Speaker 1: If you're tuned into Heat Check with Tristal Quick.
Speaker 2: On this episode of the Heat Check, the NBA and
Speaker 2: the NBA PA have signed a new collective bargaining agreement,
Speaker 2: at least in theory, and it is the biggest news
Speaker 2: in the league since the Bubble. So many ramifications, it's
Speaker 2: so complicated. I had to bring on one of the
Speaker 2: only people qualified enough to break this down spot Tracks,
Speaker 2: Keith Smith.
Speaker 1: It's actually spot Track, not spow Track. So we got
Speaker 1: that all settled.
Speaker 2: So much to cover, Let's skip the bullshit, Let's get
Speaker 2: right into it and drop that generic ass beat.
Speaker 1: So the biggest.
Speaker 2: News of the year, probably several years, to be honest,
Speaker 2: is that the NBA and the NBA PA have hammered
Speaker 2: out this new collective bargaining agreement. We only know some
Speaker 2: of the details and there are major major changes coming
Speaker 2: next year, monumental changes. Before we bring on Keith, our
Speaker 2: favorite NBA guru, to explain it all to us, I
Speaker 2: just wanted to sort of break down some of the
Speaker 2: things that are getting changed. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and
Speaker 2: Players Union Director Tamika Tremaleo they should get a bunch
Speaker 2: of credit. Honestly, they work together to get the deal
Speaker 2: done before the CBA ends. And let's be honest, other
Speaker 2: leagues like the NFL and Major League Baseball.
Speaker 1: They never do that. Ever.
Speaker 2: They know they're going to get a bag from the
Speaker 2: new rights deal, and they're like, yo, before we get
Speaker 2: money from Amazon, Apple, ESPN, Turner, whatever.
Speaker 1: A deal that's probably going to.
Speaker 2: Be speculated around seventy five billion dollars in total. We
Speaker 2: should probably figure that out, right, We should probably have
Speaker 2: seventy five billion reasons to treat each other well. Because
Speaker 2: of a lockout comes, we are fucked anyway, labor piece
Speaker 2: for the next seven years.
Speaker 1: Here's the four to one.
Speaker 2: One hasn't officially been ratified yet, only part of it
Speaker 2: has been reported. This new CBA, though, has given existing
Speaker 2: players greater freedom on a personal level. Right they can
Speaker 2: invest in NBA and WNBA teams while they're a current player.
Speaker 2: They can now be sponsored by sports betting companies. They
Speaker 2: can smoke weed and not get tested, which I think
Speaker 2: is like one of the least important things, but hey,
Speaker 2: smoke on. If you want to smoke, you can be
Speaker 2: sponsored by a weed company or a CBD company. They
Speaker 2: have continued to keep the one and done rule, so
Speaker 2: young kids can't get into the league. Veterans didn't want it,
Speaker 2: the league didn't want it. Nobody wanted it, really, but
Speaker 2: they didn't want to be bad guys. So college basketball
Speaker 2: remains the same. In terms of roster building, the CBA
Speaker 2: makes a bunch of changes. There's a new salary cap,
Speaker 2: new luxury cap rules. It makes it harder to create
Speaker 2: these super teams, makes it easier for teams to organically
Speaker 2: build rosters through the draft a lah Oklahoma City Thunder.
Speaker 2: Some of the changes, like the sixty five minimum game
Speaker 2: qualification requirement for an NBA award, is going to affect salaries.
Speaker 2: It determines who is going to be eligible for the
Speaker 2: Supermax extension. That's a lot even just there. There's also
Speaker 2: major changes to the schedule. Adam Silver has gotten his
Speaker 2: major n season tournament done. Some of the changes are
Speaker 2: going to impact the draft, so called Rob Polinka rule
Speaker 2: on how teams can sign second round picks so they
Speaker 2: don't end up losing them like they did on Alex
Speaker 2: Caruso because they don't want to give those players the
Speaker 2: mid level exception. Since the last CBA was like five
Speaker 2: hundred ninety eight pages of legal ease indecipherable.
Speaker 1: We have Keith Smith, who.
Speaker 2: Does this shit for a living, day in day out
Speaker 2: from spot Track. He is our resident numbers guru. We
Speaker 2: also ask him some changes about the TEA, what's going
Speaker 2: on with the NBA as well. He is here to
Speaker 2: break down the CBA and what it means. You can
Speaker 2: find him on spot track and on Twitter at Keith
Speaker 2: Smith NBA.
Speaker 1: Without further ado, here's me and Keith interview.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about the CBA because there's not
Speaker 2: that many people who really understand it, and you working
Speaker 2: for a SPoD track, and you being around the league
Speaker 2: for as long as you are, you're the first person that.
Speaker 1: Came to mind.
Speaker 2: So thankfully we already had this interview schedule.
Speaker 1: When you took the time to absorb the.
Speaker 2: Main changes in the CBA, what was your first overall reaction.
Speaker 3: I think they made it so that the middle class
Speaker 3: of the league is going to have some significant advantages
Speaker 3: in acquiring players. They made it harder for the most
Speaker 3: expensive teams to acquire players, but they also gave them
Speaker 3: avenues to keep players that they already have. If I
Speaker 3: think the problem with the so called hardcap was always
Speaker 3: going to be Hey, if we're the Warriors, because that's
Speaker 3: the team everybody uses for as an example, and we've
Speaker 3: drafted really well and developed really well, why should we
Speaker 3: get penalized and have to lose guys? And I think
Speaker 3: the NBA, basically along with the NBPA, said you know what,
Speaker 3: you're kind of right, but we still can't have you
Speaker 3: trading for everybody under the sun and signing a bunch
Speaker 3: of guys in that. So we're going to put in
Speaker 3: some limiters on you that'll make it hard. And it's
Speaker 3: not just the Warriors. The Clippers are in that boat.
Speaker 3: There's a handful of other teams that'll probably maybe in
Speaker 3: that position over the next few years. But it's we're
Speaker 3: going to make it harder on you to do get
Speaker 3: new players that don't come through the draft and through
Speaker 3: minimum signings and the like. And then for the middle
Speaker 3: class teams, we're going to give you a whole bunch
Speaker 3: of ways that you can go get players that maybe
Speaker 3: you didn't have available to you in the past. So
Speaker 3: I think they're just trying to increase that parody around
Speaker 3: the league.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of people who think that this is
Speaker 2: a these are seismic changes that we're not going to
Speaker 2: really fully understand for years to come.
Speaker 1: In your opinion, how monumental is it.
Speaker 3: I think they're pretty big. I think we're going to
Speaker 3: see some teams. Kind of buzzword right now is what
Speaker 3: are the unintended consequences? Right? Because it's always you get
Speaker 3: into this stuff, you feel really good about where it is,
Speaker 3: and then one thing we know that these teams do,
Speaker 3: they hire really smart people who find ways to work
Speaker 3: around all the rules they put in place. It's a
Speaker 3: big part of it. I always say, you know, the
Speaker 3: the CBA is a agreement to make it fair, and
Speaker 3: then it's people's jobs to find ways to work around
Speaker 3: that inherent fairness, to give themselves advantages, to find loopholes,
Speaker 3: all those things. So I think what's gonna happen is
Speaker 3: it is going to take years for this to fully
Speaker 3: play out, because it's not like one all these changes
Speaker 3: are coming in immediately next season. It's some of these
Speaker 3: things they've already said they're going to be phased in
Speaker 3: over a period of time. And I think that's fair
Speaker 3: to the teams because if we stick with that Warriors example,
Speaker 3: well they've already built the roster they've built. It's not
Speaker 3: necessarily fair to say, all right, hey, all the tools
Speaker 3: you have, you lose them all right now. Now you've
Speaker 3: got to kind of reset and restart right from square one.
Speaker 3: So I think we'll see some phasing into some of
Speaker 3: these changes. I think the other part of it, too,
Speaker 3: is we got to see how teams react to these things,
Speaker 3: because teams are gonna make different decisions than they might
Speaker 3: have otherwise. We may see teams say, you know what,
Speaker 3: once we're up and over this second tax apron, which
Speaker 3: I think sounds silly, So I'm calling it the super
Speaker 3: to because I think that sounds way cooler. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: once you're over the super tax, you're gonna be in
Speaker 3: a spot where, wow, you know, we really got to
Speaker 3: resign our own guys because we have no other way
Speaker 3: to get talent. Or I think the other option is
Speaker 3: we're in a position where some teams are gonna say,
Speaker 3: all right, you know what, we gotta let player X
Speaker 3: go because we got to get our books in order,
Speaker 3: and the only way is to start shedding some salary.
Speaker 3: So we're gonna let him go, and you're gonna just
Speaker 3: see differences in you know, roster building and those kind
Speaker 3: of things. I think drafting well, developing well. It's gonna
Speaker 3: have more importance than it's maybe ever had in the
Speaker 3: league because having one cost control players is going to
Speaker 3: be huge in those things. But these, again are changes
Speaker 3: we're gonna it's gonna take us probably three four years,
Speaker 3: right into the middle of this six to seven year
Speaker 3: agreement to really start to feel the full effect of it.
Speaker 2: Was reported that there were like hundreds of proposals throughout
Speaker 2: the time. What was the NBA itself, the league trying
Speaker 2: to achieve with these changes and what was the MBPA
Speaker 2: trying to achieve with the changes?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the good news is it seems like they went
Speaker 3: into this on roughly the same page with a lot
Speaker 3: of the stuff. The first big thing that they were
Speaker 3: really good with was the revenue split. That it's essentially
Speaker 3: a fifty to fifty split. It can range from forty
Speaker 3: nine to fifty one, but it's essentially fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3: Once you're good there, that makes everything else easier. I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna say it's easy, but it makes it easier.
Speaker 3: And I think you know they were. It's funny. I
Speaker 3: was told direct by someone involved, was Yeah, the one
Speaker 3: and done role negotiation was like NBA doesn't want this.
Speaker 3: NBPA doesn't really want this, So why is this a conversation. Well,
Speaker 3: neither one wanted to be the one to say like, hey,
Speaker 3: we don't want this, because then they look like the
Speaker 3: bad guy. But I think the NBA's main goal was,
Speaker 3: let's increase some of this parody and let's make sure
Speaker 3: we are not getting into world where hey, if you're
Speaker 3: one of the most richest teams in the league for
Speaker 3: lack of a better term, and you are in a
Speaker 3: big market, you can just outspend everybody by a level
Speaker 3: that the playing field just is vast and separated. It
Speaker 3: starts to look a little bit like, yeah, we have
Speaker 3: a cap, but what difference does it make if you
Speaker 3: can just keep adding salary and keep adding salary. So
Speaker 3: I think that was their goal. I think the mbpa's
Speaker 3: goal was, all right, we can work with you within that,
Speaker 3: but what we want to do is if you're going
Speaker 3: to cap those top teams on how much they can spend,
Speaker 3: it can't be that that just goes away. We need
Speaker 3: to push it back into the market somewhere. Because their
Speaker 3: end goal is now with the addition of a third
Speaker 3: two way spot, they're gonna have up to five hundred
Speaker 3: and forty guys in the league at a time, and
Speaker 3: it's we're going to take care of five hundred plus players.
Speaker 3: It's not just about Lebron James and Steph Curry and
Speaker 3: the guys who make forty to fifty million a year.
Speaker 3: We got to take care of all the way down.
Speaker 3: And I think that's some of the stuff that they
Speaker 3: they wanted, and I think in a lot of ways
Speaker 3: they came to some pretty good agreements on that stuff,
Speaker 3: where it is all right, hey, we're going to give here,
Speaker 3: but you give here, and that rebalances and we'll see
Speaker 3: how that rebalances the league ultimately.
Speaker 2: In the end, Draymond was very upset. He tweeted that
Speaker 2: the players got screwed. He said, I don't understand how
Speaker 2: we are the driving labor of this entire system and
Speaker 2: we end up, you know, getting the short.
Speaker 1: End of the stick.
Speaker 2: What do you think if you had to guess, because
Speaker 2: I'm sure you know there's a lot of things that
Speaker 2: he could have issue with. What do you think is
Speaker 2: there any one thing or a couple of things that
Speaker 2: would make him feel this way or have other players
Speaker 2: feel this way?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a few things with that. I
Speaker 3: think the first was that was probably an immediate reaction
Speaker 3: because the first handful of things that came out were, Wow,
Speaker 3: this doesn't look great for the players. It was kind
Speaker 3: of that was like the Saturday reporting. When we got
Speaker 3: into Sundays reporting, it was like, whoa wait a minute,
Speaker 3: they can invest in NBA teams and WNBA teams, They're
Speaker 3: broadening what they can be corporate partners on and those
Speaker 3: sort of things. And then when you saw a lot
Speaker 3: of those changes, like, all right, this makes a lot
Speaker 3: more sense. I don't presume to know what details Draymond
Speaker 3: Green had and didn't have. I can tell you I
Speaker 3: know I've talked to people on both the player side
Speaker 3: and the team side. They don't have all the details
Speaker 3: yet because this is kind of agreed to in principle
Speaker 3: and they're still hammering stuff out. That's why we don't
Speaker 3: have the ELITD full term sheet, and it's like every
Speaker 3: two hours we're getting like, here's another detail, because it's
Speaker 3: kind of all right, we finished it and go. So
Speaker 3: I'm guessing it was probably a bit of an overreaction
Speaker 3: to the immediate reporting on it. And I think there's
Speaker 3: also a this was personal to him because in a
Speaker 3: lot of ways, you could call some of those immediate
Speaker 3: measures like the Warriors measures of like, hey, we can't
Speaker 3: have another Warriors come along, right, And it's funny because,
Speaker 3: and I keep using them as the example, even in
Speaker 3: the last couple of years, the Clippers have outspent everybody.
Speaker 3: So I think what we run into in this situation
Speaker 3: with these guys is they run into a spot where
Speaker 3: it is, hey, like we want to you know, I'm
Speaker 3: going to spout off, but it's because this is hurting
Speaker 3: me and my team and if I resign here, like
Speaker 3: we're not going to be able to go sign other
Speaker 3: guys and all these sorts of things. So I kind
Speaker 3: of get where he's coming from because I think in
Speaker 3: a sense, he's just trying to take care of him
Speaker 3: himself and the guys he's most immediate with right now.
Speaker 2: Do you think that the league does not want dynasties, It's.
Speaker 3: A good question. I think they welcome dynasties. Like kind
Speaker 3: of what the Warriors have been, which is the core
Speaker 3: of the team was drafted, They were developed by them.
Speaker 3: They kind of came and grew up together and came
Speaker 3: into prominence together and then they've made really smart moves
Speaker 3: around those guys to kind of supplement them. But if
Speaker 3: you look at their main guys, because everybody has a
Speaker 3: and then I don't mean to denigrate like Dante DiVincenzo
Speaker 3: and the Jamichael Green, but every team has guys like that, right,
Speaker 3: a guy they signed with the midle level exception, a
Speaker 3: guy they signed on a minimum contract. But if you're
Speaker 3: the Warriors, other than Andrew Wiggins, which was shrewd salary
Speaker 3: slot management by all right, Hey, Kevin Durantz going to Brooklyn, Hey,
Speaker 3: why don't we make that a sign and trade double
Speaker 3: sign and trade where we get D'Angel Russell and we
Speaker 3: preserve that thirty million salary slot. And then it was
Speaker 3: all right, now we're gonna move him on to get
Speaker 3: Andrew Wiggins. But outside Andrew Wiggins, every single guy in
Speaker 3: their rotation they drafted and they developed Curry, Thompson, Green, Looney, Pool, Kaminga.
Speaker 3: Those are other own draft picks. So I think the
Speaker 3: league is in a spot where if you do it
Speaker 3: that way, and I don't I hate to say any
Speaker 3: way of building a roster is the right way. I
Speaker 3: think there's a million right ways, and there's definitely some
Speaker 3: wrong ways for sure, But if you build it in
Speaker 3: that way, we're gonna give you the ability you can
Speaker 3: keep it together, keep paying all those guys because we're
Speaker 3: not restricting you on paying those guys, and just keep going.
Speaker 3: So don't think there against dynasties. I think what they
Speaker 3: don't want to see is they all, right, hey, we
Speaker 3: loaded up in two years, and then we kept adding,
Speaker 3: kept adding, kept adding, and then all of a sudden, it's,
Speaker 3: you know, we've outspent everybody by you know, one hundred
Speaker 3: million dollars, and you know, we're we're just kind of
Speaker 3: I think they don't like the Clippers kind of run
Speaker 3: of let's just keep replacing and then all right, hey
Speaker 3: this guy makes twenty five we're going to turn him
Speaker 3: into a thirty five million dollar player, and those kind
Speaker 3: of things. I think that's where it gets really messy
Speaker 3: for the league. The league doesn't like that kind of
Speaker 3: team building because then it just looks like the rich
Speaker 3: get richer.
Speaker 2: Can you explain how it fundamentally changes how trades are made,
Speaker 2: kind of in the technical way.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, So from the details we know right now,
Speaker 3: the kind of normal everyday trade between two teams that
Speaker 3: are well under the tax or maybe just at the
Speaker 3: tax line, that'll pretty much stay the same. You'll have
Speaker 3: a little bit of a range where you can work in.
Speaker 3: You might be able to trade a twenty million dollar
Speaker 3: guy and bring in somebody who makes twenty five million,
Speaker 3: and that's kind of the range it's always been in.
Speaker 3: But for these so called super tax teams, the big
Speaker 3: thing is they can't take on any additional money in
Speaker 3: trades if all the reporting proves to be accurate. So
Speaker 3: what's going to happen for them is if I want
Speaker 3: to trade a twenty million dollar player, I can only
Speaker 3: bring in twenty million or less in salary. I don't
Speaker 3: have that ability to go get somebody else. And that's
Speaker 3: just gonna make things a little bit difficult on them.
Speaker 3: Now I mentioned before, smart teams are gonna find workarounds,
Speaker 3: they're going to do things. What we may see end
Speaker 3: up happening is, Okay, that guy who's on a roster
Speaker 3: makes twenty million, we're going to re sign him for
Speaker 3: thirty million. Mostly so now we have a thirty million
Speaker 3: dollar trade chip and we can go get that twenty
Speaker 3: five million dollar player or a thirty million dollar player
Speaker 3: that wouldn't be available to us prior. So that's the
Speaker 3: kind of roster maneuvering I think you're gonna see from
Speaker 3: some of those teams. It's going to become a lot
Speaker 3: more about salary slots than essentially the players that are
Speaker 3: filling them. And that's sometimes even me salary gap is like,
Speaker 3: that's a I feel gross thinking of it that way,
Speaker 3: because it's like there's still human beings and there's still players.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, I don't feel
Speaker 3: too gross because that guy's gonna make twenty five or
Speaker 3: thirty million, so you know, kind of is what it is.
Speaker 3: You sign up for that much money, you're probably signing
Speaker 3: up to maybe be traded.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what what blockbuster trades for those who you know,
Speaker 2: maybe don't know happened recently that would not be allowed
Speaker 2: in this new CBA.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there were there's a handful. So the immediate
Speaker 3: ones that come to mind this year are Kevin Durant
Speaker 3: and Kyrie Irving because both of those teams, Phoenix and Dallas,
Speaker 3: would be uh, you know, over the super tax or
Speaker 3: into the super tax, and in that position, they would
Speaker 3: not have been able to take on money, which both
Speaker 3: of them did in their trades to get those guys
Speaker 3: another uh, you know, if we go back, James Harden
Speaker 3: to Brooklyn is one even one from this summer. A
Speaker 3: team that's not necessarily super expensive, like Alcolm Browgdon to
Speaker 3: the Celtics is another one that might not have happened.
Speaker 3: So I think we're in a position where, yeah, a
Speaker 3: handful of these trades may not have happened. That have
Speaker 3: happened otherwise, anything that was even something has kind of
Speaker 3: low key, low end, that nice move, but no one
Speaker 3: really cares about it. Like even like Mike Mescala to
Speaker 3: the Celtics right before the trade deadline kind of buzzed
Speaker 3: was they brought him in with sending no salary out
Speaker 3: the other way and even in or sending very littles
Speaker 3: out the other way and brought him in via an exception.
Speaker 3: And that becomes a one where that wouldn't have been
Speaker 3: able to happen, even a small minor deal like that
Speaker 3: that was, hey, we're gonna add some bench dep for
Speaker 3: a playoff run. You wouldn't have been able to do
Speaker 3: those things. And those are the things where where we're
Speaker 3: going to see teams have to have a different strategy
Speaker 3: on moving forward.
Speaker 2: So I don't want to be one of those people
Speaker 2: who puts on a tinfoil hat. But this is the
Speaker 2: first thing that came to mind as you said that
Speaker 2: Kyrie vice president of the NBPA. Is there any chance
Speaker 2: that that factored in this new CBA factored in to
Speaker 2: Kyrie seeing the writing on the wall and saying, this
Speaker 2: is kind of my shot to get to another team
Speaker 2: and therefore as well as Kevin, if those both of
Speaker 2: those trades weren't going to be possible moving forward.
Speaker 3: Maybe I don't know how deep they were into the
Speaker 3: negotiations at that point that all that went down. And
Speaker 3: I tend to like anytime I think I have Kyrie
Speaker 3: kind of pegged, I realize I'm completely wrong, and I
Speaker 3: don't know anything about the guy. He remains, you know,
Speaker 3: one of the more confusing players in the league too
Speaker 3: to me, And I don't even necessarily mean that in
Speaker 3: a bad way. I just you know, he's just there's
Speaker 3: things I just don't understand with him. So it's it's
Speaker 3: certainly possible. I think we you know, he may have
Speaker 3: been like, hey there. You know what I know through
Speaker 3: negotiations is they're tightening things up, They're going to make
Speaker 3: it harder on us to figure things out. But I
Speaker 3: think we're in a position where, yeah, it's probably one
Speaker 3: of those things where it's this just was kind of
Speaker 3: an offshoot, and I don't know how much he cared
Speaker 3: about that. I think it was much more other reasons
Speaker 3: where he's like, hey, this nets thing's going nowhere. I
Speaker 3: can't get to the Lakers right now, but I still
Speaker 3: want to get out of here, and then I'll figure
Speaker 3: out my next move after that.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the ramifications though, because it feels like
Speaker 2: it's the death of super teams to a degree.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's going to be very hard to put together
Speaker 3: a super team on the fly because and it's already
Speaker 3: kind of hard anyway with some of the things that
Speaker 3: have happened with the cap and the like. But it's
Speaker 3: really I think now your super teams are going to
Speaker 3: be more. Let's use Oklahoma City as an example. They've
Speaker 3: drafted really well, They've got a bunch of really good
Speaker 3: young players, and they've got flexibility while there's still a
Speaker 3: quote unquote cheaper team roster wise, to add a bunch
Speaker 3: more talent in as they kind of build this thing up,
Speaker 3: and then what happens is they'll be able to build
Speaker 3: all the way up to becoming potentially one of these
Speaker 3: super tax teams. And that's how you'll build your super
Speaker 3: team is you draft well, you develop well, you add
Speaker 3: talent while you're cheap, and now you've got your eight
Speaker 3: nine to ten man ross filled out with a bunch
Speaker 3: of really good players. A little bit of moves you
Speaker 3: can make here and there around that, but that's how
Speaker 3: you'll build your team up. I think the days of teams, Hey,
Speaker 3: we're clearing the deck right where we're we're going all
Speaker 3: the way down to barely any salary on the books,
Speaker 3: and we're going to go get three max free agents.
Speaker 3: I think what we've seen, and I think it's a
Speaker 3: lesson the Lakers have taught teams over the last couple
Speaker 3: of years, is if you don't hit on the exact
Speaker 3: right three guys and then nail all of your minimum
Speaker 3: signings after that, because that's essentially all you have left,
Speaker 3: you're going to struggle because if those guys miss times
Speaker 3: or miss games, rather all of a sudden, you're in
Speaker 3: a spot where you can't win because you're rolling out
Speaker 3: guys who are you know, fringe NBA players for you know,
Speaker 3: twenty five thirty forty minutes a night in two many
Speaker 3: of these games. So I think that's kind of gone
Speaker 3: by the wayside already. But I think even more so,
Speaker 3: it's gonna be draft develop ad talent while you're a
Speaker 3: cheaper team, and that's how you build up to, you know,
Speaker 3: the next kind of dynastic type teams.
Speaker 2: What about players that are going to be super Max
Speaker 2: eligible and may not be exactly in love with their
Speaker 2: current situation. It feels like it's a lot more difficult
Speaker 2: for them to be able to get to another team
Speaker 2: or force themselves to another team, given how this new
Speaker 2: CBA is operating. Do you think that this is one
Speaker 2: of those situations where star players will end up signing
Speaker 2: shorter term deals so that they can figure out where
Speaker 2: they want to be in free agency.
Speaker 3: That's a good question. This is where I tend to
Speaker 3: lean to the history of things, whereas when you put
Speaker 3: the most possible money in front of a player, they
Speaker 3: almost always take it and right wrong or indifferent, And
Speaker 3: I tend to be a little bit more indifferent on it.
Speaker 3: I don't mind when a player takes it max contract
Speaker 3: and then turns and says two years in and I
Speaker 3: don't really want to be here. Trade me. And why
Speaker 3: I'm indifferent about it is teams do it all the time.
Speaker 3: Teams sign guys and then they're a year into a
Speaker 3: deal they're like, hey, it's not really working out, we're
Speaker 3: gonna move them, And I don't know why. Collectively, as
Speaker 3: you know, media and fans of the NBA, we've decided
Speaker 3: that's okay. But when a player tries to do it,
Speaker 3: it's like, hey, you signed a contract, so did the team.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I also wouldn't have had a problem if the NBA,
Speaker 3: and there's been no reporting of this in the new
Speaker 3: CBA yet. We'll see if it's something that comes out
Speaker 3: later put in more restrictions around a trade, whereas, hey,
Speaker 3: you signed a super Max, you're not trade eligible for
Speaker 3: three seasons of it, and you got to play out
Speaker 3: more than half of that contract. Maybe that isn't there.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I know that was one of the
Speaker 3: you said earlier. There were hundreds of proposals. I know
Speaker 3: for sure that was one of them that was on
Speaker 3: the table. But to answer your question, is I tend
Speaker 3: to think when players really want to be somewhere, they'll
Speaker 3: make it happen, especially if that team really wants them
Speaker 3: to be there. There's ways to make it happen. One
Speaker 3: of the cool changes that they got rid of, but
Speaker 3: that came out just in the last couple of days,
Speaker 3: is the restrictions on how many designated players. Those are
Speaker 3: tend to be like the super Max guys. It used
Speaker 3: to be you can only have like two of one
Speaker 3: type on your team and two of another type, and
Speaker 3: only one could be acquired via trade. They've eliminated all that,
Speaker 3: so they basically said, hey, you want to get you know,
Speaker 3: ten super Max guys somehow on your team, good, good luck,
Speaker 3: And now we're gonna limit you because you're gonna be
Speaker 3: able to pay you know more and add more talent
Speaker 3: around them. But you'll go nuts. So I think we'll
Speaker 3: still see guys. I think if anything causes short term contracts,
Speaker 3: it's gonna be. Every player knows the media righte steals coming,
Speaker 3: and what may come out of that is all right,
Speaker 3: We're going into a position where I'm better off signing
Speaker 3: a two or three year deal here re signing in
Speaker 3: the summer twenty twenty five, even though they put capsmoothing
Speaker 3: in so we're not gonna see you these twenty sixteen
Speaker 3: cap spikes like we saw previous. So I think that
Speaker 3: changes things a little bit there, but we may see
Speaker 3: some guys play that kind of game.
Speaker 2: Besides the Lakers and the Warriors, what teams do you
Speaker 2: think this deficits the most?
Speaker 1: And what teams do you think this benefits the most?
Speaker 3: I think the teams that can get kind of dinged
Speaker 3: by this a little bit are teams like the Celtics,
Speaker 3: the Bucks, teams that have been they've been in the
Speaker 3: tax but they're never been at the you know, the Warriors, Clippers,
Speaker 3: Lakers levels of the tax. So I think that's where
Speaker 3: seventeen point five million over the tax line, that's a lot,
Speaker 3: but it's not like crazy right now. I think we're
Speaker 3: sitting with six teams above that. So we may see
Speaker 3: those teams say all right, we gotta but probably not
Speaker 3: one of the star guys, but we got to move
Speaker 3: on from one of these kind of mid mid range
Speaker 3: salary type players just to rebalance. We have flexibility because
Speaker 3: otherwise it's we're really locked into this roster. Teams that
Speaker 3: are maybe a little older, so like Dallas is slightly
Speaker 3: older with some parts of their roster, so like they're
Speaker 3: in a tricky spot. The Buck's definitely older with parts
Speaker 3: of their roster. They may look at it like Chris
Speaker 3: Middleton is going to be a free agent, and they
Speaker 3: may say, hey, we resigned Chris Middleton to a four
Speaker 3: or five year max deal or anything close to that.
Speaker 1: This is it.
Speaker 3: This is our team for the next you know, several years,
Speaker 3: unless we make trades. And they may say, all right,
Speaker 3: you know he's had injury issues. Maybe they've seen something
Speaker 3: in his play where they're like where we'll be Okay,
Speaker 3: we'll go a different direction. So I think they're gonna
Speaker 3: be different. I think the teams that benefit it's the
Speaker 3: teams that I think have pretty promising young cores and
Speaker 3: then can add to to those guys here while they're
Speaker 3: still on the lower end salary wise. So I already
Speaker 3: mentioned Oklahoma City, but are Landows in that boat, Houston
Speaker 3: and Detroit if they can flip things, well, somebody's gonna
Speaker 3: get Victor wembin Yama. That's like already a huge add
Speaker 3: to your roster and you're gonna flip. The Spurs have
Speaker 3: generally been pretty smart in those situations, so they may
Speaker 3: be able to turn things around. So I think those
Speaker 3: teams that have pretty good young cores that you can see,
Speaker 3: I can see that being a playoff core in the
Speaker 3: next couple of seasons because what they have the ability
Speaker 3: to do is go add talent to those groups before
Speaker 3: they get super expensive and fully lock into what they
Speaker 3: have now. So I think they're the kind of teams
Speaker 3: that will benefit a little bit here.
Speaker 2: Even if they tried to go after a big free
Speaker 2: agent and they didn't have the salaries to match.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so, because I think what you're gonna
Speaker 3: see in those like again, I keep using the Thunder
Speaker 3: as an example here, but it's it's because they think
Speaker 3: they're the best one in the league, really good young players,
Speaker 3: pretty full roster, right. They don't have a ton of
Speaker 3: roster roles. It's not like going into this summer they
Speaker 3: have to fill ten roster spots. They really only have
Speaker 3: about two or three open roster spots. They'll are gonna
Speaker 3: have almost thirty million in cap space to do it with.
Speaker 3: So I think back to remember a few years ago
Speaker 3: when Philadelphia was like, all right, it's time to start winning.
Speaker 3: They went out and they signed JJ Reddick to a
Speaker 3: one year, nineteen million dollar deal. There was like, what
Speaker 3: a ridiculous overpay for JJ Reddick. Well, Philly looked at
Speaker 3: it and said, look, we only need like two guys,
Speaker 3: we have all this cap space. Let's give a whole
Speaker 3: bunch of money to JJ Reddick, who proved to be
Speaker 3: a really good fit, helped them get into the postseason.
Speaker 3: And then that's how we're gonna do it. I think
Speaker 3: you're gonna see Oklahoma City say there's one guy that
Speaker 3: we really target, we think fits what we need, and
Speaker 3: they'll be able to go get that guy and they
Speaker 3: may be able to overpay him four year or two.
Speaker 3: As long as you do it for a year or two,
Speaker 3: not the end of the world, because the NBA just
Speaker 3: moves so quickly with the way they'll turn over rosters.
Speaker 3: As long as you're not locking into a terrible deal
Speaker 3: for four or five years, you're gonna be fine. You'll
Speaker 3: be able to move on from it and get out
Speaker 3: of it quickly enough. I think that's what you're gonna
Speaker 3: see as teams like that do those kinds of things
Speaker 3: where it's like, all right, let's let's let's kind of
Speaker 3: go here. And I think you're gonna see some free
Speaker 3: agents are gonna look and say, oh, that team got
Speaker 3: one minyala. All right, I can be the guy now,
Speaker 3: me and him, we're now taking this team to the
Speaker 3: next level and to the playoffs and all that, and
Speaker 3: a lot of these players they love nothing more than like, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm the conquering hero who like you know, I wrote
Speaker 3: in here and you were awful and now we're a
Speaker 3: playoff team. You'll shower me, you know, with love. And
Speaker 3: it's yeah, you were a part of it. But there
Speaker 3: are other reasons too. That's something that you know, we know,
Speaker 3: free agents love, especially if the money's basically the same
Speaker 3: just about everywhere for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like a veteran contract for someone who you think
Speaker 2: can be a table setter all while like what they
Speaker 2: with the thunder kind of gotten Chris Paul on a
Speaker 2: short term deal.
Speaker 1: Kind of a deal.
Speaker 2: I am curious though, because this feels the most murky,
Speaker 2: and it feels the most murky in terms of conflicts
Speaker 2: of interest potentially, but also murky in terms of we
Speaker 2: don't really know now players are going to be current
Speaker 2: players are going to be able to invest in NBA
Speaker 2: and WNBA teams. But from what I kind of can
Speaker 2: gather that this is only happening through the NBA PA
Speaker 2: selected private equity firm, Like, what are the logistics of that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems so. This is something I try not
Speaker 3: to speak too in depth about things I don't really understand,
Speaker 3: but I did a lot of asking because I was
Speaker 3: very confused on this because I was like, wait, so
Speaker 3: they're gonna because the way it initially came out was
Speaker 3: like they could get ownership stakes. And my initial question was,
Speaker 3: so if I play for the Lakers and I own
Speaker 3: three percent of the team and they trade me to
Speaker 3: the Rockets, what happens to my three percent? Like where
Speaker 3: does that go? And then I, through conversations through subsequent reporting,
Speaker 3: my understanding is what's going to happen is it sounds
Speaker 3: like there's going to be portions kind of carved out
Speaker 3: of different places within the league as a whole and
Speaker 3: within the individual teams, inclusive of the WNBA as well.
Speaker 3: Will be able to say, hey, aportional what you're giving
Speaker 3: me in my next contract. It'll run through the through
Speaker 3: the NBPA, who will manage it as a collective through
Speaker 3: whoever they choose to manage it. Probably no different than
Speaker 3: a lot of the ways are like four oh, one
Speaker 3: k's or run and those kind of things. But it'll
Speaker 3: be we've chosen them to run this, and then that's
Speaker 3: where it'll be. Hey, as long as we all keep
Speaker 3: doing what we should do, this should be a rising
Speaker 3: tide lifts all boat situations where yeah, the teams are
Speaker 3: gonna go up in value, they're gonna be better, but
Speaker 3: my stake in this is gonna go up too, And
Speaker 3: I have more of a stake, and I feel like
Speaker 3: more of a partner with the league and with the
Speaker 3: teams as opposed to just a contract employee where I'm
Speaker 3: just you know, all right, I'm under contract and this
Speaker 3: is what it is, it's gonna be. We can really
Speaker 3: push this up from here. So I think that's gonna
Speaker 3: be kind of how that works. I'm very curious to
Speaker 3: dive deeper into that when we get the actual CBA
Speaker 3: to understand it more fully.
Speaker 2: I am curious too, and obviously you probably don't know,
Speaker 2: but the first thing that comes to mind, outside of
Speaker 2: just what teams are going to be in that fund,
Speaker 2: is it going to be every team? What happens when
Speaker 2: teams get sold? Do they distribute that wealth across the
Speaker 2: ownership group? But also like how does that affect the WNBA.
Speaker 2: Do we see the WNBA salary cap now explode and
Speaker 2: invest in more of these young and up and coming players. Specifically,
Speaker 2: you're watching players like Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark bring
Speaker 2: in three and a half million viewers on TV. I
Speaker 2: guarantee you Caitlin Clark's not gonna want to get paid
Speaker 2: Twitter and seventy thousand dollars on a super Max deal
Speaker 2: which he makes like quadruplevet in ni own money right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. I think what we're going to see
Speaker 3: with the WNBA, and we've we're starting to see this
Speaker 3: happen little bits, like little incremental bits, is salaries are
Speaker 3: going to start creeping out more. I think we're also
Speaker 3: going to see probably expansion of the WNBA where there's
Speaker 3: going to be new franchises because the single thing, the
Speaker 3: biggest thing I hear is there's a ton of really
Speaker 3: good players out there that are buried on these benches
Speaker 3: because there's so few WNBA teams in comparison. So what
Speaker 3: happens is, I think you combine those two things, and
Speaker 3: I know one of the big things that they be
Speaker 3: talking to different people within the NBA is kind of
Speaker 3: the governing body of the WNBA, if you will. One
Speaker 3: of the big things I've heard through them is we
Speaker 3: don't want WNBA players to have to go to Russia
Speaker 3: in the WNBA offseason to play. We want them to
Speaker 3: play in the WNBA, them play national team commitments just
Speaker 3: like NBA players do, and that's it. We don't want
Speaker 3: them having to play in two professional leagues just to
Speaker 3: be able to make a living like, that's not where
Speaker 3: they want it to be. And I think EVENTUA will
Speaker 3: get there. And I think this is part of it.
Speaker 3: We've seen countless NBA players, especially more in the recent years,
Speaker 3: come out in support of the WNBA, So I think
Speaker 3: part of it is you're going to see them, Hey,
Speaker 3: why they got roped into this. I'm not just investing
Speaker 3: in the NBA. I'm investing in the w NBA, in
Speaker 3: the game of basketball as a whole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm curious also about.
Speaker 2: The the players who are now able to sign non
Speaker 2: gambling endorsement deals with sports betting companies.
Speaker 1: Makes sense of that for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was one where I saw a lot of
Speaker 3: reaction where people were like, oh no, And I saw
Speaker 3: a couple people tweeting like the Tony memes from Blue Chips,
Speaker 3: you know, of like you what do you mean you
Speaker 3: took money? You know, and it was you know, it
Speaker 3: was only one time, coach, you know, and it's one time.
Speaker 3: And like, I think where this would be a problem
Speaker 3: is if player X you know, tweets out, hey, bet
Speaker 3: on me to get over twenty points tonight. That's where
Speaker 3: it's like, oh, that's shaky, right, because then it's because
Speaker 3: then is it going to be you know, the gambling
Speaker 3: company says, hey, you know, we took way too many
Speaker 3: people betting you over. Can you score nineteen? Just to
Speaker 3: make sure we're all okay here? Like, that's where it
Speaker 3: gets real messy. I think it's probably just gonna be, hey,
Speaker 3: you want to bet bet with you know, this company,
Speaker 3: And that's just going to be the extent of That's
Speaker 3: what I think it'll be. It maybe extends into you know, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, I can't bet on the NBA, but I
Speaker 3: love to bet on you know, uh, the NFL or
Speaker 3: you know, well whatever it is, or you know, whatever it.
Speaker 1: May be no games or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, I think we're going to see things like
Speaker 3: that where it'll be a player will be into commercials
Speaker 3: for you know, one of the big companies, but it's
Speaker 3: not going to be specific to like, hey, bet on
Speaker 3: my team to win the championship or anything like that,
Speaker 3: because I think then you run into competitive integrity issues
Speaker 3: and all sorts of stuff that they don't think the
Speaker 3: NBA wants to be involved in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was curious about that too.
Speaker 2: Do you think there's a possibility we start seeing these
Speaker 2: quote unquote endorsements like almost like Manning cast type stuff
Speaker 2: where you've got like a Draft Kings has a Draymond
Speaker 2: Green and a Charles Barkley All Star Weekend second screen experience,
Speaker 2: or maybe now fan duel sponsors, you know, the podcast
Speaker 2: p type of a thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think we could see definitely things like that, because
Speaker 3: I think the NBA realizes they're smart at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, and the MBPA there's money to be made,
Speaker 3: so let's go make more of it, right, Let's go
Speaker 3: get our chunk of it. By Hey, if we can
Speaker 3: increase these things, and we can do that, I mean
Speaker 3: we're seeing in arenas all over the country, we're popping
Speaker 3: up these you know what you know we're gambling is
Speaker 3: legal sports books. It sounds like right on site where
Speaker 3: it's like, hey, you can make your bets here, and
Speaker 3: I know in the states where it's legal, there's all
Speaker 3: sorts of stuff being pumped into you know, hey, grab
Speaker 3: your phone and you'll make a bet on the game,
Speaker 3: and those kinds of things. So I think we're going
Speaker 3: to see them lean into this. I don't think it's
Speaker 3: going to be you know, man, this is a proliferation
Speaker 3: of a million guys, you know, go get amble. I
Speaker 3: think it'll be probably just a little bit of a
Speaker 3: slow burn, but eventually it's gonna get there, much like
Speaker 3: it has become over the last couple of years, where
Speaker 3: it's just becoming more and more ingrained in the everyday
Speaker 3: life of sports fans.
Speaker 2: I forgot to ask you this to circle back really
Speaker 2: fast about the ownership element, and we'll move forward on
Speaker 2: the award stuff. But is it possible with how we're
Speaker 2: seeing the ownership stake work, that a Lebron James playing
Speaker 2: in the NBA could own an expansion team or a
Speaker 2: part of an expansion team.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's one of those things where right now
Speaker 3: I don't think think that's something they're set up to do.
Speaker 3: So we're gonna see if that's where this goes. My
Speaker 3: guess is this whole invest in the league is a
Speaker 3: gateway to direct ownership stakes in teams, and I think
Speaker 3: that may be where this goes going forward. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think it was if I'm going way back here
Speaker 3: and you know, completely different environment. But when like Magic
Speaker 3: Johnson came out of retirement, it'd give up his ownership
Speaker 3: stake in the Lakers because he was gonna play again
Speaker 3: and those kind of things. So that's where it becomes
Speaker 3: pieces of things like that where I think right now
Speaker 3: that's probably not They're trying to do it through this
Speaker 3: more general investment in the league as a whole, But
Speaker 3: I think this is the let's start here and then
Speaker 3: that'll be the gateway too. Eventually, Hey, you want to
Speaker 3: own a chunk of the team you're playing for, Yeah,
Speaker 3: we can make that work and we can figure that out. Obviously,
Speaker 3: there's gonna have to be a lot of guardrails on
Speaker 3: that because you know, if you're traded, but if you
Speaker 3: sign somewhere else, what if you do this, because they're
Speaker 3: not gonna have somebody owning you know, Hey, I own
Speaker 3: three percent of seven different teams, Like that's not gonna happen.
Speaker 3: But we'll see where that goes. And and I think
Speaker 3: that's a very interesting way to kind of, you know,
Speaker 3: build a different form of engagement into the franchise as
Speaker 3: a whole, because now you're again you're you're not just
Speaker 3: an employee, You're you're you're part of it, right, You're
Speaker 3: you're part of the whole deal all the way through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to talk about this because I think
Speaker 2: it's under discussed. The players now in this new CBA
Speaker 2: have to play at least sixty five games to be
Speaker 2: eligible for any NBA awards as well as all NBA
Speaker 2: So who wanted this?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think this is probably one where collectively both sides,
Speaker 3: the NBA and MBPA heard the screaming about load management.
Speaker 3: And I think the biggest place that comes in is,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm based out of Orlando. It's the Orlando
Speaker 3: fan who bought tickets to see Lebron one time a
Speaker 3: year and I played last time. I'm not playing tonight.
Speaker 3: Right in Orlando, they get a lot of guys on
Speaker 3: back to backs because of Miami. They make the Miami
Speaker 3: Orlando trip and they're on one end or the other,
Speaker 3: and that's how it goes. So I think what we
Speaker 3: see in these positions is I think a lot of
Speaker 3: these these it just gets so loud that it was
Speaker 3: probably a we got to do something. Now can tell
Speaker 3: the NBPA they've stood up and screamed from the rooftops.
Speaker 3: It's not the players. The players do not want to
Speaker 3: sit right, if they're healthy, they generally want to play.
Speaker 3: It's the teams. And they're not saying the teams are
Speaker 3: wrong in this, but it's the teams that are mostly
Speaker 3: making this these decisions. And that's that's what I think
Speaker 3: also gets lost a little bit here is I think
Speaker 3: it's hard to we right, the teams are the permanent
Speaker 3: part in your life as a fan, right, and it's
Speaker 3: it's it's that's a nice way of saying we root
Speaker 3: for laundry, but I think that's true to an extent
Speaker 3: of like, I'm always going to root for this team,
Speaker 3: and the players may change, so I'm not necessarily going
Speaker 3: to attach to to the player. And now I think
Speaker 3: we're seeing different forms of fandom where some are attaching
Speaker 3: to a player and then player changes teams, they follow
Speaker 3: right along with the new team. But I think what's
Speaker 3: happened here is the overall load management blame has fallen
Speaker 3: so much on the players, and I don't think that's
Speaker 3: necessarily there now. I think what the league's trying to
Speaker 3: do is say, hey, can we curb this because teams
Speaker 3: are now down to somewhere between twelve and sixteen back
Speaker 3: to backs per season, So sixty five games, you want
Speaker 3: to sit all the back to backs out? One half
Speaker 3: of them, you're good, sit them out, you don't have
Speaker 3: to play, and you'll still qualify and still be eligible
Speaker 3: for postseason awards. I think it's more of and I'm
Speaker 3: very curious because all the reporting keeps coming with there's
Speaker 3: conditions around it, But what are those conditions? Like what
Speaker 3: does that mean? Is there like, well x amount of
Speaker 3: games that the team determines the player can't play, like
Speaker 3: those don't count. I don't know how that's gonna work,
Speaker 3: but it's one of those things I'm very curious to see, Like,
Speaker 3: you know what happens, and we all know there's gonna
Speaker 3: be a massive uproar the first time somebody has a
Speaker 3: great season but only played sixty four games, and people
Speaker 3: are gonna absolutely lose their minds and they'll be you know,
Speaker 3: well they were the real MVP, or they were the
Speaker 3: real first team player. So I don't know, but I
Speaker 3: think this was a first attempt at hey, let's try
Speaker 3: to get these guys on the core more often and
Speaker 3: then we'll see how it comes together. I kind of
Speaker 3: have my doubts that's going to be how it plays out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I saw that. I believe it was last night.
Speaker 2: Kawhi Leonard only played a half because he's playing ago, Yeah,
Speaker 2: two nights ago, because he was going to play on
Speaker 2: a back to back, so do you. And also remember
Speaker 2: Draymond Green, He came in for one possession to be
Speaker 2: there for Clay and then that obviously changed a lot
Speaker 2: of things for sports better. Who took who took? Draymond Green?
Speaker 2: Unders because they heard whispers of this is that something
Speaker 2: that you think is how teams or players are going
Speaker 2: to try to skirt the rules.
Speaker 3: That's where I think the conditions may come in because
Speaker 3: the league doesn't want to turn it into a circus
Speaker 3: and a farce of like, hey, you know, tonight, fifteen
Speaker 3: star players checked in or started and then they all
Speaker 3: subbed out on the first whistle because it was just there. Now,
Speaker 3: Rue Holiday did it last year The Bucks put him
Speaker 3: in a game for I think it was like eight
Speaker 3: seconds or whatever. He played the tip, he committed a
Speaker 3: follow and get out of there to earn a bonus
Speaker 3: because he needed to hit the games played threshold for
Speaker 3: his bonuses. Now that's cool on the Bucks part, because
Speaker 3: all it did was cost them a couple million bucks
Speaker 3: that they wouldn't have to pay out otherwise. So gel
Speaker 3: good on the Bucks for taking care of their guy.
Speaker 3: But I don't think the league and I don't think
Speaker 3: the Players Association either wants it to turn into a
Speaker 3: bunch of guys are on the court and then they're
Speaker 3: subbed out early. But I think what you may see
Speaker 3: is you may see, huh, why did so and so
Speaker 3: only play fifteen minutes tonight? And that may be what
Speaker 3: we see more of is because I think if it
Speaker 3: becomes a whole thing where ever, we want to make
Speaker 3: sure player excess still eligible for is you know awards
Speaker 3: all right, Well, we can't sell them out right away
Speaker 3: because if you play under X minutes, maybe that's one
Speaker 3: of the conditions it doesn't count or something like that,
Speaker 3: and you're just you know, subbed without an injury. We'll
Speaker 3: have to see or you know, if my worry is
Speaker 3: if you start saying there's injury related conditions, we're gonna
Speaker 3: get back to the old days of back spasms. There
Speaker 3: they're out tonight, right, And that's not great either. So
Speaker 3: I'm kind of withholding judgment on all this until we
Speaker 3: see what all the details are because it just seems
Speaker 3: this one seems like a little there's just got to
Speaker 3: be other stuff going on with this, because it just
Speaker 3: seems a little too cut and dry for me to
Speaker 3: be quite that simple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm very sus on it because it does feel
Speaker 2: like there's a lot of ways to get around it.
Speaker 2: I think Joel Embiid would have not made Defensive Player
Speaker 2: of the Year twice. I think Draymond as well, Steph
Speaker 2: Curry All NBA. And do you think that this will
Speaker 2: obviously change How does this help teams in some way too,
Speaker 2: because they say to themselves, all right, well, we don't
Speaker 2: have to pay Jalen Brown super max because he's not
Speaker 2: an All NBA player, so we can re sign him
Speaker 2: for X, Y and Z instead of being hamstrung to
Speaker 2: pay him forty million.
Speaker 3: Well, that's where it's kind of become a major problem,
Speaker 3: and you'll have the MVPA screaming is if I wear
Speaker 3: in game seventy eight of the season and oh man,
Speaker 3: he's almost there. All right, let's sit him out, like
Speaker 3: we're just not going to play them, and you know,
Speaker 3: the team will be all that's a coach's decision and
Speaker 3: whatever it is. And if the minute the players like, well,
Speaker 3: I'm not on board with this, you did it, so
Speaker 3: I'm not now eligible. That's part of why I have
Speaker 3: an issue with the any of the contract stuff being
Speaker 3: tied to awards, because I also don't like the fact
Speaker 3: that we're both media members. I don't like the fact
Speaker 3: that the media is the one who are determining what
Speaker 3: player contracts are, Like, it just feels weird to me.
Speaker 3: So I don't I don't love that whole idea of this,
Speaker 3: And I think if you want to do that, there's
Speaker 3: ways you could do it that are slightly different where
Speaker 3: maybe you know you you involve more people, you know.
Speaker 3: But anytime you start involving players and coaches, then there's
Speaker 3: agendas and all the voting stuff. And I've been in
Speaker 3: locker rooms with the All Star voting for the player vote,
Speaker 3: where two guys who don't even play in r at
Speaker 3: the end of the bench, like hey, you vote for me,
Speaker 3: I'll vote for you. And that's why the player vote
Speaker 3: has kind of turned into a joke too. So I
Speaker 3: don't necessarily have a great fix for that. But it's
Speaker 3: just if we run into a games played thing where
Speaker 3: a guy gets sat to avoid hitting a threshold that
Speaker 3: would trigger a contract marker for him, that's gonna be
Speaker 3: a major issue. And you're gonna hear the screening from
Speaker 3: the rooftops on that one.
Speaker 2: Do you think there's any chance that some of this
Speaker 2: changes before it gets ratified.
Speaker 3: I think there's a chance we could see some stuff tweak.
Speaker 3: That's why, you know, I think their language in it
Speaker 3: was like we have a tentative agreement was very clear.
Speaker 3: I think there's a reason why, Well, if you made
Speaker 3: a tentative agreement on the wee hours of Saturday morning,
Speaker 3: like you could have presented it to the Board of Governors,
Speaker 3: presented it to the players by today. Right we're recording
Speaker 3: this on Monday, and you could have had this whole
Speaker 3: thing buttoned up and done and you know, start printing
Speaker 3: the copies on Tuesday and we have gotten there. Because
Speaker 3: I think it's very clear to me tentative agreement means
Speaker 3: there's still some stuff we're working through. We're all the
Speaker 3: big stuff, we're there, it's now it's details. We're down
Speaker 3: to some of those things. I think some of the
Speaker 3: stuff might even been floated out there as let's see
Speaker 3: what the reaction is within the league, within the fans,
Speaker 3: within the media, Let's see what some of the stuff
Speaker 3: out there is, and then oh, you know what that
Speaker 3: could tweak then a late version of whatever it was,
Speaker 3: and those kind of things. I just think that's, you know,
Speaker 3: being a little bit smart about how you play it.
Speaker 3: And the other thing is, I think we've all learned
Speaker 3: through the COVID years, and I knew this from my
Speaker 3: prior career and doing contract negotiations, there's always a thing
Speaker 3: called the side letter, which is, hey, we all agreed
Speaker 3: to this, it's not going the way we want. Let's
Speaker 3: do a side agreement in an amendment and addendum, whatever
Speaker 3: whatever you want to call it, where we change whatever
Speaker 3: it is and we go in the league. And the
Speaker 3: Players Association has gotten very good through very unfortunate circumstances
Speaker 3: over the last several years of doing that, you know,
Speaker 3: when necessary, be able to tweet their existing agreements rather
Speaker 3: than I feel like if this was a decade ago
Speaker 3: it would have been Nope, it is what it is
Speaker 3: and that's it, and we're not changing it because they
Speaker 3: didn't have a good working relationship. That's one of the
Speaker 3: biggest things that's changed.
Speaker 1: Cool, So let's move out of the CBA. I have
Speaker 1: some general NBA questions too.
Speaker 2: Number One, I need to know what's going on in
Speaker 2: Toronto because I have not seen someone go from beloved
Speaker 2: to hot seat to I need to take time to reflect.
Speaker 2: It's been a decade and maybe I don't want to
Speaker 2: coach here anymore. What's your take on how this is
Speaker 2: all got to this place with Nick Nurse and his
Speaker 2: future around the Raptors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is not any sourced reporting, but it's a
Speaker 3: you know, gut gut feel on this is he's gone,
Speaker 3: Like I don't you don't get to all this point
Speaker 3: with all that noise, and then you with like five
Speaker 3: or six games left in your season, you're like, Hey,
Speaker 3: I know we're getting ready to go into the most
Speaker 3: important parts of our season and the playing tournament, maybe
Speaker 3: the playoffs, but let me just address this with you
Speaker 3: guys now, because I don't want to do it again
Speaker 3: like that could have been done you know, before the
Speaker 3: last game of the year. You could have done it.
Speaker 3: You could have done it, you know, before your last
Speaker 3: postseason game, whatever it is. And I think that was
Speaker 3: a you know, hey, we're trying to do something here
Speaker 3: over the next few weeks, so let's just run with
Speaker 3: what we got. But I think it's pretty clear that
Speaker 3: that's headed for divorce and it's gonna go a different
Speaker 3: way the whole I'm gonna take weeks, and that might
Speaker 3: be turned into I'm gonna take days because I have
Speaker 3: another job offer ready for me, and here we go.
Speaker 3: Because like him or not, and I think some of
Speaker 3: his antics are a little tiresome, but Nick Nurse is
Speaker 3: a very, very good coach, and I think there's a
Speaker 3: handful of teams out there that are gonna say, all right, hey,
Speaker 3: this is a guy. Whether it's lift us into title
Speaker 3: contention because we're already a pretty good team, or we're
Speaker 3: not very good and we want to be good, let's
Speaker 3: get him in here to kind of move us forward.
Speaker 3: He's gonna have very good opportunities coming his way.
Speaker 2: If because there's been a lot of rumors about him
Speaker 2: maybe being linked to Houston, If he's already getting players
Speaker 2: like og And and Obi and Pascal Siakam to tune him out,
Speaker 2: which is what the reporting is. In my opinion, Keith,
Speaker 2: and I'd love to hear yours. There's no way he
Speaker 2: would want to be a part of a rebuild with
Speaker 2: that sort of roster, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Don't think so. I mean, we were already here and
Speaker 3: some of the things there were, you know, port Steven
Speaker 3: Silas is out there. They're telling us openly like these
Speaker 3: guys don't listen. I tell him what to do, and
Speaker 3: then they don't run the plays, they don't do this
Speaker 3: other stuff, And it's like, yeah, I think that probably
Speaker 3: my guess would be if we see Nick Nurse headed
Speaker 3: to Houston, we're gonna see Houston turning their fifty million
Speaker 3: in the cap space and we're signing some veterans, we're
Speaker 3: trading some of these kids in packages, and we're turning
Speaker 3: this thing very quickly into where where we're going forward
Speaker 3: with this. I also don't get the sense that Houston's
Speaker 3: ownership is let's say, the most patient in the world.
Speaker 3: They gets all right, we did this kind of rebuild
Speaker 3: thing for a couple of years, now let's be good again.
Speaker 3: So I think that could be part of if that
Speaker 3: all comes together, like we're hearing some of the rumors,
Speaker 3: I think you might see that turn into let's push
Speaker 3: this thing forward very very quickly.
Speaker 2: Another rebuilding team that has questions around it's coaching. Rumors
Speaker 2: are that Pop doesn't know if he's coming back in
Speaker 2: San Antonio. He's not going to make a decision until
Speaker 2: he finds out whether they're getting Victor Wapi Yama.
Speaker 1: Is that is that kind of the long and the
Speaker 1: short of it.
Speaker 3: I kind of feel like it might be right. I
Speaker 3: think he's kind of looking at it and saying, hey, you're
Speaker 3: going to deliver me a you know, not that they're
Speaker 3: the same kind of player, but give me another Tim Duncan.
Speaker 3: I'm here. I'll be here next year. If it's you know,
Speaker 3: we slipped in the lottery and we're getting you know,
Speaker 3: the third pick or whatever. That guy's probably pretty good.
Speaker 3: But I'm kind of good. I've done this. I think,
Speaker 3: well we I kind of I don't think Pop's gonna
Speaker 3: be the kind of guy who necessarily I know some
Speaker 3: people have said like he's gonna retire and then if
Speaker 3: you see him again, it's gonna because you're part of
Speaker 3: his inner circle and you're at one of his wine dinners.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's gonna be how it goes.
Speaker 3: I remember, different sport, but kind of similar type thing.
Speaker 3: I remember hearing Bobby Bowden Joe Paturno talked for years about, Hey,
Speaker 3: if I'm not a football coach, what am I right?
Speaker 3: And at this point in my life, this is what
Speaker 3: kind of keeps me going, gets me up every day,
Speaker 3: is to do this. So I kind of wonder if
Speaker 3: Pop's like, hey, if I'm not in basketball, and I
Speaker 3: think it's been Forgotton because he's been coaching for so long,
Speaker 3: came out of the front office, and he came out
Speaker 3: of the front office because it was hey, we built
Speaker 3: a mess of a team. I should be the one
Speaker 3: who has to deal with this. And then they, you know,
Speaker 3: lottery odds. As the Celtics guy, I remember quite well
Speaker 3: we were supposed to get Tim Duncan and Keith van
Speaker 3: Horn with Rick Patino and ended up with Chauncey Phillips
Speaker 3: and Ron Mercer instead. I think Pop might be like, hey,
Speaker 3: I can go back and do some work in the
Speaker 3: front office again, and I'll still be around and kind
Speaker 3: of doing my thing. And I think you on a
Speaker 3: handful of his kind of people who presume maybe to
Speaker 3: be his successors, they've kind of moved on and gone
Speaker 3: on because he just keeps doing it. But it wouldn't
Speaker 3: surprise me if they get one min Yama, if he's
Speaker 3: right back on the bench again kind of Hey, I'm
Speaker 3: going to do my thing and waiting it out until
Speaker 3: the absolute right personally feels like I'm ready to hand
Speaker 3: this off to is available.
Speaker 2: In the beginning of the season, I told somebody who
Speaker 2: works for the front office of the Spurs.
Speaker 1: I said, you know, it's it's such a.
Speaker 2: Young, fresh team. The way that they're running the offense
Speaker 2: feels so different. It's almost like you forget sometimes that
Speaker 2: it's Pop running the show.
Speaker 1: And their response to me was, we never forget.
Speaker 2: We know every day who's running the show. Is the question,
Speaker 2: I guess is like, what does that really you mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think sometimes what that is is, hey, like
Speaker 3: we like he's now instead of the I'm in there
Speaker 3: every single day grinding with this, he kind of becomes like, Hey,
Speaker 3: I oversee this operation, right, I've got somebody who's kind
Speaker 3: of running the defense, somebody who's kind of running this
Speaker 3: and that's in general how NBA teams kind of work.
Speaker 3: I think one of the misnomers is that, you know,
Speaker 3: I think because people know NFL coaches love to talk
Speaker 3: about I sleep in my office and I get two
Speaker 3: hours of sleep at night, and I'm breaking down film
Speaker 3: for you know, one hundred hours a week, and it's like, well, why, like,
Speaker 3: what more did you learn than that one hundred hours
Speaker 3: that couldn't have learned in forty But I think it's
Speaker 3: with the NBA coaches then people think like they're heavily involved,
Speaker 3: and I think sometimes it's they've they've their responsibilities to
Speaker 3: get farmed out to a lot of people, and they
Speaker 3: kind of do their thing, and then what happens with
Speaker 3: with the coach is like, all right, now I collect
Speaker 3: all that information, form that into what we want to do.
Speaker 3: And I think for Pop one of the cool things was,
Speaker 3: I think it was a year ago, we had a
Speaker 3: chance to talk to him and he was like, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm kind of re energized by this, like I've got
Speaker 3: a bunch of kids in here now and where then
Speaker 3: he said, you know what's cool is we tell them
Speaker 3: to do something, they go out, they screwed up ten
Speaker 3: times and then they finally get it right. It's like,
Speaker 3: oh man, they got it now, Now we can take that,
Speaker 3: we can build onto that with piece number two, and
Speaker 3: you just kind of keep adding to it. And I
Speaker 3: think he's been a little bit re energized by some
Speaker 3: of that stuff. But my guess is it's probably a
Speaker 3: little bit more of a shared responsibility within the organization
Speaker 3: than it is so much. Hey, Pop's really fully running
Speaker 3: everything the way it probably was during most of the
Speaker 3: Duncan Genobili Parker years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the sense that I got was maybe that
Speaker 2: they're some of the people there are ready for a
Speaker 2: regime change to take place too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of wonder if the talent bleed out
Speaker 3: of the organization with assistant coaches was, Man, I can't
Speaker 3: wait here and be the number two for a million years,
Speaker 3: Like I gotta go. Like like if we if we
Speaker 3: were to talk about college basketball, it was like I remember,
Speaker 3: for like twenty years, it was black guy's gonna take
Speaker 3: over for coach k Yea, and then it was well
Speaker 3: he's still here and Neil and then it was you know,
Speaker 3: Tommy Amaker and Chris Collins and all these guys were
Speaker 3: in Steve Wojehouse. They were all the next guy, and
Speaker 3: they were all they all had to go and leave
Speaker 3: and go other places, and it was like, you know,
Speaker 3: I kind of wonder if you know the the you know,
Speaker 3: Will Hardy's and Becky Hammond and Quinn Snyder's and he
Speaker 3: may Dooka and all the ones who were under uh
Speaker 3: pop all had to go other places. And then eventually
Speaker 3: it was like, all right, now I got my shot
Speaker 3: at the top job, and I'm kind of running my show.
Speaker 3: You know, where do we go with this? I think
Speaker 3: that's probably a little bit of what's going on there.
Speaker 3: And maybe it was. Man, if you'd gone a year
Speaker 3: or ago or two years ago, we could have had
Speaker 3: this coach slid them right into the top spot move forward,
Speaker 3: and it's just not how it has gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do want to get your thoughts on the
Speaker 2: play in tournament as a whole.
Speaker 1: Now it's a permanent fixture.
Speaker 2: Do you think it worked out how you originally thought
Speaker 2: it would or or is it better or worse? Better?
Speaker 3: Way better? I was not I don't want to say
Speaker 3: it wasn't a fan when they did it for the
Speaker 3: bubble season. I fully got it because you had to
Speaker 3: do something you couldn't come and play a million games
Speaker 3: in the bubble. That was just not gonna be how
Speaker 3: it went down. So I was like, all right, I
Speaker 3: kind of like what they did with the bubble year,
Speaker 3: and then they kind of tweaked and adjusted. I still
Speaker 3: part of me kind of wishes and this year is
Speaker 3: different because these teams are all right there that if hey,
Speaker 3: if you're the tenth seed but you're twelve games behind
Speaker 3: the nine seed, thanks for playing, but your season's over.
Speaker 3: We don't need you involved in anything, right, you stink
Speaker 3: and get out. But I think it's this year, right,
Speaker 3: these teams are all right pretty close to each other
Speaker 3: within a couple of games, and I think what it's
Speaker 3: done is it's given the NBA as close as wherever
Speaker 3: you get to our version of March Madness, right where
Speaker 3: it's single game elimination kind of there's I know, who
Speaker 3: was the first one, you get that second shot at it.
Speaker 3: But it's pretty cool to watch those games knowing, hey,
Speaker 3: this is all on the line. Right, It's like we
Speaker 3: get up you know, a week, you know, a week
Speaker 3: of game sevens almost you know in the thing. And
Speaker 3: and that to me is you know a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: I think that's a really cool process as we you know,
Speaker 3: have been able to get that and then it's like,
Speaker 3: all right, we had that fun and now we go
Speaker 3: into the playoffs. And one of the biggest things I
Speaker 3: love about the NBA playoffs is the best team usually
Speaker 3: wins because you're gonna you're tested, right, You've got to
Speaker 3: win four times in seven games, and you got to
Speaker 3: do that four times in a row, and that is Hey,
Speaker 3: it wasn't just one bad shooting night knocked us out,
Speaker 3: but we still get that taste of the NCAA tournament.
Speaker 3: One bad shooting night knocked us out through the playing tournament.
Speaker 3: So I think it's been a massive success. Not only that,
Speaker 3: the combination of the playing tournament plus the flattened lottery odds,
Speaker 3: which means you don't need to be horrendously bad from
Speaker 3: you know, the season opener to make sure you can
Speaker 3: get victa Winbin Yami. You just need to be bad
Speaker 3: to kind of naturally bad. Those two things. I mean,
Speaker 3: we it's only this week, with less than a week
Speaker 3: to go in the season, that we're starting to get
Speaker 3: more than the worst four teams in the league eliminated
Speaker 3: from playoff contention. That's massive win to me is teams
Speaker 3: had something to play for, you know, almost all the
Speaker 3: way to the end of the year, even in the
Speaker 3: last week, and that's where we're starting to eliminate our teams.
Speaker 3: That's a major, major success and everybody should feel pretty
Speaker 3: good about that awesome stuff.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for breaking it all down. That
Speaker 2: is all the time that we have for this episode
Speaker 2: of The Heat Check. Massive thanks to my guy Keith Smith.
Speaker 2: Make sure you give him a follow on Twitter at
Speaker 2: Keith Smith MBA. Make sure you read his work at
Speaker 2: spotrack dot com, s p O t r ac dot com.
Speaker 2: Check back Thursday for an all new episode. Do not
Speaker 2: forget to peepe the feed for past episodes, interviews and
Speaker 2: bonus episodes that drop onexpectedly throughout the week. Sometimes Keith
Speaker 2: blesses us on BETMG on tonight as well. We post
Speaker 2: that here and please follow us the heat Check as
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