting to wonder, what is the jubel bar? and also wanting to know the next question. You know, Larry's father was known to be a drinker and an alcoholic. Did Larry's dad spend time at the jubal bar? So, you know, these are questions that come up only after I'm reporting the book and chasing down only after I'm there. And, you know, I came to find out that the owner, of the Jubal Bar in the 70s.

I'm talking 50 years ago, still alive today. Wow. I interviewed him, you know, tracks him down. And, you know, he of course had vivid memories of Joey Bird, Larry's father, being at the bar. You know, now the Jubal Bar

is a character, is a place, you know, in my story. And that matters because without spoiling it for folks, the Jubal Bar will figure in the end scene of this book as well. And so all of that happens only with boots on the ground reporting, you know, only when you're there can you begin to sort of really see the story.

You know, you mentioned a time and a place and what's remarkable about reading this book, about starting with the teams that were recruiting Larry Bird in the mid to late 70s, it was still possible then for coaches and parts of the country to either not know that there was a Larry Bird in this little town in Indiana or no too late to even get into the recruiting process. Like Louisville gets in, Kentucky gets in, but kind of late compared to Indiana. And even in, he doesn't even make, if I'm remembering Craig, he doesn't even make like all state in Indiana as a high school player. And then the most remarkable thing, I think it's 1977 his first season at ISU. They play Houston in the NIT. So like the NIT, so like the NIT

he's still a pretty big tournament. And it's beginning to be known as the second cousin of the NCAA tournament. Houston's a big program. And Larry scores 44 points in that game. They lose. And Guy Lewis, Houston's coach says, the famous coach of Faislamma,

Jama years later, says after the game, I'm sorry I didn't even know this kid's name before we played them. It's like, he's already in college and like this, you have this coach admitting, like I didn't even know who this dude was and he just lit us up for 44 points. It's really incredible.

I mean, we forget what the world. was like, you know, Larry Bird nearly disappears in 74 after he briefly enrolls in Bloomington and then returns home to French Lick, hitchhiking home. You know, that's the winter. Hitchhiking. He leads Indiana University, IU, the Holy Grail of college basketball, hates it. And I want to get, I want to put a pin in that because I want to get back to it. And hitchhikes home and then like vanishes. Yeah, well, we will come back to that. I was just saying like he nearly disappears that winter. right? It's not just that he drops out and he works on a garbage truck for a while.

He nearly disappears that winter forever. You know, Byrd is telling everybody, I'm not going back to college. And one thing I learned about Byrd and the writing of this book is he only says what he means. That's it. He said what he meant in 1974. He says what he means in 2026. That's it. He doesn't say things for effect.

He doesn't say things to stir up trouble for drama. He doesn't want any of that. He just speaks his mind, right? And so if Larry Bird was telling his mother, maybe most importantly, in the winter of 74, 75, that he's not going back to college, well, you can bet he's not going back to college. And, you know, it's only, you know, Bill Hodges, this down on his luck assistant coach who goes down to French Lake looking for Bird,

who's sort of almost in my mind, and I've always thought about this way, Zach. It's like he just, it's like Bill Hodges almost grabs Bird by the shoulder right before he disappears forever and pulls him back from the brink. And it's that personal connection those two have. I tell you that story because, you know, in 2026, even a poor kid in rural America, you know, wouldn't disappear forever if they had the basketball talent that Larry Bird had. You know, they would have a team of handlers, lawyers, marketers, agents from the age of 14, 15, 16.

They'd go looking for you. You wouldn't have to go looking for them. And certainly, Bird wouldn't have slipped through the cracks like he did back then all the way to Indiana State. But, you know, French Link is way down in the southwest corner of the state. It's remote. It's hard to get there. It's hard to get there today.

It was really hard to get there in 1974. And so, yeah, you know, back to your original point. Larry Bird is not first team all state, 1974. He is not second team Allstate 1974. He is honorable mention all states. There's at least 20 guys who are considered better basketball players than Bird in 74 in Indiana, which is one reason why Bobby Knight is even really sure what he has, you know, in Larry. And he's not totally committed to him.

And Knight suffers from that flaw that a lot of, you know, important men suffer from. It's hubris. You know, he believes he knows what he has with his team and he doesn't really care about this kid Larry Byrd. Well, so in my head, if you had asked me before I read this book, why did he drop, why did he leave Indiana University? I would say, you know, it's like, I think it may have been just too big, too much attention.

He's a small town kid. And like there's part of that in the book. But he's also like mocked there by his teammates, which I either didn't never knew or you have refreshed my memory or uncovered fresh reporting, they like basically are telling Larry Bird, you suck, man. Like we're not even picking you in pickup games.

Like you're a joke. Where are you from? What little town are you from? And he leaves and he goes home to French Link, West Baden, whatever and works for the city as a sanitation worker. And I believe at this time enrolls at like a community college or like a technical college and plays for that local teams, a local university's basketball team.

And I wonder like, I don't think you interviewed Larry for this book, but I'm not sure. But I wonder, like, when I read the book, and then he eventually goes back to Indiana State, as you mentioned, he's pulled back in. It honestly seemed in the book that through the winning, the fame, all of it, the happiest Larry Bird seems in the book, according to people around him, is in that time where he's working for the city and playing for a nothing technical college and just living near his friends and his family with no pressure. obviously I'm being a little facetious. He goes on to become a gazillionaire and a GM of the Pacers, head coach, all that. But there seems to be like a brief period there according to my interpretation of your book where this is like that is the core of who he was as a person. And he has a level of happiness as a sanitation worker that he doesn't have anywhere else in the book. You know, again, Larry told people that winter he liked the job. He liked the work. He liked working outside. He liked working with a crew. He loved having specific tasks that needed to be done

outside with a crew. And, you know, by the way, Larry Byrd still loves working outside today. You know, he would not speak to me for this book. I tried many ways. I think a lot of us have our stories of, I've only made one real run at getting an interview with Larry. And it was for a big piece I did on during the, during the height of the pandemic when nothing was going on other than the last dance, I wrote about game seven of the Pacers Bull series in 1998. And I just tried every possible avenue I could find to get to him. I had intermediaries. Jackie McBowland tried to help me.

Jill and Rose tried to help me. Other people tried. And like, it got to him and it got to his assistant. And he was basically like, no. But if you have a yes, no question, like a fact check, maybe through an intermediary, I can do that. But that was it. I think we all have those stories.

Yeah, and I knew that going in. We all know, you know, that Larry is a bit of a reckless. And he wanted to be in the 70s, you know. From the moment the spotlight finds him in 1977, in the months after that game that you mentioned, the Houston, Indiana State game in the spring of 77, the spotlight will find him and it will burn bright. And from the moment it does find him, he wants to escape it. wants to get back to the shadows, back to where he was. And in a lot of ways, it feels like some 50 years later, you know, Larry has finally managed to do that. You know, he's finally, he's finally

found the shadows again. But back to that winter of 74, you know, you're absolutely right. He leaves Indiana. He hitchhikes home. He enrolls at that little vocational school, which was, by the way, a school that existed in the framework of an old burned out hotel. I mean, it was, it was, it was barely a school itself. He does play for the basketball team there. I interviewed as many people as I could who were on that team, you know, on the Northwood Institute team in the fall of 74. And, you know, the story they told me about Larry Burr walking into the little gym

there in West Baden Springs. I mean, he was unbelievable. But within months, you know, he quits there. You know, he's now working for the city, hauling trash. And yeah, he's happy. He's happy, but all of this is happening in that dark, dark winter, you know, where Larry's father will take his own life.

So this is really the moment where we could have lost bird forever. And in my opinion, based on my reporting, we very nearly did. A couple other things that I learned about Larry from this book. I mean, you know, we know that he's a feisty character as a basketball player. There are at least, I think there are three different fights in this book that he gets into. One, as part of a U.S. team traveling around the world, traveling to former Yugoslavia, I think, to play some international teams. I believe the fight is during a game against Cuba.

And two with fans. One at the 78, NIT, I think, where a fan kind of grabs him and starts taunting him and calling him bird shit after Indiana State loses. And another against New Mexico State, which is a huge rivalry of Indiana State. One of the great things about this book is, like, I know they're 33 and O going into the championship game. You go into game by game some of their most dramatic games. And I'm like, I didn't know they had a big rivalry. with New Mexico State University, and it was like a blood rivalry. But those, and in the New Mexico State one, I think he dives out of bounds,

and the fans are holding him, trying to keep him from going on. So he's often, he's like mostly defending himself or his teammates, but there are a couple, like he, in the NIT one, I think he like pops a fan and there's blood all over the place. And you talk about how the local papers kind of decide, we're not going to write about this because this guy's our favorite son. you have a black teammate of his actually saying, like I think if a black player had done this,

the press would have been much, much worse to him. Talk about if you could, like reporting those things and reading about them and how much was just you kind of like, wow, this is like, did you know about any of these fights before you went in? No, I didn't. Didn't know about the fighting against the Cuban national team in the summer of 77.

You know, didn't know about the punch he threw at that fan at Rupp. In the spring of 78s. And then the punch in the middle of the game, a middle of the game in the stands against New Mexico State and a regionally televised game, that game was televised in New Mexico and back in Indiana that night. Let's be honest.

You simply couldn't get away with it today. No player could, no matter your race. No matter your race today, you can't throw punches at fans. You can't do that. It's verboten. And the punch, by the way that Bird throws at Rutgers on the floor, I mean, he lays that guy out. He had to go to the hospital. I spoke with about 20 people who were on the floor that night when Bird threw the punch.

One of them told me, he thought the guy was dead. You know, blood was everywhere. He was flat on the floor. And, you know, it is fascinating to see how the media handles it. By then, By then, Byrd is going to be a first team All-American. And he's about to be selected in the first round by the Boston Celtics, even though he's going to return to school. So he is a star, even though he still hasn't played on national TV.

So most people have never seen Bird play, but he is a star. And, you know, the next day's papers in the New York area are very critical of Bird and the punch and the moment. And there's interviews even with the student who he injured. So it's a big story on the East Coast. But in Indiana, there's literally nothing written about it. Nothing. It's like it didn't happen at all. They describe it as like a kerfuffle or a confusion on the floor afterwards.

It's a hazy chaos. We don't really know. Well, I mean, look. Go ahead. I was just going to say. I mean, so, you know, he gets away with it. because he's a star. And I do agree with what, what a couple of players told me, you know, that if it was a black player who had done that, does Larry get away with it? I don't think so.

Look, I mean, there's plenty in this book about Larry Bird that is like just like as a very, as a heroic admirable person, a guy who is all about work and not about glitz and really cares about his friends and his teammates. But you get into his warts too. And this is one of them. And another one of them is like, we all know he likes his privacy and he's a recluse now and all that, as you said. But like, the degree to which he ducks the media throughout Indiana State's like meteoric run to number one in the country is like he would have gotten kind of ripped for that today. Even they lose the national title game to Michigan State. I did not know this. He does not speak to reporters after the game. And the guy, the real

heroes of this book are the Indiana State PR staff because they're constantly covering for him. and like typing out quotes and handing it to people and being, hey, you can attribute this to Larry. Some of those people, I'm sure you interviewed, and they are delightful character. That's another thing about this book is, do you get into the inner workings of even in the late 70s, the mechanism behind a big traveling college basketball team and all these staff members that are largely anonymous to the public, but know these players back and forth and are doing so much for them. The PR guys are the heroes of this book. Well, as a journalist and as a history,

And, you know, often the best stories are kept by those people, right? It's the staffers. It's the workers. It's the people in the room had a job to do. And you're absolutely right. The PR staff at Indiana State, which was rather small, it was two people. It was two people. They are, like, caught in this crucible between this crush of media interest,

reporters from across the country who want to come. come to Tara Hote just to meet Larry and talk to Larry for even five minutes, right? And like Sports Illustrated comes in. When Sports Illustrated is the biggest game in the world for anybody in sports, they fly in and they're like, they're used to people's rolling out the red carpet. And Larry's like, I don't want to talk to these guys. Well, and I talked to Larry Keith, the legendary basketball writer. He was the first national writer to show up in Terre Hote. It's January 78. He comes in. really blind to tell this, you know, early underdog story.

Indiana State was having a good season. They were starting off undefeated in 77, 78. They were like 10 and 0, 11 and 0, 12 and 0. And Larry Keith comes in to write the story of this little underdog team around Larry Bird. He doesn't even really know much about it. He doesn't know, you know, Bird's backstory. He doesn't know about Bird's dad. He doesn't know that Bird once worked on a trash truck.

He doesn't know any of that. He just knows it's a good story. He gets there. Well, now the stuff starts to spill out, but Larry won't talk to him. And so, you know, Larry Keith, again, legendary basketball writer, does what legendary writers do. He calls around. He makes other calls. He's come to Indiana to tell this story.

He's doing it, whether Bird is in or not. And, you know, ultimately, Larry's story, Larry Keith's story is very friendly. But Larry Keith makes a mistake that, you know, infuriates Bird, Larry Keith calls Bird's mother down in French Lake to interview her. Who talks to him? That's the most improbable part. She just answers the phone and is like, oh, hello, Sports Illustrated. What do you want? She's thrilled. She's thrilled. Her boy, her boy from French Lick, a town with unemployment hovering around 20% where everybody's struggling is about to be profiled in Sports Illustrated. Heck, yeah, she wants to talk to Larry

Keith? She's a proud mom. And so Larry, Larry informs Larry Bird informs Larry Keith while he's still there that he has broken the rules. You know, he has violated the rules. And with that, really, Byrd shuts down and won't talk to anybody for the next year and a half. Have you heard from Larry Bird or anyone in his universe since the book came out and they've had a chance to read it if they've read it? I've not heard from Larry Bird. I've heard from lots of people in his universe, including people quite close to him. You know, I did, while I never did speak with Larry, I did speak with people who were quite close to him, interviewed them at length, spent lots of time with them. And I'll say that, you know, people feel that the book was fair.

They should feel that it's fair. So I don't want to spoil the whole book. People just need to go pick it up. But I will say this, like, the most, my favorite kinds of books to read are the ones that sort of surprise you with how fun and interesting they are. Like, if I read, like Jonathan Abrams, who I love, a former colleague of mine at Granland, has a book coming out about the James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, Thunder. Like, obviously, it's going to be amazing. I'm going to love that. This reminds me of a book. I always cite this book. Sam Anderson wrote a book called Boomtown about the Oklahoma City Thunder and about the history of Oklahoma.

Oklahoma City. And I cracked that book and I'm like, I'm not really sure I'm going to be super into this like Oklahoma City local history. And it turns out to be absolutely delightful in one of my favorite nonfiction books I've ever read. This is the same way in the sense of you tell the story of all of these teammates at Indiana State and not Harry Morgan who maybe people remember because the team was Larry and Harry and Harry and a bunch of anonymous dudes. You tell the stories of like, this guy gets in a tractor accident when he's a kid and he's a kid. And he's a. ends up playing with Larry Byrd and this guy. And each of them gets their little turn in the spotlight in the book.

And in your head, you think you're going to say, can we just get to the Larry parts of this? And you end up like just being so amazed by the level of detail. And that's the best kind of compliment I can give to a book like this is just like the pleasant surprise. I'd actually like to live in this guy's life even a little bit longer. And I'm guessing you've heard from, I'm guessing they were delighted to be interviewed as just they are aware. that they are side characters in the story of someone larger than life, but they're proud of being side character. They made the national championship game. Well, yeah, I agree with you. They're not just side characters. Remember, Larry has three great years in college. All three of them are great. He's

averaging 30 points a year basically every year. It's only that last year that he's magical, only that last year. And that is a function of who was the coach and who, who, who was on the bench and who was on the floor with Larry. And, you know, when I started tracking, when I knew this is the book I wanted to write and how I wanted to write it. And I started to reach out to those guys on that bench, to those guys on that floor,

people whose names you don't know and tracked them down and told them what I was doing. You know, sometimes one of the first things they told me, one of the first things out of their mouth after we got through the pleasantries and everything, was they'd say, you know, like that whole season, that whole time with Larry, it changed my life. And I would say, tell me, tell me how. And so it's like we were almost starting at the end, you know, and for each of them, it went different.

You know, I mean, they were all changed in different ways. Larry was changed in different ways. And to me, you know, that made it, I don't know, somehow more special than, just bird magic. You know, we all know bird magic. And we all know March 1979 in Indiana, State, Michigan State and 50 million people watching. Most watch college basketball game of all time. We all know that story. What we don't know really is how they got there, how this little team from Terre Haute got there. And then we don't know what happens when they turn, you know, when they leave and fly home that next morning. And to me, there's just,

human story in there that's bigger than sports. It really drew me in. And so I'm so pleased to hear that it did draw you it as well, Zach. Well, and like you get into the, I don't want to spoil, but you get into the aftermath and there are falling outs that he has with people that are like surprising and I did not know about them. And it's just, it's, I'll just leave the rest to people to go buy the book and read it because it really was just a delightful. And it just like you said, it goes to show you there are interesting stories everywhere. And we're, when you find people who are willing to be open and candid and someone like you who's going to go to the best Western for God knows how many nights and dig in, like you get those stories.

So the book, again, I'm going to hold it up like I'm a late night talk show host, Heartland, a Forgotten Place, an Impossible Dream and The Miracle of Larry Bird by Keith O'Brien. He's the author of four other books, I think five total, or is it five? Yes, that's right. That's right. If you're a basketball fan, this is, I do not say this lightly, and I do not say this about everybody who has a book that comes on this podcast. If you're a basketball fan, you have to have this in your library.

Even if you're sports fan, you should probably have it too. Keith O'Brien, thank you for writing it, and thank you for spending a little time with us. Oh, my gosh, Zach. So great to be here, man. Thanks for having me. All right, that's it for today's Zach Lowe-Dekeel. Thank you to Keith O'Brien by his book, Heartland. 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. We'll be back later this week, likely on Thursday, with our second episode, of the week. Who knows maybe Joe and Duren will have signed by then. Maybe not. We'll see you all then. 21 or over and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and

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