Speaker 1: All right, were lave today, Tim Dally Nissan Here in
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City. It's forty five twenty eight South State Street.
Speaker 1: It's their year end clearance event. Even though it's February.
Speaker 1: They've extended it special financing as low as zero percent
Speaker 1: and no money down, no payments for two months. So
Speaker 1: if you're in the market for a car, coming out
Speaker 1: and say hello, it's forty five twenty eight South State
Speaker 1: Street here in Salt Lake City. Our next guest knows
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City is a small town called a small town.
Speaker 1: Last week, let's welcome him in, Howard Beck on a
Speaker 1: Friday afternoon. Howard, Happy Friday. Which large city do we
Speaker 1: find you in on this Friday afternoon?
Speaker 2: I am happily ensconced in the Borough of Brooklyn in
Speaker 2: traffic on my way to the arena, where I will
Speaker 2: see the Barnburger between the nets and Portland trailblazers who
Speaker 2: also hail from a small city.
Speaker 1: By the way, Okay, if Portland's it was the town
Speaker 1: thing that got me, the small town. If Portland's a
Speaker 1: small town, I think that's fine with us out here
Speaker 1: in Salt.
Speaker 2: Lake I love all the small towns equal, you know.
Speaker 3: I know you do.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're in traffic in Brooklyn, we get you
Speaker 1: for what forty five minutes to an hour today on
Speaker 1: a Friday.
Speaker 2: According to the lift drivers mapping, we're six minutes out,
Speaker 2: which means it'll actually be fifteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough. Well let's get into it then, because
Speaker 1: obviously time is of the essence. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: get your take on some comments Lebron made about you know,
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards said doesn't really care to be the face
Speaker 1: of the league, and Lebron, I'm paraphrasing, said, well, who
Speaker 1: would want to be the face of the league when
Speaker 1: everybody talks about the league just takes a bleep on
Speaker 1: it on a daily basis. So I think this is
Speaker 1: an interesting topic for somebody like you because you'll be
Speaker 1: good with it. I think there are a lot of
Speaker 1: things to criticize right now with the modern day and
Speaker 1: age of the way that the business of basketball is
Speaker 1: being run. I get feedback and I have a sense,
Speaker 1: and it's a league I love. It's a game that
Speaker 1: I love that most people feel like the modern day
Speaker 1: NBA has run like a Fortune five hundred company that
Speaker 1: only cares about creating value for shareholders.
Speaker 3: Now, look, I'm a grown up.
Speaker 1: I know this is a front facing, revenue generating entertainment product.
Speaker 1: But does Lebron have a point or is he, you know,
Speaker 1: reacting a little bit in a soft way as it
Speaker 1: pertains to a league that sometimes deserves to be criticized.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of different pieces of this that are
Speaker 2: worth talking about, in a lot of different paths we
Speaker 2: can go down. So I'll give you my first reaction
Speaker 2: to what he said, and then we can hit the
Speaker 2: other parts of it if you want. But let me
Speaker 2: start with this. I'm glad you asked, because one of
Speaker 2: the things Lebron said, the thing that struck me most
Speaker 2: is the thing about why would you want to be
Speaker 2: facing the league when everybody's always basically crapping on it
Speaker 2: and all this, and just feeling like, if you're the
Speaker 2: face of the league as he has been, you put
Speaker 2: yourself in a position where you are just in the
Speaker 2: crossfire every day. I get that part of it, But
Speaker 2: to me, what it speaks to is some thing that
Speaker 2: has been a growing concern of mind for a very
Speaker 2: long time, going back years, which is that players today
Speaker 2: feel that kind of criticism and feel that kind of
Speaker 2: siege from what they believe to be like Capital M
Speaker 2: media because they are flooded every day with whether it's
Speaker 2: TV debate shows or maybe some podcasts, radio, Instagram commenters,
Speaker 2: Twitter commenters, anybody. They are constantly feeling like everybody's just
Speaker 2: kind of criticizing them all the time, and then they
Speaker 2: put this on the Capital M media and then lump
Speaker 2: everybody together. The reason I view it that way or
Speaker 2: I'm concerned about it from that standpoint is there are
Speaker 2: a lot of us who cover the league and Lebron
Speaker 2: actually use that phrase. Those people who cover the league
Speaker 2: are the ones, you know, crapping on us every day.
Speaker 2: The vast majority of us who will cover them league,
Speaker 2: especially as reporters, beat writers, are not the ones he's
Speaker 2: actually talking about. It's the TV debates show, It's people
Speaker 2: on Instagram, it's aggregation accounts that just take things out
Speaker 2: of context and then use it to tee off on people.
Speaker 4: It's all this other stuff.
Speaker 2: The people who are dedicating the most time and effort
Speaker 2: to reporting and writing and actually going into the gym,
Speaker 2: actually going to practice and shoot arounds and games, doing
Speaker 2: the job that I used to do for sixteen years,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, be a beat writer covering a
Speaker 2: team from start to finish, all eighty two games plus playoffs.
Speaker 2: Those are no other people who are firing off takes
Speaker 2: and living on the hot take economy. And my concern
Speaker 2: as a twenty eight year writer covering this league, my
Speaker 2: concern as presidents of the Pro Basketball Writers Association, is
Speaker 2: that we have a growing problem where players view just
Speaker 2: this big noise machine as one big conglomerate and it's not.
Speaker 2: It's hundreds, maybe thousands of voices. But we are taking
Speaker 2: the brunt of this because what's happened is it makes
Speaker 2: it harder to cover the league when players are always
Speaker 2: on the defensive or cut off or or too reticent
Speaker 2: to give their time and their thoughts because they fear
Speaker 2: being in the next spin cycle. And that is a
Speaker 2: that is a problem, and that is a massive concern
Speaker 2: of mind.
Speaker 1: So what is what's fair to be critical of in
Speaker 1: your opinion?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: Because yes, to your point, when these players are hearing
Speaker 1: a million different voices and they're on social media, they're
Speaker 1: on Instagram, they're on Twitter or Blue Sky or whatever,
Speaker 1: and they are in their echo chamber and the algorithm
Speaker 1: feeds them, you know, whatever it does and suddenly, you know,
Speaker 1: a very small group of people in their mind represents
Speaker 1: all of us right that cover the league, and then
Speaker 1: suddenly we're all thrown in the same category. But as
Speaker 1: I referenced, I do believe there are things that are
Speaker 1: very fair to criticize, and I think there are things
Speaker 1: that are fair to criticize with the way Lebron at
Speaker 1: times handles themselves for all of the brilliant So your
Speaker 1: points are well taken, But I will ask you what
Speaker 1: is fair to criticize in your opinion about the modern
Speaker 1: day approach of NBA players and the way the league
Speaker 1: the league is run.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm not I'm not trying to be cute here, Spence.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to answer that. Because everybody has
Speaker 2: their own view of what might be wrong with the league,
Speaker 2: or what needs to be improved, or what they think
Speaker 2: is broken, or whatever it may be. I've got my
Speaker 2: views of it. You and I have had various discussions
Speaker 2: over you know, the months and even years about how
Speaker 2: we viewed certain aspects of the league and the state
Speaker 2: of the game. What's fair, I mean, everything's fair. It's
Speaker 2: not that anything is off limits to criticize, although you know,
Speaker 2: times people get a little too personal or a little
Speaker 2: mean spirited or so hot taking that they lose track
Speaker 2: of the fact that these are human beings playing this game.
Speaker 2: But also I would separate cover you know, the criticism
Speaker 2: of you know, the game written large, that the league
Speaker 2: and what the league is doing at a given time
Speaker 2: changes it's making or the quality of the products. That's
Speaker 2: a different case or a different issue than how the
Speaker 2: players are feeling about being ripped apart on a maybe
Speaker 2: sometimes daily basis by some people who again have no
Speaker 2: interest in it other than their ability to market their takes.
Speaker 1: Do you think any of this has to do directly
Speaker 1: with the way that some of the inside guys handle it?
Speaker 1: The inside, you know, the inside of the NBA on TNT,
Speaker 1: which is still, in my opinion, the most entertaining studio show.
Speaker 3: Out for any sport, not just pro basketball.
Speaker 1: But it seems like there's a lot of players now
Speaker 1: that don't necessarily appreciate some of the gut they get
Speaker 1: on that show. Do you think any of it's deeped
Speaker 1: with the inside stuff?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I think it's everything. I
Speaker 2: don't think if any one thing, and I don't want
Speaker 2: to like, you know, get into names of various on
Speaker 2: air personalities on any of the networks. But there are
Speaker 2: people who obviously have made a living off of just
Speaker 2: you know, firing off takes on players and test sometimes
Speaker 2: taking it to uh, illogical or unfair extremes, and you
Speaker 2: know that's that is the unfortunately the media landscape we
Speaker 2: live in right now. I don't know, like you have
Speaker 2: to ask you to ask Lebron. I don't know whether
Speaker 2: he's referring to Turner inside the NBA, whether referring to ESPN,
Speaker 2: whether referring to Fox debate shows what I don't I
Speaker 2: don't know. I think this is more about this is
Speaker 2: less about how the game is being talked about in
Speaker 2: terms of what he said, than than the way he's
Speaker 2: been talked about.
Speaker 4: I think he was.
Speaker 2: Referring to his own experience as the face of the league.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now that that that makes sense. Hey, porter, will
Speaker 1: you effort Lebron. Let's get Lebron on to kind of
Speaker 1: ask him. Uh, we'll get him on to cask him directly,
Speaker 1: obviously tongue in cheek. Now, Look, I'll tell you what, Howard,
Speaker 1: Not everybody covers a league through the prism of negativity
Speaker 1: and the last couple of weeks, I have turned on
Speaker 1: basketball and I have watched basketball players seem to care
Speaker 1: about playing basketball, and it is a reminder, look, maybe
Speaker 1: this is just the world of basketball now that we
Speaker 1: all should just say, look, we'll touch you after the
Speaker 1: All Star break, We'll hit you up in late February,
Speaker 1: early March. But the past couple of weeks, when these
Speaker 1: guys have been locked in, it is a reminder of
Speaker 1: what this league looks like and what this sport looks
Speaker 1: like when the best players are playing hard with a purpose.
Speaker 2: I mean, there were great games in October, November, December too,
Speaker 2: So I don't know, like I do think that there
Speaker 2: is such a thing as the dog days of the season,
Speaker 2: especially in January. I do think that when we get
Speaker 2: back from the All Star break and there's it's not
Speaker 2: even the midway point, it's it's beyond the midway point.
Speaker 2: There's usually like thirty thirty five games left. And when
Speaker 2: when the teams that especially know they're they're locking in
Speaker 2: for the postseason and have you know, the spring to
Speaker 2: look ahead to and it's getting closer, it certainly brings
Speaker 2: a different level of focus and intensity. But like we
Speaker 2: were all raving about certain games back and I'm trying
Speaker 2: to remember, like there was a bunch involving the Warriors,
Speaker 2: some involving Under, like there were good games earlier in
Speaker 2: the season like it. I'm not I'm not sold on
Speaker 2: the idea that that suddenly the whole landscape changes the
Speaker 2: second we get back from the All Star Game. But
Speaker 2: you know, I there the problem is in the in
Speaker 2: the context of the bigger conversation here, people's complaints about
Speaker 2: the league might be that, oh, we don't think guys
Speaker 2: play hard on the given night, or maybe because they
Speaker 2: didn't play hard in the All Star Game, or it's
Speaker 2: guys are load managing too much or whatever. Like there's
Speaker 2: bits and pieces of all of this, and everybody's got
Speaker 2: a little bit different version of what's bothering him about
Speaker 2: the league at any given time, And so I just
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know which part of that is
Speaker 2: the one that needs to be focused on. All right,
Speaker 2: I'm getting out of the car here real quick.
Speaker 1: Hold, hon say all good. Howard Beck is our guest,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite riders. He's joined my show for
Speaker 1: a number of years. You can get him on Blue
Speaker 1: Sky mostly. He is technically on Twitter, but he has,
Speaker 1: it's been at a number of different places. He always
Speaker 1: does his job at a high level, and he does
Speaker 1: his job so well that he's going to see Brooklyn
Speaker 1: and Portland play tonight in person, which is very impressive.
Speaker 1: So let me just ask you point playing your opinion then,
Speaker 1: instead of dancing around it, do you feel like from
Speaker 1: your vantage point, you know the league is in a
Speaker 1: healthy place, you know, as opposed to what anyone else
Speaker 1: has to say about What does Howard Beck have to
Speaker 1: say about the current state of the NBA.
Speaker 2: I think it's fine, honestly, I really do. The game
Speaker 2: has changed, and some people don't like the way the
Speaker 2: game has changed stylistically. The load management part of it
Speaker 2: is an absolutely legitimate issue and concern, especially for fans
Speaker 2: who pay a lot of money go to a game.
Speaker 2: I'm bringing my daughter to a game soon and I
Speaker 2: don't want to say which game am I gonna do?
Speaker 2: But I'm sitting there going like, are the players that
Speaker 2: I'm hoping are going to play that night going to
Speaker 2: be there? Because I worry about it the same way
Speaker 2: as anybody else does, right, I bought tickets like that.
Speaker 2: That's a serious concern and the NBA. They've tried to
Speaker 2: deal with it. We know that. You know, it was
Speaker 2: a you know, starting last season when they instituted all
Speaker 2: these rules to try to make sure that players were
Speaker 2: playing more often than not and not abusing the latitude
Speaker 2: that teams have.
Speaker 3: To rest guys.
Speaker 4: So those are issues.
Speaker 2: But the state of the game, honestly, it's fine. Like it.
Speaker 2: I think it's mostly depends on who you're rooting for.
Speaker 2: But thunder fans are thrilled with the state of the game,
Speaker 2: Sixer fans probably not so much. Suns fans probably a
Speaker 2: bit depressed right now. The Nets fans that I'll see
Speaker 2: in here tonight, you know, they they're just happy that
Speaker 2: their team is playing their butts off despite not having
Speaker 2: any stars, and you know they're hoping for lottery balls.
Speaker 2: Like I don't. I don't think the game is in crisis.
Speaker 2: I think that has been wildly overstated based on some
Speaker 2: early ratings data earlier in the season, a lot of
Speaker 2: which has kind of evened out. It's still down, but
Speaker 2: it's not down dramatically. And the league lucked in a
Speaker 2: seventy billion dollar media rights deal. Like you know, that
Speaker 2: goes back to your your view of the cynical take
Speaker 2: of like, yeah, it's just a business and they're just
Speaker 2: accruing value, and I think there's something to that, But
Speaker 2: I don't know where the crisis is here, all right.
Speaker 1: I will ask you because I often ask you these
Speaker 1: philosophical questions on how to fix certain issues, because I
Speaker 1: was talking to and your point about who you cheer
Speaker 1: for and where you're at currently, as it pertains, your
Speaker 1: opinion of the state of the league is really good.
Speaker 1: And obviously out here there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: that are frustrated that we're in year three of this rebuild,
Speaker 1: and we focus on the good stories when they manifest.
Speaker 1: Walker Kester had a great game the other night against
Speaker 1: El melsa bonus, and there's some stuff with Isaiah Collier
Speaker 1: and Keyante George that are pretty exciting. But it does
Speaker 1: feel like every year about a third of the teams
Speaker 1: are just unseerious about winning. And I get it, and
Speaker 1: certainly out here I get it, and I think the
Speaker 1: JASH should have done this two years ago, as we've
Speaker 1: talked about. But is there is there any fix to
Speaker 1: this scenario? Where and John Hollinger wrote a good piece
Speaker 1: for The Athletic about this, where you're either in the
Speaker 1: halves or the have nots. And it seems like every
Speaker 1: year about a third of the league as this this
Speaker 1: situation where they're not serious about winning, they're trying to
Speaker 1: develop young players, and then a rebuild is hope that
Speaker 1: some young players pop, acquire assets, and then hope you
Speaker 1: get lucky in the lottery. Is this just the NBA
Speaker 1: where about a third of the teams every year are
Speaker 1: just not going to be able to compete with the
Speaker 1: top shelf team, so they go young, try to develop,
Speaker 1: and try to get lucky in the lottery.
Speaker 2: I wrote a very long piece last week during the
Speaker 2: Ringers NBA expansion Week, as we called it. We'd all
Speaker 2: packed the stories about it. The idea of expansions been
Speaker 2: talked about so much, and it seems to be on
Speaker 2: the horizon, although as I reported, I think it's actually
Speaker 2: three to five years out still if it happened. But
Speaker 2: the piece I wrote was about kind of this, which
Speaker 2: is that there still aren't enough stars to go around,
Speaker 2: especially when you know stars like to join up with
Speaker 2: each other on U given teams or teams you know
Speaker 2: are able to get them on their own. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: it's stars are a finite commodity. This is a zero
Speaker 2: sum game. So we can look at the Jazz or
Speaker 2: the Nets and the Blazers, two teams I will see
Speaker 2: either tonight or the Wizards and say, well, they're rebuilding,
Speaker 2: they don't have enough talent whatever, They're in the have
Speaker 2: nots category. They're hoping for lottery balls, they're hoping for something.
Speaker 2: The fact is, whether you're doing it intentionally or just
Speaker 2: because that's just where in the life cycle your team is,
Speaker 2: naturally you're you're you're trying to pursue stars that aren't
Speaker 2: there because they're on somebody else's team. It's a zero
Speaker 2: sum game. And we can talk about the fact that
Speaker 2: there's more talent than ever around the league today than ten, fifteen,
Speaker 2: twenty years ago, and there is, but it's not franchise
Speaker 2: star level talent, Like the Jazz have Lowry Markinen, who's
Speaker 2: a really good player, all NBA caliber, but that's not
Speaker 2: enough for them to win enough games to be in
Speaker 2: the playoff hunt. And you know, the Nets and the
Speaker 2: Wizards certainly traded away players to do their rebuilds. But
Speaker 2: the fact.
Speaker 4: Is there's so few true superstars or stars that you
Speaker 4: can do that and have there still be a bunch
Speaker 4: of other teams that are still searching for talent as well,
Speaker 4: Like this is just the state of things. You can't
Speaker 4: possibly have thirty teams competitive at the same time, no
Speaker 4: matter how much Adam Silver has tried to engineer parody,
Speaker 4: And there is more parody now than there has been
Speaker 4: in the history of the league. But it doesn't ensure
Speaker 4: that every team is going to have a chance every
Speaker 4: season to be a five hundred team or a playoff team.
Speaker 1: All right, I know you got to go. So let's
Speaker 1: get a couple of things that are actually going on
Speaker 1: in the league. John Embiid is going to miss the
Speaker 1: remainder of the season due to a knee injury, and
Speaker 1: it feels like this was the only course of action
Speaker 1: for a Philadelphia team that was just firaling out of control.
Speaker 3: What's next for Philly? What's next for MB?
Speaker 2: Who knows what's next for Embid because I don't think
Speaker 2: we really know the true extent of his knee problems,
Speaker 2: and he is notoriously private about his health and about
Speaker 2: whatever's going on any given time. So the Sixers are
Speaker 2: not very forthcoming on these things and haven't been because
Speaker 2: MB doesn't want them to be, which is his prerogative,
Speaker 2: but it's frustrating if you're a Philly fan and you
Speaker 2: have no idea whether he's ever going to be himself again.
Speaker 2: So we don't know the answer to that. And if
Speaker 2: he's never himself again, and he just signed a massive
Speaker 2: extension last summer, they are screwed for the foreseeable future
Speaker 2: on that alone. On top of that, they signed Paul
Speaker 2: George to a max four year deal, and you know
Speaker 2: he's on the downhill slide too, so they're shutting down
Speaker 2: EMBIID is the practical thing to do from a health standpoint, probably,
Speaker 2: but it's also the practical thing to do from a
Speaker 2: draft standpoint because they owe a pick to Oklahoma that
Speaker 2: is top six protected, So if the Sixers pick lands
Speaker 2: in the top six, the Sixers get to keep it.
Speaker 2: If it's seventh or later, it's going to Oklahoma. So
Speaker 2: the the the insult to injury here for Philadelphia is
Speaker 2: that their their seasons already toast and beat us on
Speaker 2: the shelf, and if the pick a seventh or lower,
Speaker 2: it's going to Oklahoma instead of them getting the benefit
Speaker 2: in Philly. So uh they are it is to there.
Speaker 2: It is in their best interests to shut down everybody
Speaker 2: at this stage. Do whatever you have to do, take
Speaker 2: the fines from the league, but do everything possible to
Speaker 2: have the worst record possible. And even that doesn't guarantee anything,
Speaker 2: because the lottery balls could bounce the wrong way and
Speaker 2: it could drop the six ers to seven or eight
Speaker 2: or nine or whatever, and they could still lose the pick.
Speaker 2: So uh, they do need to increase their odds of
Speaker 2: having a top six pick.
Speaker 3: All right, before I set you loose, I'll let you
Speaker 3: get to the game. Uh, who keeps Mark dagnalled up
Speaker 3: at night the most?
Speaker 1: Is it Denver? Is it La with those two? Is
Speaker 1: it Golden State with Jimmy? I mean, Oklahoma State clearly
Speaker 1: is entrenched themselves.
Speaker 3: As the favorite. But who keeps Mark up at night
Speaker 3: the most?
Speaker 2: In your opinion, probably Denver because they've got the best
Speaker 2: player on the planet in Jokic, and that the team
Speaker 2: that won a championship within the last couple of years.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, Look, I'd be the first to
Speaker 2: say I don't want to face a Luca Lebron tandem
Speaker 2: at any time, but supporting cast is a little questionable.
Speaker 2: They don't have any size and you know, Lucas still
Speaker 2: trying to get his legs back under him. He's not
Speaker 2: shooting well yet. They'll probably come around. They look pretty
Speaker 2: good so far, but you know, let's check back in
Speaker 2: a few weeks or you know, a month or so.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know that the Lakers as constructed
Speaker 2: have enough to make a run this year. They didn't
Speaker 2: make that trade for this year. They made that trade
Speaker 2: for the next ten years. And you know, with the Warriors,
Speaker 2: that one's interesting, like they're playing their butts off. They
Speaker 2: look really good. Steph goes for fifty six last night,
Speaker 2: and Butler's fit in perfectly. They have a little bit
Speaker 2: better depth in roster balance the Warriors than the Lakers do.
Speaker 2: I'll put them Monacha ahead, but probably it's Denver Howard.
Speaker 1: Thank you, my friend. It's always fun. And enjoy that
Speaker 1: game that I had. I know you will and we'll
Speaker 1: chat soon.
Speaker 3: Thanks buddy, I'll try great.
Speaker 1: Howard Beck, now with The Ringer, spent some time with
Speaker 1: the New York Times, LA Times and was a nick
Speaker 1: beat writer for a number of years. He's a very
Speaker 1: talented NBA riter. He's worth your time to listen to
Speaker 1: and read. We appreciate his time. He technically is on Twitter,
Speaker 1: which is just his name at Howard Beck and from
Speaker 1: there you can get the link to Blue Sky, where
Speaker 1: I think he's posting more now, or just go to
Speaker 1: the Ringer dot com and search Howard Beck. Appreciate Howard's time, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you missed it. Lebron James was asked about Anthony Davis.
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis said he's not really trying to be the
Speaker 1: face of the league, and Lebron said, quote, why do
Speaker 1: you want to be the face of the league when
Speaker 1: all the people that cover our game and talk about
Speaker 1: our game on a day to day basis bleep on everybody.
Speaker 1: Obviously I didn't ask to be the face of the league.
Speaker 1: I feel an I understand this is weird energy when
Speaker 1: it comes to that, and there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: reaction about it. And as I reference to Howard, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm one that has spent my entire life around pro
Speaker 1: basketball and.
Speaker 3: I've always enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed playing as much as I could before, you know,
Speaker 1: I had to find something else to do because I
Speaker 1: couldn't keep up with pros And I enjoy covering it,
Speaker 1: I enjoy watching it, and it is a different league
Speaker 1: than it was back in the day, and certainly there's
Speaker 1: an argument to be made that it's time just to shut.
Speaker 3: Up and embrace it.
Speaker 1: It is what it is, and it is overstated a
Speaker 1: little bit as far as players not going hard all
Speaker 1: the time, but it's not entirely overstated. I watched this
Speaker 1: league a lot, and there are plenty of nights where
Speaker 1: I'm watching games I'm excited to watch where those guys.
Speaker 3: Are nailing it in man. Then there are plenty of
Speaker 3: games I sit down and watch it are awesome.
Speaker 1: And ever since this league came back from the All
Speaker 1: Star break, there have been a lot of games that
Speaker 1: have been worth watching. Players are showing up and they're
Speaker 1: playing hard, but we shouldn't have to wait for that
Speaker 1: to be consistent for like four months.
Speaker 3: Like, show up and do your job, man, you're getting
Speaker 3: paid a lot of money.
Speaker 1: The fans show up and they watch, and I do
Speaker 1: think players have an obligation of fans, even though players
Speaker 1: don't seem to think that they do. And sometimes they
Speaker 1: say the quiet heart out loud, like Kevin Durant did
Speaker 1: when he said, we don't ever really take any consideration
Speaker 1: what the fans have to say and if that's the attitude,
Speaker 1: you are going to turn a lot of people off.
Speaker 1: And quite frankly, I think pro basketball has That's just
Speaker 1: my opinion. But the Warriors game was awesome last night.
Speaker 1: The Bucks and the Nuggets played a really good game,
Speaker 1: Lakers and the Timberwolves played a really good game. And
Speaker 1: tonight we've got Jazz basketball as Rudy Gobert, Mike Conley,
Speaker 1: in addition to Joe Ingles and Nikhil Alexander Walker are
Speaker 1: back in town with the Minnesota Timberwolves, and it'll be
Speaker 1: fun to kind of see those guys and hopefully they
Speaker 1: get a good roud of applause and ovation. I imagine
Speaker 1: that they would Timberwolves. Good team, not a great team.
Speaker 1: Just about five hundred