The Zach Lowe Show - NBA News Roundup With Rob Mahoney, and James Surowiecki on the Lakers Sale!

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

Zach is joined by Rob Mahoney to cover all the news they missed while on vacation. They discuss Bennedict Mathurin going to the Pelicans, Kawhi’s latest, and Peyton Watson going to the Cavs. Plus, they cover Klay Thompson signing with the Heat and Russell Westbrook announcing his retirement. Then, James Surowiecki joins to break down the ins and outs of the Lakers sale. (0:00) Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show! (1:27) Rob Mahoney joins the show! (1:51) Pelicans sign Bennedict Mathurin (10:08) What the hell is happening with Kawhi Leonard? (20:09) Cavs acquire Peyton Watson in sign-and-trade with Nuggets (33:24) What does this trade do for the Cavs? (45:01) Klay Thompson signs with Miami Heat (52:53) Russell Westbrook retires (1:09:45) James Surowiecki on the sale of the Lakers (1:31:08) Where does this end for Mark Walter? (1:39:19) Has this affected fans' access to games? Host: Zach Lowe Guests: Rob Mahoney and James Surowiecki Producers: Jonathan Frias, Billy Gil, and Mike Wargon Social: Keith Fujimoto and Michael Szokoli The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On the Zach Lowe show, I'm back from vacation and a whole lot of stuff happened in the NBA, including a signing that actually happened today. The New Orleans Pelicans, they realized that the NBA offseason has been going on for several months and actually made a move. Rob Mahoney is here to discuss all things NBA, the Peyton Watson trade, the Kauai Leonard situation, every signing that's happened. Clay Thompson, just lots of stuff to catch up on lots of takes to get off. And then, of course, the big news of August was all of the ownership drama in Phoenix in Minnesota, and especially with the Los Angeles Lakers, the shocking sale, the Mark Walter situation that no one seems to fully understand that's not a complete financial expert. So we got a financial expert on this show. James Surawicki, who wrote for the New Yorker for 17 years, one of my favorite columns. He writes for the Atlantic.

He's a professor of Yale. His master skill is taking super complex financial stuff and making it pretty explainable to lay people. he's here to talk about sports ownership in general. Are we losing some of the soul of sports teams and sports fandom and what's going to happen with the Lakers and what's going to happen with the Clippers? That's all coming up on a much-needed Zach Lowe's show. I'm happy to be back. Enjoy it.

Welcome to the Zach Lowe show. We're like Agon Targaryen. I'm alive. Wow. I'm alive. You know who else is alive, Rob Mahoney? Who's that? The New Orleans Pelicans.

They realize. that the offseason has been going on. We're leading off with actual news. This is mostly going to be what the hell happened while I was on vacation, including the Lakers sale with James Sir Ricky later. But the New Orleans Pelicans signed Benedict Matherin. Two years, $16 million.

The Clippers decided, eh, or apparently are deciding, eh, to hell with Benedict Matherin will rescind his qualifying offer. Two years 16, the second year is a player option. So basically maybe one year eight. Rob Mahoney. Do you care? Should we care? Can you on August 26th, can you summon an emotional response to Ben Mathron going to yet another team and that team being the Pelicans who are, I are some, I guess a basketball team filled with weird players who don't fit together. And now they've thrown

in Ben Mathron who just wants the ball, wants to take shots, wants to not make threes and not really pass very much. How does this work? It doesn't. But who cares? Rob Mahoney basketball news happened. It is very exciting. I do care. And frankly, I think some of it is what you described, which is when you already have the team of weird players, what is one more?

Like, let's just make this a little bit more complicated, a little bit more funky. I am, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, despite the better part of my brain that is loudly yelling to be wary, I am still kind of a believer in Ben Mathurin. So the idea of him getting another spin around somewhere else, and really, let's be real about it, like the flexibility to then go to the,

the destination of his choosing the following years, what this is all about. I want to see what could behold for Ben Mathurant, like where he could really find himself because clearly he hasn't been able to tap into it just yet. He played well in the finals. He established himself as like a legit bench score who can go get buckets and get to the line. That's always been my favorite skill of his. He's incredibly physical player.

For his career, he has 500. assists in 502 turnovers. Not great. 34% on threes and just defensively. And those are the reasons why he's going to make $8 million and not $25 million, which, you know, this is a guy who went to the Clippers and scored 17 and a half a game, only shot 43%,

but shot 50% on twos. And the Clippers decided, eh, we don't really want him. I think he's a totally useful NBA player as a six-man, seventh man. I have no idea how any of this fits together in New Orleans. I mean, I already didn't. Like the Zion Queen thing doesn't work on defense. They played Zion at the three a little bit at the end of last season with two big guys.

That's not going to work. But I guess who cares? They're obviously not trying to chase anything huge in the next year. And, you know, I guess we'll just have to figure out how to use Zion and Jordan Poole, DeJante Murray and Jeremiah Fears and Jordan Hawkins is probably going to be a casualty. And Sidique Bay is to hang it around. just weird group. It's a group of dudes.

It's a mad libs of dudes that play for the pelicans. I don't know what it amounts to. It certainly is a group of dudes. I mean, I guess we just have no choice but to accept the radical stance that like, if you can get a good player at this price, just do it. And Ben Matherin's like impact and reputation aren't so large that they would get in the way of really anything.

I guess other than maybe, you know, Jeremiah Fears getting some touches here or there or if you want to see whatever your dream version of the best Pelicans lineup is. Maybe Ben Mathrin is budding his way into that somehow. But other than that, it's just kind of like, okay, sure, like, let's see it. I want to see if he can get, but I guess here's the question. What is the developmental course for Ben Mathron over the course of this season? Like, what is it that he can prove realistically within the role in New Orleans he's going to get

that could lead him to a dream destination a year from now? I think within New Orleans, given all the people on the team who need the ball, including Zion Williamson, who had it less last year than ever been. before because Derek Queen also needs the ball and Dejante Marie is now back healthy. I assume he will get a chance to shoot a decent amount of catch and shoot threes if he is want to actually take them. And if he can make 38% of catching shoot threes, he's a different player and more than just sort of a bulldozer to the rim.

And I guess that would be it. But I don't, I don't have been, like you said, no harm, no foul. The Clippers thing is interesting. Does it, does it change your thoughts either way on? the Avica Zubach trade. Zubach traded from the clippers to the Pacers for Mathurin and two draft picks, one of which is Keaton Wogler and another of which is, I think, a 2029 unprotected Pacers pick. That was the famous, you know, top five protection that went perfectly for the Clippers.

Does Matherin just being a complete rental for the Clippers change your perception of that trade at all? I think it's more that the way that trade has developed is probably what made. him a bit of a rental. Like, you know, if the pick doesn't pan out, if Keaton Wogler never happens for the clippers, not only is that another guard that is in the mix and therefore less opportunity for Ben Matherin, but it's like that is the return for Zubots at this point.

If it had been a lesser pick, if it had it had it hadn't paned down in the way it had, then maybe I could see the clippers kind of holding on to Matherin and seeing if they could develop him into something that could be a part of their team long term. But as it stands, like I don't know that it changes the way I evaluate the trade at all, in part because Matherin's restrictive for age was always part of the process.

It's part of the reason the Pacers didn't want to hold on to him in the first place because they didn't want to be on the hook for an expensive new deal. It just turns out that it's not that expensive a new deal at all. And yes, I'm aware I misspoke. It wasn't top five protected. It was one to four and 10 to 30 protected. It had to fall to five to nine for the clippers to get it. They got it.

And like once that happened, I mean, this trade was never about Ben Matherin. He was in there as a flyer slash salary and all of that. It was about the picks. it doesn't change, it doesn't change it for me. Although the Clippers have made some interesting decisions this offseason. All right. Yeah, among those interesting decisions, I mean, you and I are just coming back from vacation, Zach. The moment at which I thought.

A lot of time in Northern Europe for us, Rob. We gallivanted around Northern Europe here and there. I was in Finland, Estonia, and Denmark. And you hit Oslo and Norway and Denmark. I mean, a truly beautiful time of the year to be there. But the moment where I thought I had gone. croissant drunk is when I got an alert on my phone that the clippers had re-signed bradley beale so things are happening there honestly i forgot that that that happened um we still we still don't know

what team uh kawai is on we'll get to that with the clippers and they got max shrews and a deal we're in to talk about in a second i have some vacation takes for you by the way okay look i i just turned 49 yesterday. So I'm old, or two days ago. Yesterday was a travel day. I just erased it from my mind. So I'm old. This, this posing thing that people are doing, like, the selfie stick is old news now. But like, the level of posing that people are doing for photos is completely out of control. So my wife's house in Croatia is right on the water. And we look at it's a scenic little spot and people stop. We can see below us as people stop for photos. I mean, and they don't, they don't know that we're watching them. So we get to spy on. on them. Okay. We witnessed an outfit change, like during a sunset photo shoot, like, people brought out, like, I want to do it in this outfit, in this outfit. I heard one woman say to another woman pose like this because it makes your butt look better. Everyone is in this ridiculous, these ridiculous poses where they, like, you wouldn't stand like this in any regular, I saw a woman fluff her hair for 45 seconds in preparation for, can people just experience?

anything anymore. Just take a picture and fucking walk. All right, that's one of my vacation takes. Well, let me ask you this. Which one is worse in this equation? The fluffers and the butt posers or the people who are sitting up on their perch judging the fluffers

and the butt posers, you know? They're out here experiencing a kind of life if refracted through an Instagram filter. Everyone is judging them. This does. Everyone else is judging you. All right. We'll get back to that. One of the things that happened when we were on vacations, I think it was what you're going to get at.

I thought you were going to get at and said you went Bradley Beale, was this Kawhi thing that happened, which was a very interesting bit of inside baseball in the media anyway, where ESPN came out with a story by 17 writers, I think, that said the walktail, Lipton, Rosen, and Katch. Can't forget about Katz, baby. Kat Katz is coming off the bench, getting buckets like Ben Mathurin, had found no evidence of direct cap circumvention linking Balmer to. the Kauai aspiration stuff.

Not a single bit. And might punish the clippers for some lesser things like expenses that they had given or like things they had given Kauai that, you know, should have been classified as expenses or whatever. And then so that was interesting because the investigation has kind of wrapped, but like the conclusion hasn't come out yet. And then the NBA responded by saying, um,

the story had numerous and significant inaccuracies, did not specify what those were. And then the clippers released the state. about sponsorships and other things that, you know, whatever. I don't even remember what that was. Very curious, all of this to me, particularly the NBA firing back at an ESPN story that very clearly had at least some links to the clippers themselves. And still we don't know if Kauai Leonard is a Raptor or a clipper, Grady Dick,

Brandon Ingram. I can tell you both teams are operating as if that trade will go through. And I suspect it we'll go through. But what did you make of the whole? This is now two weeks ago, and there has been no follow-up story. There has been no yet. It's one Eastern time right now. I got my phone on alert.

There's been no announcement about anything. There's been a couple more Pablo Tori podcasts, breaking down his deal with Dactronics, the scoreboard, Jumbotron, Halo, whatever manufacturer that Kauai had to deal with, that the Clippers clearly introduced the two parties. Pablo got emails proving that. But do you have any takes on this, or are you just done with it? I would say my takes are these. Like, for one, this particular part of the saga,

the firing of missives and press releases and whatnot refuting stories, just to me reiterates like the complete bungling of this from the league's perspective in terms of the messaging around it, the timeline, the management of all parties involved. Like, if you are the NBA and you are the arbiters that are initiating this investigation through the law firm you mentioned, like, this is not your role to like quietly take. little pot shots and refute stories. Like, just, just do the thing. Like, we have had enough time.

There's been enough discovery. Like, we can just move on. To your point, that whole day was such a cluster fuck. I'm six hours ahead in Croatia. I was one glass of wine away from crafting my own press release and just releasing it as a joke of like, let's have more. Anyone else want to have a press release? Uncle Dennis. Do you have a PR firm? Like, who else wants to have a press release today? Oh, my God. It's never too late. I think that's opportunity is still there for you. And I'm I'm sure, because this thing keeps dragging on. I think what I am left with at this stage is how much almost every party involved does not want to actually punish the Clippers or Kawhi Leonard for basically any of this.

You will hear the occasional, certainly like the guffawing and laughing from people on other teams as far as how all this has been handled. There's not a lot of righteous fury about the Clippers Capp Capp Cicumvention. There's some frustration for sure, but the reality is like other players do not want this to be punished. The union, I would suspect, does not want this to be punished. Teams, the vast majority of them, really don't want anyone looking too far under the hood

with any of this stuff. Because as soon as that level of scrutiny is involved, and to me, this is where the Dactronics, Jumbotron part of this story got really interesting, I could just feel the league collectively clinch in terms of the teams. If you go to any arena, if you are around any team for long enough,

you will see the, sorts of like, huh, that is a weird coincidental arrangement that the fast casual pizza chain that a player co-owns is in the arena where that player plays? Isn't that such a strange little bit of happenstance? And as soon as it's like, oh, this is a building sponsor, technology sponsor involved with a player, I just thought it was all fun in games and it was about planting trees, but as soon as it became like the hardware in the arena, I thought the story took on like a very different life.

Okay, here are some thoughts I have. number one, I thought the NBA's statement was very curious, numerous and significant inaccuracies. I'm going to, here's what my bet was on that day. I almost tweeted this. I say, you know what, I'm on vacation. I'm not tweeting.

I'll bet you it plays out like this, that the ESPN story is broadly correct. This is my prediction. And that the ESPN story is broadly correct. that the NBA will find a couple of nits with it to pick to defend its statement retroactively saying, see, there were these inaccuracies. But I'll bet you the the gist of it is going to be correct. And I think the NBA was probably just really mad that the Clippers and or ESPN jumped the gun

by trying to get out in front of a story in front of the announcement, in front of the resolution, whatever it is, when the PR was it in a tactic that might end up backfinding. firing. But that was my read of what happened there. I actually don't think the NBA, maybe I could be completely wrong. The NBA may come out and just hammer the clippers and be like, this was all wrong. My prediction would be that statement looks to be, that statement by the NBA looks to be a bit of hyperbole once all is said and done. I don't know what's going to happen here. I suspect the trade goes through. I said from week one of this that I think they will, there will be a slap on the wrist kind of punishment for the clippers, and that's it.

Whether that's fair or not is up to the beholder. But here are some things that I know. You ready? Yes. I don't think there will be a smoking gun and never have thought there would be whether you think there needs to be one or not. Depends on a bunch of different things, including your reading of the collective bargaining agreement. There's a clause in here that I'm reading now that you can infer in a. illegal team sponsor player arrangement. If such compensation from the sponsor of the business

partner is outrageously over market value, that box is checked. And the player's salary is under market value. I think that's one of the, that's one of the places that Clippers have, you know, pretty firm ground to stand on how big Kauai Leonard was ever underpaid. And then there's circumstantial evidence. I don't think the NBA wants to rely on circumstantial evidence. But Here are the two things that to me, if you're going to exonerate the clippers of the big stuff, that's why that ESPN story was slightly disappointing to me. I knew that story was coming. I was waiting for it.

And it came. And I was a little like, I was like, oh, that's not as strong as I thought it would be. Because there are two questions that need to be answered proactively to exonerate the clippers. Not to, I don't even do exonerate them to give them the slap on the wrist. Number one, why did this company pay Kauai Leonard so much money to do nothing? So much more money than it paid any other individual sort of whatever representative. Yeah. Like, is there a plausible explanation for that?

And the explanation can't be well the company was just dumb and it was a fraud. It has to give me a reason why him, why him. And second, I mean, Zach, I would say a lot of things these days are explained by the people involved are dumb and or a fraud. And it seems to be going great everywhere else. Why didn't they pay Robert Downey Jundra or whoever the hell it was that was on their celebrity endorser list anywhere near this amount of money? And why did he do nothing? And number two, why did the Clippers, Steve Ballmer and Dennis Wong continue to pour money into this company when everyone else seemed to understand that it was a fraud?

I'm not saying that that's proof of anything, but I'm saying for the clippers to come out not even clean but like not dirty in the view of the public. Yeah. I think you need to offer explanations for those two things that were not offered in that ESPN. You just can't say we found nothing. You have to, you have to explain those things too. There's just one little catch, and it's there's no explanation. Like, that plausible thing that's going to make everyone feel good about this doesn't exist because I just think this is pretty clearly what it is. And whether there's enough evidence to like, quote unquote, prosecute someone in the NBA sense or for Adam Sullivan, like really throw the book at anyone is sort of a different conversation. all of this stuff is very, very delicately, collectively, collectively bargained for a reason.

But I just, there are no smoking guns, but there's a lot of smoke, and everything seems you pointed in one very specific direction. And it's all just like a little too coincidental and circumstantial at this point to pretend that everything is above board. A violation of Section 2A or 2B above may be proven by direct or circumstantial evidence,

including but not limited to evidence that a player, contract, or any term or provision thereof could not rationally be explained in the absence of conduct, whatever, whatever. And I keep coming back to that clause. And I mentioned it the first week. I don't know that that bar has been hit easily. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know what's going to happen here. I don't know what, quote, unquote, should happen here. I know that you do, to really hammer them, you have to draw a line directly from team to sponsor to player to supplement his basketball salary. And we'll see if that that line is drawn or not. But anyway, that's, that's Kauai. Anything else on the Clippers or Kauai?

I'm ready to, to wash our hands of all this personally. Let's go on to the most interesting thing, basketball wise that happened while we were on break, which is the sign and trade of Peyton Watson to the Cleveland Cavaliers from the Denver Nuggets, with Max Shrews going from Cleveland to the Clippers and an unprotected Cavs,

2031 first round pick going to Denver as the crown jewel of them trading Peyton Watson. Really interesting basketball trade for the calves. Really polarizing moment for the Nuggets who were pilloried for this as the predictable cost cutting casualty that would have to happen once Cam Johnson was acquired from Michael Porter, Jr. and not traded this summer. And I do think they had opportunity to trade on Brian Woodhors reported this the other I think he's right. Once Christian Brown's deal got at least temporarily,

if not permanently underwater, once they couldn't unload Zeke Najee at a cost that was palatable to them and his $8 million or $7.5 is still sitting on their books. They were pilloried for this for having arguably the best player in the world on your team in his prime, deciding we don't want to pay full freight for this team this year. And a couple of things are true, I think.

They could have kept Peyton Watson at this price, kept Cam Johnson, kept everybody, paid, I think, just a huge amount of money in luxury taxes for this one year, been over the second apron this one year, and gotten back under it next year by letting Cam Johnson go when his deal is up after the season. and filling out the roster pretty cheaply. Like that was possible. This could have been a one time only second apron for the nuggets. Keep everyone and then go from there. They also, I think, could have traded Cam Johnson this offseason, took back less money enough so that they could have resigned Peyton Watson at this price and had it be somewhat palatable to them.

And so in that sense, it was kind of an either or to some degree between Cam Johnson and Payton Watson. they chose Cam Johnson and this first round pick over Peyton Watson. What are your thoughts? I think I would feel better about that either or or the greater bargain of what's happening here. If it did have more to do with Peyton Watson in a way, if this was just like a team having some reservations about who Peyton Watson is as a basketball player, I am a believer.

I think he's going to be quite good. But even I have to admit, a lot of that is based on a couple of months. of actual basketball, just has not had a tremendous opportunity to play meaningful, high-level basketball despite the circumstances and how competitive Denver has been. If this was all about, like,

oh, we think Peyton Watson is an injury risk, oh, we think that maybe his development isn't going to pan out. Oh, we think defensively, his reputation outpaces the reality of who he's been and who he can be. I would understand that. If this felt like a team blanching

at paying top dollar for Peyton Watson, that would be okay. But it just feels like a team not wanting to pay period, as the nuggets are ought to do and as they have established a reputation of doing. And I just, I feel like this conversation is only going to get worse and worse because this is not just about the nuggets and Nicola Yokic, although clearly critical characters involved here, but as you might allude to in your other segment today, it's like the baseline expectation

that owning a sports team should mean that you pay for your competitive teams to continue to be competitive might just be a thing of the past in the NBA. Like maybe this is the apron environment is prohibitive enough and the ownership situations around the league are unstable enough and really just interested in the equity of the franchise overall and the transactional nature of it rather than who actually competes. I just feel like I'm watching the dying of the light here in a really dispiriting way. Well, a very classic owner thing to do to vote collectively for something in the CBA, in this case the second apron. And then a year or two later be like, oh my God, this horse. thing. How did this get here? This constraint. How did we do what has befallen us? Who lost the key to these handcuffs I put on myself? Here's the way to spin this for Denver.

Number one, Yoketch is never leaving. I'm saying this is the way to spin it for Denver. Yokic has said I want to retire a nugget. None of this is going to matter to him. I take, I actually take him at base value. And a person like Nicolaioch who's showing no appetite for the limelight for changing teams for any of this drama comes out and says, yeah, I'm not signing my extension this summer. I'll sign a new contract next summer. I'm going to retire a nugget. I'm going to take that at face value

and assume that he's not sitting there like, oh my God, Peyton Watson's not on a team. That changes everything. Number two, I do think they thought Cam Johnson started to acclimate himself a little bit more toward the end of last season and have expectations for what a year under his belt and Denver will mean for him.

Number three, the story. of this trade can not be told completely until we see what happens with that pick. Denver is talking it up like it's a crown jewel pick because it's 2031. God only knows who's going to be on the Cavs then, how old Donovan Mitchell will be and all of that. There's definitely some upside to it. There aren't a lot of picks like that floating around the league anymore. That's the positive spin.

I think this is, to put it as simply as I can, I just don't think the nuggets without Peyton Watson are athletic enough to contend with the thunder and the spurs. And that's what I've said all like I don't think Peyton Watson is a 20 point score. I'm not sure how real the three point shooting last year was. It needs to be a much higher volume for him to fulfill what the calves are going to need him to fulfill. And we'll talk about the Cleveland side of it in a bit. I'm not sitting here trying to make Peyton Watson seem like a three time all star lying in the weeds. He's a nice player. I do think when you're the nuggets and your most bursty athletic player, Aaron Gordon, is entering the backside of his career, has just an endless malady of leg

injuries that affect him off and on throughout every season. It is going to lose some of that bounce. I think they just look too small, too soft, too unathletic to contend with the two teams they're going to have to contend to for the remainder of Yocuchus Prime. And the only in-house remedy they had for that was Peyton Watson jumping around and blocking shots and dunking offensive of rebounds and just being a legit six, seven super athletic guy. I just think you need a modicum of that kind of athleticism to compete against the spurs and the thunder. And I just don't think that like Jamal Murray and Nicole Eokic, they get they are super

skilled. They get by in a lot of different ways. Cam Johnson's not blow away athlete. Christian Brown's a good athlete, but not a great athlete. I just think they don't have enough of that. Umf quotient anymore. And so you can talk about the pick and what they could turn it into and the cost. and Cam Johnson in continuity.

I just keep coming back to the oom factor. It's like I just don't think they have enough of it anymore to contend with those teams. Well, especially when we just saw what that lack of oomph can cost you against not even teams like OKC and San Antonio, but against an opponent like the Minnesota Timberwolves in the playoffs. And I think really this is not just hamstring Denver's ability to compete with the top, like the tip top of the Western conference, but it's restricting their ability to compete with the wolves, the Lakers, like the Rockets, these other teams that are going to be in the middle of the pack with them,

buying for the same playoff spots, the same matchups, it's just going to get that much harder and the idea that you're rolling into a season at which you are supposed to be contending with a materially worse roster, unless that pick manifests into something pretty quickly over the course of this year,

and just hoping for the best, like that's not a solution. And all of this, I agree with you, there's some original sins here. I think Kristen Brown's contract has just proved to be an absolute quagmire. Which, by the way, I can't sit here and claim I saw that coming.

I thought that's a pretty, fair deal for a young guard who messes well with your championship nucleus. Like that's and I, that has so far been very wrong. And all these things are, if Christian Brown shoots 40% on threes this year, that contract looks okay again. But he was not as good defensively as they needed him to be. And he did not shoot it nearly well enough. No, and he had shown preceding that contract like a real upward trajectory and the way

you were describing with Peyton Watson too. It's like those were the two internal projects that really needed to work to not only like continue to improve the Denver Nuggets, but just to sustain them as guys like Aaron Gordon got a little older, as they took steps back, as they started piling up injuries like he has. Like they just needed those guys to help them tread water and continue to be really,

really good. I just think this is going to be a clear step down from even who they were last year. On the pick itself, I mean, if we're sitting here saying the Nuggets, despite, you know, like I thought resigning Spencer Jones, I was kind of surprised they matched that deal from Oklahoma City.

I was a devilish little maneuver by the Thunder. But I like Spencer Jones. I think he's good. We'll talk about De Rosen in a second. I'm not sure he moves the needle at all, but whatever. If we're thinking the Nuggets are now a clear step down from the Spurs, who they have played very well in the regular season, by the way, and the Thunder. And that this is an urgent timetable on Yokach's Prime.

When we talk about that pick and what they can make of it, it's like a this season kind of thing. It's like, what can I get now with that pick or next, like, if I'm being urgent about it. And I'm just like not that optimistic. Like what is. So I, Cam Johnson plus that pick. Christian Brown with five years left on his deal plus that pick. I don't think like I was going through names like, I wonder what that could get me. And I'm like it's there's, it's not like a big game changing player at this point.

I don't think Christian Brown salary is a net negative. So you're paying to get off of it. Cam Johnson is an expiring deal. Now, he's also extension eligible, would not surprise me in the next couple of weeks. If we get, oh, the rumor has it. They're maybe discussing an extension. Same with Josh Hart, by the way, in New York. So that's one thing is, like, I'm not optimistic that there's a game changer that's going to help them, like, right now, just dangling that pick and whatever salary they have expendable.

We'll see. DeMarre de Rosen, big name, clearly now will come off the bench for the Nuggets. Do you care? Does this matter to you? I think it matters to me in a couple ways. I mean, for one, given where the nuggets were with the second apron and the limited ways which they could actually add players, getting to Marjorison for the minimum is totally fine.

Good bat, like, you should do that if you can do that. Does he actually address the things that he would suggest he would address? That's kind of the question for me. Like Denver was a team that needed, I think another creator to take some of the heat off of the Yokich-Murray two-man game, which as we saw in the playoffs just got, I think, kind of spammed beyond his utility, like overstretched to a point where they needed some kind of counterbalance.

Demar de Rosen, in theory, could be that kind of counterbalance. But part of the reason that's true is because he's such an effective, like, siloed bucket getter, right? Like, he is a guy who you can entrust to create just those kinds of opportunities. But I think he's so siloed within the context of this team that I don't see how he fits really at all

into the best versions of what they do. Like, how does he draft off of Yoke and Murray. How does he play off of Aaron Gordon? Like these are, they're not incompatible. They're just like kind of speaking different languages in a way that I think even Tim Hardaway Jr. was a little more copacetic with Denver's way of life than Demar is. Yeah, De Rosen, look, we know he's not going to shoot a lot of threes and he's not going to shoot them particularly well and he's not going to be guarded as a floor spacer.

And he's best with the ball in his hands, which makes him a weird fit with the Murray Yokich tandem that needs spacing, that needs oxygen around it. throwing Aaron Gordon or Christian Brown, anyone else who is a minus to average, Aaron Gordon is a huge plus three point shooter, but he's not a high volume three point shooter, he's guarded that like that. And it just, you know, doesn't feel great.

Obviously he'll come off the bench. The one thing I'm curious about is, is this an opportunity for them to toy with the super hard stagger of Murray and Yokic? That every minute Yolkich doesn't play, Murray has to play. Can you throw De Rosen into that role with Tyos Jones, two starters, and whoever is ending up playing Marvin Bagley, the backup vibe, and get by with DeRosen playing DeRosen ball

and then maximize the minutes Murray and Yoketch play together a little bit more. Like that's a thought. And he's still DeRosen, an elite mid-range shooter, high 40s percentile percent wise. So look, I don't, it's a perfectly good minimum sign. who will help them here and there. I don't know that he really fits with the best lineups that they put out there, but that's not what they're paying him to do.

All right, let's take a quick break and talk about the more interesting side of this trade, at least basketball-wise, which is the Cleveland Cup. Legendary has arrived in Alberta with BetMGM Casino. Sign up to unlock access to over 4,000 casino games, including exclusive slots you can't spin anywhere else. Survivor's ready? The iconic TV show is now an online casino game,

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All right, I've been dying to talk about this. I think this is such an interesting move for the Cavs. Max Drews, big part of their team, missed almost all of last season and was essential again in the playoffs, underwhelming runs of the conference finals, and then they got steamrolled by the Knicks, obviously. He's a casualty here. He goes to the Clippers.

I think the Cavs are betting A, Sam Merrill plus Jalen Tyson. We kind of have enough to hybridize Max Trues in some kind of way. And obviously, B, they're petting on Peyton Watson being the exact kind of player that they've been searching for with DeAndre Hunter and every trade rumor that they've ever been in, Karras Levert for wing players,

3-D wing player is a true 3-&D wing player. I think the D is there. You know, there are people who think Peyton's a little overrated on defense. I have not one of them. I think he's pretty goddamn good. Has his strengths and weaknesses like anyone else. But clearly he's just dimensionally, his size, his length, his athleticism. He's the player that they've been trying to get.

He shot 52% on corner threes last year, 45% on corner threes the year before, I think. Above the break three is a little shakier. so his place in the offense is going to be interesting. He shoots them at low volume, like I think four per 36 minutes or something like that. And they were pretty open threes for the most part. I looked at the tracking daddy. He's like upper third of the league and like distance from defender to shooter when shooting threes. So we'll see how that works.

My gut at when this happened was I think this is a really fun move for the Cavs. on the terrace in Croatia, I was like, I like the moonshot. It costs them a valuable pick. I'm cool with that. They've now re-signed Hardin, which was a fade accompli. That was sitting there waiting. It was just a math problem. So once you flip Garland for Hardin, you're all in.

And I think three years of Hardin is going to be uncomfortable by the middle of year two. God forbid there's an elimination game somewhere along the way. But look, that was the price of doing business as soon as you made that trade. You're all in for now. You still got Mobley. You still got Allen. Yep. I think this is worth a shot at a player archetype that they haven't been able to find

who's young. And $22 million a year, $4388, I think is fair value for Payton Watson. That was my day of reaction. I still feel mostly that way. I also feel like this moved, like I could see him. him having a mildly disappointing season for the calves, considering the expectations and the excitement level that everyone felt when the trade happened. Because I'm just not convinced he's going to take and make enough threes for this to really

work on offense, and particularly when they have the two bigs out there. But I still kind of like the move for the calves. I also like it. It is awkward. Like there are little bits of awkwardness in the fit in the same way that there have been for basically all of the wings you laid out that the calves have tried in this exact spot. But Payton Watson is kind of Deontre Hunter with a pulse. He is kind of DeAndre Hunter with like a little more bounce in terms of his ability to protect the rim, which is important.

I like who he could be for them. But I'm with you that like what the Cavs ask of that player who they're plugging in at the three alongside Mitchell and Hardin and alongside their two bigs is a little different than what many teams ask of their wings. And a lot of that is because Mitchell and Hardin should not really be guarding point of attack players really at all. There's a reason why Max Drewson, Dean Wade, were like the go-to guys for that assignment in the playoffs, even against really high-level opponents. And so can Peyton Watson do that? I think he's pretty good at guarding wings.

Certainly, I would say better at guarding wings than Biggs at this stage in his career. Can he credibly guard, like, point-of-attack creator guards on a consistent basis? He's been a little bit more in, like, the Kevin Durant defensive zone than he has in, like, the Cade Cunningham defensive zone. I was going to say, to your point,

the people they faced in last year's playoffs, Cade Cunningham, Jalen Runcson, like these are the kind of guys that he's at the guard now. Yeah, and so it's like that part, I'm very curious to see how he does, or really frankly, even if the Cavs deploy him in that particular way. We'll obviously see kind of how they want to manage those sorts of assignments.

What I am excited about, I mean, for one, seeing if the three point volume can measure up, seeing if he can be the kind of shooter they need, which is not just someone who makes 40% of your threes, but someone who has the gravitational pull to demand defensive attention, away from Hardin and Mitchell.

We'll see if defenses really treat him that way. But in terms of his own defense, too, to me, like part of what makes Mobley and Allen really effective and quite special as players is like the versatility of where they can play on defense. Like those are two guys who are pretty comfortable stepping out pretty high on the floor. But when they do,

it really exposes the backline rotations for the cats and it really exposes them as a rebounding team. And if Payton Watson can help in either of those ways, I think he could be really unique valuable in a way that, yeah, he might not fit just so. He might not be the exact archetype of what we are expecting from this exact player. But he might give them something they've needed all along in ways that they kind of

transformed them. Yeah, the defense thing is going to be super interesting because, like you said, he'll be at the point of attack a lot. And you could almost overthink it by, like my brain went through this whole cycle of thoughts. Like, well, if he's at the point of his attack, one of his best strengths as a defender is he's like an incredible shop lockers and presence in the paint. Am I losing that in exchange for having him guard at the point of attack and

sparing Hardin and Mitchell an assignment that they can't do? Well, okay, so it's not like teams are going to stop hunting Mitchell and Hardin in the playoffs. And so then I switch Peyton Watson when they run those kind of two main actions to target those guys. Then I switch Peyton Watson. Well, then he's off the ball again and I've at least made you kill time. He's also big enough and quick enough that the hedge and recover strategy, if you want to employ that, he should be better and more disruptive at that than anyone the Cavs have had.

And just like whatever role he's going to be in defensively, and by the way, he's like, he's a real small ball power forward, which is something that they've tried to have facsimiles of, particularly last year. They'll play very small lineups when they would have one of the bigs off the floor. He can actually play that position, at least as a shop blocker,

rim protector type. Like, whatever, however you use him, the defensive upgrade is going to be enormous. He's just a different kind of presence than they've had. I just think the questions come on offense and if he's going to be able to make enough threes watching Hardin and Mitchell run the offense. Where he's going to be, is he just going to be standing in the corner? Is he going to be able to make enough of them to make up for the fact that he's not going

to be guarded like a shooter, at least at the beginning of next season? I think it's more good than bad. I think it'll work pretty well. I also just think the cads are generally being slept on as a real contender to win the East. And I understand why. Like, I have to be able to trust James Hardin and elimination games and I can't. Like, I just, it's, that's over. I can't do it. It has some good games in the playoffs, not an elimination games. It has some big games against Detroit. He's like, fine. I don't really feel great about like years two and three of this contract, but I'm not

focusing on that now. I understand that they kind of limped by the Raptors and limped by the pistons and got wallowed by the Knicks. And none of it made you feel that confident in it. But I remember arguing with Bill about LeBron. And he would just was so negative on LeBron as a fit in Cleveland with Mitchell, not just because of the overlap of having all the ball handlers with Mitchell Hardin and LeBron, which was going to be like weird, but just he didn't see the ceiling for that team. And he loves the feeling with them in Philadelphia,

with LeBron in Philadelphia. I think that team's really interesting too. But one of his arguments was, well, Cleveland is dead on arrival defensively with Mitchell, Hardin and LeBron. I'm like, well, is, is Philly not kind of in the same boat with, with like, why, like Cleveland has Mobley and Allen at the very least? I think this team is weird, has not been super convincing in the playoffs. They're over under's 48 and a half.

I would take the over. And I think I haven't made picks yet. I don't think I'm going to pick Cleveland to win the East, but I think they're kind of being slept on a little bit because of, for all those reasons, like they're being So I think they're really good. I think they're really good. I also think like a little weird does them good. Like this is a team that needed a bit of a,

not a dramatic change of pace necessarily. You don't need to reconceptualize the whole roster. But like how do you take what you have and make it feel new again? How do you breathe some different kind of life in it? And Bain Watson for exactly the reasons we were describing the Nuggets would miss him. Like his athleticism does that for teams. It's a real thing, man. That guy's going to make four or five plays a game.

They'll like block a shot off the backboard and all of a sudden you're in transition, the other way. Like, it's a real thing. Whether you think he's going to be work this contract or a future All-Star or whatever, like he does things few other players can do. And for the Cabs, have one more guy who can sort of tap into that sort of skill set, I think is, I mean, a great thing to make them sort of a wildcard element within those upper tiers at the East.

I just think the big challenge for the Cabs and Peyton Watson exacerbates in some ways is that, like, when you get to the playoffs, I just think the offense has to have a little bit more unpredictability and juice to it than just like now it's going to be hard and dribbling around forever and now it's going to be Mitchell dribbling around forever. Like I thought Mitchell's passing was really disappointing in the postseason. I just thought the offense lost a lot of it. Now they faced three great defensive teams and that has to be factored in two. I just didn't think they had enough creativity movement, just overall pace on offense.

And I don't know. I don't know if Peyton Watson helps with that. And he obviously is probably a shooting downgrade compared to. struce, but I still think this is all worth it, and the upside is interesting for the cabs. And the space is clearly important in terms of keeping the bigs on the floor and making it all work together. But who he is playing in space is a huge part of that formula, too, whether it's as a small

ball four or just kind of cutting and moving. And that's one of those areas where I think we're going to figure out really over these next two years who Peyton Watson is in that way. The Nuggets certainly had hoped at one point that he would develop the sort of like Aaron Gordon, Dunker Spot, like agile read and react game that would allow him to be a critical part of the action itself.

It never really came along. He never really had a feel for that stuff. But he's, what, going to be 24 years old going into the season. Like he still has time. Sometimes that just clicks into place for guys. Aaron Gordon was one of those players himself who had to develop that over time.

Like, is he ever going to be a fluid read and react kind of offensive threat? Or is he going to be the athlete you put in the corner and just let kind of hard charge baseline like to cut. And the dunker spot is off limits to him when the two big guys are on the floor. And everyone wants to rush the next move, which is you trade Jared Allen for whatever and put Mowgli as you're starting five and Watson as your four and all that.

And maybe that is the end game. Maybe it's always been the end game. I don't know. I know Cleveland is damn good when Mowgli and Allen are on the floor together, defensively really, really good. And for now they're on the team. They're going to start. They're going to play, what, 20 to 28 minutes a night together?

whatever it ends up being as you stagger them. And in those 20 to 28 minutes, when Peyton Wads is on the floor, the dunker spot is going to not be his. He's going to have to figure out how to make an impact elsewhere. But I think you will. Enough anyway. All right. The other big move that happened, Clay Thompson bought out by the Mavericks,

signed with the Miami Heat. Obviously, we know what Clay can do, a plus plus shooter, one of the greatest shooters of all time. I think he actually has a chance, if not will slide into the starting five for Miami and displaced Pella Larson. You'd have Davy on Mitchell, Clay, Wiggins, Janus, Bam. That's kind of interesting. Off the bench.

Some combination of Drew Smith, Tim Hardaway, Pella Larson, Bobby Portis, you could stagger Bam and Janus. There's still a backup five out there that they'll probably get a sign. Yovitch is still hanging around there. It's kind of an interesting team. They've become more interesting, both with Clay and with time. To me, they're over under is 44 and a half. I would take the over in a heartbeat for them.

I think they'll win more than that. I think they're going to be competitive. I think Clay, look, he's old. He's suffered two devastating injuries. The old Clay is never coming back. The peak clay is never coming back. But I've seen some analysis like this is exactly what they need. They needed shooting.

Clay is just going to stand out of the way and peace on open looks. I think the value of Clay is he's not going to stay out of the way and just stand around in the corner. Clay is going to be one of the most important screeners on their team, both off the ball and on the ball. His value is going to be the combination of his shooting, his movement, and his screening, because both Bam and Janus, especially Janus, have just eaten and thrived on those inverted pick and rolls when the guy's screening for them as a shooter who can slip out, who can hit you and flare out, who can set flat screens where the defense doesn't know which direction you're going to go. And that's what Clay's been doing that stuff his entire career. I think he's going to be flying all over the court, creating havoc. And in that sense, I think he's even a better fit than he's been given credit for being because of his shooting.

He's not going to be a standstill shooter and the heat need him to not be a standstill shooter. Well, they already have guys who can kind of do that to various things. Like Andrew Wiggins can do a version of that less comfortable on the move. Clay, like not only does Clay still have that skill set. And look, he knocked down more threes than any member of the Miami he did last season. Like he's still a good high volume shooter. But those inverted pick and rolls, like Eric Spulster is one of the most inventive coach. is in terms of this exact sort of off-ball movement.

Like the, you know, the minds who brought you, the Wayne Ellington Renaissance and the Duncan Robinson breakout, it's like all of this stuff can just continue to come to roost and live on through Clay Thompson. I like when movie trailer Rob comes out from the minds behind Wayne Ellington's 225 three-point season. You know, people forget about Wayne Ellington, unfortunately. But I think the inverted pick and roll element of that I'm really excited about,

not only with Clay, but I think Davy on, Mitchell, too, as like a bigger guard can fulfill some of that prompt. I just think under the circumstances, this was about as good as you were going to do from this kind of spot and with this kind of utility. Like there is no bulletproof three and D wing you're going to get for like $6 million a year. But if you have a superstar, if you successfully get Janus, then you can bring in someone like Clay Thompson to help kind of flank the offense and shape things up a little bit.

And one of the reasons I think he has a chance to start and maybe should start despite his defensive limitations at this point is he's protected all around him by good to great defensive players like Wiggins is the is the second worst defender in that starting five and he's pretty good. Bam and Yannis are obviously all defense level guys even if Yonis is maybe taking a slight step back. Missal's a pit bull. I think he's exactly what they need in their starting five in their bench like when you start listing the names they've quietly become a little deeper than maybe not a little deeper but I think Hardaway was a nice signing. Definitely.

Portis, Portis was, I know he took offense to this on Twitter, but he was kind of the tax on the deal, but he's still a good bench player who can play, like with Janice, however you want to classify, who's the four,

who's the five, you can play with BAM. You can play with pretty much any one of those guys. Pello Larson's, I think, was going to start before they got Clay. I think he's pretty solid. I still have hope for Yovitch.

And then you have like, our guy Simone Fontecchio is still floating around in the deep bench. Conwell, they have hopes for, Kachad Johnson, Gardner, like, those are all, I think they've put together, given how much it took out of their sales to get Janus, how much of their depth they had to throw out to get Janus. I think they've done as good a job as they could.

And I'm, it really, like, I think they're going to be a good competitive team. I kind of poo-poohed before, before I went on vacation, I had Goldsbury on, and we did our most pressure, most pressurized player rankings. And I didn't even have Yonnas on it. And I said, because I just don't think the heater are going to be, like, good enough for him to face that kind of real pressure. A month later or whatever, I think they're going to be a little better than I thought. Not just because of Clay, but, like, as their roster has sunk in, I think they're going to be, I think they could go toe to toe to with almost anyone in the East. But I still think they just don't have enough really good players to win three playoff series in the East.

Like, I still don't think they're a contender, contender to get to the finals. but I think they're pretty damn good and that's a fine step one in the honest year. I don't know. Maybe you think they're a finals contender. I personally seeing them win three playoff series. If they become a contender, I think the single most important reason

is that Janice and Bam are more complimentary on offense than I am envisioning now. I think that would require not only some development and willingness on both of their parts to make that possible, but it would require some of these supporting pieces, maybe the younger kind of question mark elements to show to be more than one thing, right?

Like is, is Pella Larson, someone who helps you move the ball and facilitate office? Or can he also develop as a shooter? Like, Myron Gardner can knock down some open shots. Can he prove to be anything else for this team? Like, they need, like, Clay Thompson is good as a movement option to help space the floor and keep momentum in your offense. But, like, otherwise, you know exactly what he's giving you,

and it is somewhat limited and is somewhat focused. And that's what they're supporting. supporting cast looks like to me. It's like it is Janus. It is bam. Those guys are flexible and versatile. And I mean, among the more skilled bigs in the history of the NBA, if you want to plot it all out, just like in terms of the breadth of what they can do, it's incredible. Everyone else is kind of a specialist in some way or another? And so it's like, is the NBA in 2026 and 2027 the kind of league where you can survive off of that in a conference where the Knicks are the defending champions, the Sixers are loaded up in a totally

new way? We are just singing the Cavs praises as a fact. in this particular race. We haven't even gotten to, you know, the bills of the world talking themselves into the Paul George Celtics. I did enjoy that. I did enjoy that. As a inevitable as it was.

Kauai on the Raptors. Yeah. I mean, we talked about the East has 11 teams next year who I think believe they can be a play in slash playoff team and probably several, a half dozen or so believe they can win the conference. Miami would certainly put itself in that,

in that ladder bucket. To me, it just comes down why I can't put them quite that high, even in a conference that's seemingly more open, at least than the West, which is top heavy, but so heavy at the top that just dethroning those two teams seems impossible, is A,

there are two best players overlap too much on offense in Yannis and BAM, and have the same limitation on offense, despite BAM becoming much more willing three-point shooter and an 83-point score against the Washington Wizards. No, did. And that plus your third best player is, I guess Andrew Wiggins and like the Andrew Wiggins, who was the second best player on a championship team, we just haven't seen that guy for a sustained period of time in Miami.

I just don't think the talent quotient is quite high enough. But good signing and I'm excited what comes next for the heat. All right. The last thing that happened while I was on vacation that you and I have to discuss is Russell Westbrook retired. Fifth all time and assists. 16th all time in points, obviously an MVP, average a triple double multiple times, all time record, or in triple doubles. One of the more beloved players of his era,

he is the Internet's NBA star of the last 15 years. Weird career, right? Like you have the Oklahoma City opening act, which peaks with the 2012 finals. And then there's the Hardin Trade, which is a disaster. And then they still could have made the finals the next year in 2013. Russ gets hurt in the first round with Pat Beverly,

the collision at half court. 2014, Abaka gets hurt going into the conference finals. They still go toe to toe to with the spurs and lose that series, which involves Kauai blocking Russ at the rim at the end of game six, one of the greatest defensive plays in the last 20 years. Then KD gets hurt. Katie and Russ are hurt the next year. 2016 is the Warriors and the Clay Thompson avalanche.

And then KD leaves in 2016. In the next, what is that, nine seasons? How many playoff series do you think Russell Westbrook's team's one? Oh. Is the answer like one or zero? Two. And I'm not just to be clear, that's not putting that on Russ. The point is he never, he never, A, became one of the top five players in the league who could, like, lead a team.

I guess he was one of the top five players because he was MVP for Steam All-MBA. But never, like, was able, never had the right team where he could be the, the, guy on a great team. Yes. And he was in this incredible circumstance with Durant where the two of them were so powerful together. And Durant was the better player, but Russ complimented him well enough. I think underrated, actually.

Definitely. Because there was so much talk about the friction between their games and his rush shooting too much. Russ definitely shot too much in his career. Fine. Like that doesn't need to be litigated. And then like it just sort of like Oklahoma City was in this purgatory. They got Paul George.

They lost in the first round twice. And he just never kind of. found his way to the right team. And I think ultimately, you know, the two series that they won, by the, were in the bubble when he was with the Rockets. They beat Oklahoma City in the first round. And then one of the great sort of fun revenge series of all time

was when he was with the Nuggets in 2025 and they beat the clippers of the first round and Russ was hanging on the rim and getting text and clowning them in the last game. But it's obviously the great what if in Oklahoma City. and the other what if is just whatever happened to his mid-range jump shot that was a pretty reliable shot for him at the peak of his career and just kind of went away.

And with that, went his career at the top of the league and in the biggest stages. It was not only a very comfortable shot, it was his shot. Like he called it his cotton shot. Like the thing that is like reliable layup frequency for him. Like that was the counterbalance to everything in terms of the explosion to the rim and who he could be as a full court athlete

and who he was as like a really underrated playmaker out of that kind of gravity. Like I love watching Russ play. And I think one of the weirdness, one of the weirdest parts of that latter half journey as he found his way to the wizards and the kings and the clippers and the nuggets and all these various stops where he like kind of wore out his welcome at almost all of them

because he wasn't the player he used to be because of kind of the caveats and the quirks of his game. But we just started talking about all of that. stuff all the time with Russ. Every time he came to a new team, it was like, okay, that's cool, but let's pour the cold water on this before anyone gets too excited about adding the MVP. And I feel like in doing that, we've spent the last six, seven years, just talking about all of his flaws, talking about all his limitations, when the reality is, like, Russell

Westbrook is and has been a player where if you talk to other players in the league, they rave about him. And I, like, I find that players rave about guys mostly when they have something that they don't. Like you get an NBA player talking about Kyrie Irving's handle, and it's like they can't even comprehend it, right? And that's when you know it's on a different level when other pros are raving about this. Other pros rave about Russell Westbrook's spirit all the time

and the energy and the give a shit factor and the care and the explosive way that he would play every single game. And it's like Kyrie Irving has something that those guys don't. Steph Curry has something that those guys don't. Russell Westbrook has something that those guys don't. And we got so bogged down in the next. narrativeizing and the caveats and who he couldn't be, that I feel like it is a real shame that we kind of lost sight of some of that

over the last six or seven years. Well, look, I mean, what you're really talking about in the last seven or eight years of his career was he could never figure out how to be an effective off ball player on offense and was no longer athletic and good enough to be the number one on ball player on offense. And that left him just constantly in this weird zone of trying to fit in on an elite team as the number two guy, but not being able to do the kind of stuff that number two guys typically have to do.

To his credit, he was so athletic and so ferocious that particularly with the rockets, he made it work fairly well next to Hardin, who like, I'll never forget, like when that trade happened, that's the same summer Paul George has traded from the Thunder to the Clippers. Like the Thunder broke it down geniusly,

and Russ was the second step there. I mean, I don't know that, let's put it this way. I was with Rockets people a lot during that summer league. I don't think the Rockets ever really thought that was a great idea. Like to trade Chris Paul for Russell Westbrook. I think that was a hard. With two picks.

I think that was a hardened driven compromise that everyone had to sort of stomach and make the best of. And Russ like made that like when they would play five out and they had to eventually play completely five out because of Russ, because he was effectively like having another center on the floor offensively, they kind of made it work. But I think like when he was at the absolute peak of his athleticism and power and the jump shot was reliable enough and the finishing at the rim, which really declined at the end of his career to the point. Remember there were like rumors that he was having a handed issue and all that?

He was such a handful, not a handful. He was impossible to do with. And my flashball memory of that would be would be Spurs Thunder, And remember the Thunder like had the Spurs number in most of those playoff series. Like 2012, they went four straight against them. 26. They unseat the Lamarcus Aldridge team. The 65 win team.

They won a lot of games that they did. The spur, I remember covering that series. And the Spurs coaches halfway through just did not know what to do with Russ. Like they were just like this guy, they were guarding him with Danny Green because they wanted Kauai on Durant. And I remember talking about those matchups with some of their coaches on off days. And what they ended up doing was putting Kauai onto Russ. They switched halfway through the series. They put Kauai on Russ because they were like,

we just have to keep this dude out of the lane. And he's so powerful that, yeah, you can sit here and nitpick his decision making, his freneticism, whatever. But like, if Danny Green goes under a screen and dares Russ shoot a jumper, he's dead. Like Russ is just getting to the basket. and he got to the rim so easily that it made him

almost a better passer than he would have been just sort of naturally because everyone had to swarm him and the kickouts and the reeds were easy for him. And they had to put Danny Green on Kevin Durant because they could not slow down. They like despite the turnover is the shot selection, whatever, he was just tearing them apart so completely

that they just, they were like frightened of him. And he was a real frightening player. And to the point about, His spirit, his athleticism. My favorite Russ plays. Look, I know I was never a big Russ guy. I'm not going to see her in front like I was.

His, like I didn't vote him MVP in 2017. I voted for Kauai. I knew I was going to be made fun up for it. Sure enough, Deadspin wrote a whole piece about how stupid I was to vote for Kauai. There was always this thing, though, of like, yeah, I thought Russ was a little bit overrated. That doesn't mean I think he's bad. Like there was just this no in between with him. You either thought he was the best or you were a hater.

But the point is the plays that will define Russ for me, you can go watch the highlights, the steel and the incredible N-1 against the Lakers, dunks on Kauai, all of it. The offensive rebounds were always the thing that just like, they were like, he just had a knack for the total gut punch, take the air out of the other team. Like we just worked so hard to stop Durant

and hardened and this freaking blur just came in, got this offensive rebound, saved it, you get another possession. Like those were always my, when you talk about the effort and the tenacity, those were always the plays that it stood out for me the most of like, this guy just will not stop. Yes. It just like took your will with some of those plays. And like, you're right that the competitive peak of that was certainly with the Thunder team that went to the finals.

But I think for me and for I would imagine a lot of people, when you imagine the platonic ideal Russell Westbrook in your head. When you're, when you're thinking back on his career, it is like that 2017 era. I would say specifically the game where he set the triple double record against the in Denver. In Denver.

Denver's like fighting for its playoff life. And Russell Westbrook is just going, going, going. 50 piece game winner from the hash mark, triple double record all in one night, absolutely mobbed by the team. And it was just like, that is who Russell will always be to me. He has all the other stuff too.

he has all the catches, he has all the caveats. He had the kind of like slow decline of his game over time in the mid-range and the finishing and the defense that we've already talked about. But he was also the guy who, I'm so glad you brought up that Spurs example because so much of the question earlier when Russ is like fully in superstar form about like how do you build a team around this guy, who do we want around him, all the hand wringing over like the Andre Robertsons of the world and whether they can get enough shots.

The subtext of all those questions is Russell Westbrook is blowing our shit up. How do we have enough people who can just like carry water around him to make this worthwhile? There was a period of time where I think that made absolute sense. And then there's this later period where, as you alluded, he never quite adapted in the way that aging stars need to adapt. And it turned it into a totally different conversation. Well, and he's also like, I mentioned the two playoffs series since Durant left. Like he's also the ones that they lost to Utah and Portland with the Paul George Rust teams in Oklahoma City.

those were pretty, those losses sort of spoke pretty loudly about, okay, this, this post-KD team isn't going to work? Like, it's just not working. After that, it's like, well, the Wizards lose to the Sixers. Well, of course they do. Russ was amazing for the Wizards or like the clippers are decimated by injuries. They lose to the sons in the first round. Like, none of those have like anything to do with Russell Westbrook, really.

But the point about him blowing stuff up, I remember I wrote about this at ESPN toward the end of his time with Durant in Oklahoma City. The last couple of years, and I remember talking mostly to Nick Collison about it, who still works for the thunder. If you looked at all the data, those teams gradually took what was like a 50-50 ball handling split between Durant and Westbrook. This is after Harden, you know, and made it like 6535 to Westbrook. And part of it was Durant is such a malleable player. He can do everything.

Like he can space the floor and Russ can't. He can curl around screens and take jump shots and cut. and stuff that Russ wasn't as good at or wasn't as willing to do. But part of it was also that Russ had advanced so much as a playmaker that the Thunder, I think, tried their best to, like, set a spread pick and roll kind of attack around Russ's physical dominance and speed. And Nick Collins, whom would talk to me about, like, on the record would say, like, yeah, we want Kevin attacking closeouts and we want the ball in Russ's hands.

That's kind of what we're envisioning. And he just, they just didn't have like the speed. basing on the wing or with their big men to really, really space the floor in a way that would have unleashed him as a spread pick and roll, just like alpha guy. And I mean, they were still awesome. And they could have very well made the finals and won the championship in 2013 in year one post-hardened. But, and it's, I actually am kind of surprised that Russ retired.

I mean, he averaged 15 points a game last year for the Kings, but still like 15 points a game is, is not nothing. Like, he can still do a lot of the stuff that he does. and like I said, he retires fifth and assists, 16th and points. I still would put him in the point guard rankings. I did this a little bit with Chris Paul when he got cut by the Clippers. He's still behind Steph, Magic, Oscar, Isaiah Thomas, Chris Paul, Stockton, Kid, Nash. I think I would still have all over Russ, but he's right.

He's pretty near the tail end of that group. Like, he's on par with some of those guys. And I think probably above anyone else, although there are still some guys coming. I don't know. Maybe I'm underrating him, but that's where I am. I could see the argument, especially as it relates to guys like CP who have like interesting resumes, but comparable ones in terms of overall achievement and never quite reached the MVP highs that rusted. But this is where he really could have used a Chris Paul style, third, you know, second or third act that really stuck, something more than, I think the wizard's stint was probably kind of the high watermark of who he was post thunder other than like, I think the Rockets to me are kind of inclusive of that. but after that he never really had that kind of like put his foot down established roots anywhere be something meaningful to one of these teams beyond a one-year rental kind of formula.

It's a shame that it turned out that way. But I think we're always going to think about the 2012 team and who they could have been. And like that's clearly one of the dividing points of NBA history, whether that team stays together or not. But I also think in the sliding door that we ended up with, like this is the reality I want to live in, the one where Russell Westbrook became MVP Russell Westbrook, where James Harden got to explore the full reaches of his game, warts and all. Like those three guys would have been awesome to watch together over a really long term and grow together.

But I'm glad to have seen who they were and who they've been independently to. By the way, you mentioned the 2012 finals. Off the top, I'm not sure it's the best game of Russell's career, given the stakes, 4 to 3 points in game for that series, 20 of 32 from the field. 20 of 29 on twos. It's like one of the alt. They lose the game and they lose the series,

but one of the best games of Russis' career. All right, Rob Mahoney, you're back in the saddle. We're back in the saddle. We're not swimming in cold water in Northern Europe anymore. What do we got coming up from you? What do we even do now? We got, like, in the past TV series seasons

would be starting now in mass. Now it's just, I don't know what's going on. Where? What's the next show on the docket for you guys? Well, you know, we're easing into, I guess like free pre-training camp at this point for the NBA. So there's still a minute. The good news is slow horses is almost back.

Are you a slow horses person, Zach? I was. I've watched the first two, my, it's just my wife wouldn't do it. It's too tense. It's too violent. Two tense.

Is it really intensity if every like dramatic plot is undercut by a Gary Oldman fart joke? No, or the holes in his socks. One of the two. But, you know, like, season one was about like a kidnapping. And like, it's pretty intense. And so I watched a couple seasons when she was on a work trip for a while.

And I just don't have time to. I did squeeze in House of the Dragon, though. I'm not really sure how I did that. I decided I was going to do that. And I don't know if it's good or not, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. It was fun. And you like Agon, like Sunfire herself, you are risen in your house of the dragon fandom and watching.

So welcome back. It wasn't the I'm alive meme. It's very good. And that was funny. The funniest part is when he called this. I get all the Targaryans mixed up. Agon, Amon, Damon, Darren, Damon, I don't go, who the hell they are. When he tells his, when he calls his brother, imbecile, that's a great, like,

imbecile is a word I would like to use in my regular life. Rob Mahoney, you were certainly not an imbecile. Thank you for joining us. And we'll talk to you soon. Thanks, I appreciate it. All right, nothing I like better to do when severely jet lagged and talking about financial products I don't understand. James Surawicki is here. I read him in the New Yorker for 17 years when he wrote the financial page for them. He teaches at Yale. He wrote a book called The Wisdom of Crowds.

And it's fitting I'm having you on because I discovered your writing during the housing crisis in 2008 when I was a reporter at a magazine called American Lawyer. And I all of a sudden had to understand what the hell a mortgage-backed security was, what the hell a credit default swap was. and I realized I was completely financially illiterate when it came to understanding any of these things. And you helped me understand them. You also helped me realize, like, I'm actually kind of okay being financially illiterate

when it comes to these products that are almost like, I don't really understand and don't really hope to understand what they are. And they just seem kind of like a tool for rich people to get more rich. But you didn't help me understand it. And now we're back because there's a lot of stuff happening in big finance in the NBA highlighted by this. sale of the Lakers from Mark Walter, who is under investigation for stuff that I didn't really understand before I started reading more about it. But also even for an evaluation of $12.5 billion

to Bob Eiger and Josh Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, even though no one seems to think they have enough money to buy a team priced at that. But I want to zoom out. There's been a bunch of team sales in the NBA in, I think a third of teams have been sold in like the last five years. the wolves change controlling ownerships while I was on vacation in Europe in addition to the Lakers. And the prices are now reaching a point so large for the bulk of the teams

that the number of people who can actually afford them, even if you go in tandem, is reaching such a limited number that you're going to have sovereign wealth funds coming in and private equity funds coming in. And all of this is making me think. And I wanted to start here. Is this changing like something about the soul of sports

and how sports has been this sort of hybrid of, they've always been corporations and companies, but they're also somewhat of a public good, and they were owned by people who had ties to, in some cases, the city that they were in. And now there are these financial investments that are flipping and changing hands. As a sports fan, is this new, or are we overreacting?

And by overacting, I mean, one of the financial issues is, like, owners, billionaires, you know, gouging the public to pay, for their arenas. And like the book Field of Schemes, which is the the book about that, is like 20 years old.

So in some sense, none of this is new, but it feels new. Does it feel new to you? I think there are two things that feel new. The Lakers sale in particular, I think, feels new simply because of how short the period was that TWG Global,

which is the Mark Walter Company, how short the period was that they held it. I mean, I may be wrong, but I think it did. deal, that deal when they bought a majority stake in the company in the Lakers, that deal didn't close until like maybe October, 2025. So that's less than a year for them to flip it. And obviously they were able to flip it for assuming the deal goes through, it'll be for, you know, about $2.5 billion more, 25% return, which is a nice return for a year. But that does feel unusual, right? It's unusual

to buy an asset like the Lakers and then all of a sudden turn around and sell it. The other thing that feels new and I think is probably more important and is connected to what you were saying is that historically, I think we have thought of franchises as being owned by individual owners. And certainly in the leagues themselves, I mean, the NFL, I think, still has some kind of rule that essentially you kind of need like the equivalent of an individual owner who's going to buy it. And in the NBA, there needs to be a controlling owner, controlling governor, essentially, and all that. But the reality is that the franchise values now are so high that, as you said, it's close to impossible for any one person to buy a franchise on their own.

There's some exceptions. Elon Musk could obviously buy as many franchises as wanted. Jeff Bezos probably could. Steve Ballmer, interestingly enough, probably could. you know, if he sold, I could buy another one if you wanted. But in some ways I was thinking about it, and I was like, Steve Cohen's purchase of the Mets might be the last time someone just went in and bought a franchise essentially paying cash.

I mean, Cohen, I think, bought like 95% of the Mets by himself. And that might be the last time that that happened. And then the question then becomes, as you said, so what does that mean? Does that change the relationship of owners to teams and the like? My suspicion is that in a lot of ways it won't change that much that owners have always wanted, as you said, field of schemes, which is about owner's attempts to get local governments to pay for their stadiums. That's something that's been going on for a long time. And I do think that the kind of celebrity aspect of owning a team will remain important in terms of why people want to buy them.

But I do think that as more and more teams are owned by consortiums are owned by people who are, have backgrounds in private equity, that you are going to see a much more profit maximizing model that's going to be operating in terms of like ticket sales, how stadiums get renovated in order to maximize, you know, seats for rich people or luxury boxes or et cetera. And so I do think you probably are going to. see more of a bottom line emphasis than maybe historically has been the case. Now, whether or not that is bad or good is interesting, but I do think it does mean that you're going to have a much more roofless is probably not the right word. I think it's just going to be a much more capitalist emphasis on the way teams are run. Well, Walter started doing a lot of that during his very brief and glorious ownership of the Lakers moving the press seats out of the lower bowl, not the lower bowl, but the really

close to the court and cutting costs and laying off people and then bringing in some Dodgers, people who the hell knows what's going to have with that now with the Dodgers. And obviously Tom Dundden in Portland has just gone scorched earth in every possible way since he bought the Blazers somewhat recently. So a couple of things you mentioned, you use the word consortium. And it's like the bus family drama that is unfolding is a subplot of the Lakers sale with Jeannie Bus wanting to retain governorship for as long as she can. and her siblings, the other five of them uniting against her to sell the rest of their stake

as part of the tag along to the Kushner-Aggars sale. On the one hand, I'm like, all of this, all of this stuff, Dundon, Balmer and the Kauai investigation, the Lakers sale, the wolves flipping hands again, is like unbecoming to me in a way for the NBA because of how we've all conceived of sports. But the bus thing in particular, when I was thinking more about it's like, hey, it is unbecoming. Like I'm tired of, I'm so, we're like 20 years into the bus siblings fighting with each other over their little toy that their father bequeath them. And it's a little unbecoming. But it's also charming in a way because it's like, this was a family-owned team. The family and the

drama of the family was sort of part of the Lakers because of the connection to Jerry Bus, who was the architect of the Lakers, the architect of Showtime, the guy who brought the glitz and the glamor and the women and the Los Angeles of everything to the Lakers. And I'm kind of going to miss that. And then these consortiums come in. And it's not just a consortium of like individual rich human beings, which is like we've seen with the Milwaukee Bucks most famously, it's not that easy to get like four billionaires together to buy a team because someone is going to want to be the guy.

And if it's unclear who the guy is, that results in infighting that can kind of poison a team. It's consortiums of humans and funds. that no one really understands. Like, I don't even, I'm not even sure where this Lakers money is coming from. I don't know if you have any insight into that, but I don't think anyone really, like, Eiger and Kushner clearly do not have $12.5 billion, I don't think. Yeah. No, I think it's an interesting question because that was even true of the Laker sale to Walter

and to TWG Global. So where exactly was all of the TWG global money coming from? And I still think we don't quite know. Your former colleague at ESPN, Brian Windhorse, was talking for a long time about, or for a while, about the fact that TWG Global had gotten this big investment from the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund in like April of 2025, shortly before it bought the Lakers. And he was saying, you know, that money kind of went there. And then somebody, I guess, affiliated with TDWG said, no, that's not true. You should stop saying that. the money came from Mark Walter himself.

But when you did the math, it was a little hard to figure out where did Mark Walter get that money? Did he really have, in this case it was like $5 billion? Did he have $5 billion on his own to come up with? And we still don't entirely know, I think, where that's the case. In the case of Thrive, what's it called Thrive Eternal? That's good. That's Kushner's fund, yeah. Venture Fund.

And, you know, I mean, that company made a lot of big investments in SpaceX and AI companies, Anthropic. And so depending there and they have had some kind of liquidity that it would be able to sell those off to want it, although it would be surprised it would. But yeah, we don't really know. And, I mean, another example would be the Celtics. So when the Celtics were sold for $6.1 billion, a good chunk of that money came from Sixth Street, which is an investment fund. and I think they provided 15, 16%. And the NBA has all these rules restricting how, what percentage an investment fund can put into a company,

into a franchise. And it also requires that the controlling owner invest more than the investment fund does. And so that deal was structured in such a way that Bill Chisholm, who is the owner of the team, had to invest more than 6th Street, but I think it was actually like deferred until 2028. So there are all these complicated financial engineering mechanisms that I think are going to have to, you know, be done. I think one of the funny questions, though, is when you think about it, is are we going to, and this is connected to what you said about the buses, are we going to long

for the era of not just of an individual owner, but are we going to sort of wish that, oh, Steve Cohen, he can just come in and buy the Mets and he can do whatever he wants with them. And we know, who is responsible for them, for the team, and even if he's maybe not doing the best job or whatever, rather than having these like complicated ownership structures and consortiums. And I think the league is going to have, but all the leagues, sorry, all the sports leagues are really going to be wrestling with these questions. Because right now the controlling owner thing is a little bit of a fiction. I mean, you know, it's like Jeannie Bus was going to be the NBA's governor.

I mean, was the Lakers governor for the NBA, even though she owned a tiny fraction of the team. And so what does that really mean? And I think that those are the kinds of questions that are going to be going forward more important. Yeah, the genie, but the bus thing is, part of the reason I've kind of stopped caring about it is because, like, cool, you want to remain the governor for four years on paper. Like, I actually don't believe that you're going to be the governor in any real way once you own such a small stake in the team. And Iger and Kushner bought, like, it's great. Whether it's now or in four years, you're not going to be the governor of the team.

Something just feels a little different about, and look, this is all, it all lays bare as it has always been. This is just big business. Adam Silver's job is to help the owners make more money. Team valuations keep skyrocketing. Like, this is all just how business works, but sports has always existed in this liminal world where it's like part capitalist business, part public good, or at least conceived of as a public good with like real, it exists as a profitable business because of ties to,

to fans and cities who support the team. And this does feel sort of different. And the Lakers one is always going to be the headliner. And so Mark Walter and his group by the team and then they flip it a year later while he's under federal investigation for, I mean, I read while I was on vacation, I read 40 different stories analyzing what it is that Mark Walter is alleged to have done. And I only sort of half understand it. My very, very zoomed out understanding is that his fund or his entity, whatever, whichever one it is,

bought up a lot of life insurance companies and then had those companies take premium payments that the customers make and invested that money, either loaning it to other companies that Mark Walter owns or controls or investing it in other places that Mark Walter owns or controls. And really just didn't properly disclose the intermingling of these loans. that are going from one Mark Walter controlled business to another. Is that basically what happened? Like, I just, I started reading you because I started reading you 25 years ago or 20 years ago because I just didn't understand any of this. And I'm just like, all of this, I don't, it, the populace that's in me just gets angry

reading about all of this because I'm like, what, why is this have to be so complicated? Is it just complicated because rich people have made it intentionally complicated? Like, here's this, this is from the New York Times. This is literally a sentence in the New York Times about Mark Walter. Like from three days ago, their investments, however, can be nearly impossible for a lay person to follow. An organizational chart in a regulatory filing for Delaware Life, one of the insurers that Mr. Walters' conglomerate owns publicly lists about 150 related entities.

Mr. Walter himself is at the top of the list. some operate out of the same office addresses. And you have this money being passed through shell companies that are formed just for the purposes of that passing money. Like, just all, I don't understand it. It just all feels like rich people inventing ways to get more rich and trick people. I don't know about tricking people, although that is certainly what is at issue in this particular case. But definitely they have invented different ways to get more rich. And I think, you know, you mentioned the housing crisis near the beginning.

And the interesting thing is that this really all goes back to the housing crisis. So one of the things that happened in the wake of the housing crisis was that regulations on the kinds of loans banks could make got tougher. And so people who were looking for other sources of capital started to look in other places. And one of the places they looked was life insurance companies because life insurance companies have really huge amounts of assets that people have given them. them in premiums or in the case of the companies that are at issue here, annuities. So weirdly, well, not weirdly, but the companies that Mark Walters controls or Guggenheim Partners controls

that are an issue in this investigation are not, they don't actually sell life insurance. They sell annuities. You know, people give them money and then they get essentially income going forward until they die or whatever. But so, but the way life insurance works, the reason it's a business is that life insurers take the money that you give them, and then they invest it. And they, essentially, that's the VIG. They make the VIG on the difference between the money that you give them, then the return they get on their investment. And then ideally, if they do a good enough job of investing, they not only can pay you back or pay out your insurance policy or your annuity, but they can also become, you know, very profitable. Warren Buffett did this. I mean,

Warren Buffett owns GEICO because Geico gave him a big chunk of a big chunk of money, but he can also become, you know, capital he could use to invest. So there's nothing illegal about that. There's nothing even dubious about it. The problem becomes when companies, insurers use that money and maybe invest it in either assets that are really risky, which opens up the possibility that when you come to them and you say, I want you to, my dad died, I need the insurance. And they're like, I'm sorry we don't have it because we lost it, invest in something. So there's that issue. And then the second issue, which is connected, is if they invest it in assets that are owned by either their own owner or companies that are connected to them in one way or another. And that's that are these,

that's these affiliated transactions, right? And the problem there is those investments might be risky or they might not, they might just not get a good price for them, right? Because their boss is like, don't worry about the price. Just, just do this deal. And so the, the thing that is that issue in the Mark Walter investigation is the allegation is, well, it's not really an allegation. We know this happened, that these two insurers that Guggenheim Partners, which is his big investment firm, owns, that they reported that they had made all these investments, in mostly loans, essentially, and that they had said those loans were too non-related or non-affiliate partners or whatever you want to call them.

And the reality is that a big chunk of that money was actually going to companies that were in one way or another affiliated with them, with Guggenheim partners, with all these other players. So in the case of Delaware Life, which is one of the two companies, initially they had reported that only 3% of their total invested assets were going to these affiliates, were in affiliated companies. and after the investigation started, they restated their financial statements. And they said that 42%. So that's a huge difference, basically, right?

Let me ask you a dumb question. Sure. What is gained by cloaking intermingled loans and investments that way? Is it just, it makes you look like you have more money than you do? Because like, what is the point of doing that? Yeah. It doesn't make you look like you have more money than you do. But there are two things.

One is that insurance commissioners and also rating agencies are concerned about things like how much of your money is invested in companies that are connected to you. And they typically have standards. They're not necessarily like legally binding standards. They typically have standards that say, you know, you can only have up to, I think, the base standard is often like 10% of your income because they're concerned that those affiliated investments again might either be too risky or that you just might not be getting the right price for them right you're like doing business with yourself and so as a result you're maybe like taking a lower price than you should on the asset or whatever and that's bad because

it maybe makes your long-term future less solid. The other issue is that, and this is probably, this is important from a balance sheet perspective, is that because those investments in affiliated transactions are seen as riskier, you have to put more capital aside. The insurer has to put more capital aside. So what I mean by that, sorry, I don't want to get too wonky. No, no, go. Go for it.

But basically, with an insurance company, regulators require them to set a certain amount of capital aside, right? You can't invest it. It just has to be set aside as a kind of cushion to protect you against losses in your investments. And when you're making non-affiliated investments, you know, which like say you're, I don't know, buying bonds in a company or you're buying government bonds, that's probably maybe Safe things that insurance companies have mostly invested in.

You have to set less capital aside, like literally as a multiplier of the amount of your investments. With affiliated transactions, you have to set more capital aside. The more capital you set aside, the less capital you have to invest. And so that's the basic reason, right? That would be the one reason to do it, is that it allows you to invest more capital than you otherwise would because you have to set less aside. And so that would be the most logical reason why you'd want to pretend that these investments were non-affiliated when in fact they actually were important to it. Where does this end for Mark Walter?

Like he's already sold the Lakers. He's reportedly trying to sell his stake in Chelsea. Everyone is panicked about the Dodgers, the slash making fun of the Dodgers. Like, oh, did you buy these two World Series with fake money? I don't care about that. I just think as a Mets fan. It's kind of funny. like is there a is there a potential criminal case here are the dodgers at risk like when i saw i think

it was derrick thompson on bill's podcast called this like the canary and the coal mine i don't know if that's hyperbole but like where where does this end for him and does it have any implications anywhere else i don't know i think it's really interesting we don't we don't really know where it's going to end and i think uh but i think that there are a few things that are interesting about it. The first is that there was a lawsuit filed in 2014 against Guggenheim partners and affiliated insurers alleging that essentially saying that Walter and Guggenheim partners had used insurer money to buy the Dodgers, basically about half of the Dodgers, half of the purchase price, which is about a billion dollars.

And there was actually an interview that Todd Bolley, who is one of Walter's partners and is a co-owner of the Dodgers, he did with the LA Times. In the course of that article, the Times actually said that that was where a big chunk of the money came from, that actually Walter and Bolley had both only put up like $100 million apiece and that about a billion of it had come from the insurers. Again, not necessarily illegal, especially if you think about the Dodgers as a long-term valuable investment, et cetera, et cetera. But nonetheless, kind of interesting. So I think one of the questions is not so much about, like, will this end up meaning a yes to sell the Dodgers? But are we going to see more of this going forward? Or is this going to be a point where people say, okay, no, no, no. We have to really rethink how we are allowing, what investment funds we are allowing to invest,

where money can come from and the life. TWG Global came out today with a statement, pretty like full-throated statement, saying that they were not going to sell the Dodgers, that they were not on the market. They were not going to sell the Formula One team they own, and they were not going to sell. There was one other thing.

Oh, I can't remember what the other one was. Although they didn't mention Chelsea, so that I think means it probably is on the market. And they also didn't mention, I can't remember. Is the Sparks part of the L.A. Laker deal? I believe, no, they're not part of the Laker Do. Okay, so they didn't mention the spark, so maybe the sparks are on the market as well.

I think the big challenge right now, and what we don't fully understand, is that in order to remedy the situation with these insurers, a lot of these, the billions in affiliated transactions, they essentially have to be replaced by non-affiliated assets. And so TWG Global, which again is the kind of holding company for Walters' assets in like AI and sports and other things, they have already said they were going to buy like six, they're going to essentially trade $6.5 billion of non-affiliated assets for the affiliated assets that one of the insurance companies own. So that's like maybe a third of what's at stake. And people are wondering, and we don't really know, like, did Mark Walter sell the Lakers to essentially take that money and essentially trade it back? We don't really know if that's true. We don't know if he's going to have to sell the Dodgers who could probably go for what, I don't know, $7 billion at this point. I don't know what they would sell for, but will he have to do that?

He says it's not going to. You know, in theory, criminal charges are potentially, I guess, on the docket. I mean, you know, the Department of Justice under Trump has not been that aggressive about pursuing white-collar crime. No. But it's, but it is, I guess, conceivable. But what TWG Global said today was that they made it sound like they are kind of in the process of really, you know, dealing with this, with the Delaware insurance regulators. the like and they were trying to make it seem like everything will be fine. I think we don't really know.

I think the other interesting question for the NBA is like, are they going to need to do a better job of betting owners? Like, is this going to be something? I mean, I don't know what you say. Yes. Yes, they do. But again, it's like not only vetting owners, but I think the fans are owed an understanding of like who is actually buying the team?

Where is the money coming from? Who is going to be making decisions? Who do I get mad at if I want to? Like, I'm a Mets fan. I can blame Steve Cohen for everything. It's easy for me. Like, I know my, I can direct my anger. But there needs to be a little bit of transparency into like, what is going?

I shouldn't have to have you on this podcast to help me figure out who the hell bought the Celtics. Like, where did the money come from or who the hell is buying? You said we don't know how this is going to end in some respects. And like, what or like, why? We don't know why exactly for sure Mark Walter sold the Lakers. One thing I do know for sure is he did not buy the Lakers a year ago with the intent on flipping them. So something is obviously fishy. Like you don't do that and install all these people from the Dodgers.

If in the back of your head, even in this World War Sports are just treated like a for-profit enterprise like every other business, you don't do that if you're going to flip it in a year. That's not why people buy the Lakers. They buy the Lakers to sit court side to be the king of Los Angeles and win championships and all of that. Yeah. So, I mean, one thing about that, yeah, I mean, you know, the gain, obviously $2.5 billion, you know, whoa, that's in terms of that's how much more he's going to have made in a year. It sounds like a lot. But, you know, 25 percent, it's not a, it's a great return for a year. But it's not an outstanding. It's not an astounding return, right? I'm sure I'd have to go back and look.

But I'm sure if he had put the money into Nvidia's stock, it would have returned a lot more than that. So, yeah, I agree. He would not have done that. And the other, one other thing that is, you know, that's worth keeping in mind. That is a little, is interesting to think about, is that Walter was actually, I think, by all indications, or whatever it is, Guggenheim Baseball Management, who was the technical owner of the Dodgers. By all indications, they did a great job of building the franchise value.

And they invested in the team. You know, they had great advantages that other teams did not have because of the vagaries of the Lakers TV deal that came out of the bankruptcy. that was the reason they were able to buy the team. But, you know, they were long-term investors. I think they really did operate with the mindset that if you make the franchise incredibly valuable from a on-field point of view, you're going to increase the value of the off-field

the value of the franchise as well. So on the one hand, you're like, okay, great, he was a great owner. But I think that also does make the idea that he bought the Lakers and thinking he might flip it seemed totally improbable. Like there's no question he must have been thinking he was going to do the same thing. And that does tell you that something pretty radical had to have changed. And I think you bring up a good point about the Dodger's success because you opened on this, on this episode by talking about the fans about teams operating much more as for profit enterprises.

And what what does that mean for fans who are still the backbone of how the whole enterprise fails to exist without fans in droves, in millions supporting the team on television in person, buying merchandise, whatever it is. And I wonder, like, for the Dodgers, it's been objectively, like, when the team wins, all fans are happy. But as a participatory experience, I don't know the answer to this, have Dodgers fans won, like, is the team accessible? And that's what this is all about. Like, can I go to a game?

Can I afford to go to a game? Is it easy to watch my team? on television or on streaming services or how much does that cost me? There's an accessibility, I think, that is being a little bit clouded by all this. But when the team wins, fans feel happy no matter what. But what happens if the teams don't win? Most teams don't win. You know, is there something that's lost for fans?

No, I mean, I think the accessibility question, just in terms of access to tickets, specifically is it's already a really big issue and it's only going to become more so going forward. I think that, I mean, I was talking about someone about this yesterday, about the U.S. Open and how much more expensive U.S. Open tickets are, tennis tickets are, even than they were. How about a drink at the U.S. Open? I would have one of those stupid, whatever, one of the stupid cocktails they have a do is open. It's like, okay, here's $100. I'll have a drink.

No, I mean, and, you know, and the reality is, look, this isn't just sports. I mean, live entertainment of all kinds, right, concert tickets. They've all basically become the same. I mean, the price has skyrocketed because demand for live events is very strong. It's one of the few things that's not replaceable, that's not easily substitutable. And so teams and concert venues and the like are just are essentially taking the advantage of that. But I do think it is, you are ending up with this very peculiar situation where sports are simultaneously arguably more popular than ever or certainly more popular than almost anything else. And yet, it feels like they're becoming more and more narrowly accessible only to a more and more narrow section of the actual population.

And simply because of how expensive tickets are getting. And then I think the other side that's going to develop going forward, as you mentioned, is like, what about streaming rights and the like? Are we going to end up, I mean, we're already saying it was Sunday ticket at the NFL. Are we going to end up having to pay more and more and more in order to just be able to watch games? And that's where I think this collision you're really diagnosing between teams as capitalist enterprises and then teams as public goods. That's really where you're seeing this. This collision is going to become, I think, increasingly important. What's your favorite NBA team?

I don't know that I really have one. I mean, I grew up a Knicks fan, so I kind of became a Knicks fan, like, again when this happened. I live in New Haven. So obviously it was this kind of thing where everybody was. just sort of bought into it. But the team I kind of love the most, honestly, is the Nuggets because of Yulich. But that's a team that that's a really interesting example where you have a team that it feels like in some ways has been kind of mismanaged financially.

And, you know, they're going to end up with maybe one title as a result, even though they have the best player in the world. James, it's super exciting for me to have you on. I miss the New Yorker. I mean, how many words was that column? It was one page. I'm going to guess it was like 9,000. 950 to 1,000 words.

It was great length to write. It was really great. But to squeeze the subject matter you did into that length and do it every week and every issue was just, it was my favorite. It became my favorite thing in the magazine. You contribute to the Atlantic still. People can read you there. You teach you Yale.

People should buy your book, The Wisdom of Crowds. I've just been reading you for so long because you've been helping me be less of an idiot. It's great to have you on. I know you're busy. I appreciate your time. James Sirwicki. Thanks, buddy. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. All right. That's it for today's edition of the Zach Lowe show. Thanks to Rob Mahoney. Thanks to James Sirwiki. Thanks to Mike, Billy and Jonathan, as always on production. And thanks to you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe show. We'll be back either later this week or early next week, depending on news and all sorts of other things.

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