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Hardwoodnox Listeners. I am Dan for Valley, coming at you without my co
host Andy Bailey this time. I am, however, pleased to be joined
by an og of the Hardwin Knox podcast. He is the founder of NBA
Math, our host site, and he is also a quality editor for Bleacher
Report, Adam Frammel. You can follow him on Twitter at Frammel zero nine.
It's always good to talk to him. We're obviously going to be talking
about the MBA being the NBA season being suspended in response to Rudy Gobert testing
positive for the coronavirus, and we know now that Donovan Mitchell, his Utah
Jazz teammate, has tested positive as well, and that they are the only
two MBA players ten generally related employees whatever we know of so far that have
tested positive. Before we really get into this, though, we just both
wanted to make it clear that we've read stuff, We've tried to remain informed
on this, but if we say something that is inaccurate. We're not trying
to be egregious, We're not trying to be wrong on purpose, and we
didn't set out to do this podcast with the goal of being inflammatory. We
just want to have an honest discussion about the NBA moving forward. And as
a quick note for the future of this podcast, we might take the next
couple of days off after this podcast, but we will start rolling out some
big picture content depending on if we get clarity on how long the league will
be shut down. We'll do some singular deep dives into teams is futures,
so you will still be hearing from us. Do not fear about that.
Everyone, Just stay safe out there. However, we do have this discussion
now to partake in. I want to start Adam first with how are you
doing? You know, I've I've I've been better. This has been a
strange, strange week, especially as people who are very, very involved in
the sports industry which is just reacting to this pandemic and trying to figure out
where to go from here, and just more importantly as members of society and
figuring out like how we're going to implement social distancing and other things that can
that can help people and try to reduce the spread of the pandemic. So
it's been an interesting week, but I'm always glad to talk to you same
here, which was under better circumstances. I do wish that we could fire
twenty twenty into the sun. The past few years, I wish we could
find into the sun in general. Twenty twenty specifically has been bad thus far.
I'm curious to see what was your even in the lead up to the
Rudy Gobert testing positive for the coronavirus. What was your feeling about what the
NBA had done to that point. Did you think that they were quick enough
in even getting to the point where it seemed that fans weren't going to be
at games knowing that Rudy Gobert had been tested earlier in the day, But
before that thunder Jazz game, where are you surprised that the NBA didn't already
have that game canceled without knowing the results. And then ultimately, what was
just your feeling to see the news come in from both Woods and Shams that
the NBA suspended its season, and it went from this, they're going to
be taking these extreme precautionary measures too. Oh, it's just done for now
in the span of just a few hours. Yeah, I think it's hard
to feel that the NBA did enough initially, just because the response felt more
reactive than proactive, which I think is a battle that is tough when there
there's so much money involved, and that ultimately has to be a consideration for
these corporations in large businesses. I wish it wasn't, but it does usually
end up being that way, and it feels like more could have been done
sooner. But I'm glad that we ultimately got to the place that we needed
to be, even if it was a whirlwind of a couple of hours.
I think you were working and I was working while all of this was unfolding,
and the timeline of events throughout the day was just ridiculous, you know,
starting out with the Ivy League canceling all of their spring sports and moving
on to the NCAA announcing that its biggest moneymaker, March Madness, was going
to be played without fans, and we're at the time of recording this,
we're still not really sure if there's going to be a tournament. Conference tournaments
have been canceled, but the actual signature event itself has not and you know,
just moving from there with the Gobert news and then it took what four
minutes that response to the actual suspension of the season, which had been rumored
earlier as one of the possibilities that all of the teams except the New York
Knicks were talking about. And yeah, I mean just it's hard to it's
hard to process just the ridiculous breakneck speed of this news cycle and how important
and far reaching it was, and throughout and in the middle of it,
Tom Hanks and his wife testing positive for Corona as well was seemed to slip
right into that timeline. My guests would be, as we were recording this,
Kansas, the number one team in the country, just announced that they've
suspended all athletic events and traveling. Definitely, So my guests would be,
the March Madness Tournament is definitely not going to happen this year. Oh,
there's no way, there's no way. I just can't. I don't even
that's not even something that you could really postpone. I don't think. Yeah,
I think there's just too much scheduling that goes into it, and you
know, especially using arenas that NBA teams share and all that stuff there's it
would just be too much of a scheduling nightmare. In my opinion, I
think the NCAA should extend like eligibility waivers to basically every player this season and
let the players who are going to go pro still go pro. Let recruits
come in, but just give everyone another year, because otherwise you're stripping away
what everyone had been working towards. I don't know if they're going to do
that. I don't know how exactly the logistics of that would work. Maybe
you only look at teams who would have made the tournament and do that,
or who are still alive in conference tournaments. Again, like even though logistics
of that are a nightmare, but it'll be interesting to see how that kind
of thing plays out too. Before I ask you about just the impact this
has on this NBA season and what the potential scenarios would be, where do
you sort of fall on the Rudy Gobert element of all this. The video
has made the rounds by now that he was touching all the reporters microphones that
were in front of him, after the NBA had instituted that I think was
a six to eight feet distance mandatory space between reporters and players, and they
didn't have media in the locker rooms. He's been getting dragged on social media
and also in the one of woj's reports, he said that teammates are frustrated
with Gobert, saying he had shown a cavalier attitude towards the coronavirus by touching
people's things, which you would think happens normally in a locker room. Anyway,
I don't know if it was an excessive instance for him, But where
do you sort of fall on that discussion that's being taken place, because I
think it's a discussion that needs to be had, as unpleasant as it is,
just because now he's so associated with this and he probably always will be.
But I think it's important that we don't conflate two different reactions to this.
On one hand, yes, Rudy Gobert was incredibly irresponsible and made took
to this whole situation way too lightly, when it was already clear that the
NBA, even though those measures were insufficient and ultimately weren't going to make bunch
of a difference, just took even those precautions far too lightly and put himself,
in his teammates and reporters and fans and everyone who's connected to these people
at risk, and that was not good. He deserves a lot of criticism
for that. His teammates should be frustrated that he didn't take it more seriously.
And you know, we don't know exactly what happened in the locker room,
if he was behaving as he normally would, or if he was doing
what he did with the microphones and phones and like making a point to really
touch anything. I don't think we've seen that level of detail in the reporting.
But at the same time, like, I don't think it's fair if
his reputation is forever patient zero within the NBA and the person who's responsible for
the suspension of the season, that ultimately would have happened anyway. There was
going to there was inevitably going to be a player who tested positive for the
coronavirus and was going to spread throughout the league if if it wasn't shut down.
We don't know if he's responsible for infecting Donovan Mitchell, who has also
tested positive. We don't know if Donovan Mitchell had it first. Because the
contagious period of this virus is five to fourteen days that are asymptomatic before you
start showing symptoms. We have no idea what the timeline is on all of
this, other than the fact that he was the first player who was reported
to test positive and four minutes after that Elite the season was suspended. So
I think it's inevitable that he's going to be connected to it. I think
that's another that's a little bit unfair to him, and we can recognize that
while also criticizing his behavior. Yeah, that's definitely where I fall on it
as well, just because I don't know unless he was going around cities and
licking random people, I don't know how he put any additional people at risk
who wouldn't have already been at risk had he contracted it in the first place.
And it's like you said, based on the incubation period for all this,
we don't know who had at first, whether it was Mitchell or Gobert,
because it's really spotty on when the symptoms could show. I think I
saw that ninety seven percent or more of the cases you're going to show the
symptoms within eleven point five days, but that there are still like cases where
it goes as long as fourteen, and so I do think he deserves the
criticism just because to treat it with that cavalier attitude. It's a microcosm of
how we're sort of in this mess in the first place, because we've known
about the coronavirus since December at least, and there have not been preventative measures
being taken, and even now it's so hard to test people. And we
talked about this before we were recording. It's just alarming that according to The
Atlantic, there have been seven thousand people tested in the US so far,
and fifty eight of those are associated with a basketball team at this point.
And there's really a discrepancy in accessibility there. And I think you even had
I forget what the other number you said was before we started that over the
past week there was only like seventy seven people tested or something like that officially
by the seat you see is what I think I saw there, right,
And so knowing that a majority of that comes from a basketball team, there's
there's just so many different issues at play, and I just think the optics
of the way that he was viewing it, where he didn't take it seriously.
That's just asymptomatic of this larger issue of too many people weren't taking it
seriously. And you know what myself included, like this is just something that,
yeah, I thought I was doing things like I thought I was being
definitely more I don't know how you say more clean, but like I'm probably
not going to go to the gym anymore. I believe it's cleaner cleaner.
Yeah, so that's how you say it. But like even at the gym,
trying to just wipe down the machines more. I would always would,
but I was just extra thorough and like things like that, trying to make
washing my hands more often throughout the day than I normally would. But something
like this is where it hits home, and that's where it starts to resonate
with people. That's definitely I don't I don't want to say it's wrong,
but it is wrong. And so that it would take that long for people
to take it seriously. So I think that's where the criticism for him is
fair, and because he had that platform, because he did it so egregiously
where you know, I don't know that the reporters that were on the road
at the time, they at least didn't test positive. We've seen now on
Twitter, so him wiping his hands on those recorders, like, the degree
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percent off. This is related to this, though, and I will fall
under the umbrella of someone who made a mistake here the jokes that are sort
of transpiring on social media. Where do you sort of land with the ability
to joke during a time like this? And I will since you ask me
whether I would, uh and so that that means this isn't coming unsolicited.
It makes Adam a better human than I probably, But I tweeted out something.
I tweeted out something about Rudy Gobert and the playoffs before we knew we
had Corona, before I knew the season was suspended, and it was just
in poor taste. It was pointed out to me multiple times on Twitter.
I quickly deleted it. I I've owned up to it. It sounds weird
to say that I'm not trying to competent myself there, but I do think
there was no place for the joke that I made. I've seen worse ones,
but there is no place for someone who wants to hold themselves to a
higher morality bar for the joke that I made, But I do think that
there is a place to not make light of what's happening, but to highlight
lighter aspects of what are going to be offshoots from this, where if you
want a joke that the Toronto Raptors are still going to be the defending champions
when next season rolls around, but I'm also open to opinions to the contrary
that would say, you know what, even the latter's not really okay in
this time. And so I'm just knowing what social media has become and how
Rudy Gobert is getting dragged and knowing about I think the low hanging fruit jokes.
I saw it multiple times where Rudy Gobert is really defensive player of the
Year because he stopped the entire league. That seems like something that would be
mostly innocuous to me. I think when you're getting into the specific individual,
and again this is coming from someone who already made a joke in poor taste
about this specific individual, you need to think more about what this infers to
the people that were ancillary impacted by this, where the reporters around him,
the families and then his teammates, so maybe even something like that is crossing
a line. But I'm wondering if there's still room in your opinion to make
light of aspects of this during what is not just for the NBA, but
for our nation, for the entire world right now, a darker time.
Well, first and foremost for anyone who's listening to this, I think if
you ever have to make an apology, take note of what Dan just did
and not say like I apologize if you were offended, or any of those
like caging the apologies, like just take responsibility for the actual action, right,
or just don't make the accident in the first place. I mean,
that's better. I think that's unrealistic too. No, I think your examples
are good ones, like maybe we don't make as many jokes about go Bear
right now because he is affected by this, because he affected other people during
this situation. And then more overarching ones like the Toronto Raptors are still champions
for the time being, like those seem more acceptable, And it's it's a
fine line. It's a tough one to find, it's a tough one to
define, But ultimately I think that as the world kind of descends into figuring
out what our responses are going to be to this pandemic and how we're going
to react, And we're seeing in so many countries that the idea of social
distancing and trying to flatten the curve are the most effective ways of combating the
spread of the coronavirus. That you know, we need levity, and it
needs to be appropriate humor. It needs to be humor that is going to
uplift rather than to bring down. But there is a place for it.
I think one of the best examples I've seen in this is a joke that
has since been recycled multiple times that I've noticed on Twitter, social media and
a nutshell right right, And I don't remember who the first person I saw
to come out with this was. But now the World Health Organization said that
contrary to reports that our dogs cannot have the coronavirus, we cannot pass it
on to them, so any dogs that have been quarantined can be released,
so effectively, who let the dogs out? Right? That's funny, it's
not offensive, it's not making light of the situation. It's not making people
have a negative reaction if they've been directly impacted by this situation. And I
think that that that type of humor there is certainly a place for and that
it's something honestly we should strive for because we do need to be like working
to uplift each other while we're all figuring out what our personal and societal responses
to this are. I think we should also note too that you know how
bad the takes can get during an NBA off season. Now we're entering an
unplanned off season for basically every single sport. Oh, I'm terrified the takes
are going to get bad. I'm terrified. I'm scared, horrified at what's
going to transpire, the actual impact on the league now though, so there's
there's going to be an MBA Board of Governors meeting, I think slightly after
shortly after we record this, so it'll be outdated by then. However,
it does seem, based on the reporting, that this is going to be
the suspension for a minimum of two weeks, but in reality it's going to
end up going to be way longer. Yeah, I think, like we
saw with the Chinese Basketball Association that it was what two and a half months
because they shut down in early January and they're just starting to figure out how
to come back now, right, And so if you're in whether we use
that as a baseline or not, what do you think is the optimal outcome
of all this for the NBA with regards specifically to this season. Is it
just they start the playoffs, maybe there's a single game play in tournament for
all the teams that we're competing for eight in the West. Is it they
just push everything back and they finish out the rest of the regular season,
or at least a big portion of it. The playoffs start later, the
finals take place in August essentially, and then you move everything back from there,
the draft, summer league, free agency, all that stuff, including
the start of next season. Or do you think at this point there's a
chance this obviously isn't the ideal outcome, but just looking at the future and
the ramifications that pushing back to the time I would have on next year,
do you think it potentially could reach a point where it just makes the most
sense to cancel this season completely, hit reset, and start all over next
year. Talk about a loaded question. I think the most important and generalized
plan should be that the NBA needs to realize that it is ultimately an entertainment
organization and that no matter how much it's going to impact the money making mechanisms
and the CBA and everything involved with the league, that basketball should not be
played until we are fully confident that this has been handled and neutralized and that
we are not endangering anybody by continuing play, even if that means no basketball
period until twenty twenty one. Now, in an ideal world where we get
this under control and something can happen and we're actually talking about the timeline of
these seasons, I think that the ideal outcome is still finishing out the regular
season in delayed fashion, maybe even condensed fashion, but still giving players some
sort of lead in into the playoffs, which maybe even shorten those I think
it's it's possibly better to condensed the playoffs and the regular season by having best
of three series or best of five series and maybe only having a best of
seven in the NBA Finals, and then on the back end, possibly treating
the twenty twenty twenty one season as essentially like a pseudo lockout shortened season.
You know, as we saw the last time there was an NBA lockout,
starting it in mid December and only playing what was at sixty six games.
I think ye off the top of my head. Yeah, I think that
it's still not just necessary, but it should be mandatory to have some sort
of extended off season, both for the mental and the physical benefit of the
players, especially during what's been such a trying and tumultuous season from a mental
standpoint, you know, dealing with a pandemic, dealing with the death of
an NBA icon, when when Kobe Bryant died in January. There's been a
lot for these players to process, and the league has placed such an emphasis
on mental health priorities. You know, We've seen Kevin Love talk about it,
We've seen other players talk about it, that it would be hypocritical and
detrimental to attempt to force feed the NBA schedule into a rigid timeline when that's
not how we should be handling this. Yeah, it's and as we were,
as you were actually speaking, the NBA announced that the league is going
to be suspended for a minimum of thirty days for a month. So that's
what they're already looking at. We're in the middle of March, and so
you're looking at mid April at the absolute earliest. And just like you said,
with the CBA, the Chinese Basketball Association, not the collective bargaining agreement
that was a two and a half month delay, and so I would say
even to hope that it's back in a month to six weeks is way too
optimistic. The one thing that might be an vote against finishing this season in
some form, And I'm all for getting as much basketball as we still can
once this pandemic is hopefully hopefully has passed. But if teams aren't going to
be allowed to practice during this time, like they're going to be under self
quarantine, we can imagine for at least the next two weeks or something.
But if you can't run practices and players have actually been out of games and
that setting for two months or something, don't you almost need a training camp
then to come back from it? And do we really want to see what
the playoffs look like at that point at least the quality of it if guys
really haven't played I don't want to say in a competitive setting, but at
least in their team setting after what could be six, eight, twelve weeks
or something wild like that. Yeah, I think that's a valid concern.
I think that the determining factors should be less focused on quality of play and
more on injury prevention. If guys aren't prepared to be back on the court
physically and are asked to jump back into it, and we have demonstrable evidence
that that's going to lead to increased injury risks, that's where things get concerning
to me. If we have to deal with with low quality play like okay,
like we still watch college basketball, right, true? True, If
they brought back best of five as a result of this, there will be
people that will just lash onto it and never let it go, because there
are strong advocates for having best of five in the first round. If they
have to go as short as best of three and then we end up seeing
like the seventh you know, the seventh seeded Dallas Mavericks in the West end
up winning the title, they're going to be clamorings for that to be sort
of a new format. This really, this really just is uncharted territory,
and I think there are larger concerns in the macro. And the more important
thing is that everyone realizes it's not necessarily about them during this just because if
you're younger, or you're in great shape, and you're even if you have
a coronavirus. You're not at imminent risk. The people you come into contact
could be, and that's where the concern needs to be. Now, all
of that aside, I understand that needs to be the priority. I really
hope we get to see basketball again this year. Sports are going to come
back regardless, but I hope that this is in the situation where the NBA
nineteen twenty twenty season is is just done. I hope that they're still able
to finish it out in some format. Yeah, I mean, selfishly from
my perspective, you know, like so much of what I do revolves around
like historical record keeping and comparisons to past seasons and pass players and stuff,
and I have no idea how to process like a season that only kind of
happened, and just from a precedent standpoint, like it would be nice just
to have that sense of completion, but that in no way should take precedence
over any of the overarching concerns, whether for the NBA or society itself.
Did you have anything to add on this run or anything you wanted to hit
on with this, I think that that it just to reinforce what you just
said, Like, you know, it's I would I assume that we have
a mix of people listening to these podcasts and if you are in a bracket
that is more at risk, whether you're above sixty years old or you have
underlying conditions, like please take care of yourself. Please take it seriously.
This isn't just the flu. If you are healthy, like recognize that even
if you you feel like you yourself are not at risk, that by taking
those chances, you are contributing to the spread of this pandemic, either to
people who are close to you or people you don't know. And the most
responsible thing that all of us can do is to take this as seriously as
possible and to make drastic changes to our own behavior in the m to make
sure that we don't have to make drastic ones in the long term. This
is I mean, this is bigger than basketball. I'm with everything you just
said, and it's it all sucks. In the interm where you're thinking about
the workers who directly impacted by this, it does seem like at least some
owners will step up and take care of the arena employees. I hope the
ones who are worrying about you hourly salaries not don't have guaranteed wages, but
there are businesses that depend on the foot traffic coming in and out of the
arenas, and then there are just businesses in the larger economy that are really
going to suffer. In our business specifically, I think you and I are
definitely on the luckier end of the spectrum at Bleacher Report, but there are
freelancers out there that aren't going to be so lucky because they need access to
do their job on a daily basis. So my thoughts are definitely with all
those people. And again it's still a matter of though. We do have
to think about the bigger picture and take this seriously. So I agree with
everything you you just said there. I'm trying to figure out how best to
approach this one because we're about to veer into more political territory. But I
think that it's been interesting to see how governmental coverage of this and sports coverage
of this has differed, And the timeline was especially interesting. Throughout Wednesday afternoon
and night, we had President Trump gave a press conference where certain policies were
proposed given I'm not really sure, restricting travel to Europe, allowing free testing
and treatment, and those were subsequently walked back or modified in the immediate aftermath.
But it was interesting how right after that happened was when Gobert tested positive
and when the NBA suspended and really started to take the lead as other sports
organizations in this country and around the world I've done, And for me,
it was an interesting look at both how unprepared we are as a country for
the reaction to a pandemic like this and how interwoven sports are into our culture
and our society. Just that these leagues, which are ultimately independent operations,
are making policy that are impacting so many people and are pushing American citizens and
citizens around the world to realize if they hadn't already the gravity of what we're
dealing with. I think it's unfortunate that so many people took this lightly,
weren't taking as many precautions as they should, weren't practicing these ideas of social
distancing until Tom Hanks and Rita Hanks tested positive for coronavirus, until are taken
away and that outlet that we have in the entertainment industry is no longer there,
and that that's what it takes for us to realize what we should be
doing and how an independent organization is taking more drastic steps than a government that
seems more interested in suppressing the number of cases and treating people like numbers than
actually doing what's necessary to combat this. I'm not really sure like what I'm
looking for as a follow up here, or if I'm just talking to talk,
but it was. It was. That was one of my biggest takeaways
from the day, was just figuring out how to process all of that and
wrap my head around just these differences that we're seeing, right, and also
the variance in perception where it seems like people are expecting the sports leagues and
holding them more accountable than they actually are the government, which is just certainly
a problem. And I'd alluded to this before, but I was reading a
New York Times are where I believe there was a lab in Seattle that was
as early as December. They were trying to get approval from just rolling out
preventive measures and being able to test people, and they just kept being rebuffed
at every turn until not even until recently, but even up to Wednesday,
when all this stuff happens in the NBA. And I think you're absolutely right
that it sucks that it takes more visible people being impacted for it to hit
home for some people and even including myself. But then there's also a lack
of exposure to the issue itself because it's not being handled properly by the government
or being made a priority that it should have been. There's no reason why
there's always going to be an accessibility problem for these tests, but the extent
to which it's an issue still is just absolutely egregious. Knowing where in South
Korea they can test ten thousand people a day and we've only had around seven
thousand people. Again numbers according to the Atlantic tested in the United States after
all this has happen, and so for that number is obviously going to go
up, but that then we'll have to look at the discrepancy between who actually
has access to that. It's going to be the wealthy as opposed to the
the everyday people, and so that's just something that's really disturbing. And then
there's also, of course the uh, the issue of partisanship that still comes
up during this where you know, is it because one party is proposing these
policies that they're getting walked back by the other, because because you're still dealing
with the stupid political agendas and it's I don't even know what the word would
be here. You can't expect everyone to just coalace into just one like one
view or just that's too ideal, is I guess what I'm saying that what
we want is probably too ideal. But the fact that we're so far away
from what you just outlined being in that spot is unsettling Times Infinity. Yeah,
I think that it's it's it's revealed a lot. It's it's made the
income disparity very clear. But I do hope that just the loss of such
an integral part of our daily entertainment in sports is going to push for further
change, you know, and and and really unity at a time where polarization
has become the norm. You know. We're still seeing that that Mitch McConnell
is shutting down congressional response until after a recess, which doesn't make sense when
this is such a rapidly evolving pandemic. We're seeing that the House Leader McCarthy
is is trying to shut down a Democrat proposed bill that would allow for sick
leave, that would allow for for testing. And we just need to see
more people coming together and and trying to figure out, like what's the best
way that we can we can do all of this together, because ultimately,
like that's what's going to need to happen. There was one positive development earlier
today where Californian and Representative Katie Porter really pushed the head of the CDC to
get a commitment that all Americans will be able to get tests for coronavirus that
are covered. And that's fantastic. But this shouldn't be something that is a
bar a part as an issue that one side is pushing for that the other
side is pushing back against it. It is not, It does not need
to be a referendum on Trump's leadership, and in my opinion, wholly lacking
response because ultimately, like this is bigger than that. We have estimates that
over one hundred million people could be impacted by this, and those might be
conservative impacts, a conservative estimates rather, and it's we need to, if
nothing else, take the the extent to which these sports leagues are reacting and
extend that to all branches. Yeah, I'm with you every step of the
way, and I think as you sort of point out the beginning of that
this is at least proof if nothing else that sports really do matter, and
so if this maybe is the impetus for there to be more of a of
a sweeping change and general action, meaningful action, then at least there's that
to take away from it. But I agree with everything you hit on right
there, Adam, Thank you so much for coming on. It's always a
joy to talk to you, even when it's under less than ideal circumstances.
If you guys aren't following him on Twitter, he's at FRAML zero nine,
be sure to follow MBA Math on Twitter at MBA Underscore Math. Shout out
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Until next time, I leave everybody with the shout out too, Beno
Udri and Kyle Anderson and with this message of stay safe and Andy and I
and this podcast will continue to be pumping out content while the NBA remains in
lurch. Take care for the one standing guard, for the eagle eyed,
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