Hello, everyone, Welcome to the latest episode of Hardwood Knocks. This is
Adam from wal here with my fantastic co host Dan Pavalley. We have a
special midweek episode for you this time around. Later on in the episode,
Dan will be talking to Jake Fisher about tanking in the NBA and Jake's new
book, Built to Lose How the NBA's tanking era changed the league forever.
You'll definitely want to stick around for that conversation. But before we get there,
we're going over a trio of current event topics, the Celtics organizational restructuring
with Danny Ames stepping down and Brad Stevens's promotion to an executive role rather than
the head coaching role. Embid Joel Embid and his injured knee, and the
Philadelphia seventy six ers as they are officially set for a second round matchup against
the Atlanta Hawks. And because that matchup is officially set, we have to
do a brief post mortem on a rather feisty New York Knicks team that just
seemed to out of steam during that first round of the playoffs. Before we
get into any of that, as always, I have to ask Dan,
how's it going. I am doing well under the circumstances. How about yourself,
You've got to be celebrating Hawks making it's a round two. Yeah.
I didn't feel like rubbing it in quite as much after this game because it
kind of felt like the series is a foregone conclusion going into Game five,
So like Game four was definitely the cause for celebration, and now it's just
kind of basking in the aftermath and getting ready for a tough second round battle.
But I'm doing good. Yeah, And look, we'll get to that
in second but I think we have to start with the Celtics stuff. Danny
Ainge stepping down, I'm not sure if he's actually retiring. He's been linked
to the Jazz, which doesn't make any sense to me because I don't know
why they need another decision maker when they've been doing as well as they've been.
He was also linked to the Blazers, which is slightly interesting because if
they do lose to the Nuggets, will there be changes? Most people thought
it would be just a coach, but I think that Neil O'Shea is got
to be equally on the hot seat at this point. Brad Stevens is now
the president of basketball operations. We are going to have a deeper discussion on
all of this, which will hopefully have more information on the Celtics future coaching
candidates later in I think ready for next week. But what were your just
general impressions of this didn't develop quickly behind the scenes, But the news broke
sort of like dip the toe in the water, but then it really broke.
It was just in tandem with everything else that happened on Wednesday. It
was just a wild couple hours of news breaks. Yeah. I think my
initial reaction because the first trickle before the dam just broke was that Danny Ainge
was thinking about taking a step back or a step down or retiring. It
was always a little bit vague, and you know, I, along with
basically everyone else, took the low hanging fruit, which is, you know,
like, I'm sure that Danny Ainge is just going to toy with the
idea of stepping down before not actually doing anything and talking for months about how
he was close to doing something. But then he actually did, and it
was just kind of shocking. I don't think you could have expected this kind
of restructuring, at least to this magnitude, even coming off a first round
series loss because Jaylen Brown was out, this team was never healthy. We
never got to see what it could do at full strength. So I don't
think this was a move necessitated by what happened during the twenty one season so
much as just these individuals deciding that it was in their best interest and possibly
the organization's best interest, to make these changes. The Danny Age news wasn't
as surprising to me because he's been around for such a long time. He's
made his mark. The Brad Stevens promotion was pretty interesting. I mean,
we're not that far removed from him being viewed as such a ridiculously good coach
in the NBA that there were, you know, the polls that everyone has
seen about whether you would take him or Jannazanda Dakumpo or any other NBA player
to build around, which were foolish from the start, but they still existed.
But still we're talking about a young, relatively inexperienced, at least at
the NBA level coach now getting this promotion into a role that he doesn't really
have experience with. Now, being the president of basketball operations in the NBA
is far different than being a coach, and Grousbeck and the other higher ups
within the Celtics organization talked about how they do want to have delineation between the
coaching roles and the general managing roles. So it is very clear that Stevens
will be operating purely in a roster building capacity. That's not something he's done
before, even with his success at Butler. Like, there's a big difference
between recruiting high schoolers and potential transfers to your collegiate program and running an NBA
organization. Those are entirely different things. I don't think that this is a
great example of like failing upward or anything. Stevens's resume, both in college
and in the NBA is pretty darn impressive. I mean, sure, he
did not take the Celtics to the NBA Finals, much less win a title,
but three Eastern Conference Finals appearances with a constantly shifting cores and a large
young roster for some of those runs. It's easy to view his brief tenure
through a lens of disappointment, but I think that that's just setting the bar
way too high, and given what almost every other coach in NBA history has
experienced in those first few seasons he's been pretty successful. So I'm I went
from shock to intrigue pretty quickly. I think I'm with you on everything you
said. One of the things when you look at Stevens specifically, I am,
yeah, I feel like it's not homerism, but I'm happy that there's
a national media during the moments like these, and I know the national media
played a role in trumpeting up Brad Stevens's reputation. But I think a lot
of the coverage has shifted, especially when you look at the podcast world,
towards these teams, specific podcasts or people who cover not beat writers, but
people who cover a specific team. I think that's great. They're going to
be able to bring you more nuanced to their specific team than you or I.
That's why we bring them on this podcast. But the lack of knowledge
about Brad Stevens and the Celtics among people who did not cover or follow the
Celtics religiously was eminently clear on Twitter, and it was there was a difference
between getting off jokes, which I can appreciate, versus what seemed like ignorance,
where it was just looking at the Celtics record without any context of saying
Brad Stevens underachieved. The roster was flawed to begin with, based off what
the front office did over the offseason and in previous off seasons. And you
had Jason Tatum dealing with COVID. You didn't have Jalen Brown in this year.
He's Marcus Smart missed a ton of time this year. Kema Walker dealt
with knee injuries. He dealt with an oblique injury. Like this is.
There were reasons that the Celtics were this bad. They're not as bad of
a team as they showed if they're fully healthy. And I know a ton
of other teams dealt with injuries, but that context is important, and so
it reminds me that I am happy with Yeah, I want to go to
the Celtics coverage for this as well. Those Celtics specific people, they're going
to know this best. But there is this outcry over national media when I
do think and I feel like I'm old man yelling at cloud here. Maybe
I don't want my slant or livelihood of the league to be obsolete. But
it was pretty clear just with the way that people were viewing Brad Stevens,
it was like, Okay, there is a middle ground here. It was.
I think it's fair to say that Brad Stevens is not a better building
block than you honest attempt to coompo. I also think it's fair to say
that he didn't have to leave his job, and this was not him failing
upwards. If you want to get into the racial element of this, as
Steven A. Smith did, I don't want to whitewash that conversation, and
so I'd be hesitant to comment of this. I don't view this as Brad
Stevens failing upward, though. I think there are probably twenty nine other organizations
that would love to have Brad Stevens with them in some capacity. And he's
been builed by previous players as a genius when you look at is after the
time out plays. He's taken rosters that and played them basically coached them above
their talent level. Yeah, did he, I guess mess up the integration
of Gordon Hayward when they had all these other pieces. Sure there was that
talk about him force feeding Gordon Hayward, but like that team, when you
even look at Gordon Hayward's first arrival, when you also had Marcus Morris and
Terry Rozier, when Gordon Hayward was injured, there were just so many not
just mouths to feed on the offensive end, but guys playing for their next
contract. It was putting him in a very difficult situation to begin with,
and then you had this constant turnover, not with just injuries, but of
players leaving, where Kyrie Irving became disenchanted. So I don't have sympathy for
him. Like every team, he's dealing with these circumstances. But Brad Stevens,
to me, is a really good coach. If he's overrated in the
sense that if you think he's the best coach in the league, then yeah,
maybe, or if you think he is a better building block than a
superstar, that's just flat out falls. But the takes have just skewed two
In the era of extremes, I find myself increasingly exhausted, and it's these
people that like to dunk on the national media for stuff, as they should,
but when you don't actually cover or maybe even watch this Celtics team,
or at least take into account the context of what's going on behind the scenes,
it was just kind of frustrating to see that slant take on a life
of its own. And again that might just be a totally selfish perspective on
this because I'm not covering a specific team, but i think I've been pretty
open where I'm not insecure about the state of how the media coverage is.
I think it's important that these teams have their such specific people covering and that
you can go and get more nuanced covers that you can't get from the more
national pods. But this was just like so many of the responses to this
were egregious, And I'll wrap up by saying that Danny Age stuff didn't surprise
me at all, just because I think he arguably ran his course and between
what he said about race a week at Starigo where no Celtics players ever brought
up the concern about hearing racial slurs in Boston or I don't know if he
said anywhere else in that, plus just the failure of his job where you
look at, yeah, he put them in a position to have Jason Tatum
and Jalen Brown and trade for Kyrie Irving, but you failed at talent retention,
and you probably overvalued your assets a little too much and overplayed your hand
when looking at other opportunities that arose in the looking back to Jimmy Butler,
Paul George Kawhi Leonard, not the derailists too much, but you talking about
the difference between national media and local media. I just wanted to take a
quick second to extend an ri ip and well wishes to the family of Rick
Finel, the Charlotte Observer reporter who has been with the Hornets since their inaugural
season in nineteen eighty eight and was found dead in his home at sixty three
on Tuesday. And I never met him, unfortunately while I was covering Nuggets
games or anywhere else, but from all accounts, just a wonderful human being
who was so dedicated to those around him and his family and the Hornets,
and just has broken so much news over the last three plus decades, and
just an unfortunate story, and just wanted to give him a quick shout out.
Yeah, and I will say, talk about a standard bearer for beat
writers, And again I'm not trying was not trying to crap on local coverage
on especially beat writers whose jobs are tough. I don't think it came across
that way. Yeah, but I want to make that clear. I never
met Rick in person, but he was guest hosting a radio show that I
went on in Charlotte, and he was asking me questions about the Hornets.
One time I stammered through the whole thing, just because I was awestruck by
the entire context of the situation. Just to give you a little insight into
I think how prominent he was, or just how well known he was within
NBA circles. So condolences to his family and rip to him. Just given
it a moment there. So back to the Celtics though, before we move
on to the other topics. I'm just curious, and I know you will
cover this in more depth, probably next week, but do you have any
early favorites for replacements for Stevens. I got nothing because I'm curious to see.
I think the big names will be attached, because it's the Celtics if
you're looking at it, Kenny Atkinson. I don't know how deep into the
bag of retreats that they'll go, but Jason kids already been mentioned. I
could see him go with not I don't want to say lesser known names,
but maybe guys have only had a single head coaching kid like a Lloyd Pierce
has already been mentioned. It also wouldn't surprise me if we saw him go
the route of hiring a first time or like himself, do you poach someone
from college? Are you looking at assistance like west On Cell, Junior,
Will Hardy, even Johnny Bryant with the Knicks, Darvin Ham with Milwaukee.
There are just a lot of names that I could see the Celtics going after
here, and it'll be curious to see how Brad Stevens goes about this.
You know, they've already mentioned Udoka from San Antonio as well. This feels
like a hugely wide net is going to be cast, and it should be.
You know, I always want to preface this by saying this is probably
the area that I personally have the least insight into. It's hard enough to
comment on coaching decisions and coaching success from the outside, much less what an
organization is looking for in a coaching candidate unless they make that criteria very explicitly
clear. So I've just been looking at the most prominent names that we would
attach to any organization. So, David Vanterpool, if you're looking at the
player turned coach route, you want to hear Chauncey Billups mentioned Sam Cassell seems
to be getting some love. I'm sure we're going to hear talk about Becky
Hammon and possibly getting her first opportunity as a head coach. I have no
idea what's going to end up happening. I just I hope that the net
is cast wide because I think the worst thing the Celtics could do is just
promote internally. And that's not to discredit a top assistant like Jim Laranega just
they need to be looking everywhere, and he would be someone I would expect
them to give heavy consideration too, because maybe how much has he called from
working under Brad Stevens and that many Krad Stevens comfortable. What's leave me my
final question about all of this, and I don't think anyone could have answer
to this. Rad Stevens has coached a lot of the players that are still
going to be on the roster for quite some time. How do you go
about building out this team when there's going to be that attachment to them?
Because I think you look at Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, that's it.
Those are your intouchables, that's your base. J is Jalon Brown in touchable
with the right player comes along, maybe not, but they weren't heavily involved
in the James Harden sweepstakes, so that I think that gives you an idea
of at least how much they value Jalen Brown there. But look at a
Marcus Smart, a Kema Walker's contract is probably pretty tough to move, and
they're not in the rosiest situation next season unless you can guarantee that Walker's knees
are going to hold up, which I don't think can be guaranteed at this
point. This roster is still going to be shallow. They do project,
I believe as a taxpayer right now, what are going to be the moves
here? What are the moves there? What can you add? Yeah,
they'll be the MLA, but who can you get for that? What do
they need most, what's feasible for them to do on the trade market?
And how aggressive will Brad Stevens being his first offseason. I think everything has
to be on the table, and at this point that's probably as specific as
we can get. I don't think there's any scenario in which you trade Tatum.
I find it highly unbelievable that they would even consider moving Brown. I
doubt they're going to move like Peyton Pritchard because he's an effective rotation player on
a rookie scale contract. The same might be said about Robert Williams. Everyone
else is going to be fair game. I think we're going to hear a
lot about them trying to shop Kemba Walker, but not necessarily to like enter
a rebuild or anything more to retool around Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum. But
those are probably the only two core players that I would be shocked if they're
not in being talent at the start of next year. And just for context
to the limited flexibility, if they can renounce all their own free agents,
which they might do, they also might not do because Emmin Fornier is one
of them. If you've interest in retaining him, that cap hold is massive.
Though they're not going to pay him twenty six million dollars, they're into
the tax if you renounce everybody, it's very slight and I don't care whether
they pay the tax or not. But looking from a team governorship perspective,
do you want to pay the tax for a team that's clearly, as currently
constructed, not prepared to win a title? Right there? Are a lot
of decisions to make in Boston. I'm so curious to see how and I
do think there's the level of awkwardness or at least ambiguity about how Brad Stevens
goes about this when he just coached these players and he's new to his role.
I just want to see how aggressive he's going to be in his first
offseason as the team president. It's probably best to move on to Joel Embiid
and six Ers slash versus the Hawks. What do you make of the one?
I feel terrible for Joel Embiad. This is just absolutely awful, having
an MVP campaign and he just can't seem to catch a good break. There's
always just something lingering with him. The Sixers classified it as a small lateral
meniscus tterror in his right knee. Also when they announced me the injury will
be managed with the physical therapy and treatment program, meaning surgery as of right
now is not deems necessary and Embiad's considered day to day, which is why
to me, because you still have to treat him with kid gloves. Just
he is so important to your long term But impression of the imbead injury on
it being day to day, but also what kind of chances do you give
the Sixers against a Hawks team if Joel Embie can't go. I mean,
my first thought was to compare this to another former Sixers big who had what
I believe is the same injury, and that's Andrew Baina, and he tried
to play through it for a little bit and just was never the same again.
And I just given Embiad's lengthy injury history, and this is probably going
to come across as a biased Hawks fan wanting Embid not to play, and
that's not the case, but they should send him out. His long term
health is more important than whatever happens this postseason. And I would, speaking
as a Hawks fan, not an NBA analyst, I would rather see him
play because I would I want to play teams at full strength. You know
you don't want those asterisks attached. I want to see what a full strength
Talks team can do against a full strength Sixers team. As an NBA analyst,
like I want what's best for him beads a long term health, and
I just I cannot wrap my head around a guy who missed multiple seasons at
the beginning of his career and has always been wrapped in a bubble and needed
to be monitored for injury maintenance purposes. Having a small meniscus tear and only
being day to day, that just that doesn't make any sense to me.
I'm not a doctor, but I would imply because they don't think it needs
surgery, I think the implication would be that it could get worse, because
getting worse would be it needs surgery. Yeah, it's a It's a tricky
situation for sure. If if he doesn't play, though, then this is
a toss up, right. I mean the Sixers say throw bodies at Trey
Young, I mean a tist old Ben Simmons. They have the person Green
even yeah, Danny Green, to take him on in individual matchups? Do
they have the offensive firepower to keep up? Though? That's a fantastic point.
I think I would skew more towards the Hawks in this where if you
told me Embide isn't playing, I might be like Hawks and five, Hawks
and six. Maybe Hawks and five is underestimating Phillis defense, but they're going
to struggle to generate half court offense without Embied And I think the not the
the solution, but the thing you want the sixers to inherently look at more
is just the reality of their situation is now. N Simmons should probably spend
more time. Is the only big and I know that's not fair to him,
but you can't do Ben Simmons. Dwight Howard just isn't sustainable for long
minutes and the minutes with Simmons is alone big this year have not been great,
and they've had he hasn't necessarily been classfied as the five in those situations
they normally classified to buyas Harris, but the Danny Green to Bias Harris,
Ben Simmons, Matisse thybol like, those are the four that I would absolutely
pencil into that lineup, and you need to see where you can get with
it, and maybe you can get away with it against the Hawks because they're
not too big. Like is Clint Coppela versus to Bias Harris or Ben Simmons
on the glass a huge advantage. I mean probably Clint Coppela just absolutely gobbled
up the Nicks on the last and even John Collins there, so maybe you
can't get away with that. I just don't know what they do offensively,
even putting the hand the ball in the hands of Simmons more where Doc Rivers
I feel like wants to put Simmons in the dunker spot a lot, and
I don't know if that's the solution, because he is going to be one
of your speedsters on the ball, and he's one of your just best.
He is your best passer on the team. The rise recently of Tyrese Maxey
becomes massive for them. Can score at every level, has just shown some
good defensive pressure. He can still be a little hesitant to not shoot the
wide open threes, but I feel like he's getting better at those. That's
a lot of responsibility to saddle him with, though, to sort of elevate
the ceiling of your half court offense. Without who was a bona fide MVP
candidate, I think my biggest concern for Philadelphia is that this team was twenty
six during the regular season and three point attempts per game. Sure, they
connected on thirty seven point four percent of them, which was slightly above the
league average of thirty six point seven percent. But this is not a deadly
three point shooting team. And if we're taking a bead out of the equation,
you have to be able to hit threes from all over to draw Clint
Capella out of the paint, because he's just been masterful at shutting down the
rim, and if you can't drag him away from his comfort zone, you're
not going to score much in a half court setting. So I think that's
my biggest concern for Philadelphia right now and for the Hawks. I think there's
going to be a tendency to view the first round series with the Knicks more
as a Knicks failure than a Hawks success, and I'm not sure that's the
right approach because this was a young, inexperience Talks team that came in and
had to play in front of fans at Madison Square Garden for I believe three
of the five games and did not shrink in the moment. Came out with
a great defensive game plan from the start, adhered to it, executed it
well. The offense rolled regardless of who was on the floor. Everything was
cohesive. When some players struggled, others stepped up. This was a really
excellent, masterful performance from the Hawks, admittedly against a Knicks team that seemed
fatigued and gassed towards the latter portion of the series, but that's also probably
in part because of how well the Hawks executed from start to finish. Yeah,
Bogey coming on for them when he's knocking down his three, they're an
impossible team to defend. They might have another gear too, where if Danielle
Gallanhari plays better for them, it opens up plays well at all. That's
true too, that's the best way to frame it. That might be their
their ticket to an extra gear. I guess the the big thing for them
is Philadelphia is much better built to limit Trey Young and is going to make
life harder on him, So that will be a thing to watch. But
I would come back to the Sixers on offense being the difference without Embiid eighty
nine percentile and half court efficiency this year when he's on the court, twentieth
percentile on half court efficiency when he's off the court, And that just kind
of matches up with everything you see on paper and just everything in theory that
they do. And you mentioned their three point shooting. He's been uber important
to their outside shot making this season, and so without Embiid, I would
probably go Hawks in six, maybe five. With Imbid, I think I
might still just go Hawks in seven because it's Embid going to be Embiad is
the other question if he does play. I'm right on the same page on
both fronts. The Knicks, though, as their mini post mortem this,
I think it can be easy to be a captive of the moment and just
be disgruntled about the way that they played and read too much into this and
then forget that, Hey, they were billed as one of the five worst
teams in the league. They ended up with a four seed in the Eastern
Conference. That is a great season. Anyone would have taken that if they
were a Knicks fan. We also have to acknowledge their actuality, which is
they got really good health in general, aside from some stuff to Mitchell Robinson
Alec Burks with their key players relative to the rest of these teams, and
I don't know if you ran it back next season how good they would actually
be. I would say that they are probably seventh or eighth in the East
at best. I'm definitely putting the Celtics in front of them. I'm still
putting the Heat in front of them. I think you put the Pacers in
front of them, assuming they're healthier, right just looking at if there are
no major changes. What I also think needs to be acknowledged. Is this
was clearly I think maybe a positive reminder that they are still so far away
and the roster needs to be treated accordingly. You don't need to go all
out to retain some of these free agents. I think Reggie Bullock is probably
your most important free agent, and that includes Derek Rose. To me,
Derek Rose is not important in your future, and I think we saw the
limitations of an offense that was so dependent on Derek Rose this series because he
had a rough game at five against the Hawks. So I'm looking if I'm
the Knicks at keeping Bullock. I'm not against extending Julius Randall. I don't
think this is a referendum on how good he is. I think he was
gassed and he played so many minutes during the regular season. He can't be
the number one on a really good team. I think that that is what
this at minimum showed, and so you need to figure out on getting that
player. But you also need to be cautious of not spending on the wrong
guys. Because you have all this cap space. There are a lot of
players you know, there are activing. There are very few players that are
gonna be worth that money. Unless Kauai is coming to New York, you
know, can you you know Kyle Lowry, he might be interesting for this
team if they can get him on a two year max, But I think
he wants to be on more already made contender and the Knicks aren't quite there
yet, and I think they need to be brutally honest about where they're at,
and that is there's still the level of To me, R J bat
is the single most important player of this ranchise right now. I know Julius
Randall might make all MBA, it doesn't matter to me like he is your
your swing still at having the sustainable superstar, because I don't know that Julius
Randall is necessarily that he's at least your ticket, your best ticket right now
or shot at getting the costar to what Julius Randall is doing. And I
don't think you need to bend over backwards to try and bring a lot of
the other these other players back and no one's the well as important. But
you also have Mitchell Robinson who could be your free agent, maybe you pick
up his team option. You have to make a decision there, and you
also need to balance you know, Obi Coop and played more towards the end
of the year and played better, and we even saw and play some key
minutes in Game five. You have Julius Randall here, Where does he fit
in with that? And you need Emmanuel Cooky needs time to develop. He
was criminally underused throughout the Hawks and Knicks series, and that comes back to
TIBs too. Can he show better adjustments? And I'm not saying, if
you ask me right now, I was wrong about the TIBs higher. If
you ask me right now, if I think he's the coach to lead this
team to the next contender level iteration, my answer would be no, just
because I haven't seen the willingness to adjust. Maybe he was just looking out
lack of options regular season. Specifically, I'd like to see a focus on
actual player development because it wasn't given to Kevin Knox and Frank Neil Keenan this
year. It just didn't happen, and then to bail from IQ a little
too much in the postseason. In my opinion, it's a critical offseason in
the sense that I don't think the Knicks need to view this as well.
We need to build upon this four seed finish. You need to be realistic
about where you stand in the Eastern Conference, and I think that your record,
your situation right now was at least slightly inflated. There's nothing wrong with
that, but let's be brutally honest here. Ask those tough questions, provide
those difficult, awkward answers. I cannot emphasize enough that it is okay to
say both that this season, despite a five game loss in the first round
of the playoffs, was an unmitigated success and all of what you said is
true, and that there are significant, important questions that have to be answer
because the long term future of this team is still in question. Those are
not mutually exclusive concepts, because we cannot lose sight of just how much progress
was made in New York. Now. You and I went on the Subway
Sports Talk podcast with Pete Kennedy, and we were asked by Pete what needed
to happen in the playoffs for this to be a success. And you know,
right then and there, I was all on board with no matter what
happens in the playoffs, this is already a success. And the playoff series
probably went about as poorly as Knicks fans could have hoped for. It's still
a success. The fact that Madison square Garden was bumping in a postseason scenario,
that Julius Randall developed into an All NBA caliber player, those are all
unmitigated successes. They just don't lessen the importance of those big offseason questions.
I think it is very Nicks of the last two decades to have this successful
year and knock yourself out of contention for one of the top picks in a
absolutely loaded draft class. I think it's very Nixy that there are a ton
of offseason questions and roster holes that need to be filled with a historically poor
free agent class when a lot of teams have money, and that just makes
it even more clear that the answers to these questions aren't simple, and some
of the questions just aren't going to be answered at this time. I think
that you can very reasonably stick with Julius Randall on an extension of any size,
but by doing that to your point of RJ. Barrett being the most
important player on the roster, you're almost requiring him to develop into the number
one option, which frankly, he did not look the part of during this
first round loss. I wholeheartedly agree that the focus next season, now that
you've established yourself as a playoff team in the East, needs to be on
development. It is criminal that Emmanuel quickly got so little run during this loss
when it was inordinately clear that the Knicks needed way more offensive firepower, especially
with Randall struggling. You would have thought that you wanted to go to that
spark plug scorer off the bench even more frequently, and it just didn't happen.
Alec Brooks was fantastic in Game one, couldn't do anything the rest of
the series. You would think that that would be the impetus for quickly to
play more. Doesn't happen. And you know, Tom Thibodeau has his strengths
and he has his flaws, and not playing young players and adhering to a
strict rotation and giving heavy minutes to the starters is among those flaws. So
there has to be a little bit more flex going forward from that, because
I don't see many paths towards dramatically altering this roster in a positive fashion this
offseason in particular. Yeah, I would agree with you there. I would
just want to re emphasize that I do think this season was a success and
we'll see how much the culture is actually shifted based on how appealing are they
in free agency, or the bigger thing will be a next star that comes
on at the trade market. I don't know who it's going to be.
Are the Knicks on their list really on their list, not this Anthony Davis
ceremonial kind of throw in. It's, you know, the Lakers or the
Knicks, when you know that the Knicks didn't really have the firepower at the
time to trade them. And I also the one thing I will add,
I don't lament the absence of their draft pick as much as you do.
I think just because of the they would have needed to have been. They
were just so far and away not pad this year that what would their lottery
odds have been. Would you rather if you want to say you'd rather have
the lottery pick, then this first round appearance. I don't regret you.
I think that's a fair take. But that's the thing I just don't really
remember. But I do I agree with the fact that it is kind of
Knicks to have been bad for this long and then this loaded, So I
don't lament it at all, Like they did the right thing by competing.
It's just there's probably like a tier of six or seven players that you really
want in this draft. And of course this is the year they're they're finally
not in the bottom six or seven. Yeah, that would that is very
Nicks. You are correct there, so they'll they'll be in. There's a
lot of teams that'll be interesting to watch over the offseason. There's I think
it's probably more interesting than most, just given how much they overachieved this year.
Do you have anything else that you want to get to before we hop
out of here? We said thirty minutes, and we did like thirty two.
I'd call out a w for Dan and Adam. I don't know about
you. You had to get one today, rude, and now I'm angry
until next time. This isn't until next time. You'll be hearing from me
in just a few seconds, but please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
So this national podcast trolling my own little ranch. From the beginning of
this, I will catch you in a few seconds, Adam and I will
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the description box in this episode to find out more. But that's BW Hustle
dot Com slash Join what is up Hardwood Knox listeners. I am Dan Pavalley
coming at you without my fantabulus co host Adam frommel I am, however,
super stoked to be joined by Jake Fisher, the author of Built to Lose
How the NBA Tanking Era Change the League Forever. He is also an MBA
insider writer reporter for Bleacher Report, which I also write for them too,
So I guess Jake Fisher is also a colleague. If you guys don't follow
him on Twitter, do it immediately at Jake L. Fisher. That's at
JA K E L f I S C h E R Jake. How are
you doing today? Two? Wo man? No, no one has ever
ever spelled out my full name to me, so it's an honor for that,
and it's an honor to be here. I mean, doesn't like won't
people just assume sometimes that like the H, like you know, the C
won't be in there. I don't want people searching f I S A g
R sometimes look at Fisherman C. But no, yeah, I think they
snuck that C. And when my family came in over from Ellis Island.
That's like the the urban legends. So look anything to make it distinct,
so that someone will spell out your last name. That's the key to a
good last name, is you, I think you want someone to spell it
out. But we are here to talk about this book that I just recently
finished, Built to Lose, How the NBA's tanking era changed the leak forever.
It's fantastic. Listeners can find the link in the description of this podcast
to go buy it, and it could be purchased from what I've seen anywhere
there are books. I enjoyed it. I said, I loved the beginning.
But before I ask you specifically about the book, you mentioned in the
epilogue how you weren't necessarily sure that the material you were cultivating for this was
going to be a book. When did you first realize that, oh,
this is going to be a book. And when that realization hit and this
is just me personally think about it, was there that overwhelming sense of oh,
holy crap, I'm about to write a book. Yeah, I mean,
I've always wanted to write books. I was that Sports Illustrated before bleacher
Report. And for those who don't know, got laid off that whole very
public blood letting that happened in twenty nineteen, and was I was quietly working
on this for like a year before I got let go, but that that
kind of just opened the door for me to kind of dry and dive in
and do this full time. So here's too you know, many more,
but you know, so that's to say that the breadth of the project never
seemed too too intimating. I knew it was going to be a lot of
work in the beginning. I thought it was just like a moment, right
Like I was covering the Sixers for Liberty Ballers at Espionation right around twenty thirteen
when Sam Hanky got hired. I was also covering the league for Slam Magazine,
as you know, I was as an intern there and a contributing writer
when I was in school up in Boston at Northeastern, and I was going
to Celtics games at TV Garden, and you know, people forget Boston traded
kag and Paul Pierce to Brooklyn the same night that Hanky traded Drew Holidays in
New Orleans at twenty thirteen draft. So covering covering the Sixers, being in
Boston, going to those games at TD Garden, I felt like I was
in that eye of the taking hurricane, if you will. And it really
was kind of like a narrative of you know, well, Boston or Philly,
get back there faster, all that type of stuff. I realized it
was happening in Orlando and Phoenix and other cities that will talk about it,
I'm sure later on too. So it just felt like I was in something
and it followed me, you know, wherever I did go to talk to
people throughout the league, if I was at a shoot around or whatnot,
wearing an Equals hat, you know, oh you're from Philly, all the
process out tanking, blah blah blah. And at a certain point it just
felt like a topic that I couldn't escape, and it felt like something that
I needed to kind of chronicle in a couple hundred pages. Another question about
the process, un ironically of writing this book. The two things that stayed
out. I consider myself a very organized person, but even thinking about how
you had to organize these interviews or understand what was going to be quoteworthy for
the book, that seemed harrowing. And then also as someone personally again who
pivoted entirely out of doing reporting earlier on because I felt intrusive upon everyone's life
and just couldn't muster the courage to speak in scrums or sidle up to people
when they you know, when you're not really supposed to be talking to them.
But that's when you're gonna get the best stuff. What was that like,
one organizing all these interviews, but also two, like having to go
through so many people. I'm sure that had to be a fairly stark challenge.
Yeah, I mean that's my biggest selling point on the book. I
think I talked over three hundred people for this players, agents, coaches,
executives, and from that, like you mentioned, you know, you get
the good stuff, you get new original material and and and I really think
that is what this book's all about. I've got new details on pretty much
every single page, and stuff that I think you're gonna make NBA twitterheads,
you know, go kind of nuts, fall in love with some guys,
hate some people. I think it's really that that is what you know,
the book's all about. And to do that, You're right, it does
take a little bit of a courage to you know there's a coach and a
scrum, and the scrum is breaking down and you kind of have to like
elbow the PR guy or guy out a little bit and just say, hey,
you know what's screw it, Like, Hey, coach, I have
one more question for you. I'm right on this book. But to me,
I've always wanted to do that, like I've been I've been reporting I
think since twenty thirteen was when I interned at SLAM. But that's kind of
like my first year covering the league. Like I was stuck on this back
corner of the magazine and they basically said, like, go do whatever you
want. We don't have anything for you to do, Like this is kind
of make it what you will. So I just started calling agents because SLAM
I wasn't covering the draft. This was twenty thirteen, right before Draft Twitter
was a thing. There was only one raft I think it was the only
draft express. So I would just call them people and saying, hey,
let me tell me the right about your player. And then I went to
like the Nets had some second round pick Combine and I was talking to this
kid named DJ Stephens who had been who went to Memphis, who was a
super athletic guy people might remember who like kissed the rim and I saw Scouts
saw me talking to him and came up to me and wanted to know what
I knew about him, And I felt from I mean I was eighteen years
old, nineteen years old, I felt from a very young age what you
know a report of role can be in this MBA information ecosystem. And also
I like being on my couch on a Wednesday night and seeing some you know,
rotation tweak and being able to text assistant coach just saying like, hey,
like why'd you do that? I don't really feel like it's intrusive to
a certain extent when you're just honest about what you're doing. And in order
to organize all that to get to your first question, I'm a big Google
dot guy, and I definitely will like zoom out a thousand foot view of
a topic, of a person, of a team, whatever, put down
every single person I can think of or research that is at least tangentially related
to that subject, and then start going down the list and keeping track of,
Oh, I emailed this person on Tuesday, I texted this person in
that day, Oh, this person can get me that person's contact info,
and it just kind of keep hammering away at it until at a certain point
you've heard enough stories and you feel like you can transcribe at all and start
figuring out how to outline it into you know, something that makes sense.
You mentioned that you interviewed over three hundred people for this I think, and
I know he was. The two conversations you had with Sam thinky were off
the record, But that is the hook at the beginning of the book that
got me where you mentioned that you had dinner with Sam Hinky and so when
you know that someone had like the gall to go up and talk to Sam
in the first place, then actually talked with him, whether it's on the
record or not, that's the that's the flashbol moment of the book where it's
like, all right, like you're in for a real ride. I know
they were off the record, but what can you share about that experience of
approaching him, having a conversation with him. Yeah, I've talked to Sam
more than those two dinners, I will say, not to pat myself on
the deck, right, they felt like important to include because hey, like
the first one, I think, like you mentioned in the prologue, I
was I think twenty at the time, not in eighteen nineteen. Going back
to Summer League in twenty fourteen, it was a year and two his tenure,
and I covered it from Afar from Liberty Ballers, and I wanted to
know who this guy was. I kind of shook his hand and gave my
business card. He was a nice guy the year before, but then a
whole mb accolendar had flipped, and you know, at that summer everyone was
kind of trying to That's when a lot of deform conversations first started, and
you know, he was being considered to be this guy who was kind of
sticking up his middle finger at the sanctity of the NBA, and he was
kind of painted as a caricature, and I knew he wasn't that. Like,
no one is as polarizing as the figure that they are created in the
media, right, So I want and I hate that term the media,
right, it's a whole other that's a whole other podcast. But you got
the point of what I'm saying. I wanted to meet him myself and get
a full understanding so I can say that. I mean, I really think
it's ironic that not talking to the public was ultimately I think a big portion
of his downfall, because he is a really charming guy, and he's funny
and insightful, and he has a lot of great relationships around the league through
a lot of people who I've met in the NBA, either through Sam or
we have that mutual contact of me and the person across the table or you
know, down the hall, in the backstage of you know, an arena,
whatever, both know Sam and like Sam or whatever, and that's kind
of been a kinship factor for a lot of people. So I think the
one thing I can say to you is that he's not this Excel spreadsheet calculator,
nerdy, non personable person that he was painted to be. I think
that's just how he kind of operated behind the scenes. I would think though,
that him having placated the medium more I think is the way that you
put it in the book, would have done him a pretty big service in
terms of building that reputation. Because when you've seen other stories about him,
or even when he did I think he did a podcast with Pablo Toore was
when he did a podcast with you can kind of like you see the level
of humanity there were like at the beginning of that pabulatory pod. Yes,
I remember it was kind of awkward, and it was that was very humanizing
for him based off what everything you know. He was this sort of cult
mysterious mystery box hero. I do wonder, though, had he I think
the two things that betrayed him publicly were and you talked about this a lot
in the book, were his relationships or the way he went about business with
agents and fringe roster players. And then also just a limited insight he gave
to the media of what he was thinking. And I do wonder, and
I'm curious now you've had written this book, do you think his tenure could
have played out, or at least the end of it a lot differently.
Had he handled those two elements of his job a little bit better? I
guess maybe not better, because you could say that he did just fine,
but differently. Yeah, I definitely think so, because I think the overall
factor of why he got pushed out was I think the flashball moment, to
use your term from earlier, when Jueli Okafour is in that fight in the
streets in Boston and TMZ's reporting on it and there's an arrest warrant out from
him in Boston, and he plays another game before they even suspend him.
And then when the team announces it, it's in a statement, and no
one speaks publicly before Brett Brown's pregame press conference scrum at the Guardian, when
Sam's at the arena and is still refusing him to talk from there. I
mean, everything that happened before that, taking new Lands, then taking Joel
and Dario and two more guys that weren't going to come over, and then
John and he's running around the streets of Boston fighting people. Blah blah blah
blah. That's that media swirl. He never ever, ever took any moment
to try to quell that tide and try to you know, quiet the fireworks
and all that type of stuff. I really think if he got ahead of
it, because as I've been saying all along, I've definitely been able to
air it out a little bit more of late with this book being out.
I don't think Sam's plan originally was to just tank and tank and tank and
tank and tank. Like Joel Embiid only goes to Philiate three because he did
get hurt. He would have gone number one in the draft, and I
have it in the book. Clauds officials to this day maintain he broke his
foot in that workout. And then the Bucks Mark Lasrye told me on the
record in the book they weren't taking Joel because they wanted to make the playoffs.
So that's the only reason he even fell there to three and Philly was
making hires like Todd Ray was a trainer and Chris Babcock was an assistant from
Texas. Who you know twenty sixteen, Kevin Durant was going to be a
free agent. They're making those stealthy moves like the nixt day with the Royal
Ivy and other situations to dip into free agency in twenty sixteen. So I
think if he was able to get out on a microphone and talk to people,
I mean like like we like my dinner with them, he was more
than happy to speak off the record and more than happy to get to know
people on background. But that's not what you know fuels the fire for sports
Centers nightly agenda. You know, you need to actually give not the fans,
but you need you need to give the peanut gallery something chew on and
because he refused to do it. It allowed all these narratives to come up
and ultimately swallowing hole. Yeah, and there was also what probably wasn't talked
about enough in real time is you mentioned the Joel and Beat injury, like
the New Orleans Noel stuff too, like his debut being deferred a year and
then having him and Beat stuff. Some of that was, yes, they
get Dario SARTs, knowing he's not going to come over right away, but
there were just these elements of if these players were healthy and here the stitchers
wouldn't have been as bad, and like you said, the machinations behind the
scenes where they were putting at least connections in place to maybe go after these
big these big stars in future years. The thing that I guess might have
also benefited him too, like would have been coming on the record and talking
about we recognize that there are three centers on this roster now, like after
the Julia Oka for pick is when it was like what the hell is going
on here? Like in Bid Noel and Oka for And so I'm wondering if
that like might have also just been a tipping point among the many behind the
scenes. For sure, I mean, I will say I think the jul
Oka for selection. A lot of it had to do with the fact that
in Bide broke Is again days before that draft in twenty fifteen. I mean,
I had Lance Pearson and analytics guy from that front office in the book
saying pretty much that they had to do it to kind of double down in
the case that maybe Joel was going to be a bust that never play ever,
like that was a real fault on that front office. I mean,
I think they also would have wanted to take Chris tops prezingis. As we
also be tail in the book, Andy Miller has representative at the time was
not going to let that happen, and and the other behind the scenes stuff
got back to ownership and got back to the league office too, like that
you mentioned he was. He refused to negotiate off that four year non guaranteed
quote unquote. Hanky Special was so many of those guys. And there were
situations like when he traded for Andre Carlinko with the nets. You know,
Hinky told Billy King the GM at the time that they were just gonna wave
Andre and allowing to test you know, the veteran buyout market type situation,
and the Sixers were gonna get their second round picks back, and everyone's gonna
wipe their hands clean and move on. But Billy was an adamant that Carolinko
report to them, and Carolinko had his wife was having a really difficult pregnancy
in New York and he wasn't going to uproot his wife from her doctors to
go play for the Sixers that were consider one of the worst teams of all
time, right, and they were finding him to show up to the point
where they ended up having to go to the players. You didn't have arbitration
with his agents because they were just like finding this guy who didn't want to
report there. They had already conducted the trade on the like conduit that he
wouldn't play for them. That type of stuff definitely got back to the league
office for sure as well. There is and I'm sure I'll have many more
questions about the actual Sixers. But you take a look at the NBA at
large a time, but you zero in on a few franchises a bunch like
it's Milwaukee, it's Boston, it's Sacramento, it's Phoenix, it's the Lakers.
So that's another reason to look at this book. I think what was
interesting is I guess I didn't realize or you realize in real time that all
this stuff is happening at once. But now that we're removed you look back,
it's like, oh, all this was opening at once, where this
wasn't just the Sixers being bad. There were these other tanking structures in place.
I think Phillies was the most flagrant and deliberate of the bunch. But
I'm wondering, of all these other teams, which one were you most interested
by when looking back at at this era. Yeah, you're you hit the
nail on the head. I think I wrote it out in the book particularly,
but for those who haven't read it yet, there was a there was
a clear emphasis from a lot of different analytical minded executives around the league that
this twenty fourteen class was considered to be the draft class with Joel and obviously
Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker were the headlines at the time, but all the
way on down to Julius Randall, it was considered a seven player draft where
it was the best class since two thousand and three. That was the hype.
Remember, Wiggins and Parker were on a side covers and slam covers and
whatever, and who was running the league at the time, but the Miami
Heat, who had three of the top five guys from that other three class.
So all these all these people, Rob Henning, get In, Orlando,
Ryan McDonough and Phoenix, David Griffin and Cleveland, even the Bucks,
like you mentioned, they were originally planning to tank that year, but when
they had a couple of injuries, they sure as hell flipped a switch and
immediately started taking at twenty fourteen class because they all thought, we're not going
to beat Miami anyway. Let's get the next generation of these guys and by
the time they're on the outs, by the time they're in the you know,
the twilight of their primes will be here and we'll be contending. And
I think Orlandos are really fascinating an example because it didn't work out, but
Boston as well. I mean, I think Boston until this last couple of
years, they did it as well as anybody. They bottomed out really really,
really hard. Then they still had other pieces to trade off with Ray
gen Rondo. But the trick that the Celtics had in their back pocket was
they had those nets picks. Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown were picked with those
Nets picks, and they were able to swing a deal at the twenty fifteen
trade deadline to get Isaiah Thomas and jump right back into the offs. And
they hired their own young analytical mind to developing coach, Brad Stevens from Butler
and Pluckton out of the out of the college ranks and kind of gave them
full carte blanche to run that program. I think the Lakers are also really
fascinating too, because, unlike Boston, their rival from eight to ten,
they refused to rebuild off the Kobe right, even though he tore his achilles,
even though he hurt his knee and hurts his shoulder, they still kept
trying to build a contender around this guy's aging body and it never worked out.
At the point where the Lakers were the worst team in the NBA from
twenty seventeen, that five year stretch, they were worse than Philly by far.
They were worse than Boston, Orlando, Phoenix, sacrament and Milwaukee,
Cleveland. Whatever it was the Lakers. But that's why tanking, I think
is so prevalent in today's NBA. If you want to get these stars like
Lebron, Wade and Botched and Beat or Randall or whoever to win to ultimately
win a championship, you have to get them through the draft, because you're
not the Lake Carus who can be the worst team for five years and still
get Lebron in free agency in twenty eighteen, then Anthony Davis wants to come
play for you, and you win the title. Like everyone else, doesn't
have that margin for error, Which is why I think it was really interesting
to include the Lakers futility and all that. Yeah, there's was sort of
like an accidentally on purpose situation right where it's they were trying to build a
contender around Kobe. But I feel like if you had to put like gave
them truth theorem, there's no way that they could have thought like any of
those rosters were going to be good at those times. Well, in twenty
twelve thirty one, they truly thought limit title for sure. Then they lost
White in free agency in twenty thirteen, and they did think, all right,
we'll piece together a couple of one year contracts and we'll put together this
roster for thirteen fourteen. Kobe will come back when his Achilles, we'll make
the playoffs a little bit, we'll get some momentum, and then we'll sign
Lebron and Mellow in twenty fourteen free agency. We'll be good to go.
They definitely had that hubrisk, But as I wrote in the book, given
Kobe that big two year contract extension before the season even started ended up shooting
themselves in the foot anyway, because they didn't have two MAX cap spaces to
get Lebron and Mellow, and Lebron was only going somewhere for his full max
contract and he wasn't going to the Lakers without Carmelo, So they kind of
ruined that opportunity before they even gotten the door to pitch those guys in the
first place. Yeah. You mentioned in the book too that Kobe might have
accepted a two year deal with roughly half of what they offered him right out
of the gate. So not the best negotiating takets on the Lakers end.
Of all these teams that uzzered on specifically, aside from the Sixers, was
there one that was particularly challenged challenging to get like the you know, the
more honest low down of or what was the most challenging Which team was the
most challenging to report on throughout this book. The Lakers stuff was hard to
get a hold of, like a true like inside, like this person was
in the room, because the Lakers aren't like a family. The Lakers are
this big fraternity of oh, you played for the Wine and Gold, like
we you know, we hold up this logo that the Banners, the Busses
like, it's definitely this super interconnected like they're they're they're sensitive to the lake.
I mean, if you talk to any Lakers fan about their team,
right, they're like they're holding they hold it a little more and higher regard
than the average fan does to their team. I think I think that the
same thing applies. There were a lot of people for the Lakers didn't want
to talk because they knew it was like a black eye on that franch especially
because you not only was a Kobe's you know, final few years and obviously
they felt like they were souring, uh this this opportunity to prop him up
and to you know, ride him out into the sunset. But it was
right after Jim Buss died too, and that that kind of sent the franchise
into a tailspin. And those details I think hurt a lot of people,
and a lot of people didn't really want to talk. So I did,
you know, ultimately get some good stuff, as we believe it to already
some really interesting practice scenes from like the Kobe uh Farman told the paper scene,
I think I have that, you know, in fuller detail than anyone's
happening for the Chris came in on the bench in Cleveland. That mean where
he's lying on the bench and you know, gets photoshop left and right on
social media, other Steve Nash details. But it was a challenge I think
for a while to get some microstoffteff and on. Yeah, that was the
two of the things I highlighted from among the Lakers section was I don't think
I I from Afar, I just can't get excited about like practices and scrimmages.
But the Lakers and even their players like seemed to really read a lot
into what Kobe Bryant was doing in practice. Was there an element of like
do you look at that having reported this and be like okay, wow,
like seriously, its just I'm just looking at it like it's practice, And
they just seemed to be putting so much weight into what he was doing in
practice against guys by his own claim, who didn't block in the league.
It's a great point that you just made. Yeah, I think, well,
there's one thing to keep in mind is that for those last two years
the head coach was Byron Scott, who comes from the pat rye you know,
coaching tree, and practice did matter a lot to those types of guys,
like they they rolled the ball out and played fives and wanted to scrimmage
and like make these guys better. And Kobe was one of those types of
people that whenever he set foot between those lines, and it was three on
three, two on two, whatever, he wanted to kill who was on
the other side, it didn't matter if they were a teammate either. So
I think that definitely brought the degree of competition up the level. And also
I think he was trying to prove it to himself too. Obviously he's no
longer with us, but I think if he was and you would directed some
true seramon to him, I think he probably would have told you that he
was trying to prove it to himself that he still had it. He had
never really had injury issues until that run that he had that we mentioned the
achilles on the knee of and the shoulder, and every single year he'd worked
on his way back only to get hurt again. It's like pretty amazing that
that fifteen sixteen, that like magical last year he had, and then with
that sixty point game, obviously it's pretty amazing that he didn't get hurt and
that he I mean, he sat a lot of games, but the three
years prior considering, I think it's like no short feat that he actually played
in that sixty point game and he was healthy, let alone put up fifty
points. So when you look at that the tail end of that Lakers era,
it does seem there was some self acknowledgement on their part because of the
way they structured Byron Scott's contract that Okay, this is like placeholder stuff.
We don't really know what we're in for, but we're probably not going to
be great. The thing that I found boys, it was the most disarming
quote because I wasn't expecting it, but D'Angel Russell just comes right out and
says he sucked. Is I think was the quote from there was that a
moment where you're like, back, quote has to go in the book because
he said DANNELRS has some like really more good, intricate stuff that he says
in the book. But that was one where it was of everyone you talked
to on the record, a lot of people were able to play both sides,
even when they were critical or though some of the quotes on the King's
front office in here, my god, read this book. Just you think
the Kings are dysfunctional? Read this book. But a lot of shit it
and all the things, but the DeAngelo Russell stuff. Are you surprised that
he was just so open about saying, yeah, Bayard's got sucked. Yeah,
I mean especially the backstory behind that also is I took a bus down
to Philly last January twenty twenty, right before the pandemic happens, and I
went to Drexel for the warriors Tuesday night shoot around or whatever it was,
and I sat. I got there a little early, and then it turns
out because I told us that they were gonna have media availability before practice,
turns out the Warriors got held up in transit get to wait for like a
couple of hours. We get there, they let us in and de Angel
doesn't want to talk because Kobe had just died and he was feeling, you
know, they didn't want to talk about it, so then show up pregame.
He doesn't want to talk till postgame. So I'm waiting for Dan.
I'm in this arena, you know, I already took the bus down and
went to the night before, and now I'm at the game, like it's
a free ticket to go to see a basketball game. But like, I'm
only there to talk to de Angelo and I'm only getting him one on one
as he's like undressing at his lock and a PR guy was like, you
can't talk to that now. I said, oh, like Raymond Ridgerd said,
the PR guy for the lawyer said I could, and he was like
all right, fine, And D'Angelo was cool with it, and he said
to me at one point like I don't want to say much more to put
Byron Scott on the last, but I just think he was an idiot.
I think I think it's what the quote was, because he really it was
a huge underscore of that season, an undercurrent, if you will, to
the whole Kobe stuff that like Byron Scott was kind of trying to mess with
d'anzel's head to try to put him in place, and kind of like haze
him a little bit, like he was still a player and he was hazing
the rookie almost because Byron Scott was a Lakers point guard and he wanted to
There's already all this talk in the draft and in the whole year prior that
D'Angelo might not have been mentally prepared to be in the NBA. It was
a little immature kid that was That was the word that was being circulated among
a lot of NBA personnel. So I think Byron took it personally that like,
I'm here to grill this kid and to make this kid into, you
know, a man. And I don't think that's how the NBA works anymore.
Obviously, It's like circa nineteen eighty nine. Yeah. Yeah, we're
in this era where you know, teams are catering their franchises to make these
guys want to stick around long term, let alone trying to needle them and
whatever. Sure it works every now and then, you know, Pop a
Bitch obviously historically has been great at using the media to get to his players.
I think the Nurse has done it pretty effectively in Toronto. But yeah,
Byron Scott was as sitting duck. No, he was never gonna last
longer than two years, and be he didn't have a lot of support from
the non like people who just wanted him to be there with Kobe and rioting
out. People knew he was kind of a lame duck coach, and I
think the Angelo and a lot of players soft through it too, was there
and I'll premise it's mine. I think my favorite like extended moment in the
book is the Phoenix Suns bus scene along the trade deadline. It's a reminder
that there are the reporters who after the freed to talk along lines of all
the trades that didn't happen, or the trades that happened, how how long
they were in the air. But this was one of those situations where you
remember that there are players who will be genuinely shocked by what happens in those
moments because they came without warning. That was just one of my favorite anecdotes
from the book. So again, by the book, what was your do
you have like a favorite moment or one of your favorite moments that you were
able to include the book or maybe even in you were doing the interview or
you found out this information you pieced together the anecdote and you were like,
oh, this is gonna hit in the book. Yeah, the Sun's thing
is awesome being that. To give a little more insight to the listeners,
they're like, they're literally idoling in the suns Arena waiting to take off to
the airport as that buzzer, that ticker is getting closer and closer to the
deadline, and Isaiah, someone else gets traded, someone else gets straded,
someone else getstraded, and finally the Sun's even rallied together on the bus and
like put up their hands in the hotel and sound like this is our group.
We're finishing the years strong. And someone goes, oh, Isaiah Thomas,
you got traded too. So the scene that I think is the craziest
scene of all. We kind of tease some kink stuff earlier, the fact
that there was already speculation from the second that the King's hired Pete Delassandra to
be their GM again, one of these other young analytical minor executives like we've
been talking about. They hired him a month or so after they hired Michael
Malone to be their head coach, and then immediately started the firestorm of will
Mike Malone last. It's a pretty tried and true troupe if you hire an
executive after the coach, like will that executive want to keep that coach.
So those whispers were swirling all year long. Then they trade for Rudy Gay
and it starts this win now clock on that situation, which they shouldn't have
had. Michael Malone took that job thinking they had a two year window and
make the playoffs. So they get to that summer when they didn't make the
playoffs, they're feeling all this pressure and George Carl starts to be the loudest
name being whispered as a potential Michael Malone replacement. He had a connection with
Pete Alsandro and another King's advisor, Chris Mullen, who they both went to
Saint John's, and there was a connection with George Carl with the Warriors,
with Kars Molin and all that type of stuff. So flash forward to the
summer of twenty four team, which six months before Michael Mullen gets fired,
their coaching staff is out to launch in Vegas Summer League, and for anyone
who's ever been to the strip in Las Vegas, you know there's thousands of
restaurants on the strip, literally thousands, And at Summer League, every team
was put up at their own hotel, and you know, you can bump
it into literally anyone all over Las Vegas is sometimes an NBA person. It's
the number one reason why I go every year, Just an amazing like playground
to meet anybody who's ever been affiliated with the league. But sure enough,
as the King's coaching staff hearing all this noise for a year, at this
point, they're out to lunch at this restaurant called law Pesheria. I forget
what restaurant it was at. I forget what hotel it was in, but
law Pesheria. They're kind of there's this air and already that like they need
to win Summer League to get the pressure off their back, which like,
no one needs to win Summer League. Summer it's a hotel if nothing,
Yeah, work on exhibition, like it's just to make money and develop young
guys or whatever. So as they're feeling that pressure, hearing George Carl's name,
as they're walking out of the lack of Pressureia who is walking into that
very same restaurant. The background at Dday, the King's owner Chris Mallen and
George Carl, And it's just like you can't draw up that a scene,
like it's just something that happened in real life, and it's unbelievable that it
did, and sure enough foreshadowed what happens, you know, a couple months
later, Michael Malone gets fired and the replacement was very much George Carl.
So that stuff is just like one page out of many of the King's crazy,
crazy, crazy chaos. Yeah, the Kings are a curriceature of a
caricature, but that was a Yeah, that scene was wild. Have your
after writing and reporting on this book, has your impressions or feelings on tanking
change at all or I guess it's impossible for them not to have changed.
How is writing this book impacted your view of tanking in the NBA. I
think it's just really doubled down the fact that, you know, especially as
the league has grown and evolved more into this arms race of just trying to
paara superstars together. The only way for a lot of these teams to get
them is through the draft, and any team you only have three avenues,
right, It's the draft, through free agency, through trade, and if
you want to sign someone in free agency, or if you want to trade
for them like the Lakers David with a NFTE Davis and hope they'll stay for
you long term. The easiest way to do so is to already have an
All Star on your roster, and the easiest route for anyone to get one
is through the draft. And I think it's only it's it's become more and
more clear this last season where you see, you know, James Harder just
says I want to go to Brooklyn, and sure enough he lands up in
Brooklyn. And the Rockets have no other have no other alternative but to be
the worst team in the league. Obviously, they've been criticized for the return
package, and maybe they could have done a little bit better and put themselves
in more of a contending capacity. But they're Houston, and as much as
Houston's the number four medium mark or wherever it is in America, no player
is thinking of Houston as a free agent destination. They were thinking of it
when they had James Harden and Darrel Murray pushing the chips in the middle of
the table. It's the same thing in Orlando, in Milwaukee and Detroit even
more so, like these markets that aren't going to be a marquee and aren't
going to be throwing, you know, a player into the upper echelon of
superstardom. You're only going to get that guy if you land them in the
draft, or you have somebody there like Jannie for example, who then you
can trade for Drew Howiday and then Drew Howiday will sign his extension to be
there. So I think as the NBA has continued to become more and more
of this stockpiling of players, I think tanking makes more and more sense you
and I think the shift in lottery odds posting ky era obviously, and then
even now with the play in tournament, I do think it diswades tanking,
and we kind of saw that effect. At least they are more teams competing
for something to the end of the year. My two questions on this are,
though, do you think that could have more organically happened where you know,
a good trunk of this book is kind of taking place where the Warriors
exist or the Miami Heat with Lebron exist when there's not that fore gone title
threat, which we don't have that dynasty now, and even if you look
at the nets, is one looking at the ages of those players, they're
not built to last, and then looking at how these other teams have cycled
through championship windows so quickly. They're not built to last. And so the
idea that teams aren't just looking at it as well, why even shry because
Team X exist? Could that have organically dissuaded tanking? And then do you
think that the shift in lottery odds now has irrespective of tanking, has that
hurt smaller markets ability to rebuild? Because, as you argue the three ways
to get a star, the draft is the easiest way, but I think
for certain markets they probably view it as the only way to get a star.
For sure, I think the odds definitely played more into I mean,
everyone will admit anyone who plays the lottery admits that it is kind of a
bit of an exercise and utility, being that it ultimately does come down to
chance. I mean. Sam Presty opened his end of year press conference on
Zoom a couple of weeks back saying, for like, get literally went on
a half hour preamble before we took any questions, talking about you know,
the measured or approach and how this ultimately does play risk, you risk and
chance, and that does play a big factor in your ultimate success. But
you know, you scout and you draft well and you mitigate those factors.
But I mean, we still saw all those teams play the lottery because this
twenty twenty one class is considered to be the best Classes four team that we
talked about in the book. So the worst team Houston, there's still guaranteed
the top five pick. Those bottom two three teams that are only getting a
fourteen percent chance now they're only getting that they have still have a chance of
getting six and seven where you're still getting you know, Jamal Murray went seven.
Now there's still a lot of players available, and the higher you get
an opportunity to pick, the higher the likelihood is that you're going to get
it a franchise changing guy. Obviously, the playing tournament forced teams like Washington
and Sacramento to not forced, but encourage them to chase it. But I
still think as long as your record is dependent it is, as long as
you're draft positioning is dependent on your record, we're still going to see teams
do it. Because in basketball, you know, it's like one player means
so much more in basketball than any other sports, as much as the quarterback
and the NFL is considered gonna be the you know, the most important position
in sports. Lebron has made the finals eight or nine to the last ten
years. Whatever it is. As much as it's a testament to him,
it's a testament to how much agency one player can have on the court.
Because they play the both sides to the court, they can play the whole
game. You don't see that in any other team function. And I think
that you know, true absolute power that those guys have. Sure, we're
gonna see teams, not we're gonna see teams, you know, straight away
and try to get into playing tournament or looked at those odds and say,
all right, it's not as guarantee of an opportunity, but we're still going
to see teams do it. Especially we're going to see teams tanking down the
stretch too, because that first year in twenty nineteen, when the Lakers jumped
up to four and the Grizzles turns up to two, those teams moved because
the lower odd the flattening of the odds, it gives those teams in the
middle of the lottery even higher of a change, So it actually incentive bysed
teams in that tend to like seven range in the lottery to actually lose more
games on the scratch. So there are some complicated factors. I think a
lot of there's no way they just snap their fingers and tank them to solve
new questions before I get you out of here is do you think that we
will see One of the things I think rubbed people around way about the Hinky
stuff was it was whether he set out to do it for so long.
It was clearly more than his one year tank job. It was set up
to do that. Do you think we'll ever see because as you mentioned,
the odds are still in favor of losing regardless of them being flattened. Do
you think that we'll ever see someone even push it close to that extreme again,
or do you think one the NBA wouldn't let it get to that point
or has those flatten dodds Where it's gone from twenty five percent when you have
the league's worth record to fourteen percent is a pretty substantial difference. They've disincentivized
that from happening to the extreme that Sam Hinky brought it in Philly, we
might see, okay, see, I mean obviously the Thunder have Shay Gildas
Alexander and the piece that the six has never had in those early years.
But we'll see. There's conflicting intel on the league depending on who you talk
to about how committed the Thunder are to this timeline and say, you know
he is. He's a borderline all star right now. So will he ultimately
speed this thing up? I don't know. Like we saw at Boston,
the Thunder can't take seventeen first round picks over the next three years and put
them all on one roster. They just can't do that. So they have
the opportunity too because they have those picks. But will they start to package
those and try to trade for a Bradley Dealers something. I don't know,
but I think the Thunderer the clearest position to do. So it's just gonna
be, you know, a couple of factors here in there that swim them
in one direction. I'm sorry, I don't remember what was your second question,
just whether you think I didn't, I didn't ask the execond question yet.
That's why I guess really quickly that whatever happens with say, will be
a good harbinger of what the thunder plan on doing because he is extension eligible
and if you decide to move him, or like did negotiate because he's he's
a max extension eligible player, Like, if you're not gonna offer the max,
he's probably not going to sign that deal. They're decision making on him
will probably hint on where this thing is going. It would be my guess
I would agree. Is there anything about this book I have not asked you
or that no one in previous interviews has asked you that that you would like
to discuss. It's an interesting question. I've been trying to prepare for this
answer, but I'll say that, you know, a lot of people didn't
ask that much about what's really I think it was really fascinating the summer of
twenty fourteen how the Calves were balancing the potential sign on Lebron and having the
number one pick, And I think that just as another further testament to how
valuable the draft capital is for these small market teams like Lebron is a total
different conversation, being that he was obviously from Akron and that was a whole
major driving point and bringing them back to Cleveland. But I think the decision
making that teams have to do well planning for the president while while also planning
for the future. Everyone has to do that. It's such a difficult balance,
but especially with that draft free agency being like literally free agency opens the
week after the draft happens. And I know there's been a conversation for years
amongst the leaves dec but it's about flipping that. I think it's great.
I think it's really interesting that it's not that easy and that teams have to
make these picks and trades around the draft, not knowne what they're going to
get in free agency, and I think that plays a big role behind the
scenes and under the surface, that fansn't necessarily realize all the time how much
free agency ultimately plays a factor in a lot of teams draft decision. I
mean, that's why Yannis landed the Milwaukee the Mavericks. This is the last
story I'll say before we get at here. The Mavericks had the thirteenth pick
in twenty thirteen and Atlanta was desiperately trying to trade up to get Jannest.
They had seventeen and eighteen that year, and they thought you know, why
wouldn't you trade down four spots to get an extra pick. The Mavericks were
trying to save salary cap for the following summer twenty fourteens. They were trying
to go out for Lebron and Melow too. They didn't want to add two
more rookie scale contracts. They didn't want to add one more rookie scale contract
had four guaranteed years, and that's they traded out of that pick. That's
how Kelly Lennick lands to Boston because they didn't want to have extra money on
their books for the next July. And that's why Yannis ended up going fifteen
to Milwaukee because Atlanta couldn't trade above them. So I think it's really fascinating
how much free agency tinkering is in the back and sometimes the of team's minds
when they were making these reaction and decisions. The other thing I'll plug too
is because you mentioned the Cethlics, the aggression with which Danny Ainge tried to
get Justice Winslow in Boston far exceeds just the Charlotte Hornet's anecdote that everybody knows
by now. So buy this book. Built to Lose how the NBA's tanking
era change the league forever. It's by Jake Fisher, who's also a writer
insider does everything about the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter at
Jake L. Fisher spelled out Jake L. Fish Er Jake, thank you
so much for taking the time. This was I thoroughly enjoyed this book and
I hope to be able to talk to you soon or meet you in person
one day. Yeah, man, well you know we're opening back up,
so I hope to see you and Arena a pleacherport functioning in your future.