Speaker 1: All right, we are live today at the Road Home.
Speaker 1: Come on bye. We are supporting our friends here at
Speaker 1: the Road.
Speaker 2: Home, as we do every holiday season. We are supporting
Speaker 2: those in need. Family homelessness has risen dramatically. Fifty eight
Speaker 2: percent of the families who turned to the Road Home
Speaker 2: last year, we're experiencing homelessness for the first time. So
Speaker 2: we're asking for financial donations. No donation too small. Five dollars,
Speaker 2: ten dollars, whatever you have eight oh one, eight one
Speaker 2: seventy three hundred.
Speaker 1: They're also on Venmo. They're also on PayPal.
Speaker 2: You can come by in person at five twenty nine
Speaker 2: nine Thabs seventy three hundred south in Midvale, Utah, or
Speaker 2: online at the Roadhome dot org slash donate. Got blamed
Speaker 2: Fowler stopping by Tony Jones, Chris Camaraddie too. So we've
Speaker 2: got a busy show, but we'll do a little NBA
Speaker 2: with our guy Howard back on a Friday afternoon. Howard,
Speaker 2: Happy Friday, Happy holidays man, how we doing.
Speaker 3: Spence seppy holidays to you as well. Appreciate you guys
Speaker 3: bringing me into the national lipos Ohio. That might be
Speaker 3: my favorite national song. So wow, good good call.
Speaker 1: Look at that. Okay, that was just a blind guest
Speaker 1: by me.
Speaker 2: I figured you'd like the National, but I did not
Speaker 2: know that was your your favorite song. So I'm glad
Speaker 2: I knocked that one out of the park. All right, Howard,
Speaker 2: you know, I know you don't love the conversation about
Speaker 2: NBA ratings, let me say that right out of the gates,
Speaker 2: and I don't love it either, but you sent me
Speaker 2: a piece that also our buddy Andy Larson from the
Speaker 2: Tribune sat along as well, So just in fairness to
Speaker 2: put a little context on it, I thought the Sports
Speaker 2: Media Watch piece did a really good job of kind
Speaker 2: of digging underneath the service or surface, I should say,
Speaker 2: to explain exactly why ratings are down with not just
Speaker 2: pro basketball, but linear ratings down with.
Speaker 1: Pretty much all sports.
Speaker 2: So I have given my take on this a couple
Speaker 2: of different times, so I just wanted to open up
Speaker 2: the space because we had this conversation a week ago,
Speaker 2: to kind of revisit it and put the proper context
Speaker 2: around it. What were your main takeaways from the Sports
Speaker 2: Media Watch piece.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean primarily one that you listed, which is
Speaker 3: that you know, linear broadcast is just down in general,
Speaker 3: Now the NFL seems impervious saw these trends, right, So
Speaker 3: the NFL is the outlier, you can't compare to them,
Speaker 3: but hockey and college basketball, college football, some other sports
Speaker 3: that I think Sports Media Watch listed in its piece,
Speaker 3: which I encourage everybody to go to go look at
Speaker 3: on supports mediawatch dot com. But that's the broader context.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot that's down And we've been grappling
Speaker 3: with these dynamics for the last five to ten years,
Speaker 3: ever since court cutting really became a thing and streaming
Speaker 3: came in and people started watching NBA games or anything
Speaker 3: for that matter, in so many different ways. And the
Speaker 3: media ecosystem is really just, you know, just so many
Speaker 3: different factions of it and so many different ways people
Speaker 3: get their entertainment. And then there's also people who just
Speaker 3: watch maybe a quarter on League Pass or they you know,
Speaker 3: just watch highlights. So like the NBA can still be
Speaker 3: broadly popular without it showing up in strict old school
Speaker 3: Nielsen ratings. And that's not some wash it away or
Speaker 3: make excuses or say the NBA doesn't have some issues
Speaker 3: to grapple with. It's just to say that there's a
Speaker 3: lot more contexts too. This The other thing that I
Speaker 3: thought was interesting, that I thought was really important in
Speaker 3: terms of analyzing the data is that people keep trotting
Speaker 3: out the down and excuse me, down fifty percent from
Speaker 3: a similar period in twenty twelve or whenever it was,
Speaker 3: or twenty eleven, and it was like literally like the
Speaker 3: season where the lockout had pushed the season start back
Speaker 3: and so suddenly everybody like the first month of the
Speaker 3: season was you know, Christmas going forward, and so it
Speaker 3: was just a completely different context. So there's like there's
Speaker 3: some context stuff with ratings when people are trying to
Speaker 3: make these comparisons that don't work in a vacuum. And
Speaker 3: we're just in a different world now in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four than we were in twenty twelve. So anyway, I
Speaker 3: do think that the NBA has some things to deal with.
Speaker 3: I don't think that it's a crisis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and certainly, I mean, and we can just move
Speaker 2: away from it because there's so many things to talk
Speaker 2: about with this conversation, but it has been discussed at nauseum.
Speaker 2: But one thing I will ask you is do you
Speaker 2: feel like the product is suffering? Do you feel like
Speaker 2: the game is different? Do you feel like because one
Speaker 2: of the things I keep hearing, like the common threads
Speaker 2: if I read a piece or listen to a pod
Speaker 2: or whatever, is a lot of people do seem to
Speaker 2: believe that the game itself is different and quite frankly
Speaker 2: worse than it was once upon a time.
Speaker 1: Is there anything there in your opinion?
Speaker 3: No, I actually don't, and I will defend the game
Speaker 3: and the league on this count. The quality of play,
Speaker 3: the caliber, the skill level across the league has never
Speaker 3: been a high now. If you don't like things stylistically,
Speaker 3: with the three point shot being so prevalent, if you
Speaker 3: don't like certain aspects of the game today, that's a
Speaker 3: taste thing. But for every person who doesn't like the
Speaker 3: proliferations of the three point shot and the disappearance of postplay,
Speaker 3: there's a whole bunch of other people who really love
Speaker 3: the pace of this game and the skill level and
Speaker 3: the movement. Because if you go back to what people
Speaker 3: start looking at as somehow this golden Age, a lot
Speaker 3: of the basketball in the nineties was brutal to watch
Speaker 3: because of the physicality, the over physicality, and this plotting
Speaker 3: half court play and scores. In the sixties and seventies
Speaker 3: and that bled into the two thousands. All of this
Speaker 3: before the NBA changed up the hand checking rules and
Speaker 3: changed up the illegal defense rules. In the early two thousands,
Speaker 3: the game was in a really bad place.
Speaker 2: Like it was.
Speaker 3: It was dreadful, and it was eight standing on one
Speaker 3: side of the court on the weak side, and one
Speaker 3: guy try to take his man off the dribble on
Speaker 3: the other side. Because of the old illegal defense rules,
Speaker 3: you could just drag the entire defense to one side
Speaker 3: of the court and go ISO. It was awful. So
Speaker 3: the idea that somehow, oh too many three pointers and
Speaker 3: all this has made the game unwatchable. Folks, go back,
Speaker 3: go back and pull up some highlights from the nineties
Speaker 3: and two thousands. Look at the scores, look at the
Speaker 3: style of play. It wasn't exactly the most aesthetically pleasing game.
Speaker 2: Okay, one more thing, because I will offer this and
Speaker 2: this is me personally coming at it from my prism,
Speaker 2: and you know, I have a feeling you are going
Speaker 2: to scold me and put me in the corner here, Howard.
Speaker 1: But I trust.
Speaker 3: Is going to be your nineties nixt upbringing coming into play.
Speaker 1: I believe well said.
Speaker 2: And also you know a Utah Jazz team that I
Speaker 2: grew up with, John and Carl who played hard every night,
Speaker 2: shut up to play every night.
Speaker 1: I do feel and I watch.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is not coming from a place where I'm
Speaker 2: a highlight guy. I watch games. I watch games almost
Speaker 2: every single night, and in my opinion, the effort level
Speaker 2: every night isn't there the way that it used to
Speaker 2: be once upon a time.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I also don't want to be the old guy that's
Speaker 2: complaining about a sport and a league that I love
Speaker 2: based off of what it was once upon a time.
Speaker 1: Because things changed.
Speaker 2: Things evolved, mainly guaranteed contracts and guaranteed money, where once
Speaker 2: upon a time, believe it or not, players did have
Speaker 2: to play for paychecks.
Speaker 1: They needed to be paid twice a month.
Speaker 2: And now a lot of these guys could never work
Speaker 2: again and they'd be just fine. And I'm sure if
Speaker 2: I had a seventy million dollar guarantee this year, i'd
Speaker 2: I'd make fart noises into my mic, you know, for
Speaker 2: four hours sometimes if I didn't feel like working.
Speaker 1: But I will offer that at times, it feels like
Speaker 1: the effort.
Speaker 2: Level isn't there every night, and it does feel a
Speaker 2: little All Star Game ish at times, and if you
Speaker 2: don't care, I don't care.
Speaker 3: I feel like I have heard a version of that
Speaker 3: in almost every era that I've been covering the league. Right,
Speaker 3: so my time covering the league starts in ninety seven,
Speaker 3: so that's twenty eight seasons now that I'm in the
Speaker 3: twenty eighth year, and I feel like this is a
Speaker 3: periodic complaint. And salaries were much less than the late
Speaker 3: nineties when I first started covering the league than they
Speaker 3: are now, So on the one hand, I feel like
Speaker 3: this is something that always comes up, and I think
Speaker 3: there's always a spread in the NBA. Among the four
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty players. There are some guys who absolutely
Speaker 3: live and die with the game, who are passionate, who
Speaker 3: live and breed basketball, and that's all they care about,
Speaker 3: and they want to win badly every night, and they
Speaker 3: always bring it. And then there's a spectrum that goes
Speaker 3: down from there. And yes, there's always a certain number
Speaker 3: of guys who are there just because they were good
Speaker 3: enough to make it and they like the money and
Speaker 3: the lifestyle and the wins and losses. Eh, who cares?
Speaker 3: I just you know, it's a living. I think that
Speaker 3: some versions. That's always been present, and I don't know
Speaker 3: that it's any more prevalent now than it was before.
Speaker 3: But to your point, I do. I think the money
Speaker 3: is so off the charts now that probably psychologically makes
Speaker 3: sense that it would be harder to maintain the same
Speaker 3: level of intensity or dedication. But like that hasn't stopped.
Speaker 3: Like Steph Curry, you can never accuse Steph Curry of
Speaker 3: not trying, or Lebron James of not trying, or Kevin
Speaker 3: Durant is not trying. And for all that Kawhi Leonard's
Speaker 3: been hurt and out, when Kawhi Leonard plays, he plays
Speaker 3: his butt off. Now there are some other guys I
Speaker 3: think fall more to the category you're talking about, but
Speaker 3: I don't know that it's any more prevalent than it
Speaker 3: used to be. I worry more when it's things like
Speaker 3: the All Star Game, right, like the reason we keep
Speaker 3: tweaking it and we got the new format announced this week,
Speaker 3: they keep tweaking it because I do think that's a
Speaker 3: place where the player's fame and wealth does come into play.
Speaker 3: They don't feel any obligation to play hard in that
Speaker 3: game the way their predecessors did. Because the league's in
Speaker 3: a great place. It just signed a TV deal worth
Speaker 3: tens of billions of dollars. The players are all making
Speaker 3: half of that collectively, and I don't know that they
Speaker 3: feel the same obligation to play hard in an All
Speaker 3: Star Game, or the Stars decided to be in the
Speaker 3: Dunk Contest with the way that they used to instead
Speaker 3: we get, you know, end of bench guys. I do
Speaker 3: think it's having an impact on some of those things.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever asked you this, because one
Speaker 2: of the takes that I've heard a lot from people who,
Speaker 2: you know, do believe that maybe the league needs to
Speaker 2: look at some things is shortening the regular season.
Speaker 1: Are are you a proponent of that.
Speaker 3: I've never had a real strong feeling about that one.
Speaker 3: I think that there's definitely a case to be made
Speaker 3: for it. I do think scarcity has value to it
Speaker 3: that if you had fewer games, they would all take
Speaker 3: on that much more importance and they would feel weightier.
Speaker 3: And when they feel weightier, just like in football, every
Speaker 3: game then has a definable stake to it. And I
Speaker 3: think that there's something too that whether that would help
Speaker 3: with all the load management and injury issues. I don't know.
Speaker 3: There's a case that, well, you play sixty six games
Speaker 3: instead of eighty two, we'll just ratchet it down and
Speaker 3: the guys who were only playing sixty out of eighty
Speaker 3: two will now play forty out of sixty six. Like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know how that ends up
Speaker 3: actually playing out in reality. I just know that the
Speaker 3: league has been really resistant to the idea of shortening
Speaker 3: the season because everything is tied to that, and not
Speaker 3: just the history of the game and stats and records,
Speaker 3: but the actual revenue. And you know, you'd like to
Speaker 3: think you could offset the loss of revenue of the
Speaker 3: games by just charging more for the games that you
Speaker 3: do play because there are fewer of them. But I
Speaker 3: don't know if that math actually works. I don't know
Speaker 3: if it's as easy as that. But there's a case, well, and.
Speaker 2: You reference revenue streams, and one of the things that
Speaker 2: certainly people probably don't care about but also probably don't
Speaker 2: know about, is the international revenue streams that the NBA
Speaker 2: has that Pro football doesn't. I think kind of allows
Speaker 2: them to not turn a blind eye on maybe lack
Speaker 2: of consistent interest domestically. But there's a reason when Darryl
Speaker 2: Morey tweeted out what he did. Everybody froze, and like,
Speaker 2: I tried to get information from a lot of NBA
Speaker 2: execs during that time, and I actually had a couple
Speaker 2: of conversations, but people were terrified to even utter the phrase,
Speaker 2: you know, China or whatever. But the you know, according
Speaker 2: to Sports Business Journal, the number one sport in the
Speaker 2: world is soccer and the number two sport in the
Speaker 2: world is basketball.
Speaker 1: So is there.
Speaker 2: Anything there as far as revenue streams generated from international
Speaker 2: interest that kind of allows them to, you know, accept
Speaker 2: what would be maybe a little bit of a decline
Speaker 2: in domestic interest, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3: I get it, But I don't think so like that
Speaker 3: would that would suggest that they think it's that that
Speaker 3: US interest from North American interests somehow expendable as long
Speaker 3: as they've got this kind of like safety net of
Speaker 3: international revenue.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't think it quite works that way. And I
Speaker 3: think that, you know, to the to the point of
Speaker 3: this whole China, you know debacle, like there's a reason
Speaker 3: that you know, despite all the morality conflicts, that they
Speaker 3: are there anyway, and there's a reason that losing that
Speaker 3: revenue you know, like it just shows you how validle
Speaker 3: those relationships can be. There the base is the US
Speaker 3: or the US in Canada, and so like they need
Speaker 3: to nurture that obviously. So I don't I don't ever
Speaker 3: get the sense that they're feeling like, oh, we can,
Speaker 3: we can let it slide a little bit. I think
Speaker 3: it's important that they always have that that that passion
Speaker 3: for the game and that interest and sales and everything. Here,
Speaker 3: by the way, one of the things the other data
Speaker 3: points to note here real quick, before I forget if
Speaker 3: the game we're if the interest in the game, we're
Speaker 3: really ebbing that much, you would see it in attendance too.
Speaker 3: And well, I'm sure there's always you know, there's always
Speaker 3: a handful of teams that just aren't that interesting and
Speaker 3: so they don't draw, or they're in smaller markets or whatever.
Speaker 3: But you know, the NBA keeps the sending attendance records
Speaker 3: the year after year, and so you know that now
Speaker 3: that's a that's a number, right, Like you don't you
Speaker 3: only need nineteen twenty thousand sol of the building. You
Speaker 3: need millions to generate ratings to make you competitive on TV.
Speaker 3: But I think if a tenants started to creter, that's
Speaker 3: when they would really start to panic, because that would
Speaker 3: indicate that that interest is gone or interests is ebbing.
Speaker 3: And again it's the same thing with the social media
Speaker 3: stuff they do. Bunkers social media traffic, and that doesn't
Speaker 3: draw as much revenue and it doesn't show up in
Speaker 3: Nielsen ratings, but it is an indicator that the interest
Speaker 3: remains very, very high.
Speaker 2: All right, moving off of it, and I do want
Speaker 2: to talk a little NBA Cup. Okay, So we saw
Speaker 2: the final in Vegas, Giannis and the Bucks win. The
Speaker 2: year after Lebron the Lakers win, and that's not nothing,
Speaker 2: you know, to of your biggest bride of stars NBA
Speaker 2: Cup champs. Here's my beef with it, though, Howard, like,
Speaker 2: could we do something along the lines of a fan giveaway,
Speaker 2: Like if you're a Bucks fan and if your if
Speaker 2: your team advances to the NBA Cup semi finals to Vegas,
Speaker 2: can we do like, Hey, let's get five thousand Bucks
Speaker 2: fans there. You don't need all the revenue, so let's
Speaker 2: just give away tickets. Let's bring them to Vegas, Let's
Speaker 2: give them free accommodations.
Speaker 1: Like it felt like a Super Bowl.
Speaker 2: Crowd and all Star crowd, there was not a lot
Speaker 2: of enthusiasm, and I do think if the enthusiasm and
Speaker 2: atmosphere was a little bit more I don't know, final
Speaker 2: four March madness, it would add to the product.
Speaker 1: So just give me your thoughts on that.
Speaker 2: And also the dynamic of Jannis winning the year after
Speaker 2: Lebron did.
Speaker 3: It's a great sign for the league that Jannis very
Speaker 3: clearly overtly wanted this badly. Right because, as I've said
Speaker 3: many times, and I say this to somebody who's not
Speaker 3: you know, I'm neither pro nor con the NBA Cup.
Speaker 3: As I've said many times, I'm skeptical, agnostic. It's fine,
Speaker 3: but I'm not that into it. I just I don't
Speaker 3: think it's that interesting. But it doesn't matter what I think.
Speaker 3: It matters whether the players care to win this thing.
Speaker 3: If they believe it has meaning, then it has meaning.
Speaker 3: And Johannis, the way he went about it, the way
Speaker 3: he played, the way he celebrated winning it showed very
Speaker 3: clearly Yannis cares a lot about this thing. And then
Speaker 3: on the heels of that, if the players cares, then
Speaker 3: the fans will care. But yeah, the atmosphere in Vegas,
Speaker 3: and I watched from home as you did. I was
Speaker 3: not there, but it was very clear, and I've talked
Speaker 3: to people who were there. It was like an All
Speaker 3: Star game where people are sitting on their hands that
Speaker 3: the energy level is not that high, and the semi
Speaker 3: finals on Saturday clearly were not sellouts, far short of it.
Speaker 3: They announced the sellout for the final, but I'm not
Speaker 3: sure if I believe it. And even if it were
Speaker 3: like it's just it's a neutral site, it would have
Speaker 3: felt far different if that game had been in Milwaukee
Speaker 3: or in Oklahoma. And I do think that that's I
Speaker 3: don't know how big of a problem it is, but
Speaker 3: it's not great because it's all psychological, right, The game
Speaker 3: matters if we believe it matters. Okay, so Yannis acted
Speaker 3: like it mattered. Great, But if you don't have that
Speaker 3: roar of the crowd, if they're not reacting to every
Speaker 3: deep three or every incredible dunk or guy breaking another
Speaker 3: guy's ankles, it doesn't feel as intense because you don't
Speaker 3: have the crowd to back it up. It was almost
Speaker 3: like watching some of the Bubble games during COVID or
Speaker 3: post COVID, when they were only allowing like arenas to
Speaker 3: be half full and you miss something. When you don't
Speaker 3: have that immediate crowd reaction, it makes it feel a
Speaker 3: little less important. And so I don't know how they
Speaker 3: fix that. I don't know, Like trying to do this
Speaker 3: in home markets is hard because you can't just tell
Speaker 3: arenas to block off all these games across the league. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because you don't know who's going to be in it.
Speaker 3: It's hard. It's a puzzle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's one of the things.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you said that at the end, because a
Speaker 2: couple of guests I have I've had to talk about
Speaker 2: this have mentioned that Dynamic and most arenas need the
Speaker 2: Dark Knights with pro basketball like we have hockey now,
Speaker 2: and they have a lot of concerts at the Delta Center.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure that that's the remedy. But like you,
Speaker 1: I'm not all that into it.
Speaker 2: But this is the endeavor that the NBA has decided
Speaker 2: to take on to try to generate interests in the
Speaker 2: regular season. If we have this conversation in I don't know,
Speaker 2: ten years, are we talking about the NBA Cup Differently,
Speaker 2: I'm asking you to read the future now, Howard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. I don't think it's going anywhere,
Speaker 3: Like I do, think it's here to stay. The league
Speaker 3: has obviously invested a ton in the concept and the execution,
Speaker 3: and they now have Amazon lined up, you know, as
Speaker 3: their new partner starting next season, and Amazon will own
Speaker 3: this thing and they'll they'll you know, they'll broadcast it,
Speaker 3: and they're paying for it. So it's not going anywhere.
Speaker 3: The question just becomes more the logistics and the mechanics
Speaker 3: of it all. But ten years from now, yeah, I
Speaker 3: think it's probably still around. But the question is more,
Speaker 3: you know, does it look and sound and feel the
Speaker 3: same as the structure the same? Do they need to
Speaker 3: tweak it along the way, and are we still buying
Speaker 3: into it right Like right now I'm sitting here going, hey,
Speaker 3: how great was it that Lebron That Giannis really went
Speaker 3: all out for it and that Lebron did a yur
Speaker 3: ago Like that's a great sign.
Speaker 1: Those are great signs.
Speaker 3: But what if next year we get two kind of
Speaker 3: Lacklusser teams and it starts to feel like something where
Speaker 3: they're doing it just because it's on the schedule or
Speaker 3: you know, you know what I mean, Like it there's
Speaker 3: no guarantee that this is going to feel as vital
Speaker 3: year after year. But if it does, then ten years
Speaker 3: from now we'll be talking about how this is now
Speaker 3: just it's part of the landscape. It's it's become part
Speaker 3: of the institution, and you know, it's not a surprise
Speaker 3: or a mystery about whether or not people will care.
Speaker 3: And maybe after ten years people will truly care. Like
Speaker 3: right now, I still say I don't care that the
Speaker 3: Bucks won the Cup. It's nice that they did, but
Speaker 3: it doesn't it doesn't have any real intrinsic value to it.
Speaker 3: I don't have any you know, like the Lakers won
Speaker 3: the Cup a year ago. Nobody cares. They just care
Speaker 3: that they didn't get anywhere in the playoffs, and that
Speaker 3: Lebron is at the end of his career and the
Speaker 3: Lakers are going nowhere, that that Cup is not gonna
Speaker 3: We're not gonna look back and say, you know what,
Speaker 3: before Lebron retired, at least he got that cup. I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't think that that's going to be a check
Speaker 3: mark on the resume. I don't. But maybe ten years
Speaker 3: from now the discussion is different, and I've changed my mind.
Speaker 2: The only time will tell, all right, So you know,
Speaker 2: when it comes to this time of year, the deadline
Speaker 2: is coming gone where I think it's eighty seven percent
Speaker 2: of the league can now be traded it And so
Speaker 2: you hear a bunch of rumors about players that and
Speaker 2: there have been a couple of deals done.
Speaker 1: You know, Dennis Shrudi goes to the Warriors.
Speaker 2: But if Jimmy Butler has traded Howard, that is a
Speaker 2: guy and a player that could change things.
Speaker 1: So what are you hearing as of.
Speaker 2: Now with the potential of the Heat trading Jimmy Butler,
Speaker 2: And what do you think is the I guess the
Speaker 2: way I'll ask it is the destination if it happened,
Speaker 2: that could actually change the landscape of how this year goes.
Speaker 3: There are any number of teams that if he go
Speaker 3: ends up there, it's going to change the landscape, right
Speaker 3: Like you know, forget for a moment that the Warriors
Speaker 3: looked like they forgot how to play basketball last night
Speaker 3: and absolutely just got their doors blown off. But you know,
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks ago, when the Warriors were within
Speaker 3: the top two or three in the West, you could
Speaker 3: argue that they were one Jimmy Butler away maybe from
Speaker 3: being an actual contender, and I tend to think that
Speaker 3: that's still the case. I don't think that they're as
Speaker 3: cooked as they looked last night. But I think last
Speaker 3: night underscore is just how badly they need another all
Speaker 3: Star caliber player there, and that you know, the Dennis
Speaker 3: Shrewder acquisition is nice, and you know it was not
Speaker 3: a great debut for him, but Steph Curry needs somebody
Speaker 3: else toe lean on, and Jimmy Butler would be fantastic
Speaker 3: for that. Will they heat actually get to the point
Speaker 3: where they decide to trade him, I mean, I think
Speaker 3: they're genuinely listening, and I think they're genuinely in a
Speaker 3: position where it makes sense to move on him, because
Speaker 3: you know, it's been five years, Butler's thirty five now.
Speaker 3: They balked at an extension over the summer. They did
Speaker 3: so for a reason, and he's potentially a free agent.
Speaker 3: He's got an option for next season, so he's potentially
Speaker 3: a free agent this summer, and he's certainly indicated that
Speaker 3: he's going to explore free agency. So I think, if
Speaker 3: I had to guess, they do trade him before the
Speaker 3: trade deadline, but it's probably close to the trade deadline.
Speaker 3: Complicating all of this is that they're playing just well
Speaker 3: enough in a so so Eastern conference that they're six
Speaker 3: right now as we speak, even though they're only two
Speaker 3: games over five hundred. And you know, you have to
Speaker 3: decide you're gonna you're willing to pull the plug on
Speaker 3: a playoff team or a potential playoff team. So maybe
Speaker 3: some of this will be determined by how did he
Speaker 3: play over the next you know, four to six weeks.
Speaker 2: All right, Howard, before I say you loose, I'm contractually
Speaker 2: obligated to ask you a question about the Jazz.
Speaker 1: Okay, So here's here's what I will ask you.
Speaker 2: Uh, It's it's time to just simply acknowledge, at least
Speaker 2: in my opinion, and the data says it as well,
Speaker 2: that John Collins has played his best basketball of his
Speaker 2: career during this start of the season for the Jazz,
Speaker 2: and he played well enough and Atlanta to get paid.
Speaker 2: But you know, fifty to forty ninety, it's a real thing.
Speaker 2: He's eighteen points, he's nine boards, he's a couple of assists.
Speaker 2: So it's only good news because now the Jazz have
Speaker 2: a situation where they could potentially move him because he's
Speaker 2: been showcased.
Speaker 1: Or at the age of twenty seven. He's around for
Speaker 1: the long haul. Is it real? Is what we've seen real?
Speaker 2: Or is it Shreif abdul Raheem with the Grizzlies twenty
Speaker 2: and twelve for a team that wins fifteen games? Like,
Speaker 2: would there be interest in him on the open market
Speaker 2: or maybe the Jazz found a surprise piece to the puzzle.
Speaker 3: I love the Sharif reference. I so it's hard. It's hard,
Speaker 3: Like I don't know. I honestly, if I got five
Speaker 3: scouts on the line right now, I don't even know
Speaker 3: what they would tell me about how real it is,
Speaker 3: how tangible it is, whether it contributes to winning. It's
Speaker 3: so hard to assess some times a player like him
Speaker 3: that can up numbers. We saw it in Atlanta, and
Speaker 3: we saw it. We're seeing it again now. He's obviously
Speaker 3: a very good and skilled player, and he's right in
Speaker 3: his prime. He does have a player option for next
Speaker 3: season at at you know, twenty six and a half million.
Speaker 3: That's not unmovable, but it's big enough that it could
Speaker 3: be semi challenging. Is there a good fit for him somewhere?
Speaker 3: I haven't really looked around the league to see, like,
Speaker 3: is there somebody who's a John Collins away or who
Speaker 3: could really use him maybe. I mean, I have no
Speaker 3: doubt that they'll be exploring that. I because to the
Speaker 3: to the back half of your question. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 3: think you look at what he's doing right now and say, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is a guy who now we want for the
Speaker 3: long haul. I mean, it's it's it's hard enough trying
Speaker 3: to figure out if Lowry Markinen is there for the
Speaker 3: long haul. And I don't think that, you know, Lowry
Speaker 3: and Collins are the cleanest that fits in the first
Speaker 3: place together. So, as I've said many times, I'm not
Speaker 3: sure there's anybody on that roster that is absolutely there
Speaker 3: for the long haul.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with you, Like I said, I'm contractually obligated.
Speaker 1: All right. Is uh is Christmas to mainstream for you
Speaker 1: to celebrate or are you actually a holiday guy?
Speaker 3: No, we will. We will observe in our in our
Speaker 3: own way, and I will probably watch way too many
Speaker 3: hours of basketball that day.
Speaker 2: All right, my friend, We'll have a great one. Happy holidays.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for the time.
Speaker 1: Okay. The great Howard Beck from The Ringer