
Part 1: An NBA Popularity Check and Tyson’s Big Comeback With Wosny Lambre and Van Lathan
The Bill Simmons Podcast- 166 views
- 14 Nov 2024
In Part 1 of a two-part podcast, The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Wosny Lambre to discuss whether tanking in the NBA is possible with as much talent as the league currently has, the new-look Knicks, the serious Cavaliers, and the confounding 76ers (2:07). Then Van Lathan joins Bill and Wos to zoom out on the NBA and wonder whether it's in a better or worse spot now than in other eras (31:29). Finally, they discuss the upcoming Jake Paul–Mike Tyson boxing match and remember Tyson's turbulent career (1:01:51).
Host: Bill Simmons
Guests: Wosny Lambre and Van Lathan
Producer: Kyle Crichton
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What's happening? It's Todd McShea, and I'm back with a new home and a new show at The Ringer and Spotify, The McShea Show. It's a video and audio podcast coming to you year round with all my NFL draft information, big boards, mock drafts, and player movement. Plus, I'll be chatting with some of my best friends in football, including some of your favorite football analysts. During the week, we'll have episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays that will include discussions about my player rankings, who's rising, who's falling, and who your NFL team should be keeping an eye on. Plus, we'll be reacting each week to the college football playoff polls and giving you previews and pics for each Saturday slate. In addition, I'll have episodes on Saturday nights with my immediate reaction to the full day in college football every week. So if you love the college game, the NFL, the draft, or all of it like me, make sure to like, follow, subscribe, and get ready for the McShay Show on the Ringer, Spotify, and wherever you watch or listen to podcasts.
We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. Put up a new Rewatchables on Monday. We did Meet the Parents. You can watch on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. You can watch a whole bunch of Rewatchables podcast on that as well. You can watch all the clips and videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. We got a two-parter today. I don't know. A lot going on. Wanted to talk basketball and wanted to talk about the Tyson fight and why NBA ratings are going down. His interest seems to be going up. I have I have Bigwas. I have Van Lathen. They're joining us for part one. Then part two is going to be a football podcast that's going up later tonight after. I want to see what happens with that Eagles Washington game, too. Part two will go up much later. Part one is going up early. Let's bring in our friends from ProJap.
All right, Big Waz is here.
We're taping this 12:30 Thursday afternoon. Last time I saw you, we were doing the League Pass rankings. Yup. And trying to figure out who we like the most, who we are the most excited to watch. What's changed for you since the season has started? Has there been a team jump out? Has there been somebody that captured your fancy? Has there been a new League Pass mistress for for you that you didn't expect to be cheating on with some of the other favorites?
Yeah. I owe a big apology to Justin Verrier. It's the Chicago Bulls. Oh, look at you. Verrier thought the Bulls were going to be fun, and Josh Kitty was going to have this new role. When DeMar DeRosen going, he was going to open things up. But they've been way better than I could have expected. Obviously, they beat the Knicks last night on a crazy last second foul on a three-point shot. But they're just so well coached.
Kobe White's hair got fouled.
I know.
I really think that's what happened. I thought he hit his hair. I've never seen that before. That is what happened. I don't think he actually fouled him.
But he airballed the shot to make it look like he got hit pretty bad. But yeah, it's Kobe White, Zack Levine, who I don't know if he's found clarity in his role on the Bulls or if he's really dying to get traded because he was so unhappy this offseason. I just thought they lost their most consistent player in DeRosen. Zack Levine has been sulking for a year and a half. They're bringing in Josh Gidey, ushering a youth movement thing. I just thought they would stink, and it's been the opposite. And Vuchevich has been playing some of the best ball of his career. He's taking and making threes. The guy looks rejuvenated. They've been, to me, the team that has jumped off the screen like, wow, I thought you guys were going to be horrible and you're way better.
They're five and seven, which sounds like it's bad, but that's the sixth seed right now in the East. I'm with you. I was thinking about it last night, watched that Nix game. Everything they seemed like they wanted to do on paper, including pick up the pace, play with some pizazz. It's all happening. I think they're a really, really frisky five and seven team. And Lovine, I get it. He was upset about whatever he's got. I don't know what he's upset about. He's certainly got an amazing contract.
But you watched him last against the Knicks, and my thought was, this is actually a great situation for him.
He's got guards that push the ball that are pretty... Gidey's pretty unselfish, right? Kobe White, I don't think is a Trey Young, monopolized the ball type guy. It just seems like Lovine's in a nice spot. What stuck out to me is that they win the game on that weird Kobe, Kobe Yfefau, get the Brunson toilet bowl in and out to win it. But you watched the way their bench was celebrating. It actually seems like they liked each other. Last year did not.
No, It was, man, last year was toxic as hell by all indication when you talk to people who was in and around the team at that time. I think with Vuchevich and Patrick Williams, who I'm still like, whoa, what were they thinking with that contract?
Yeah, he's like one of those, what do you do?
I don't know if it's the three or the D.
What's your specialty?
I don't know. I'm still trying to figure it out. But he's been a more willing shooter. With Vuchevich finally being stretch four, Lovine is playing with a really spaced-out floor in front of him. And the guy is really talented. This year, he's not been afraid to take it to the basket. And there were just some isolation plays last night in the fourth quarter where it just felt like the Knicks had no chance against Zack Lovine, which when's the last time you said that-How funny is that? About Zack Levine? He looks incredible. And then the Knicks-Wait, hold on on Zack Levine because I want to about the Knicks.
I was thinking about him, Brandon Ingram. I think Trey Young is about to be in this boat. These guys that got these big deals. Julius Randall. Julius Randall. These guys that are being paid like they're superstars, they do put up production, and yet there's not a market for them. It's because of the second apron, Kurt Goldsberg was talking about the My Pot on Tuesday. It's changed the dynamic of roster building of how we think about players. Where you take somebody like Brandon Ingram who was available all summer for anybody who wanted to offer anything, and they couldn't trade him. Now he's scoring 23, 24 a game. Saclvine, same thing. We're moving into this new era of these guys that it's like, Well, this is my price. I don't want to pay that. I'm stuck with you, but you're still producing. I don't remember another era like this. The only time I could think was that 2000s when guys were getting those six, seven-year deals, and you would just be like, I guess we have Alan Houston now for the entire decade.
Yeah, I think that's the difference between now and 2011 or 2012, which is when I first became a regular on League Pass. It was like whoever the Bulls were, when they decided that they were going to stink up the joint, they were going to have basically three rotation-worthy guys in the starting lineup, and everybody else was going to be like, Okay, this team is headed for 17 wins. They're playing the lottery game and whatever. Nowadays, the Bulls, we expect it to be a bottom four Eastern Conference team, but because they haven't gotten rid of... They would have sold off Vultovic, they would have sold off Lavine, they would have sold everything off. But now because they kept those guys, They're just not a given win. There's no given wins. Even the Wizards on some nights are frisking.
I think- Brooklyn is another one. Brooklyn is another one.
Toronto. There's no Process Sixers is what I always say. That Process Sixers team where Michael Carter-Williams was leading that team in scoring for an entire season. That was insane.
And we were like, he's not good. When the rookie of the year, it's like, well, he's 20 points a game. Exactly. This is a really interesting point. Can you have tanking when there's too much talent in the league? Because I think about that with Brooklyn. I watched Brooklyn. I saw them in person on Friday. I talked about on the pod. Watched them yesterday. The Celtics played really well and beat them, and they played one of their best games. But I watched Brooklyn. I'm like, I know they wanted to be terrible. It's going to be really hard to be terrible with some of the guys in this team. Schroeder is above average point guard. Kam Johnson is good. Kam Thomas is a 28-a-game guy now. They have shop walking. This is not like in 2013, '14, when you could just be like, Yeah, we're going to throw a year away. Think about what the Lakers had during the last couple of Kobe years, where it was like, Here's Kobe and nobody else.
It's It's so different. I don't know if it's just the talent. These dudes have just come out and played with a lot of pride. Just quite frankly.
Do you think it's social media? I wonder if it's just hard to suck now because if you suck-With the fantasy and the The gambling.
The gambling aspect, that might play a part, man.
I feel like it's social media because I was thinking about this. Vince Carter got his number retired in Toronto, and I was just thinking how fucking crazy that is. Yeah, where he started. Because I was writing for US Pin back then, and He completely tanked on them that year to the point that- I was reading those columns.
Yeah.
He tanked it on the point that the trade that they made for him is probably the worst superstar trade anyone's made. They had to take back Alonso Morning's contract and a couple of other bad contracts. They got two shitty pics. It was like a 20 cents in the dollar giveaway. It was because he stopped playing for them. But we didn't have the apparatus we have now to be like, oh, my God, did you see what Vince Carter did last night? He just didn't give a shit. I don't feel like anybody can do that now.
Yeah, I mean, it's really hard to explain why none of these teams have come out and been just dog shit. And again, it's early.
Nobody's had- I guess the dog shit team has probably been Philly.
Yeah. Sorry, Chris Ryan, but yeah. They stink. But there's a reason for it.
No, there's a reason for it, but they still stink.
Yeah, they've been god awful.
Well, think about the other day, JJ, D'Angelo Russell had that point in the corner. And whatever he did, he got his three-pointer blocked. He did some stupid step back. And the camera showed JJ so fucking mad, and he sat down, he just sat in his thing, and he was like a parent mad at a kid. And even that, so now he's like, Well, that'll never happen again because he just saw the video of it. It became a big deal. The next day, he's like, I can't do that anymore. I just think there's a lot of checks and balances now for bad basketball, lazy basketball, lethargic basketball. People don't give a shit. People going through the motions. I don't know if you can do it anymore.
I think what's crazy, too, is that the NBA, because of how they handled some of this load management stuff, have been-How did they handle it? Poorly. They've been so effective in messaging that the regular season doesn't matter. This isn't real basketball. Playoffs where things really start and people are playing hard. That's not been the case to start the season. Every single one of these games feels Super competitive. People are playing with super low motors. There's some teams that seem to have a bit of a hangover. I think Denver started the first four games of the season with a bit of a hangover. Minnesota's hangover has been extended.
Minnesota is not just hung over. They're lying in bed with the shades dry.
Yeah, they still can't drive.
Yeah, they're like, Oh, man.
Can you go get me some Advil? They're way over the legal limit still. Yeah, 100 %. But for the most part, teams have come out and been playing Out the gates. Like, okay, see, it feels like they got something to prove. Phoenix. I got something to prove. Cleveland. I mean, my God. They've come out like gangbusters, and it's made the regular season excellent for it.
I'm going to read you some of the 2013 14 Sixers. Leading scorer, Evan Turner. Wow. Michael Carter-Williams, your Rooky of the Year, shooting 264 from three and 40% from the field. Thad Young was our number three. Spencer Hawes. Number five, James Anderson, playing 29 minutes a game, 80 games. Who was James Anderson? I was on a studio show that year, and I don't remember who James Anderson was James Anderson. He went to first-round pick from the... I remember him. Henry Sims, Tony Rotten.
Tony Rotein. That was a Tony Rotein apologist in in those days.
Hollis Thompson, LaVoy Allen was their ninth man. But this is our point. You look at the ninth man now in the net. The game I went to Friday, like Jalen Wilson's coming. I'm like, This guy's good. Should be play more.
That Sixers team would challenge the Bobcats in terms of worst win. No question. In terms of worst win-loss record ever. And teams just aren't that horrible. And some of it, like you said, is the second apron where contenders, I think in a different era, Golden State would have looked at... They would have said, You know what? Instead of doing the Melton and Buddy Heel to replace Clay, we're going to pull the trigger on Zack Levine. In a different era. But now with all of the salary constraints.
You can't do it. The Lakers would already probably have him.
100%. Maybe they're keeping a powder drive for Trey Young. Who knows? But yeah, it's just a different era, man.
2,014 bucks who were 15 and 67. Brandon Knight led the team in scoring. Ramon Sessions was second. Remember him? A young Chris Middleton third. Ilyasova, John Hensen, OJ Mayo, Larry Sanders, Hey, Now, playing 20 games. But, man. Then Young Yannis was just that. That was great for Young Yannis because Larry Sanders is pissed right now.
Kd like, smokes weed openly.
Yeah, Larry Sanders is like, I tried this. Why didn't it work for me?
They kicked me out the league for this.
Yeah, Yeah. If you think about the actual bad teams, Toronto is probably fundamentally the worst team. But then Scottie Barnes can come back and who knows?
And they're competitive on a lot of nights.
They can rebound. They can shoot threes. The other thing is we didn't talk But the threes. This is the first season, the threes are 40% of the shots that everyone takes. That's just the variance that comes from that. You just never know.
Yeah. The threes is always... It's been a less talented teams, you want to up your variance factor with the threes. Everybody's known this for seven, eight years now.
But everyone's doing it.
The discipline with which coaches are actually able to enforce it is different now. It's just better infrastructure to make sure. Because it's one thing to say, we're going to play with pace. We're going to shoot the three-point shot. We're going to encourage as many threes as we can. But to actually coach it and get your guys to be doing a consistency, to go against their instinct, to dribble, dribble, dribble, shoot along, too, is different.
You were going to mention the Knicks.
What about them?
I missed last year's Knicks. I miss Hartenstein. I miss Dante. They were just more fun to watch last year, and I know they'll figure it out. The towns has been incredible. Brunson has not been as good. There are five at the end of games, which it seems like it's a little better offensively, but it's definitely worse defensively. The rim protection isn't there in the same way, and there's a bunch of it. Now that we have a sample size, some of the advanced stats are like, Huh, this isn't really the profile of a tips team. No. So what are you seeing?
Yeah, I mean, the Carl Towns rim protection, we knew that was going to be a problem coming into this season. And we just talked about this on group chat with Rob and Justin. Mikael Bridges is getting smoked on defense. He's just not been a deterrent at all.
And again, O'Giann and O'Kee- You can't mention this to the Knicks fans. Well, listen. I mentioned last week, I was like, what was the point of trading five first for this guy if he's going to shoot 13 times a game. But the other side has been interesting, too. I think the scoring is going to come.
I think that he's going to learn what spots to pick, when to attack, when to just let it fire.
Can you think they give them the ball more and just have run through more stuff on them? I guess the Towns Brunson pick and roll is so good.
They can't afford to because their defense is so bad. If you're getting cooked, you have to look at your best player and say, Yo, we need points right now. If they were stopping people, then they would be a lot more patient about who gets to do what on offense. But when you're constantly having to put out fires because you just gave up 10 points in a row, at a certain point it is, you got to give it to Brunson What I'm encouraged by is that the towns in Brunson pick and roll is clearly difficult to deal with. It's a nightmare. They're putting defenses in a bind because Brunson, unlike a lot of these star point guards, can be the center on a switch. Like, Well, Brunson has been having trouble with it this year. Brunson, as soon as you put a big man on him, he's killing that guy. And if, God forbid, you drop on freaking Karl Towns, that's a nightmare. I like that that's already started to figure itself out.
Wait, can Can we say one thing about Towns? Sure. He's been a winner of the season because he's been, I think, better offensively than anybody could have ever expected on the Knicks. Then Minnesota feels worse.
Minnesota is definitely worse.
It's like, oh, we missed Towns. I feel like this has been a win all the way around for Towns. Then instead of the Knicks fans being mad at Towns for whatever, they can just now be mad at bridges. So he wins in every way.
Look, I think the Bridges thing is everybody's in a patient wait and see moment. It's been 11 games. I'm not crazy worried about it.
I wonder if you stop playing defense for... You're just on bad teams for two years. I wonder if it almost you have to get back in the hang of what it's like to be on a really good team playing defense.
It's not just that, though. It's like when guys start conceiving themselves as 20 point per game scores, and all of a sudden it's like, no, you're back to being that role guy that you were in Phoenix. He was like, no, I was a ball in Brooklyn. I was like a way to that.
Can I show you a YouTube clip of my game winners?
No, he got to get back to what he was doing in Phoenix for sure.
If you truth-ceram them, I wonder what they would say about the whole Yannis piece of this.
I know you saw the graphic last night where they showed all of the pics that the Knicks sent out to bring Riches in.
A couple of them were good pics. Yeah, decent. We didn't know that whatever that Bucks pick, which is so complicated, where New Orleans gets it if it's one through four, and now Brooklyn gets it if it's everything else. But I think the Bucks are a 500 or worse team. If anything happens to Giannis for a month, that team is going to be a bottom five team in the league. They're pulling these games out of their assholes.
Well, it's like they've won three games.
Well, but the one yesterday-Yeah, that was a miracle. The guy gets fouled with the second left. He just has to go one or two, and the game's over, and he bricks both of them. And then Giannis wins OT. Yeah, I just like what they're like. The next thing, if we're going to be rational about it, the Towns thing has been a huge win. All the other stuff is explainable. Robinson is going to come back. There's probably some buyout guy. They can get in February to replace some of the D. Fuencizo because it feels like there's a lot on McBride. Then the Brunson, I know he hasn't been quite as good and efficient as last year, but I also feel like teams have been watching this now for a couple of years. It's like Jalen Hertz on the Eagles where it's like, Oh, I know what this is.
He's learning how to play a new way. This is a completely reconstructed offense that he hasn't been completely comfortable yet. I don't think it's the biggest deal. I just think it's scary that missing Mitchell Robinson and Precious Achua is this damaging to your team. That's a bad sign so far. But again, I think it's pretty early. Right now, the 20th in defensive efficiency. Just stunning. Get that down to 13?
But the bigger question to me is, Is this the right Tib's team? Is this a Tib's team the way it's currently constructed, or is this maybe somebody else with the car keys?
I think if Tib's is worth what he thinks he is, then he needs to also adjust. Players have to adjust coaches.Yeah, it's a good point. You should adjust.
Can I do a PSA for the other 29 teams? When the Knicks have the ball with three seconds or less and they need to score, they're going to throw it to Jalen Brunson in the corner. He's going to pretend to go left, and then he's going to do a follow-away jump shot. I'm just telling you, that's what's going to happen. You can pretend to bite on the going lap, but then dive forward when he's doing the turnaround. That's his move.
He created a lot of space for that thing.
It works every time. Do these guys have tape?
It's tough in the moment, Bill.
It's like Tatum. Here's what Tateum is going to do. He's going to dribble through his legs seven times. Then when there's two seconds left, he's going to do a step back 26-footer. We know all these moves. Lebron, he has a specific spot on the court. He's going to shoot a three from there. He's going to make you think he's going to the basket.
The Akron step back. Yeah.
There's some guys that you just know what they're going to do. Then there's other guys like Durant where I'm like, I have no idea what he's going to do. He's going to go right, he's going to pull up, he's going to do the turnaround move.
Brunson, yeah. He's going to try to create space with a little shoulder face.
He's got to be so hard to guard because I think they know what he's doing and he still gets...
He's got a little Luca in him in terms of the stop and start. He's not the fastest, but he can get accelerating decelerated faster than everybody else and decelerate faster than everybody else. Yeah, it's not easy from the couch, Bill.
That's what they would tell you. You know what? I think the secret hardest move is the Luca two on one when he slows down and then almost makes it like a low post move where he's got momentum, but he stops and the guy's also playing the pass. Then Luka just like, I'm just going to bounce off you in a bank.
I'm just going to bounce off you against the Warriors the other night.
I don't even know what that move is, but I feel like he's perfected it.
I'm I'm like, That's Traymon Green, one of the best defensive players in my life, and he can't even stop it. It is weird.
Are you scared of the Cavs?
The Cavs? Man, listen, I know every single smart NBA person you guys included on the over-unders had the Cavs over Kenny Atkinson winning Coach of the Year. I was like, Yeah, they're going to play better. They're going to be way healthier this year. But I don't know, they took off last year when their guys weren't playing. But Kenny Atkinson has been smart about deploying the lineups, letting Mowbley play center at times, being the loan big. He's gotten these guys to understand the importance of spacing. And they're like, Ne-Yang, for instance, this guy is completely unconscious. He shoots with the green light of a Kevin Durant at certain points. And Donovan Mitchell, God bless him, he's getting off of the ball a lot faster than he has at any other time in his career. That's always been my biggest criticism of him is that he doesn't see the floor as well as a lot of the guys that I think are a little bit better than him. But this year, he's seeing it. They're believing in. I think there's something, too. Everybody feeling like they have ownership of the offense, which Atkinson, he spent some time in Golden State with Steve Kerr.
We make fun of Steve Kerr a lot of times with his hippy-ditty, the ball finds energy shit. But Atkinson has brought it- Hippy-ditty. That's what it feels like to me. It feels like he's on a commune when he's saying some of that stuff. But Atkinson has brought that ethos to Cleveland, and they've been way better for it.
And you brought Ty Jerome. Because you knew Ty Jerome was good for them two years ago. Revelation. It's like when football, when the guy, Dan Quinn went from Dallas to Washington, he took a couple of Dallas guys with them. It's like, I know this guy's pretty good. I'll grab this guy, too. I'm 100% in on the Cavs being real. I don't think there's any fluky shit at all. From the first, second, third game, you could see it. I talked about it before, but there's a charitableness now with Mitchell and Garland. I don't think Mitchell cares if he doesn't have the ball in the last minute anymore. I felt like he did last year. I think Garland did a little bit, too. I just feel like they've sorted out something, and then they can defend, they can switch, they have a bench. As a Celtic fan, they're on my radar because I thought we would have the one seed unless somebody got hurt. Now it's like this team's... I think it's going to be tough to steal the one seed from them. You start out 14-0, 15-0. Just think about it, logically. For the rest of the way, you just have to go like 45 and 18 or whatever.
It's not the same pace to get to 60. The Celts are going to have trouble getting to 60.
If you look at the Eastern Conference standings right now, a lot of teams are going to have trouble getting to 50. It's crazy how these things flip because there was all this smoke around Donovan Mitchell for years that he was not long for Cleveland. He ends up doing his extension. Shams puts out that report that Garland's representation might see could trade if Mitchell is still on the team because he feels like he's not being optimized. They bring in Kenny Atkinson and shit, everything flips and everybody has this level of buy. It's just so crazy how things can turn on a dime in this league.
Kenny calls him and he's like, I'm going to optimize your shit.
Just bear with me, buddy.
They've bought it.
I got They bought in and they look so much better for it. Like I said, before, it did feel like a your turn, my turn situation. It did. With Mitchell and Garland, where I'm just like, Man, these guys have complementary games. They both can shoot, both can drive it. They should be elevating what each other do. This is the first time in that partnership that I actually feel like it's happening, and it's been exciting to watch.
I'm good at very few things. I can spot two Pays. I can make meepalls.
That's like me with BBLs.
I can spot the your turn, my turn. I'm just a tune. I've been watching basketball my whole life. You know it when you see You know when it's not perfect.
Look at when Tateum and Brown got rid of that dynamic where they now elevate what each other do, where back in the days, we were like, Oh, these guys are too duplicative. We might have to move one, blah, blah, blah. Now, these guys actually play off of each other. I always believe.
That is a freaking lie. I always believe. I always believe. To my guys. No, I think you can tell the difference between your turn, my turn, competitive versus elevation. Now I feel like those guys elevate each other, which is a boring topic for a podcast or a YouTube video or an NBA content segment, but it's what's happening. That team's playing super unselfish. Then you watch a team like Philly when Embiid comes back and how they have to navigate. It's going to take some time. How do you take care of Embiid? How does Paul George make sure he's involved up? Oh, wait, there's Maxi, too. Oh, there's Jared McCain, who might be the rookie of the year if he could just get play in minutes. How do you navigate all this stuff?
He's got to beat out Eric Gordon.
And what happens with zombie nick Ners? Does he ever turn back into Toronto, nick Ners, or is he just zombie nick Ners, though?
I mean, nick Ners did a great job last year. I think the Sixers definitely overperformed most of our expectations. Maybe the playoffs wasn't ideal.
Playoffs were pretty rough.
They overperformed most of our expectations. I think what we can be bullish about is- Nice year in the nick Ners Kool-Aid drinking camp. I'm not saying last year they were good.
Was it on my research?
Last year they were good. The thing is, Embiid, I know a lot of people killed him for saying, I don't care about a VP. It's about the playoffs. It's about winning. I like that for a team that's trying to incorporate Paul George that has Maxi, he was ascendant. I like the idea that he's not going to feel the onus to dominate every possession like he traditionally has for the team, basically his entire career. And so that's a good sign. I think they're going to be straight. You know what I mean? When Embiid isn't beating dudes up in the locker room for right and bad columns. Here's the thing.
Yaba Selly and McCain are guys who could play in a playoff series. When they're operating on the changes in trying to... You're picking out of the lottery, you're trying to grab, take flyers on dudes, and usually it doesn't work out. It seems like both of those guys, I feel like, could be in a top seven on a good team. But the Embiid is going to be the big thing. Let's take a break, and then I got a couple more things for you. Van Lathen is here. We're going to talk about the NBA Cup because sometimes in basketball, 30 points could be worth more than 30 points. You get 30% profit boost on 30 plus points scores with FanDuel. It's 30 on 30. I like it. The Ringer, team me up with America's number one sportsbook to give you a 30% profit boost when you pick a porter to score more than 30 points during Friday's NBA Cup action. I will give you the games and you tell me what you think. I'll give you a couple of options. Brooklyn Knicks. Anybody loving that one?
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No, they're going to lock up.
Phoenix, OKC, Booker?
Devin Booker.
All right, great. Booker is going to do it. We'll give it to Devon Booker. So whether you want to ride our pics or make them your own, just look for 30 on 30 in the FanDuel Sportsbook app or head to fanDuel. Com/bs for your chance to score a bigger payout this Friday. You can even parlay it with Mike Tyson. We're going to talk about in a second. Don't miss your chance to find out how much 30 points could be worth. The FanDuel is 30 on 30 must be 21 plus present in select states or 18 plus present DC. Opt In Required bonus issue does not withdrawable bonus or withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max wage or amount. See terms at sportsbook. Fanduel. Com. Game problem call 1-800 Gambler. Or visit rg-help. Com. All right, we're back. Van Nathan has joined us. What's up? This is the fun of having an office when people are in there. We're just like, fuck it. Let's turn the mics on and go.
You know how I feel about this.
You've been preaching this forever. Yeah.
You know how I feel about this.
Bring people to the office and shit goes down.
I'm saying everybody's I'm glad to get mad. I'm glad I'm not on Slack because it's going to go crazy. But I think that, first of all, look, it's a new time. Toxicity is best. I feel okay saying that I think everybody should have to come into the office at least 20 hours a week. That's three days or two days.
Pick your 20 hours. It's not a bad idea.
20 hours, three days. However you want to do it. You could still have your Thursday and Friday off. But I'm just not from the era where it was offensive to act. For people to show up to work. I'm not even from the work. I'll laugh at you. I don't care how it comes off. I'll laugh at you. I'm not from the era where it was like... One time, back in my day, I was on a movie set. I actually brought an air mattress to the set because I wanted to be there, work, then sleep there so I could be there early again. That's the toxicity I was brought up in.
Yeah. Honestly, I'm more in the middle of you and some of our Gen Xers who just see any stress-related issue related to work is unacceptable.
Van loves live bodies to just talk. I just like to talk to them. He just wants to hop in conversations. Hey, how are you doing? By the way, were you just talking about Melrose place.
I have some bonds. Here I come. By the way, Gen Z turns out not as woke as we thought.
Well, the dudes. We can leave it.
We can stop pretending now. Everybody come to work. It's a new day.
I'm bringing a text thread combo that Van and I were having, two was about the NBA, about the phenomenon of a league that is having its games watched less, but feels like it matters more. And what's going on, and we all have theories on this. Is the NBA in better, worse, or the same shape?
I think it's a little bit worse than the peak of our recent peak of 2016, where Steph was a global phenomenon, and him and LeBron playing that epic seven-game finals. I don't think we're anywhere close to that level of health in terms of the league. But they do have the most famous players in America American sports. Again, the teams, people don't watch games as much as they might even watch the Jacksonville- So take Mahomes, Kelsie, Lamar, and you would take 40 NBA guys. It's not like, Lamar, who I love, that's my guy.
He's no Are you as famous as Jalen Brown?
I don't think so. No, he's not. Playing football and basketball famous is like a ridiculous losing game for the football players.
Yeah, they're just not. They're recognizable people. They can get people to pay attention to them, whether that be for who they're dating or what clothes they're wearing, whatever. They got to find a way to monetize that attention. But I think once you're in a space where you create celebrities, even recently, like a Ja Morant, That's a good place to be, and they just got to get more creative about getting people to love the game.
It's interesting talking about the celebrity because I would argue that Austin Reeves is more famous in LA than Justin Herbert is. But this is what I would say. Those players still exist in the league, and they are the most famous guys, but they're less consequential in the league than they used to be. Sure. It means something at the top of your league to have your most famous players also be your most important players. I would argue that Steph LeBron, KD, all of that older guard, they're not really serious, although you could argue this year with how the Warriors are playing, serious threats for the NBA throne.
Don't tell the Laker fans that. They're seven and four. We're… JJ's got this team going.
Why do you do this?
We beat Scottie Pippen Jr. Last night.
Why do you do this? We beat Huff. Bill, the vindictiveness towards the Lakers.
No, it's the Laker fan.
Oh, I thought, Bill, we got it because we're on this, because I have to talk to you about this, Karl Towns over LeBron in the top 100.
I didn't do that. I had LeBron. I had LeBron 15. Oh, okay. Yeah, I had Towns 25. Oh, okay.
I had to share I saw Towns over LeBron.
No, I had Towns 25.
Don't you think you're too influential of a voice to have this specific bias? I don't know. Don't you think you every single shot- I just want to see the Lakers play Oklahoma City and some of the other good teams.
They played Cleveland and lost by 100.
The crowd was chatting for Braun.
It was six minutes left.
Nobody's beating Cleveland right now, though.
Can we go back to you're talking about those three guys? This is what I said to Van on the text thread. These unicorn situations they had with six guys, Bird, Magic, Michael Jordan, then Kobe, then LeBron, then Curry.
Sure.
I don't know if we can replicate that with any under-30 American guy in that way. Even the Kobe thing, if Kobe goes to Charlotte instead of the Lakers, what happens to him?
The problem is that you're describing 40 years of the NBA, basically. When you're talking about those guys, you're basically going from 1979 all the way- I'm talking about our last six guys that broke through in a real way. I know, but think about the sample size of those guys. That means that every single generation, they've been able to find a guy or two like that. If this is the first generation why they can't, it's probably the scope of society and culture has changed and not the actual NBA. When you look at social media and other things, for example, you have Zion, you have Ja, right? Ja is an incredibly likable player with an incredible fan friendly style. Thirty years ago, him with the blik blik blik blik, blik, blik, blik, blikit, of posting it also, it's not a thing. He would post it on the blik. It's different. So maybe making stars is harder now because of the scroo.
I think it's harder because of the stars and the culture around our stars themselves. I was asking somebody who's now a huge a huge stars themselves. I was asking somebody who's now a huge a huge stars. Netflix show. I was like, do they get into anything on that show? Because I've never watched it. She was like, yeah. They'll be like, that team is cheating. This owner is this. This person is an alcoholic, blah, blah, blah. They've made the characters compelling as opposed to that damn NBA show on Netflix where Jason Tatum is like, I love my mom, I love who, and I love my son. These are the things we learned about Jason Tatum, who's one of the 10, 8, 7 best players in the league. They don't make themselves interesting.
People don't care. They're afraid to be interesting because it makes them less marketable.
I'll just bring up something and we're potting, have to talk about it. If we talked about Kobe and what Kobe was able to become, If Twitter's around when Kobe has the situation he has in Colorado, he doesn't survive it. I mean, his legacy, I'm telling you, it's- I think he survives it in LA. He might survive it in LA. But in terms of things like that, as murky or whatever you want to say that they are, things like that used to happen to athletes. There used to be narratives about athletes.
We talk about room for error, for lack of a better phrase.
Things used to happen and they just wouldn't stick. We are retro actively punishing Karl Malone. Things used to happen and they didn't stick. So making stars was that, right, there was less margin for error. You could do it easier. Now you got a gun, you got a An adult star going at you for three weeks harassing you on Twitter. All of that stuff, it sticks to you in a little way and it changes people's perception. And we have to ask if all of that's worth. It can make you a star, but it can also take you off your perch.
I wonder how much of that stuff actually sticks to people off of the Internet. And I get it more and more of our society, our Internet-based creatures. But I do wonder how often and how long that stuff sticks. To me, what I'm talking about is like, Draymond goes on his podcast and he's like, Yo, Clay freaking ghosted Steph. Steph was going to say some nice words about him before the comeback game. And after the lack of or the conversation that he had with Clay, called PR and said, I'm not doing it anymore. You telling me you put that in that Netflix show, that stuff?
But do you think that- That people won't be interested in the story of the NBA, I think they would. But being interested in the story of the NBA is starting to become... Because you don't have to watch the games. This is a Tommy alternative. I think you don't want to watch that. No, you don't have to watch the games to be involved in that drama. You could follow that drama without watching the NBA.
This is what Derek Thompson, he came on my pod, I don't know how many months ago, and he was talking about how he's this new breed of NBA fan that loves the NBA but doesn't watch it that much, but loves everything around it and loves following it. My son's like that, too. Oh, my God. My son wasn't watching Bucks Pistons last night, but he knows what happened with Yannis, that Yannis had 59 points. When I was a kid, I felt like anytime the NBA was on, I was like, Oh, my God. The NBA is on the USA Network on Monday night. I'm watching. I can see the bullets. I never get to see the bullets. Or like, SportsCenter in the '90s, you'd watch, you'd come home, come home from drinking. It felt special. 1:30 in the morning, it's like, oh, Craig Kilbourn and Rich Eisen, they're going to tell me what happened in the NBA. I have no idea what happened. Oh, Karl Malone had a 30 and 25. Oh, my God. It just felt spent. Now it's so available and not just the games, but the players. I do wonder if that's a piece of it, too.
All these guys have podcasts. There's no mystery with any of them. Then if you feel like you have mystery, you have something like the Netflix show where it's like, not buying this version of you. I know there's more. It's crap.
You know what I Is there anything, just to ask, is there anything about specifically the quality of the play that lends itself to any of this?
I've heard this. I think basketball is better now. I really do. I've been there the whole ride. I'm like a by the skills of that guy.
I watched the Warriors and Mavs. That game was awesome. That game was like 130, and at no point was that like, this is an interesting, competitive, compelling. I don't know. I think people could fall in love with it, how it is. I think TV product is a problem. I know this is not a populace thing to say. I think they should ban League Pass or just make it as extremely expensive as possible, cost per hit.
Or just you only get to pay for three teams, you don't get all 30.
Or something like that. I'm not I understand it was- Make the product less accessible.
Make it less more special.
Make it more scarce. You know what I mean? Because I think there's got to be a way to make this thing feel less accessible. It's a game every single night. What do you really miss? If you missed the League game last night. What did you miss?
You didn't miss anything. The schedule is too long, too. It's the other piece, and they're never going to change that.
But if you do that with League Pass, I've actually never heard that. It's really interesting. But if you do that with League Pass, doesn't that put the game back in a regional space? Because right now, if Charlotte will never... I want to watch LaMelo, and Charlotte's never going to be on National if I don't have League Pass, and then that makes the game more regional.
Lamelo is a Van type of player. Oh, yeah, for sure. He puts up huge stats, fun highlights, and the wins and losses don't matter. That's Van's wheelhouse.
Bill from the shit. I like to watch players that are fun to watch.
Fun to watch over winning is Van's mantra. Is this like a Westbrook thing? He loves Westbrook.
No, I don't. But this is what I said. Bill wants to thrust this onto me, boss, but because of his Jokuj thing. He's still holding on to that.
Oh, we still doing a Jokich thing.
What else? What other winning player don't I like?
I'm just saying- Give me I'm just saying, I'm grand that you love watching LaMelo. I love watching LaMelo.
He's fun to watch and he's unpredictable.
Career-winning percentage, 440.
He is unpredictable and he's playing better this year.
No, he is playing better. What I'm saying is- Shout out to LaMelo. You're getting to- He's playing better. I've enjoyed watching.
We get into a situation where the regionality of it and the sports starts to feel like baseball a little bit.
Sure.
I don't know. I think that's an interesting idea, and I've never heard it before.
But we didn't talk about... One of the things we were talking about in the text thread is if your best players in your league are all foreign. That's a problem. What is the history of people connecting with foreign players in America? Because I loved Hakeem. Hakeem was amazing to see in person. He was fucking awesome. He was a badass. There's videos you'll see on Twitter, just be like, Hakeem punches a guy. He was like a badass. There's multiple videos of him just turning around, just popping somebody.
He was the Draymond of his day.
He was amazing to watch. He was an amazing defensive player. He was the best low I was the most poor of his generation. People were like, Hakeem's boring. Yannis, Luka, Embied.
I think Yannis' appeal has been mismanaged by the league, by Nike.
Oh, What's this case?
This is good. I just think this whole, Oh, the poor, humble immigrant who was selling yogurts in Greece for a dollar. I just think that was just mismanaged. They should have leaned into the insane competitor, freakish athlete, whatever guy. The way he's been packaged to America as this cutesy immigrant story, I think, was done a disservice to his actual star pill. And Giannis is somebody who's actually embracing americana in a way that Jokuj and Luka just don't. They're just not interested in being American celebrities. They're just like, Yo, I want to hoop, win, go home, be a great teammate, move on with my life. But Yannis is interested in being a cultural figure, and I think that could have worked. I just think that they did it.
I think Yannis is pretty compelling.
I think the freaking foreign stuff does hurt the league. If Luka was from Indiana, bro, he would be out of here. This is interesting.
We've talked about this before. I'm trying to think what would be the best town or city for Luka to be in? If his name was like, Luka Doncher.
But either Indiana or Kentucky.
Oregon, Kentucky, all of those places. Kentucky would be good.
Where white hoopers thrive. We need- Be like, Oh, did you see what Luka did last night? Yeah, seriously. He would have been a phenomenon in the state of Kentucky. He would have went to UK.
He would have been this insanely huge story. Basically, what I have with Jake Bang, North Carolina Superstar, Jake Bang. Yeah.
Or Cooper Flag, your new obsession. All these obsessions have something in common. Look, this is the thing. This is a boxing problem. We're big boxing fans. Boxing has insanely good stars right now. I'm talking about good in their skill. Terrence Crawford, Alexander Usik, Tyson Furie, even though he lost to Usik, Inua, all of these different guys. People care for reasons that really, as fucked up as this is, they care for reasons other than how good you are. Stories make people care. 100%.
Ufc is like this, too.
Skills make champions. Stories make stars. You have to be able to relate to a story. Now, some of these foreign guys, they have stories that are just as interesting as anyone. Really more interesting. I left war-torn, whatever. Or if you ever...
Jokuj's story is really interesting.
Francis Nganu, Jesus, all of that stuff. The problem is, isn't it accessible to audiences? Even in boxing, when guys, when they don't speak English or when they can't really get over to American audiences. Sometimes you have problems making stars with them. The only difference there is that for somebody like a Canelo Alvarez, his country backs him to such a degree that you can still make a worldwide star. What I wonder about the NBA, you You're going to have to. You're going to have to have some dude from LA. You're going to have to have some guy from Ohio. Cooper Flagg, as much as we joke about it, Chet Holmgren, as much as we joke, those guys are important to the lead. It could be.
100%.
Aj could be the guy. If AJ lands on the right team, AJ DeBança, a year from now, he might be the guy because I feel like it has to be a wing. This is when he has two problems. Centers have never resonated with people We talked about that with the Nike contract. It's like, nobody has ever been like, oh, I got... When I was a kid in the late '70s, we weren't like, oh, I got to get Kareem's shoe. Or like, oh, I got to get you in.
Could you imagine? Yeah, yeah. Shaq was a huge star. Shaq was definitely a transhuman guy.
But Shaq, from a shoes standpoint. No, it wasn't the thing. Also, I was there for Shaq. Shaq was pretty polarizing for the '90s.
How do you mean?
People were like, Why are you making so many movies? Why aren't you in shape all the time? Why did you leave Orlando after four years?
We're talking video game, movie,.
I get it, but people felt in the moment, and they weren't right, but people felt in the moment, Why does he care about all this other stuff? Why isn't he just trying to win titles? Then he had the MVP season and it flipped.
I've said this before I think another thing, if we were doing the foreign players thing right, we would be doing it, boxing with the xenophobic, nationalistic spin that we do with every fight. I do remember when Floyd came out to fight Oscar De La Hoya in the sombrero. I'm not saying we should do that in the NBA. That's just racist, though. I'm not saying we should do that in the NBA.
But think about Floyd, though.
But I'm saying.
But think about Floyd, though. Floyd just went total heel.
Yes.
To total heel.
Today's NBA players aren't comfortable with that.
Do we need heels in the NBA? Maybe that's a piece of it.
You definitely need heels in the NBA.
That's Jimmy Butler. It's sitting there for him right now. He's not that good. But he's also 35 now. He's also 35 now. Drayman tried to do it, and it just made people mad.
He's a great heel.
He's a good heel. He's the best heel.
He's a good heel. He's at this point now because I really like watching the Warriors this year where he had his arm flared and I'm almost said, this guy and, okay, see whatever the team the other day. It's like, No, no, Draymond. No, don't ruin this.
No, please. It's the best.
But do you think Wemby could be the biggest star in the week as a 7'5 French guy?
I've never seen a player that the NBA fans that I know the diehard NBA fans had more invested in him being good. There have been guys that have come into the league that it's like, Hey, I like him. Hey, I don't like him. If you talk Jacobi is fucking great. Because if you talk shit on Wimby, you get 50 different people telling you that Wimby is basketball Jesus. There's nothing to it. I think if Wimby lives up to the hype, he's a global superstar. People just love Victor WMDBE.
They love him. I made the same mistake because I don't know if you guys remember the Adrian report where it was like people were saying he's the best prospect of any sport ever. So I had this bid on the show where I was like, Oh, he's the best prospect since Satchel Page and Ty Cobb. I would come up with some old whatever every time. Because I was a little bit doubting it at first. And my goodness, man. Whatever, Twitter is just what it is. But in person, people be like, I heard you said about Wemby, you're crazy, you're wrong, blah, blah, blah. You're right about the Wemby investment. So I do think he has major potential. I think Wemby's broken through, honestly, in terms of culture. Even when Brittany Spears got beat up by his bodyguards at Summer League for trying to talk to him that one time.
God damn, what?
No, I'm just saying you don't remember Brittany Spears wanted his picture.
I know, but you throwing so much gas on that. Brittany Spears got beat up by his bodyguards.
That's how she represented it on the internet, anyway. I wasn't there I didn't see it. But yeah, I think WENBI is definitely up there.
One thing that he has, and I think Edwards has, too, and I've seen this happen over the years, is when we really want it to happen for somebody, because he really felt this when Jordan retired and there was that whole It was like we were auditioning the next star.Oh, my God.It was like, would you like to have Grant Hill?
Grant Hill, Kobe.How.
About this T-Mack character?
T-mack, Vince Carter.
Then Kobe, I feel like starting in the 2000 finals, grabbed it. Then, Vince, all of a sudden, that one year when he went ahead to head against Iverson, I was like, Oh, could he grab it? Iverson, even though I think he had his base, but I still feel like it would have been really hard in 2001 for him to become the guy.
But the thing with Iverson. Iverson is a good example.
He was like a belated after the fact people appreciated him more.
Iverson is a good example of what we're talking about. In a time when the NBA was looking for the next Jordan, Iverson was able to carve out his own superstar aura by being completely antithetical to Michael Jordan. Now, what we have... I'm sorry, bro. These dudes ain't got no personality, bro. Is it 100% true. I mean, they are- Edwards does. Edwards has personality.
Edwards is our big hope.
He's great. But the older guys do. Steph has personality. Lebron has personality. The way we judge people and the conversations that we have around people and the way that we excoriate them for every little... The food getting a little bland. If you want to be a superstar, you got to be spicy. There's got to be some spice to it.
Yeah. I remember David Stern's dress code thing that everybody said was mega racist and blah, blah, blah, blah. It was just the idea that a lot of these guys from the streets or whatever we're called, inner city, whatever euphemism we want to use, were less polished, less media-trained. Our league is now way more suburban. These kids come from way more affluent backgrounds. They're way more media-trained, focus group, consultant freaking to death. And as Van says, it's not as It's just not like, I love Devin Booker. I love watching him move. He's famous enough to date Kendall freaking Jenner. Nobody knows anything about him. Nothing. Nobody knows a... A lot of people don't even know what this guy's voice sounds like.
But then the flip side of everybody is like, Hey, KD, can you stop being so out there?
Can you get offline? Keep doing it. I like that. Keep doing it.
I like it, too.
We need more of that. I think KD is interesting, and I think the fact that he has Embrace the fact. I like it. I like it.
I think he's one of the most authentic superstars we've had in any sport this century. 100%. Almost to his own detriment a lot of the time.
Could you imagine Donovan Mitchell? He's another one of these guys who's perfect. Great suburban upbringing, says the right thing, beautifully eloquent when he speaks. He's so polished. Could you imagine him ever saying anything as interesting as KD does on a freaking daily basis? No. I don't think that's a good thing.
Now, while we say this, once again, I want to come back to the climate, right? Because part of this is because if you're James Harden, you like to go out to the strip club a little bit, that becomes your whole identity. You know what I mean? So what I'm saying- He's earned that.
He has earned that.
He's earned it. Once again, I like him. But all I'm saying is, look, the NBA is not boring. It's so much much fun to watch. All these story lines are so much fun, but loosen up a little bit. Have fun, play basketball, but everyone, not just the players, the fans, too. I don't need 12 saints that never did anything wrong or never said anything wrong playing basketball. Your favorite players from back in the day, I'm sorry, these guys were intensely flawed. The GOAT is a legendary asshole. One of the other guys is a legendary whore. And one of the other guys, if you said the wrong thing to him, he'll throw your ass through a plate glass window. So these are people that play basketball. The people part makes the superstar. And so I think that turning them into robots only makes the league a little bit more bar.
Larry Bird, bar fight during the 1985 play-ups. Herd of sand. Shooting went south. One of the reasons we lost the title. I was like, What if that happened now? Yeah, that would be a problem. It's like, Oh, yeah. Anthony Adren has gotten a bar fight, and now, Minnesota is out of the play-up.
What I would say, too, is Adam, God bless him for all of his shortcomings, in my opinion.
I can't wait for this thing.
He went out and got these guys the bag.
It's 10 years. I thought you were going another direction.
No, he went out and did that. And you did a great job. Bravo, Adam. Now your next freaking job is to get people to care more about what's happening on the floor in your freaking league. And I get it? He was putting all his energies.
It's not the NBA Cup courts?
No, it's not the NBA Cup courts. There's a green one. I think Adam has amazing business sense. He's smart enough to get the Emirates involved in name and rights. He is incredible at getting the corporate partners to buy into what they're doing. Now he's got to be better at the basketball part and getting people to care more.
The number one thing to me that tells me that that's not going to happen is the schedule, which I've talked about a million times in this podcast. The fact that it's 82 games and not 70 or 72 even. That they don't care. They have too much of their product.
They love the inventory.
They love the inventory, and it's too much. It's way too much. It's just night after night. There's eight games, nine games, 10 games. None of them. You never know what's special, what's not special.
It's been 82 forever. At what point did it become that you would have thought? What was the point to where you felt like they needed to scale back?
Late 2000s.
Okay.
I also think, I talked about this Tuesday. I think that sport's much harder to play, and it's a big reason why these guys are getting injured.
For me, I got religious in 2014 when everybody was praising Popovich for not playing They were playing the heat, too. It was the Spurs, and he said three of the story- He said, Everybody.
Everybody ruined the Saturday game.
Yes.
Everybody was like, the NBA media consensus was like, pop is such a genius, blah, blah, blah. I got to give it to our guy, Amin. He was like, It's cool when the Spurs do it, but when everybody's doing it, it's not going to be good. Our partners pay us for these games. This is how we make the bulk of our money.
But the thing is, they just paid them more money for the game. Yeah. They poned it up again.
They got blessed with the media environment where these live rights are so impactful. But that's when I got religion on it, when everybody was like, Yo, pop. Is a genius for this? And I'm just like, Well, if teams need to load manage their stars, and that means we need less games. That's just obvious.
Think how good the '72 would be right now with Philly's situation, where it's like, holy shit, they're two and nine in the '72 game season. This is dangerous now. They can't fuck They could be like the number 10 playing team.
Not with 82. They'll be fine. They'll finish in the top three of the East.
I've asked so many people, and there's some people in the league who've really pushed for it. Steve Kerr is a massive advocate for it, and he's written letters and all this stuff. There's no answer other than, No, we don't want to give up the money. That's it.
It's 100% money. Mind you, these are the masters of the universe. This is what we're told. These are the smartest business people in the history of planet Earth. You get this massive increase in revenue with your new TV deal. You would think that it's like, All right, with this windfall, we can make the product better. It might hurt us in the short run in terms of our inventory, but we're going to find a way to make these games feel more interesting, special, and better monetize the decrease in inventory. But instead, they're just like, no, we're going to bash them over the head with 82 from now till eternity.
Well, I mean, Probably, I mean, the conversation now around the league in terms of the quality of the games, the viewership, might spawn something, but there's been no reason to, right? The league has been incredibly popular. The NBA helped to normalize the American society in the bubble after. They should have won some social award. This is dumb. I've said this to you before, bruh. I literally was driving around LA like a zombie during the pandemic. And then I heard on the radio, people were like, I've heard that there are rumblings of the NBA getting everybody back together in one city and playing all the games. I was, hope.
Hope brings the turtle.
I was like, Oh, my God. If I could just watch some NBA basketball.
You know what's crazy about that? I was thinking about that the other day because it feels like it happened 130 years ago, and it was four years. We were putting cardboard cutouts of fans in the stands Not only did we not have fans in the stands, we were pretending to have fans in the stands. Virtual fans. Like that Stallone cobra thing behind Van's shoulder there. It was totally normal. That's how desperate we were for basketball. We were super desperate. Let's take a break. We got to talk Mike Tyson. All right, Mike Tyson against one of the Paul brothers. Which Paul brother is it? Jake.
I was about to say Logan. It's Jake. All right, Bill.
What are we? We're all right billing, man.
Jake, take everything personally. You're going to find out.
I'm old. Don't take it any person. Jake Paul. What is Jake? Are you old enough to remember early Tyson? Or just the clips of early Tyson.
No. Tyson, my first real memories of Mike outside of OVHS was when he came out of the first prison stent, like the Bruno and all of those guys.
He was used to it. What do you remember of early Tyson?
I remember the way things used to go back in the olden days was whispers, reality, startup. That's how it was with Shaq. My uncle wrote a letter from prison to my dad, and it was like, Yo, have you heard about this boy from LSU, 7'1, 290 pounds? Have you seen him? Shaquille O'Neill. Whispers, boom. With Tyson, it was this unbelievable wrecking machine. Then you see him on HBO, reality, and then start him. I guess he came out. At no point in my young life do I not remember Mike Tyson not being the baddest motherfucker around. When you watched him, it was obvious you were watching something for it.
That's my memory as well. Although I was older, but it was Sports Illustrated cover, HBO fights, this is Must Watch. I saw literally every Tyson fight. Everyone cared the most about his fights versus really anything else in sports except maybe the Super Bowl. That's crazy. I don't know, the audience doesn't match up with that, but just-No, they do.
No, it was a huge thing. It was boxing because remember now, boxing is in an interesting place at this point. Mahama Ali is gone in 1980, but really, he's gone.
Nobody liked Larry Holmes.
The Fordent, Larry Holmes comes in at the lower weights. Sugar Ray Leonard is your baby.
The middle weights and the welter weights took over for half the decade.
Then there's an unstable heavyweight bus saw, and That becomes must-see television.
But it wasn't just the buzz saw. It was the way he talked. It was how weird he was. He was just the most compelling person. His interview was after the fight, he would just use crazy words and had this weird empathy for somebody who he just sent their nose through their forehead.
I'm telling you, that was the biggest part of it. The biggest part of it was you never knew which mic you were going to get, right?
No, I don't think he knew either.
Then Mike becomes ubiquitous. He'snot the punch-out video game.
The punch-out video game. I remember that.
The Spings' pay-per-view is what pushed her over the top. He knocked him out in 91 seconds, and everybody was like, that was one of the early, Hey, whose house are we going to? Which is now a staple of how we watch sports. Back then, it was like, who's getting the fight? Are we all chipping in? What are we doing for food? Then my mom, I don't even think, had brought down the nachos yet. I had 12 people in the basement. It was over. We're all like, Yeah, the fight's over, but the food's still coming, right? It was just done. That was the only thing- Spinks was terrified.
I remember that fight, specifically.
Remember the deer in the headlights? Look at Spinks.
We had everybody over. My uncle, rest of me is my uncle Ray. My uncle Ray is like, Spinks is going to make it a fight. Spinks is going to make it a fight. He's from a boxing family. The whole nine, whatever. He's going to box him. He's going to box him. He's going to move. Might hit Spinks. Spinks goes down to one knee, and my daddy like, .
Then hit him with the second... The punch that ended it was one of the single hardest punches in the history of boxing.
He's It's over.
He's moving forward. It's like in Roadhouse just to clear him out.
We didn't have very much else to do. We all had to just sit around and talk about how raw Mike Tyson was.
The thing with Mike was he was involved in four, I remember where I was when I watched it, sporting events, which is like, I think he might have the record for me because it was that Spinks fight. It was getting knocked out by Douglas, which is still-Togio Douglas. Yeah.
Douglas, which is still-Holyfield the ear.
Both Holyfield Holyfield fights. The first fight was incredible. We had that at my house. We had that party. Still thought he was going to beat Holyfield.
That's the mic that's in my mind.
Then the ear was also insane.
When he came out of prison and he had that exhibition tour where he He caught the big doofy white dude. Peter McNeill. Yeah, Bruno in the UK.
Big Massachusetts moment.
Peter McNeely. It was this warm up to the real big fights against Holyfield and Lennox Lewis. I would say even back then, the aura still existed, and everybody around me assumed he was going to kill these guys. Everybody thought, no, it's Mike. He had the fluke. He went to prison. He's back. He's down with the Muslims.
Holyfield was a cruiserweight who had moved up to heavyweight. He'd lost a more.
By that time, it was more mythology, though. We had, and they knew it because they were picking opponents very strategically for Mike. Mike B. Bruce Seldon for a Championship, maybe Buster... No, he beat Bruno for a Championship. They actually pay $4 million of step aside money to Lennox Lewis at one point, so they didn't have to fight him. At that point, it was a little bit more-It was smoking mirrors. It was more mythology.
The fights were awesome, though. They weren't. Even the Galata fight.
Yes. The mic that we knew was gone even before the Buster Douglas.
The way he would move side to side and the combo, it was like that guy-Cuscent Tilly Atlas.
Tilly Atlas and all of those other guys leaving, but he still had it.
You know what was another amazing thing about his arc was living in in real-time, watching somebody fly two coasts of the sun. Even the mistakes aren't even done yet, and you just knew. Once he started dating Robin Givens, it was like, this isn't going to go well for anybody.
Something that always resonated with people about Mike was the real fight of Mike Tyson's life was never going to be in the ring. No. Because when you started learning about where he came from and what he went through, you always were wondering. It still feels like Mike Tyson won because he won the biggest championship he could have won. You were waiting for the... Mike Tyson has experienced intense tragedy in his life. You were waiting for the moment that it was over. He ended up in a really bad life-altering, life-changing situation. He went through some of those. But him fighting was... It was a happy ending to a degree whenever you saw him in the boxing ring because everybody sold you on just how much he had gone through. You mentioned certain things, Mike flies into a rage. You mentioned other things, Mike breaks down and cries. And so of all the things that he's been through, and they are not woke. They are things that he's been through.
Dude, he's a case study because there's an extension of grace that Mike has afforded even after the sexual assault charges and convictions that people just have decided collectively that we're going to extend Mike some level of grace. And I think it is some of that vulnerability that you're mentioning right now because there's other people who would have gone through what he's gone through and would have been completely written off by every single segment of society except some of the worst elements. But Mike has managed to fight his way through that and be embraced.
This is weird territory that we're treading into, but I'll say it like this. Oh, boy.
He He is brutally human.
He's brutally human. You watch him and you're like, this is supposed to be the strongest guy in the world. He knocks people out. He bowls people over their heads. But there's an interview with him and a guy from Canada where Mike's out there to do his play, and the guy brings up Mike's old case, and he cannot control himself. You get the feeling of, Man, I've been through that. I put that behind me. I'm trying to move on and be better, and you're throwing this back in my face. This guy is mentioning something that Mike was convicted of. He is not wrong in saying, This is something from your past, but you still look at him like he's an asshole. You're like, Oh, man, why are you bringing that up? You know what I'm saying? You still look at him like that because there's something compelling about the amount of truth that Mike Tyson has failed into. It'll always be that way. He's one of the last ones that we're just like...
Yeah, I wonder if anybody else could ever have the type of redemption arc. And some people might say it's undeserved. Some people might say, Maybe human beings deserve to make mistakes and live past it. But yeah, I'm fascinated by that element of it. Everybody understands that Mike has lived a traumatic life. Mike has mental health issues. Mike has done some really fucked up things, but yet Mike is still somebody people root for. I think it's amazing, honestly.
There's one more thing that might factor into it is that he's... I don't think people think this consciously. He's been punished. So he hasn't gotten away with anything per se. There's a lot of things that he probably got away with.
But he even said that. He said, I didn't do this, but there's some other stuff, so we're probably even. Right.
So he went to jail. He lost a child. He lost all of his money. He lost his mentor. He lost his best friend. Life has taken a lot from him. Now, he's gotten a lot, and he's been able to come back from all of that. But you've seen part of it is... I'm trying to pick my words very delicately because the thing that Mike Tyson went to jail for is something that we have to root out of our community, our society. We have to make sure that we're serious about talking about stuff like that. But there's a part of it to where it feels like he's got a chunk out of his ass taken out of it because of it. It feels like he's gone through some really terrible, immensely gut-wrenching, horrible things. Look, if no one ever wants to watch or look at Mike Tyson, I get it. I get why you would feel that way. But even my mother, who People love Mike, man. Yeah, even my mother is just like, she still likes to see Mike Tyson doing well.
You know what I think it is? Jail and I interviewed him once when I was at Grantland. We did a pod with him, and it was like a thrill. It was like a thrill. It was so cool to just shoot the shit with him. I might even said this to him on the pod, but I always felt like he was one of the most self-aware athletes that I ever followed. He was somebody that you would have thought was a complete disaster, and he was. But he was also completely painfully aware of all his faults, all his mistakes, all the issues he had, and could talk about it, which I can't even think of anybody. Iverson, I think, has a little bit of that, too. I think it's the same thing. There's an self-introspection that was always unusual about him, even as it was like, I'm talking Robin given's era all the way through. He always knew. I remember writing a column about it once about he became the Tony Montana, Say Hello to the guy character because he knew that was how society saw him. Yeah. He was like, Say hello to me. I'm the bad guy.
That was who he became. These people think that I'm an animal.
So I'm going to act like one.
I'm going to do it and I'm going to sell this fight, and I'm going to intimidate this dude, and I'm going to talk about I'm going to fuck you two.
He said, Say crazy shit.
That was nice.
That one run- I want to eat your kids.
His crazy run was the craziest.
Mike's crazy run is the craziest run we've seen- By any athlete. By any athlete. The only person that comes close to what was Kanye a couple of years ago. Yeah.
Maybe Charlie Sheen, too. Those are...
These are iconic crazy runs.
In my column, I created the Tyson zone, which was when I remember this very well. Somebody acts so consistently crazy that you'll just believe any story. Charlie Sheen entered that. Kanye, definitely. Oh, my God. There's certain people where you're like, I'll believe any story now.
Mike's crazy run. Then it was not just crazy, but it was odd, funny. My back is broken spinal. It's odd.
I guess I'm just going to fade into Bolivian. That's my favorite.
That was the best one. We went the first year of Jimmy's We went to go. He was the guest host, and he had this pigeon coop in Harlem. I went with Uncle Frank. I was the writer. We spent, I don't know how long on the rooftop just watching Mike flew pigeons. He was so sad and so traumatized by his whole life. But he could also talk about it, and he really connected with Uncle Frank. It was this really cool five-minute video we got out of it. But even that, I was like, Why is he even letting us up here? It was like he wanted to win people over, even though he knew he was the bad guy.
For everybody out listening right now, I want you guys to... This is going to be hilarious when you think about this. Think about how jumpy Bill was on the roof of the Pitching. I loved it.
It was amazing. It was such a cool experience.
Bill was like, Poogie, nice to meet you. The thing is, it was only him and one other guy.
He didn't have the entourage anymore.
Like all these boxers. You hit that point. He hit that in the Douglas fight. He had two people in his corner.
You think he wins tomorrow?
Phil doesn't think so.
What do you think? I'm going to look at the odds while you talk about this. I don't know what to think. He's 58 years old, which is just like, Waz was asking, could he just die if he got punched in the heart.
I think he's going to be okay in terms of physically. I just have find it hard to believe he's going to hit this guy enough times to win.
From a boxing standpoint, people like to hate on Jake. They do. I've seen Jake in the gym, in the gym. He's not bad. Out at fields, boxing. He's certainly not bad in terms of the guys that he fights.
This isn't Screech from Saved by the Bell. Fuck, no.
This is a guy that actually has a right-hand, a real right-hand. He can detonate you with a right-hand. He's a big, strong, athletic guy who's got a fair amount of rank experience now. He's not somebody to be fucked over and played with. Any version of Mike Tyson, pre-age 50, will work Jake Paul. But it's not pre-age 50. Your stamina goes, your punch resistance goes.
Jake's minus 205 on Fender.
Jake I don't know what's going to happen, to be honest. That's the thing about, Mike, you don't know what's about to happen.
People have been asking me, Do you think people are going to watch this fight or people are going to care? I'm like, People are 1,000. First of all, it's on Netflix, which is the single most important channel we have now. It's a Friday night. People are going to get together. Somebody's going to get it. It's super easy to queue up Netflix at whoever's house or whatever bar. People are going to care. I actually think people are going to care way more than I think people realize.
I'm watching it. I thought it wasn't going to happen. I thought after it got canceled the first time that they would never come back to it. The only thing that makes me think that you could see a Tyson victory is that Mike seems genuinely motivated.
This young kid, he just parachutes into my life's work, my sport, and thinks that he could take me out. I understand why If anybody would be motivated by that, but yeah, the man is 60.
I just can't believe. I was watching Mike Tyson fight in the mid '80s, followed by some erotic thriller on HBO, and it was like the greatest night. The greatest night. I was like, Oh, my God.
Emmanuel.
The heart was pumping.
Oh, the hitchhiker's on. Now, 40 years later, he's still doing it.
Bill was watching Emmanuel in space.
I was like, Oh, he's in space now.
See? See, everybody tries to act like it's only me. Wazna was what's up. Oh, my God.
What? Yeah, Waz knows what's up. On the weekends, I never went to sleep before 2:00 AM.
What's your big boxing fan? Jake Paul, real boxer?
I think he's an elite celebrity boxer.
Yes, he's real enough.
He's the greatest celebrity boxer of the time.
To me, it speaks to more the evolution of celebrity boxing, which was in the '90s and 2000s where we would put like, Screech against Warshack and we were ready to go.
I don't think he'd be in the top of actual people in his weight class in terms of... Especially not in the world, or even in America for that sense. But to be that famous and to fight that credibly, I think is an actual- It's impressive.
Can I tell you guys a quick story from the gym with Jake?
Story from the gym. Story from the gym. Sponsored by State Farm.
Sponsored by State Farm. Like, philosophy boxing, Woodland Hills, Phil Polina. Shout out to him. There was a heavyweight in the gym. Jake used to come in the gym. Come in the gym with B. J. They would fight. Jake's whole team, Jake Roll, he got a whole team that comes in with him, and they do their whole thing, and they spar different guys. Pros, normally, they would spar people Out of weight class, though. Jake, at that time, he wasn't as big as he is now, 175, 180. The guys he would spar would be middle. Sometimes, even Welter that he would spar with. They were bringing him along, but he was taking it seriously. He was in there all the time. There was a heavyweight in there that was like, just hated Jake Paul. Just hated Jake Paul. Just did not want it. I want to spar Jake. I want to spar Jake. I want to fucking fight Jake. I want to do all of this.
This is the start of Cree 5.
Hated Jake Paul. I hated Jake Paul. They got in the ring, and he was like, this was a guy I've been boxing for a long time. He got in the ring and they sparred. Jake fucked this guy up. When I'm telling you this, this is what I consider to be a We haven't seen him since. Jake fucked. I'm like, You guys, I know that Van has a reputation of embellishing stories. When I'm telling you, heard him bad, and I was like, Oh, because I did not think that was going to go the way that it did. This was a guy that was his same size, had been boxing for a long time. There's literally pictures of him with gloves on when he's 13, 14 years old. Jake beat the shit out of him. I'm like, he's going to win some fights.
Waz, are you familiar with Bacoli?
No. Who's that?
Oh, shit. This is Bill's guy.
He's your guy, too.
He is, but Bill is obsessed with Martin Bacoli. He's a gigantic guy from the continent.
He's from- Okay. Which part? He's Congolese.
Oh, the Congo, the continent continent.
I'll just give you the one sentence sell job. Congolese Ernie Shavers meets 1974 George Foreman.
Wow.
That's Bacoli.
So Is this more credible than the Deontay Wilder early clips?
Yes. No, no, no.
There's nothing like this guy.
Deontay Wilder is...
I don't want to take anything from Wilder. Nobody wants to fight this guy. He literally cannot make a fight.
Yeah, I don't want to take anything from Wilder. Wilder is a bronze medalist in the Olympics who became heavyweight champion with one of the most devastating right hands of all time. But like, Martin Bacoli is like a... There's a big young heavyweight, Jared Anderson. Great young fighter.
Just got demolished. The Saudi The Saudis threw him a ton of money. They're like, Will you fight Bacoli? He said, No. They're like, Here's a lot of money. He's like, All right.
He got absolutely like his career has been altered.
It was one of those...
You ever seen... It's not quite this level.
It was like the Fraser Foreman.
I was just about to say. That's what the fight was going to bring about. Like, Fraser Foreman to where you are.
Ball of Fraser just keeps him falling over.
Halfway into the fight, you're like, oh. Halfway into the first round, you're like, wow. And Jared Anderson, give him credit.
Like one of these guys.
He was landing That's what he was doing the whole fight. But it's not just that. Like, Covey is skilled.
Yeah, no. But ultimately, when somebody can just... And you just see the other guy moving backwards, and it's like he's getting hit by a tornado.
And then it became... And so now, after that, he can't get a fight.
He can't get a fight. He's my number one. I just want to see him fight. I'd watch him fight every two months. They made it. They just made a fight. Jump on the bandwagon was.
I made a fight with him. I wanted.
But it wasn't with Zane.
It's in December. Yeah, he's going to kill somebody.
Yeah.
He's going to kill somebody.
All Mike Tyson. So we're all watching. Kyle, are you watching? Yeah. All right.
Oh, news for everyone. Kyle and I going to frolic.
When is that? Allegedly. I don't know. Sounds great. What day is that?
When did we say we're doing it?
I said the weekend Saturday vibes are great.
Will they have the games on?
Yeah. Three TVs. Not the best, though. You can go now that LSU season's over. You can start going to bars on Saturday.
I'll just let you all know. You all fuck with me with LSU. I'm not a stable person when it comes to LSU. You know how everybody likes to get razzed about their TV and all that stuff like that?
I don't like that shit. You're going to be there with LSU.
But our season is fucked. We still outside hope, though.
We run the table. Now you have Jaden Daniels. You just transfer all your love to Jaden Daniels for his Washington play-off from.
There's a whole NIL battle happening right now. We're about to play probably 10 million for a quarterback.
I don't like this at all.
I saw Kam Ward bought his entire offensive line, diamond chains. He had a platter out.
How is this going to end well?
How is this going to end well?
He got them to dive in chain.
He should have bought them for the defense. You could give me- Maybe they'd play better.
If we had this a better podcast for another time, but if you told me, what is college sports in 10 years? I'm prepared for 100 scenarios. Yeah. He literally tell me anything. You tell me it's like a 10 college league and everyone else is D3, and I believe that.
Yeah. It's a strange direction, Teddy, man, for sure.
I can't say it's great. Well, it's great to see you. Same. Van, great to see you. Thanks for coming on. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Cochrane and Steve Cerruti for producing, as always. Thanks to you, Ben Lathen and Big Was, Wasnene Lambray. Stay tuned for part two. It's coming later tonight. I'll see you there. Must be 21 plus in President Select States for Kansas, an affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in President DC. Gambling problem? Call 100 Gambler or visit rg-help. Com. Call 188-789-7777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp. Org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma. Org, or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support, Massachusetts, or call 1877-8 Hope, NY, or text Hope, NY in New.