Part 1: An NBA Popularity Check and Tyson’s Big Comeback With Wosny Lambre and Van Lathan
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I don't know. A lot going on. Wanted to talk basketball and wanted to talk about the Tyson fight and why NBA ratings are going down as interest seems to be going up. So I have Big Waz, I have Van Lathan. They're joining us for part one. And then part two is going to be a football podcast that's going up later tonight after. I want to see what happens with that Eagles-Washington game too. So part two will go up much later. Part one's going up early. And let's bring in our friends from ProJet. ♪

All right, Big Waz is here. We're taping this 1230 Thursday afternoon. Last time I saw you, we were doing the league pass rankings. Yep. And trying to figure out who we like the most, who we were the most excited to watch.

What's changed for you since the season has started? Has there been a team jump out? Has there been somebody that captured your fancy? Has there been a new league pass mistress for you that you didn't expect to be cheating on with some of the other favorites? Yeah, it's, and I owe a big apology to Justin barrier. It's the Chicago bulls. Um,

Oh, look at you. They really thought the Bulls were going to be fun and Josh Giddey was going to have this new role and DeMar DeRozan was going to open things up. But they've been way better than I could have expected. Obviously, they beat the Knicks last night. Yeah. Crazy last second foul on a three-point shot. But they're just so well coached. Kobe White's hair got fouled. I know.

I really think that's what happened. I thought he hit his hair. I've never seen that before. That is what happened. I don't think he actually fouled him. But, you know, he airballed the shot to make it look like he got hit pretty bad. But yeah, it's Kobe White. It's Zach Levine who, I don't know if it's he's found clarity in his role on the Bulls or if he's

really dying to get traded because he was so unhappy this offseason. Like, I just thought, you know, they lost their most consistent player in DeRozan. Zach Levine has been sulking for like a year and a half. They're bringing in Josh Giddey, ushering a kind of youth movement kind of thing. I just thought they would stink and it's been the opposite. And Vucevic...

He's been playing some of the best ball of his career. He's taking and making threes. Like, the guy looks rejuvenated. They've been, to me, the team that has kind of jumped off the screen. Like, wow, I thought you guys were going to be horrible, and you're way better. They're 5-7, which sounds like it's bad, but that's the sixth seed right now in the East. I'm with you. I was thinking about it last night watching that Knicks game.

Everything they seem like they wanted to do on paper, including like pick up the pace, play with some pizzazz. It's all happening.

I think they're a really, really frisky five and seven team. And Levine, like, I know. Yeah, I get it. He was upset about whatever he's got. I don't know what he's upset about. He's certainly got an amazing contract. But you watched him last night against the Knicks. And my thought was, this is actually a great situation for him. He's got guards that push the ball that are pretty, Giddey's pretty unselfish, right? Kobe White.

I don't think it's like a Trey Young monopolized the ball type guy. And just seems like Levine's in a nice spot. And what stuck out to me is that they win the game on that weird Kobe, Kobe wife foul, get the Brunson toilet bowl in and out to win it.

But you watched the way their bench was celebrating. It actually seems like they liked each other. Last year did not. No, it was, man, last year was toxic as hell by all indication when you talk to people who was in and around the team at that time. And I think with Vucevic and Patrick Williams, who I'm still like, whoa, what were they thinking with that contract? Yeah, he's like one of those...

What do you do? I don't know if it's the three or the D. What's your specialty? I don't know. I'm still trying to figure it out. But he's been a more willing shooter. And like with Vucevic finally being a stretch four, Levine is playing with like a really spaced out floor in front of him.

And the guy is really talented. Like he's not, well, this year he's not been afraid to take it to the basket. And there were just some isolation plays last night in the fourth quarter where it just felt like the Knicks had no chance against Zach Levine, which like, when's the last time you've said that about Zach Levine? He looks incredible. And then, you know, the Knicks. Wait, hold on on Zach Levine. Because I want to talk about the Knicks. Yeah.

I was thinking about him, Brandon Ingram. Yeah. I think Trey Young's about to be in this boat. These guys that got these big deals. Julius Randle. These guys that are being paid like they're superstars. They do put up production and yet there's not a market for them. And it's because of the second apron. Kurt Goldsberg was talking about in my pod on Tuesday. It's just, it's changed the dynamic of roster building of how we think about players. We take somebody like Brandon Ingram who,

It was available all summer for anybody who wanted to offer anything and they couldn't trade him. Now he's scoring 23, 24 a game. Sack of being the same thing. And we're moving into this new era of these guys that it's like, well, this is my price. I don't want to pay that. I'm stuck with you, but you're still producing. Yeah. I don't remember another era like this. The only time I could think was that 2000s when guys were getting those six, seven year deals.

And you would just be like, I guess we have Allen Houston now for the entire decade. Yeah, I think that's the difference between now and 2011 or 12, which is when I first became a regular on League Pass. It was like, whoever the Bulls were, when they decided that they were going to stink up the joint, they were going to have basically...

Three rotation-worthy guys in the starting lineup, and everybody else was kind of going to be like, okay, this team is headed for 17 wins. Yeah. They're playing the lottery game and whatever. Nowadays, like, the Bulls, we expect them to be a bottom four Eastern Conference team, but because they haven't gotten rid of... Like, they would have sold off Vucevic. They would have sold off Levine. They would have sold everything off. But now because they kept those guys...

Like, they're just not a given win. There's no, like, given wins. And even the Wizards on some nights of first game, I think... Brooklyn's another one. Brooklyn's another one. Yeah, like, there's no... Toronto. There's no process Sixers, is what I always say. Like, that process Sixers team where Michael Carter-Williams was leading that team in scoring for an entire season...

That was insane. And we were like, he's not good. And he was like one of the rookie of the year. It's like, well, he's 20 points a game. Exactly. You know, this is a really interesting point. Can you have tanking when there's too much talent in the league? Because I think about that with Brooklyn. I watched Brooklyn. I saw them in person on Friday. I talked about it on the pod. Watched them yesterday. The Celtics played really well and beat them and they played one of their best games. But,

I watched Brooklyn. I'm like, I know they wanted to be terrible. It's going to be really hard to be terrible with some of the guys in this team. Like Schroeder is a above average point guard. Cam Johnson's good. Cam Thomas is a 28 a game guy. Now they have shop walking. This is not like in 2013, 14, when you could just be like, yeah, we're going to throw a year away. Like think about what the Lakers had.

During the last couple Kobe years where it was like, here's Kobe and nobody else. Yeah. It's so different. And I don't know if it's just the talent. Like these dudes have just come out and played with a lot of pride. Like just quite frankly. Do you think it's social media? Like I wonder if it's just hard to suck now because if you suck. With the fantasy and the gambling aspect. That might play a part, man. I feel like it's social media because I was thinking about this. Vince Carter got his...

number retired in Toronto. And I was just thinking how fucking crazy that is. Yeah. That way he started. Cause I was writing for ESPN back then and he completely tanked on them that year to the point that. I was reading those columns. Yeah. He tanked on them to the point that the trade that they made for him is probably the worst superstar trade anyone's made. They had to like take back Alonzo Morning's contract and a couple other bad contracts. They got two shitty picks. It was like a 20 cents in the dollar giveaway. And it was cause he stopped playing for them.

But we didn't have the apparatus we have now to be like, oh my God, did you see what Vince Carter did last night? Like he just didn't give a shit. I don't feel like anybody can do that now. Yeah, but I mean, it's really hard to explain why none of these teams have come out

and been, you know, just dog shit. And again, it's early. Like nobody's had. I guess the dog shit team has probably been Philly. Yeah. Sorry, Chris Ryan. But yeah. They stink. But there's a reason for it. No, there's a reason for it, but they still stink. Yeah, they've been god awful. Well, think about the other day, JJ, D'Angelo Russell had that play in the corner.

And whatever he did, he got his three pointer blocked. He did some stupid step back and the camera showed JJ so fucking mad. And he sat down and he's like, just like sat in his thing. And he was like, like a parent mad at a kid. And even that,

So now he's like, well, that'll never happen again because he just saw the video of it. It became a big deal the next day. He's like, I can't do that anymore. I just think there's a lot of checks and balances now for bad basketball, lazy basketball, lethargic basketball. People don't give a shit. People going through the motions. I don't know if you can do it anymore. And I think what's crazy too is that like the NBA, because of how they handled some of this load management stuff,

How did they handle it? Poorly. They've been so effective in messaging that the regular season doesn't matter. This isn't real basketball. Playoffs where things really start and people are playing hard. That's not been the case to start the season. Like every single one of these games feels like super competitive. People are playing like the...

people aren't playing with super low motors. There's some teams that are like, seem to have a bit of a hangover. I think Denver started the first four games of the season with a bit of a hangover. Minnesota's hangover has been extended. Minnesota's not just hungover. They're like, they're, they're,

They're like lying in bed with the shades dry. Yeah, they still can't drive. Yeah, man. They're way over the legal limit still. Yeah, 100%. But for the most part, man, teams have come out and been playing out the gates. Like OKC feels like they got something to prove. Phoenix, I got something to prove. Cleveland, I mean, my God. They've come out like gangbusters. And it's made the regular season excellent for it.

I'm going to read you some of the 2013 14 Sixers. Leading scorer, Evan Turner. Wow. Michael Carter Williams, your rookie of the year, shooting 264 from three and 40% from the field. Thad Young was our number three. Spencer Hawes. Number five, James Anderson, playing 29 minutes a game, 80 games. Who was James Anderson? I don't know. I was...

I was on a studio show that year and I don't remember who James Anderson was. James Anderson. He went to first round pick from the, I remember him. Okay. Uh, Henry Sims, Tony Rotten.

Yeah. Tony Roten? That was a Tony Roten apologist in those days. Hollis Thompson? LaVoy Allen was their ninth man? This is our point. Yeah. You look at the ninth man now in the Nets. The game I went to Friday, like Jalen Wilson's coming. I'm like, this guy's good. Yeah. Should he play more? That Sixers team would challenge the Bobcats.

in terms of worst win... No question. In terms of worst win-loss record ever. And teams just aren't that horrible. And some of it, like you said, is the second apron where, you know, contenders... I think in a different era...

Golden State would have looked at, they would have said, you know what? Instead of doing the Melton and Buddy heel to replace Klay, we're going to pull the trigger on Zach Levine in a different era. But now with like all of the salary constraints. The Lakers would already probably have him. 100%. And, you know, maybe they're keeping the powder job for Trey Young. Who knows? But yeah, it's just a different era, man. 2014 Bucks who were 15 and 67.

Brandon Knight led the team in scoring. Rahman Sessions was second. Remember him? A young Chris Middleton, third. Ilya Sova, John Henson, OJ Mayo, Larry Sanders, hey now, playing 20 games. But man. And then Young Giannis was just that. That was great for Young Giannis. Larry Sanders is pissed right now. KD like smokes weed openly. Yeah, Larry Sanders is like, I tried this. Why didn't it work for me? They kicked me out the league for this.

Yeah, so if you think about the actual bad teams, Toronto's probably like fundamentally the worst team. But then Scottie Barnes can come back and who knows? And they're competitive on a lot of nights. Yeah, they're competitive too. They can rebound. They can shoot threes. The other thing is we didn't talk about the threes. Like this is the first season the threes are 40% of the shots that everyone takes. Yeah.

That's just the variance that comes from that. You just never know. Yeah. You know? Yeah, the threes is always... It's been a sort of, you know, less talented teams. You want to up your variance factor with the threes. Everybody's kind of known this for like seven, eight years now. But like... But now everyone's doing it. The discipline with which...

coaches are actually able to enforce it. Yeah. It's different now. It's just better infrastructure to make sure. Like, this is one thing to say, like, we're going to play with pace. We're going to, you know what I mean? We're going to shoot the three-point shot. We're going to encourage as many threes as we can. But to, like, actually coach it and get your guys to be doing it consistently, to go against their instinct, to dribble, dribble, dribble, shoot a long two, is different. You were going to mention the Knicks. What about them?

I miss last year's Knicks. I miss Hartenstein. I miss Dante. Yeah. They were just more fun to watch last year. And I know they'll figure it out. Yeah. The Towns has been incredible. Brunson's not been as good. Yep. They're five at the end of games, which it seems like it's a little better offensively, but it's definitely worse defensively.

Yeah. The rim protection isn't there in the same way. And there's a bunch of it. Now that we have a sample size, some of the advanced stats are like, huh, this isn't really the profile of a tips team. No. So what are you seeing? Yeah. I mean, yeah, the Carl Towns rim protection, we knew that was going to be a problem coming into the season. And we just talked about this on group chat with Rob and Justin and

Mikael Bridges is getting smoked on defense. He's just not been a deterrent at all. And again,

OG Ananopi. You can't mention this to the Knicks fans. Well, listen. I mentioned last week, I was like, what was the point of trading five firsts for this guy if he's going to shoot 13 times a game? But the other side has been interesting too. I think the scoring is going to come. I think he's going to learn what spots to pick, when to attack, when to just let it fire. Can you think they give him the ball more and just run through more stuff with him? I guess the Towns Brunson...

Pick and roll is so good. They can't afford to because their defense is so bad. Like, if you're getting cooked, you kind of have to look at your best player and say, yo, we need points right now. If they were stopping people, then they would be a lot more patient about who gets to do what on offense. But when, like, you're constantly having to put out fires because you just gave up, you know, 10 points in a row. Like, at a certain point, it is you got to give it to Brunson. What I'm encouraged by is that

The Towns and Brunson pick and roll is clearly difficult to deal with. It's a nightmare. They're putting defenses in a bind because Brunson, unlike a lot of these star point guards, can be the center on a switch. Like Halliburton's been having trouble with it this year. Brunson, as soon as you put a big man on him, he's killing that guy. And if you, God forbid, you drop on freaking Carl Towns, like that's a nightmare. And so I like that that's already started to figure itself out.

Wait, can we say one thing about Towns? Sure. He's been kind of a winner of the season because he's been, I think, better offensively than anybody could have ever expected on the Knicks. And then Minnesota feels worse. Minnesota's definitely worse. And it's like, ooh, we missed Towns. Like, I feel like this has been a win all the way around for Towns. And then instead of the Knicks fans being mad at Towns for whatever, they can just now be mad at Bridges. So he wins...

He wins it every way. Look, I think the Bridges thing is everybody's in a patient wait-and-see moment. It's been 11 games. I'm not crazy worried about it. I do wonder if you stop playing defense for like, you're just on bad teams for two years. Like, I wonder if it almost you have to get back in the hang of what it's like to be on a really good team playing defense. It's not just that, though. It's like when guys start conceiving themselves as 20-point-per-game scorers and

And all of a sudden it's like, no, you're back to being that role guy that you were in Phoenix. And it's like, no, I was a ball in Brooklyn. I was like a way back. Can I show you a YouTube clip of my game winners? No, he got to get back to what he was doing in Phoenix for sure. If you truth serum them.

I wonder what they would say about the whole Giannis piece of this. I know you saw the, and I know you saw the graphic last night where they like showed all of the picks that the Knicks sent out to bring Bridges in. A couple of them are like good picks. Yeah, decent. Like we didn't know that this, whatever that Bucks pick, which is so complicated where New Orleans gets it if it's one through four and now Brooklyn gets it if it's everything else. But,

I think the Bucks are a 500 or worse team. If anything happens to Giannis for a month, that team's going to be a bottom five team in the league. They're pulling these games out of their assholes. Well, it's like they've won three games. Well, but the one yesterday... Yeah, that was a miracle. Guy gets fouled with the second left. He just has to go one or two and the game's over and he bricks both of them. And then Giannis wins an OT. Yeah, I just... The next thing, if...

If we're going to be rational about it, the Towns thing has been a huge win. All the other stuff is explainable. Robinson is going to come back. There's probably some sort of buyout guy they can get in February to replace some of the DiFincenzo because it feels like there's a lot on McBride. And then the Brunson, I know he hasn't been quite as good and efficient as last year, but I also feel like it's

Teams have been watching this now for a couple years. It's like Jalen Hurts on the Eagles, where it's like, oh, I know what this is. And he's learning how to play a new way. Like, this is a completely reconstructed offense, like, that he hasn't been completely comfortable yet. I don't think it's the biggest deal. I just think it's scary that, like, missing Mitchell Robinson—

and Precious Achua is this damaging to your team? Like that's a bad sign so far. But again, I think it's pretty early. And right now the 20th in defensive efficiency. Get that down to 13? But that's the bigger question to me is, is this the right tips team?

Is this a Tibbs team the way it's currently constructed? Or is this a maybe somebody else with the car keys? I mean, I think if Tibbs is worth what he thinks he is, then he needs to also adjust. Players have to adjust. Coaches should adjust. Can I do a PSA for the other 29 teams? When the Knicks have the ball with like three seconds or less...

and they need to score. They're going to throw it to Jalen Brunson in the corner. He's going to pretend to go left, and then he's going to do a follow-away jump shot. I'm just telling you that's what's going to happen. You can pretend to bite on the going left, but then dive forward when he's doing the turnaround. That's his move. It works every time. Do these guys have tape? It's tough in the moment, Bill. It's like Tatum.

Here's what Tatum's going to do. He's going to dribble through his legs seven times. And then when there's two seconds left, he's going to do a step back 26 footer. We know all these moves. LeBron, he has this specific spot on the court.

He's going to shoot a three from there. He's going to make you think he's going to the basket. The Akron step back. Yeah. There's some guys that you just, you know what they're going to do. And then there's other guys like Durant where I'm like, I have no idea what he's going to do. He's going to go right. He's going to pull up. He's going to do the turnaround move. Brunson's, yeah. He's going to try to create space with a little shoulder face. He's got to be so hard to guard because I think they know what he's doing and he still gets...

He's got a little Luka in him in terms of the stop and start. Like, he's not the fastest, but he can get accelerated faster than everybody else and decelerate faster than everybody else. Yeah, it's not easy from the couch, Bill. That's what they would tell you. Well, you know what I think the secret hardest move is the Luka two-on-one when he slows down

And then almost makes it like a low post move. Yeah. Where he's got momentum, but he stops. And the guy's like also playing the pass. And then Luka's just like, I'm just going to bounce off you in a bank. Four times against the Warriors the other night. I don't even know what that move is, but I feel like he's perfected it. And I'm like, that's Tremont Green, one of the best defensive players in my life. And he can't even stop it. It is weird.

Are you scared of the Cavs? The Cavs, man, listen, I know like every single smart NBA person, you guys included on the over-unders, had the Cavs over Kenny Atkinson winning coach of the year. And I was like, yeah, they're going to play better. They're going to be way healthier this year. But like, I don't know. They kind of took off last year when they guys weren't playing. Yeah. But Kenny Atkinson has been smart about...

deploying the lineups, letting Mobley play center at times, being the lone big. He's gotten these guys to understand the importance of spacing. And they're like Niang, for instance. This guy is completely unconscious. He shoots with the green light of a freaking Kevin Durant at certain points. And Donovan Mitchell, God bless him, he's getting off of the ball a lot faster than he has at any other time in his career. That's always been my biggest criticism of

is that he doesn't see the floor as well as a lot of the guys that I think are a little bit better than him. But this year, he's seeing it. They're believing it. And I think there's something to everybody feeling like they have ownership of the offense, which Atkinson...

you know, he spent some time in Golden State with Steve Kerr. We make fun of Steve Kerr a lot of times with his hippy-dippy, like, the ball finds energy shit. But Atkinson has brought it. Hippy-dippy. That's what it feels like to me. It feels like he's on a commune when he's saying some of that stuff. But, like, Atkinson has brought that ethos to Cleveland, and they've been way better for it. And he brought Ty Jerome. Because he knew Ty Jerome was good from, like, two years ago. Revelation. It's like when football, when the guy, like, when...

The guy, Dan Quinn, went from Dallas to Washington. He took like a couple of Dallas guys with him. It's like, I know this guy's pretty good. I'll grab this guy too. I'm a hundred percent in on the Cavs being real. I don't think there's any fluky shit at all. It totally may, from the first, second, third game, you can see it. And there, I talked about it before, but there's, there's like a,

charitableness now with Mitchell and Garland. I don't think Mitchell cares if he doesn't have the ball in the last minute anymore. I felt like he did last year. I think Garland did a little bit too. I just feel like they've sorted out something and then, you know, they can defend. They can switch. They have a bench. As Celtic fan, they're on my radar because I thought we would have the one seed unless somebody got hurt. Now it's like this team's

I think it's going to be tough to steal the one seed from them. You start out 14-0, 15-0. Like, just think about it logically. For the rest of the way, you just have to go like...

45 and, you know, 18 or whatever. It's not the same pace to get to 60. Yeah. And the Celts are going to have trouble getting to 60. And if you look at the Eastern Conference standings right now, a lot of teams are going to have trouble getting to 50. It's crazy how these things flip because...

You know, there was all this smoke around Donovan Mitchell for years that he was not going to, he was not long for Cleveland. Yeah. He ends up doing his extension. Shams puts out that report.

That Garland's representation might see the trade if Mitchell's still on the team because he feels like he's not being optimized. They bring in Kenny Atkinson and shit, man. Everything sort of flips and everybody has this level of buy-in. It's just so crazy how things can turn on a dime in this league. Kenny calls him and he's like, I'm going to optimize your shit.

And A, just bear with me, buddy. They've bought in and they look so much better for it. And like I said,

Before, it did feel like a your turn, my turn situation. It did. With Mitchell and Garland, where I'm just like, man, these guys have complimentary games. They both can shoot. Both can drive it. They should be elevating what each other do. And this is the first time in that partnership that I actually feel like it's happening and it's been exciting to watch.

I'm good at very few things. I can spot toupees. I can make meatballs. That's like me with BBLs. I can spot the your turn, my turn. Yeah.

I'm just attuned. I've been watching basketball my whole life. You know it when you see it. You know when it's not perfect. Look at when Tatum and Brown got rid of that dynamic where they now elevate what each other do. Where back in the days, we were like, oh, these guys are too duplicative. Like, we might have to move one, blah, blah, blah. Now these guys actually play off of each other. I always believe. That is a freaking lie. I always believe. I always believe. My guys... No, I think you can tell...

The difference between your turn, my turn, competitive versus elevation. And now I feel like those guys elevate each other, which is a boring topic for a podcast or a YouTube video or an NBA content segment, but it's what's happening. That team's playing super unselfish. And then you watch a team like

you know, like Philly, when Embiid comes back and how they have to navigate. It's going to take some time. How do you take care of Embiid? How do you, how does Paul George make sure he's involved up? Oh, wait, there's Maxie too. Oh, there's Jared McCain who's having, might be the rookie of the year if he could just get playing minutes. How do you navigate all this stuff? He's got to beat out Eric Gordon. And what happens? Right.

And what happens with zombie Nick Nurse? Does he ever turn back into Toronto Nick Nurse or is he just zombie Nick Nurse now? I mean, Nick Nurse did a great job last year. I think the Sixers definitely overperformed most of our expectations. Maybe the playoffs wasn't

ideal. Playoffs are pretty rough. They overperform most of our expectations. And I think what we can be bullish about is... You're in the Nick Nurse Kool-Aid drinking camp. I'm just saying last year they were good. Was it on my research? Last year they were good. The thing is, Embiid, I know a lot of people killed them for saying, I don't care about MVP. It's about the playoffs. It's about winning. I like that.

For a team that's trying to incorporate Paul George, that has Maxie, who's ascendant. I like the idea that he's not going to feel the onus to dominate every possession like he traditionally has for the team basically his entire career. And so that's a good sign. I think they're going to be straight. You know what I mean? When Embiid isn't beating dudes up in the locker room for writing bad columns. And, you know, he got all the guys. Well, here's the thing.

and McCain are guys who could play in a playoff series. So, you know, when they're operating on the fringes and trying to, you're picking out of the lottery, you're trying to grab, take flyers on dudes, and usually it doesn't work out. And it seems like both of those guys, I feel like could be in a top seven on a good team. So, but the Embiid is going to be the big thing. Let's take a break and then I got a couple more things for you.

Van Lathan is here. We're going to talk about the NBA Cup because sometimes in basketball, 30 points could be worth more than 30 points. You get 30% profit boost on 30 plus point scores with FanDuel's 30 on 30. Like it. The Ringer, teaming up with America's number one sports book to give you a 30% profit boost when you pick a player to score more than 30 points during Friday's NBA Cup action. I will give you the games.

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At one peloton.com. All right, we're back. Van Lathan has joined us. What's up? This is the fun of having an office when people are in there. We're just like, fuck it. Let's turn the mics on and go. You know how I feel about this. You've been, you've been preaching this forever. Yeah. You know how I feel about bringing people to the office and shit goes down. I'm just saying, I'm saying everybody's about to get mad. I'm glad I'm not on Slack. Cause it's going to go crazy. But I think that first of all, look, it's a new time.

toxicity is bad. So I feel okay saying that I think everybody should have to come into the office at least 20 hours a week. Like, that's three days or two days. Take your 20 hours. It's not a bad idea. 20 hours, three days. However you want to do it. You can still have your Thursday and Friday off. But I'm just not from the era where it was offensive to...

To show up to work. Oh, I laugh at you. I don't care how it comes off. I laugh at you. I'm not from the era where it was like one time back in my day, I was on a movie set. I actually brought an air mattress to the set. Oh, my God. Because I wanted to be there.

work, then sleep there so I could be there early again. That's the toxicity I was brought up in. Yeah. Honestly, I'm more in the middle of you and some of our Gen Zers who just see any stress-related issue related to work as...

Van loves live bodies to just talk. I just like to talk to people all day long. He just wants to hop in conversations. Hey, how you doing? By the way, we're just talking about Melrose Place. I have some funds. Here I come. By the way, Gen Z turns out not as woke as we thought. So we can leave it. We can stop pretending now. Everybody come to work. It's a new day. I'm bringing a text thread combo that Van and I were having to Waz about the NBA.

about the phenomenon of a league that is having its games watched less, but feels like it matters more.

And what's going on? And we all have theories on this. Is the NBA in better, worse, or the same shape? I think it's a little bit worse than the peak of our recent peak of 2016, where Steph was like a global phenomenon. And him and LeBron playing that epic seven-game finals. I don't think we're anywhere close to that level of health in terms of the league. But...

They do have the most famous players in American sports. Again, the teams don't like people don't watch games as much as they might even watch. So you take, so take my homes, Kelsey Lamar, and you would take 40 NBA guys. It's not like Lamar, who I love. That's my guy. He's famous as Jalen Brown.

I don't think so. No, no, no, he's not. A player of football and basketball fame is just like a ridiculous losing game for the football players. Yeah, it's not. Like, they're recognizable people. So, like,

they can get people to pay attention to them. Whether that be for who they're dating or what clothes they're wearing, whatever. They got to find a way to monetize that attention. But I think once you're in a space where like you create celebrities, like even recently, like a John Morant, that's a good place to be. And they just got to get more creative about getting people to love the game. Oh,

It's interesting talking about the celebrity because I would argue that Austin Reeves is more famous in LA than Justin Herbert is. But this is what I would say. Those players still exist in the league and they are the most famous guys, but they're less consequential in the league than they used to be. So they're not... It means something at the top of your league to have your most famous players also be your most important players. And I would argue that Steph, LeBron, KD, all of that older guard...

They're not really serious. Although you could argue this year with how the Warriors are playing. Serious threats for the NBA throne. Oh, don't tell the Laker fans that. They're 7-4. JJ's got this team going. Why?

Why do you do this? We beat Scottie Pippen Jr. last night. You know what? Why do you do this? We beat Huff. Bill, the vindictiveness towards the Lakers. No, it's the Laker fans. Hold on, Bill. We got it. Because we're on this. Because I have to talk to you about this.

Carl Towns over LeBron in the top 100. I didn't do that. I had LeBron. I had LeBron 15. Oh, okay. Yeah, I had Towns 25. Oh, okay. I had LeBron. Carl Towns over LeBron. No, I had Towns 25. Don't you think you're too influential a voice to have this specific bias? I don't know. Don't you think like you, every single shot. I just want to see the Lakers play Oklahoma City and some of the other good teams. They played Cleveland and lost by 100. Yeah.

The crowd was chanting for Bronny with six minutes left. Nobody's beating Cleveland right now. Can we go back to, you're talking about those three guys. This is what I said to Van on the text thread. These unicorn situations they had with six guys, Bird, Magic, Michael Jordan, then Kobe, then LeBron, then Curry. Sure. I don't know if we can replicate that with any

under 30 American guy in that way. Even the Kobe thing. If Kobe goes to Charlotte instead of the Lakers...

What happens to him? The problem is that you're describing 40 years of the NBA, basically. Like when you're talking about those guys, you're basically going from 1979 all the way up. I'm talking about our last six guys that broke through in a real way. I know, but think about the sample size of those guys. That means that every single generation, they've been able to find a guy or two like that. And if this is the first generation why they can't, it's probably...

the scope of society and culture has changed and not the actual NBA. And so when you look at social media and the other things, for example, you have Zion, you have Ja, right? Like, Ja is an incredibly likable player with an incredible fan-friendly style. 30 years ago, him with the blick, blick, blick, blicky,

Like, posting it also, it's not a thing. Yeah. Right? He would post it on the Blink. It's different. So maybe making stars is harder now because of the scrutiny. I think it's harder because of the stars and the culture around our stars themselves. Like, I was asking somebody...

who's now a huge F1 fan about the Netflix show. I was like, do they get into anything on that show? Because I've never watched it. She was like, yeah. Like, they'll be like, that team is cheating. This owner's a, this person's an alcoholic, blah, blah, blah. Like, they've made the characters compelling as opposed to that damn NBA show on Netflix where Jason Tatum is like, I love my mom. I love hoop.

And I love my son. Yeah. These are the things we learned about Jason Tatum, who's one of the 10, 8, 7 best players in the league. Like, they don't make themselves interesting. People don't care. Well, they're afraid to be interesting because it's... I think that's a problem. It makes them less marketable. I'll just bring up something and we're potting. Have to talk about it. If we talked about Kobe and what Kobe was able to become. If Twitter's around when Kobe has the situation he has in Colorado, he doesn't survive it.

I mean, his legacy, I'm telling you, it's... I think he survives it in L.A. He might survive it in L.A., but in terms of things like that, as murky or whatever you want to say that they are, things like that used to happen to athletes. There used to be narratives about athletes. You're talking about room for error, for lack of a better phrase. Things used to happen and they just wouldn't stick. Yeah. Like, we are retroactively...

punishing carl malone you know yeah things used to happen and they didn't stick so making stars was that right there was less margin for error you could do it easier now you got a gun you got a uh

an adult star going at you for three weeks harassing you on Twitter. All of that stuff, it sticks to you in a little way and it changes people's perception. And we have to ask if all of that's like worth it. It can make you a star, but it can also take you off your perch. I wonder how much of that stuff actually sticks to people like off of the internet. And I get it more and more of our society, our

are internet-based creatures. But I do wonder how often and how long that stuff sticks. Like, to me, what I'm talking about is, like, Draymond goes on his podcast and he's like, yo, Klay freaking ghosted Steph.

Steph was going to say some nice words about him before the comeback game. And after the lack of or the conversation that he had with Klay, called PR and said, I'm not doing it anymore. Like, you telling me you put that in that Netflix show? That kind of stuff? That people won't be interested in the story of the NBA? I think they would. But being interested in the story of the NBA is starting to become... Because you don't have to watch the games anymore.

to, and this is a Tommy alteration. I think you'd want to watch that. Nah, you don't have to watch the games to be involved in that drama. You could follow that drama without watching the NBA. This is what Derek Thompson, he came on my pod, I don't know how many months ago, and he was talking about how he's this new breed of NBA fan that loves the NBA but doesn't watch it that much, but loves everything around it and loves following it. My son's like that too. Oh my God. My son's not, my son wasn't watching, my son wasn't watching, you know, Bucks Pistons last night.

But he knows what happened with Giannis, that Giannis had 59 points. And, you know, when I was a kid, I felt like anytime the NBA was on, I was like, oh my God. The NBA is on the USA Network on Monday night. I'm watching. I can see the bullets. I never get to see the bullets. They're like SportsCenter in the 90s.

You'd watch, you'd come home, come home from drinking at 1.30 in the morning. It's like, oh, Craig Kilborn and Rich Eisen. They're going to tell me what happened in the NBA. I have no idea what happened. Oh, Karl Malone had a 30 and 25. Oh my God. And it just felt sped. Now it's so available and not just the games, but like the players. I do wonder if that's a piece of it too. Like all these guys have podcasts. There's no mystery with any of them.

And then if you feel like you have mystery, you have something like the Netflix show where it's like, I'm not buying this version of you. I know there's more. It's crap. You know what I mean? Is there anything just to ask?

Is there anything about specifically the quality of the play that lends itself to any of this? I've heard this. I think basketball is better now. I really do. I've been there the whole ride. I'm like amazed by the skills. I watched the Warriors and Mavs play to like 130 and at no point was that like, this is an interesting, competitive, compelling, like,

I don't know. I think people could fall in love with it how it is. I think the TV product is a problem. And I know this is like not a populist thing to say. I think they should ban League Pass or just like make it as extremely expensive as possible. Like cost per hit. Or just you only get to pay for three teams. You don't get all 30. Or something like that. I'm not understanding. Make the product less accessible. Make it more special. Make it more scarce. You know what I mean? Because I think...

There's got to be a way to make this thing feel less accessible. There's a game every single night. And like, what do you really miss? If you missed the Heat game last night, what did you miss?

You didn't miss anything. Well, the schedule's too long, too. It's the other piece. And they're never going to change that. But doesn't... If you do that with league pass... I've actually never heard that. It's really interesting. But if you do that with league pass, doesn't that put the game back in sort of a regional space? Because right now, if like Charlotte will never... I want to watch...

Yeah. And Charlotte's never going to be on national if I don't have league pass. And then that makes the game more regional. You know, LaMelo is a van type of player. Oh yeah, for sure. He puts up huge stats, fun highlights, and then the wins and losses don't matter. That's Van's wheelhouse. Bill, Bill full of shit. I like to watch players that are fun to watch. Yeah. Fun to watch over winning is Van's mantra. Is this like a Westbrook thing?

This is, this is, he loves Westbrook. No, not, no, no, I don't. But this is, this is what I'll say. Bill wants to thrust this onto me. Yeah. Pause. But because of his Jokic thing, he's still holding on to that. Oh, besides just the Jokic thing. What else? What other winning player don't I like? Yeah.

I'm just saying. Give me an example. I'm just saying. I'm brand that you love watching LaMelo. I love watching LaMelo. He's fun to watch and he's unpredictable. Career winning percentage. 440. He is unpredictable and he's playing better this year. No, he is playing better. So what I'm saying is. Shout out to LaMelo. You're getting to.

And he's playing better. I've enjoyed watching him. We get into a situation where the regionality of it and the sports starts to feel like baseball a little bit. Sure. But, so I don't know. I think that's an interesting idea. But we didn't talk about, one of the things we were talking about in the text thread is if your best players in your league are all foreign. That's a problem. What is the history of people connecting with foreign players in America? Because like, I loved Hakeem. Hakeem was amazing to see in person.

He was fucking awesome. He was a badass. Like he would, there's videos you'll see on Twitter or just be like, Hakeem punches a guy. Like he was, he was like a badass. There's multiple videos of him just like turning around and just popping. He was the Draymond of his day. He was like amazing to watch. He was an amazing defensive player. He was the best low post player of his generation. And people are like, ah, Hakeem's boring. It's like, I don't, Giannis, Luka, Embiid,

I think Giannis' appeal has been mismanaged by the league, by Nike. Oh, what's this case? I just think this whole, oh, the poor, humble immigrant who was selling yogurts in Greece for a dollar. I just think that was just mismanaged. They should have leaned into the insane competitor, freakish athlete, whatever guy, like Giannis.

The way he's been packaged to America as this like cutesy immigrant story, I think was done a disservice to like his actual star appeal. And Giannis is somebody who's actually embracing

Americana in a way that Jokic and Luka just don't. They're just not interested in being American celebrities. They're just like, yo, I want to hoop, win, go home, be a great teammate, move on with my life. But Giannis is interested in being a cultural figure. And I think that could have worked. I just think that they didn't.

I think Giannis is pretty compelling. I think the freaking foreign stuff does hurt the league. If Luca was from Indiana, bro...

He would be out of here. We've talked about this before. I'm trying to think what would be the best town or city for Luka to be in if his name was like Luke Doncher. Either Indiana or Kentucky. Oregon, Kentucky, all of those places. Where white hoopers thrive. Be like, oh, did you see what Luke did last night? Seriously. And he would have been a phenomenon in the state of Kentucky. He would have went to UK. He would have been...

This is a huge story. Basically what I have with Drake Bang. North Carolina superstar Drake Bang. Yeah. Or Cooper Flagg, your new obsession. All these obsessions have something in common. So look.

This is the thing. This is a boxing problem. We're big boxing fans. Yeah. So, boxing has insanely good stars right now. I'm talking about good in their skill. Terrence Crawford. Yeah. Alexander Usyk. Tyson Fury, even though he lost to Usyk. Inua. Like, all of these different guys, right? People care for reasons that really, as fucked up as this is, they care for reasons other than how good you are. Yeah. Like, stories make people care. 100%. Like...

UFC's like this too. Skills make champions. Stories make stars. And you have to be able to relate to a story. Now, some of these foreign guys, they have stories that are just as interesting as anyone. Really more interesting. I left war torn, whatever. Like, if you ever, like... Jokic's story is really interesting. Francis Ngannou, Jesus, like all of that stuff. The problem is, isn't it accessible to audiences? Even in boxing, when guys...

When they don't speak English or when they can't really get over to American audiences, sometimes you have problems making stars with them. The only difference there is that for somebody like a Canelo Alvarez, his country backs him to such a degree that you can still make a worldwide star. What I wonder about the NBA, you're going to have to. You're going to have to have some dude from L.A. You're going to have to have some guy from Ohio. Cooper Flagg, as much as we joke about it,

Chet Holmgren, as much as we joke, those guys are important to the league. It could be. 100%. AJ could be the guy. 100%. This is the first. If AJ lands on the right team, AJ DeBansa, a year from now, he might be the guy. Because I feel like it has to be a wing. This is, Wemby has two problems. Centers have never resonated. Yeah.

Yeah. With people like, we talked about that with the Nike contract. It's like, nobody has ever been like, oh, I got, like when I was a kid in the late 70s, we weren't like, oh, I gotta get Kareem's shoe. Or like, oh, I gotta get Ewing's. Could you imagine? Yeah, yeah. Shaq was a huge star. But Shaq from a shoe standpoint. No, it wasn't a thing. And also like, I was there for Shaq. Shaq was pretty polarizing for the 90s. How do you mean? He's just like, people were like, eh, like why are you making so many movies?

Why aren't you in shape all the time? Why'd you leave Orlando after four years? We're talking video game, movie, writing. No, I get it. But people felt in the moment and they weren't right. But people felt in the moment like, why does he care about all this other stuff? Why isn't he just trying to win titles? And then he had the MVP season and it flipped. And I've said this before. I think another thing, if we were doing the foreign players thing right, we would be doing it like boxing. Right.

with the xenophobic, nationalistic sort of spin that we do with every fight. Like, I do remember when Floyd came out to fight Oscar De La Hoya in a sombrero. Like, I'm not saying we should do that in the NBA. I'm not saying we should do that in the NBA. But think about Floyd, though.

But think about Floyd, though. Floyd just went total heel. Yes. To like total heel. And today's NBA players aren't comfortable with that. So do we need heels in the NBA? You definitely need heels in the NBA. That's Jimmy Butler. It's sitting there for him right now.

But he's also 35 now. Draymond tried to do it and it just made people mad. He's a great heel. He's the best heel. He's a good heel. He's at this point now because I really like watching the Warriors this year where he had his arm flailed and almost hit this guy in OKC or whatever the team the other day. It's like, no, no, Draymond. No. Don't ruin this. No. Please. It's the best. But do you think Wemby could be the biggest star in the league as a 7'5 French guy? I don't know.

I've never seen a player that the NBA fans that I know, the diehard NBA fans, had more invested in him being good. Like, if you, there have been guys that have come into the league that it's like, hey, I like him, hey, I don't like him. If you talk, Jacoby is fucking break.

Because if you talk shit on Wimby, you get 50 different people telling you that Wimby is basketball Jesus and nothing to it. I think if Wimby lives up to the hype, he's a global superstar. People just love Victor Wimby. Yeah, they love him. I made the same mistake because...

I don't know if you guys remember the Adrian report where it was like people are saying he's the best prospect of any sport ever. So I had this bid on the show where I was like, oh, he's the best prospect since Satchel Paige and Ty Cobb. Like I would come up with some old whatever every time. And like, cause you know, I was like kind of, kind of a little bit doubting it at first. And my goodness, man, like the P like whatever Twitter is just,

what it is. But in person, people be like, I heard you said about Wemby. You're crazy. You're wrong. Blah, blah, blah. Like, you're right about the Wemby investment. So, like, I do think he has major potential. I think Wemby's broken through, honestly, in terms of culture. Like, even when Britney Spears got beat up by his bodyguards at Summer League for trying to talk to him that one time. God damn, what? No, I'm just saying, you don't remember Britney Spears wanted his picture. I know, but you throwing so much gas on that. Britney Spears got

That's how she represented it on the internet. Anyway, I wasn't there. I didn't see it. But yeah, I think Wemby's definitely up there. One thing that he has, and I think Edwards has too, and I've seen this happen over the years, is when we really want it to happen for somebody...

Because he really felt this when Jordan retired and there was that whole, it was like we were auditioning the next star. Oh my God. It was like, would you, would you like to have Grant Hill? Maybe. How about T, this T-Mac character? Vince Carter. Vince, and then Kobe, I feel like starting in the 2000 finals kind of grabbed it. And then Vince all of a sudden, that one year when he went ahead to head against Iverson, it was like, oh, could he grab it? Iverson, even though I think he had like his, his base, his,

But I still feel like it would have been really hard in 2001 for him to become the guy. But the thing with Iverson, Iverson is a good example. He was like a belated after the fact people appreciated him more. Iverson is a good example of what we're talking about, right?

In a time when the NBA was looking for the next Jordan, Iverson was able to carve out his own superstar aura by being completely antithetical to Michael Jordan. Yeah. Right? He was able to be... And now what we have... I'm sorry, bro. But...

These dudes ain't got no personality, bro. I mean, they are... Edwards does. Edwards has personality. Edwards is our big hope. He's great. But the older guys do. Steph has personality. LeBron has personality. The way we judge people and the conversations that we have around people and the way that we excoriate them for every little...

The food getting a little bland. And if you want to be a superstar, you got to be spicy. There's got to be some spice to it. Yeah. And I remember David Stern's dress code thing that everybody said was like mega racist and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. And, you know, it's just the idea that like a lot of these guys from the streets or whatever we're called inner city, whatever euphemism we want to use.

We're less polished, less media trained, right? Our league is now way more suburban. These kids come from way more affluent backgrounds. They're way more media trained, focus group, consultant freaking to death. And as Van says, it's not as fun. It's just not. Like, I love Devin Booker. I love watching him hoop. He's famous enough to date Kendall freaking Jenner. Nobody knows anything about him. Nothing.

Nobody knows a... You can't... A lot of people don't even know what this guy's voice sounds like. But then the flip side of everybody is like, hey, KD.

Can you stop being so out there? Can you get offline? Keep doing it. I like that. Keep doing it. I like it too. We need more of that. I think KD is interesting and I think the fact that he has embraced the fact. Yes. I like it. I like it. I think he's one of the most authentic superstars we've had in any sport this century. 100%. Like almost to his own detriment a lot of the time. Like could you imagine Donovan Mitchell? He's another one of these guys who's like perfect. Like

great suburban upbringing, says the right thing, beautifully eloquent when he speaks, like he's so polished. Could you imagine him ever saying anything as interesting as KD does on a freaking daily basis? No. And I don't think that's a good thing. Now, while we say this, once again, I want to come back to the climate, right? Because part of this is because if you're James Harden,

and you like to go out to the strip club a little bit, that becomes your whole identity. You know what I mean? So what I'm saying- He's earned that. He's earned it. Once again, I like him. Once again, I like him. But all I'm saying is, look, the NBA is not boring. It's so much fun to watch. All these storylines are so much fun.

But loosen up a little bit. Have fun. Play basketball. But everyone, not just the players, the fans too. I don't need 12 saints that never did anything wrong or never said anything wrong playing basketball. Your favorite players from back in the day, I'm sorry, these guys were intensely flawed. The GOAT is a legendary asshole. One of the other guys is...

is a legendary whore. And one of the other guys, if you said the wrong thing to him, he'll throw your ass through a plate glass window. So these are people that play basketball. The people part makes the superstar. And so I think that turning them into robots only makes the league a little bit more. Larry Bird, bar fight during the 1985 playoffs, hurt his hand. Yeah. Shooting went south. One of the reasons we lost the title. I was like, what if that happened now? Yeah.

It's like, oh yeah, Anthony Edwards got in a bar fight and now Minnesota's out of the playoffs. And what I would say too is like, Adam, God bless him for all of his shortcomings in my opinion. I can't wait for this thing. He went out and got these guys the bag. Oh, I thought you were going another direction. No, he went

out and did that and you did a great job bravo Adam now your next freaking job is to get people to care more about what's happening on the floor in your freaking league like and I get it he was putting all his energy it's not the NBA cup courts

No, it's not. Oh, there's a green one. I think Adam has an amazing business sense. He's smart enough to get the Emirates involved in naming rights. And like, he is incredible at getting the corporate partners to buy into what they're doing. Now he's got to be better at the basketball part and getting people to care more. The number one thing to me that tells me that that's not going to happen is the schedule, which I've talked about a million times in this podcast. The fact that it's 82 games and not 70 is,

Or 72 even. Like that they don't care. They have too much of their product. They love the inventory. They love the inventory. And it's too much. It's way too much. It's just night after night. There's eight games, nine games, ten games. None of them. You never know what's special, what's not special. It's been 82 forever. At what point did it become that you would have thought, what was the point to where you felt like they needed to scale back?

Late 2000s. Okay. Yeah. I also think, I talked about this Tuesday, I think that sport's much harder to play and it's a big reason why these guys are getting injured. For me, I got religion in 2014 when everybody was praising Popovich for not playing. They were playing the Heat too. Yeah.

It was the Spurs and he sat like three of his daughters. He sat everybody. Ruined the Saturday game. Yes. And everybody was like, the NBA media consensus was like, Pop is such a genius and blah, blah, blah. And I got to give it to our guy Amin. He was like, it's cool when the Spurs do it.

but when everybody's doing it, it's not going to be good. And our partners pay us for these games. This is how we make the bulk of our money. But the thing is, they just paid them more money for the games. Yeah. Like they, they, they pwned it up again. They got blessed with the media environment where these live rights are so, so impactful. But like,

that's when I got religion on it. When everybody was like, yo, pop is a genius for this. And I'm just like, well, if teams need to load manage their stars and that means we need less games. Like that's just the, think how good the 72 would be right now with like Philly situation where it's like, holy shit, they're two and nine in the 72 game season. Like this is, this is dangerous. Now they can't fuck around.

They, you know, they could be like the number 10 playing team. They'll be fine. They'll finish in the top three of the East. I've never, I've asked so many people and there's some people in the league who've really pushed for it. Like Steve Kerr is like a massive advocate for it. And he's like written letters and all this stuff. And,

There's no answer other than, nah, we don't want to give up the money. That's it. It's 100% money. Mind you, these are the masters of the universe. This is what we're told. These are the smartest business people in the history of planet Earth. And like you get this massive increase in revenue with your new TV deal. You would think that it's like, all right,

with this windfall, we can make the product better. It might like hurt us in the short run in terms of our inventory, but we're going to find a way to make these games feel more interesting, special, and better monetize the decrease in inventory. But instead, they're just like, no, we're going to bash them over the head with 82 from now till eternity. Well, I mean, they're probably, I mean, the conversation now around the league in terms of the quality of the games, the viewership,

might spawn something, but there's been no reason to, right? The league has been incredibly popular. The NBA was like, the NBA helped to normalize the American society in the bubble after

Like they should have won some kind of social award. This is dumb. I've said this to you before, bruh. I literally was driving around LA like a zombie during the pandemic. And then I heard on the radio, people were like, I've heard that there are rumblings of the NBA getting everybody back together in one city and playing all the games. And I was hope, hope,

Hope brings us home. I was like, oh my God, if I could just watch some NBA basketball. You know what's crazy about that? I was thinking about that the other day because it feels like it happened 130 years ago and it was four years ago. Wow. We were putting cardboard cutouts of fans in the stands.

Not only did we not have fans in the stands, we were pretending to have fans in the stands. Like that Stallone Cobra thing behind Van's shoulder there. And it was like totally normal. That's how desperate we were for basketball. Let's take a break. We got to talk to Mike Tyson.

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Cintas also delivers restroom products and cleaning supplies, and they even provide first aid supplies, safety training and AEDs, as well as inspecting and testing your fire protection systems. Visit Cintas.com and get ready for the workday. All right, Mike Tyson against one of the Paul brothers. Which Paul brother is it?

Jake. All right, Bill. I was about to say Logan. It's Jake. All right, Bill. We were all right billing, man. Jake, take everything personally. You're going to find out. I'm old. Don't take it any personally. Jake Paul.

Wes, are you old enough to remember early Tyson? Or just the clips of early Tyson? No. Tyson, my first real memories of Mike outside of like OVHS was when he came out of the first prison stint. Like the Bruno and all of those guys. What do you remember of early Tyson? I remember the way things used to go back in the olden days was whispers, reality, stardom.

That's how it was with Shaq. My uncle wrote a letter from prison to my dad. And it was like, yo, have you heard about this boy from LSU? Seven foot one, 290 pounds. Have you seen him? Shaquille O'Neal. Whispers, boom. And with Tyson, it was this unbelievable wrecking machine. Then you see him on HBO, reality, and then stardom. And so from, I guess he came out

At no point in my young life do I not remember Mike Tyson not being the baddest motherfucker around. And when you watched him, it was obvious you were watching something different. That's my memory as well. Although I was older, but it was Sports Illustrated cover, HBO fights, this is must watch. Saw literally every Tyson fight. Everyone cared the most about his fights versus...

Really anything else in sports except maybe like the Super Bowl. That's crazy. And I don't know, the audience doesn't match up with that, but just... No, no, no, they do. No, it was a huge thing.

It was, it was boxing. Cause remember now, boxing is in an interesting place at this point. Muhammad Ali is gone in 1980, but really he's gone. And nobody liked Larry Holmes. Before then, Larry Holmes comes in at the lower weights. Sugar Ray Leonard is your middle weights and the welterweights took over half the decade. And then there's an unstoppable heavyweight buzzsaw. And that becomes must see television. But it wasn't just the buzzsaw. It was the way he talked. It was,

How weird he was. He was just the most compelling person. He was dangerous. His interviews after the fight, he would just use crazy words and had like this weird empathy for somebody who he just sent their nose through their forehead. I'm just, I'm telling you, that was the biggest part of it. The biggest part of it was, you never knew which mic you were going to get, right? No, I don't think he knew either. Right. And so, and then Mike becomes ubiquitous.

He's got the, the punch out video, punch out video. I remember that. Well, the, the girl pay-per-view is what pushed her over the top. Right. Knocked him out in 91 seconds. And everybody was like, that was one of the early, Hey, whose house are we going to? Which is now a staple of how we watch sports back then. It was like, who's getting the fight.

Are we all chipping in? What are we doing for food? And then my mom, I don't even think had brought down the nachos yet. I had 12 people in the basement. It was over. And we're all like, yeah, the fight's over, but the food's still coming, right? It was just done. That was the only thing. Spinks was terrified. The only, that, I remember that fight specifically. Remember the deer in the headlights looking at Spinks? We had everybody over. He and my uncle, rest in peace, my uncle Ray. My uncle Ray is like, Spinks is going to make it a fight.

Speaks is going to make it a fight. He's from a boxing family. The whole nine, whatever, whatever. He's going to box him. He's going to box him. He's going to move. Might hit Spinks. Speaks goes down to one knee. And my daddy like, uh-huh. And then hit him with the second, the punch that ended it was one of the single hardest punches in the history of boxing. And he's gone. It's over. He's moving forward like it's like in Roadhouse just to like clear him out. And we didn't really, that was the bit, we didn't have very much else to do. Right. We all had to just sit around and talk about how wrong Mike Tyson was. The thing with Mike was,

He was involved in four, I remember where I was when I watched it, sporting events, which is like, I think he might have the record for me because it was that Spinks fight. It was getting knocked out by Douglas, which is still the ear.

Both Holyfield fights. The first fight was incredible. We had that at my house. We had that party. Still thought he was going to beat Holyfield. So that's the mic that's in my mind. And then the ear was also insane. It's like when he came out of prison and he had that sort of exhibition tour where he fought the big, doofy white dude. Peter McNeely. Yeah, Bruno in the UK. Big Massachusetts moment. Yeah.

Peter McDaniel. And like, you know, it was like this warm up to like the real big fights against Holyfield and Lennox Lewis. And like, I would say even back then the aura still existed and everybody around me assumed he was going to kill these guys. Yeah. Like everybody thought, no, it's Mike. Like he had the fluke. He went to prison. He's back. He's down with the Muslims. Holyfield was a cruiserweight who had moved up to heavyweight. He'd lost to Moore. By that time, it was more mythology though. Yeah. We had, we had, and they knew it because they,

they were picking opponents very strategically for Mike. Mike beat Bruce Seldon for a championship. Maybe Buster... No, he beat Bruno for a championship. They actually paid like $4 million of step-aside money to Lennox Lewis at one point so they didn't have to fight him. So at that point, it was a little bit more... It was smoke and mirrors. It was more mythology. The fights were awesome, though. They were. Even the Gulotta fight...

at the... Yes. The mic that we knew was gone even before the Buster Douglas. The way he would move side to side and the combos, like that guy... Cuss and Tilly Atlas. Tilly Atlas and all of those other guys like leaving. But he still had it. You know what was another amazing thing about his arc was living it in real time, watching somebody like fly too close to the sun and...

as even the mistakes aren't even done yet and you just kind of knew her. Like once he started dating Robin Givens, it was like, this isn't going to go well for anybody. Something that was always resonated with people about Mike was the real fight

of Mike Tyson's life was never going to be in the ring. Because when you started learning about where he came from and what he went through, you always were wondering. It still feels like Mike Tyson won because he won the biggest championship he could have won. You were waiting for the, Mike Tyson has experienced intense tragedy in his life. You were waiting for the moment that it was over.

And he ended up like in a really bad life altering, life changing situation. And he went through some of those, but him fighting was, it was a happy ending to a degree whenever you saw him in the boxing ring, because everybody sold you on just how much he had gone through. You mentioned certain things, Mike flies into a rage. You mentioned other things, Mike breaks down and cries. And so,

Of all the things that he's been through, and they are not woke. They are things that he's been through. They are not... He's a case study because there's an extension of grace that Mike has afforded even after the sexual assault charges and convictions that, like, people just have decided collectively that we're going to extend Mike

some level of grace. And I think it is some of that vulnerability that you're mentioning right now. Because, like, there's other people who would have gone through what he's gone through and would have been completely written off by every single segment of society except some of the worst elements. But, like, Mike has managed to fight his way through that and be embraced. We...

This is weird territory that we're treading into, but I'll say it like this. Oh, boy. He is brutally human. Yeah. He's brutally human. Like, you...

You watch him and you're like, this is supposed to be the strongest guy in the world, right? He knocks people out. He bowls people over their heads. But there's an interview with him and a guy from Canada where Mike's out there to do his play and the guy brings up Mike's old case.

And he cannot control himself. Yeah. And you get the feeling of, man, I've been through that. I put that behind me. I'm trying to move on and be better. And you're throwing this back in my face. This guy is mentioning something that Mike was convicted of. He is not wrong in saying this is something from your past. But you still look at him like he's an asshole. You're like, yo, man, why are you bringing that up? You know what I'm saying? You still look at him like that because there's something...

compelling about the amount of truth that Mike Tyson has failed into. And it'll always be that way. He's one of the last ones that we're just like, yeah, I wonder if anybody else could ever have the type of redemption arc. And, you know, some people might say it's undeserved. You know, some people might say like, you know, maybe human beings deserve to make mistakes and live past it. But yeah, I'm fascinated by that element of it where like everybody understands that like

Mike has lived a traumatic life. Mike has mental health issues. Mike has done some really fucked up things, but yet Mike is, you know, still somebody people root for. I think it's amazing, honestly. There's one more thing that might factor into it is that he's

I don't think people think this consciously. He's been punished. So he hasn't gotten away with anything per se. There's a lot of things that he probably got away with. But he even said that. He said, I didn't do this, but there's some other stuff. So we're probably even. Right. So he went to jail. He lost a child.

He lost all of his money. He lost his mentor. He lost his best friend. Life has taken a lot from him. Now, he's gotten a lot, right? And he's been able to come back from all of that. But you've seen part of it is

And you don't want to, you don't, I'm trying to pick my words very delicately because the thing that Mike Tyson went to jail for is something that we have to root out of our community, our society. And we have to make sure that we're serious about talking about stuff like that. But there's a part of it to where it feels like, it feels like it's,

he's got a chunk out of his ass taken out of it because of it. It feels like he's gone through some really terrible, immensely gut-wrenching, horrible things. Yeah. And look, if no one ever wants to watch or look at Mike Tyson, I get it. I get why you would feel that way. But like, even my mother,

who is people love Mike yeah even my mother is just like she still likes to see Mike Tyson do it well you know what I think it is Jalen and I interviewed him once when I was at Grantland we did a pod with him and it was like it was like a thrill it was like really it was so cool to just shoot the shit with him

And I might even said this to him on the pod, but I always felt like he was one of the most self-aware athletes that I ever followed. He was somebody that you would have thought was a complete disaster and he was, but he was also completely painfully aware of all his faults, all his mistakes, all the issues he had and could talk about it.

which I don't, I can't even think of anybody. Iverson, I think has a little bit of that too. There's an interest, self introspection that was always unusual about him. Even as it was like, I'm talking Robin Givens era all the way through. He always kind of knew, I remember writing a column about it once about,

He kind of became the Tony Montana say hello to the bad guy character because he kind of knew that was how society saw him. Yeah. He was like, yeah, say hello to me. I'm the bad guy. It's like one. That was who he became. These people think that I'm an animal. So I'm going to act like one. So I'm going to do it and I'm going to sell this fight and I'm going to intimidate this dude and I'm going to, you know, talk about him.

I'm going to fuck you too, you little. He said, say crazy shit. That was nuts. That one run. I want to eat your kids. His crazy run was the craziest. His, Mike's crazy run. Oh,

Is the craziest run we've seen. By any athlete. By any athlete. The only person that comes close to Kanye a couple years ago. Yeah. Maybe Charlie Sheen, too. Those are iconic crazy runs. So in my column, I created the Tyson zone, which was when somebody acts so consistently crazy that you'll just believe any story. And Charlie Sheen...

Entered that. Kanye, definitely. Oh my God. You know, there's certain people where you're like, I'll believe any story now. Mike's crazy run. And then it was like, not just crazy, but it was like odd, funny. Like my back is broken spinal. It's like odd. I guess I'm just going to fade into Bolivian. That's my favorite. That was the best one. We went the first year of Jimmy's show.

We went to go, he was the guest host and we went to, he had like this pigeon coop in Harlem and I went with Uncle Frank. I was like the writer and we spent, I don't know how long on the rooftop just watching Mike flew pigeons. And he was like so sad and so like traumatized by, you know, his whole life. But he could also talk about it and he really connected with Uncle Frank and it was this really cool experience.

Like five minute video we got out of it. But even that, I was like, why is he even letting us up here? It was like he wanted to...

win people over even though he knew he was the bad guy for everybody out listening right now I want you guys to you're gonna this is gonna be hilarious when you think about this think about how jumpy Bill was on the roof of the pension oh I loved it it was amazing it was such a cool experience Bill was like Pookie nice to meet you no the thing is it was only him and like one other guy like he he didn't have the entourage anymore like

All these boxers. You hit that point. He hit that in the Douglas fight. He had two people in his corner. You think he wins tomorrow? Bill doesn't think so. What do you think? I'm going to look at the odds while you talk about this. I don't know what to think. He's 58 years old, which is just like... Waz was asking, could he just die if he got punched in the heart? I think he's going to be okay. I think he's going to be okay in terms of physically.

I just, yeah, I just have found it hard to believe he's going to hit this guy enough times to win. So from a boxing standpoint, people want, people like to hate on Jake. They do. I've seen Jake in the gym, like in the gym. He's not bad. Out at Phil's boxing. He's certainly not bad.

In terms of the guys that he fights. This isn't Screech from Saved by the Bell. Fuck no. This is a guy that actually has a right hand, like a real right hand. Like he can detonate you with a right hand. And he's a big, strong, athletic guy who's got a fair amount of ring experience now. So he's not somebody to be fucked over and played with. Any version of Mike Tyson pre-age 50 would work Jake Paul.

But it's not pre-age fitting. Your stamina goes, your punch resistance goes. Jake's minus 205 on Fandle. So, Jake, I don't know what's going to happen, to be honest with you. That's the thing about Mike. You don't know what's about to happen. People have been asking me, like, do you think people are going to watch this fight or are people going to care? And I'm like, people are 1,000. First of all, it's on Netflix, which is the single most important channel we have now. It's a Friday night.

People are going to get together. Somebody's going to get it. It's super easy to queue up Netflix at whoever's house or whatever bar. People are going to care. I actually think people are going to care way more than I think people realize. Yeah. I'm watching it. Like, I thought it wasn't going to happen. I thought after it got canceled the first time that they would never come back to it. The only thing that makes me think that you could see a Tyson victory is that Mike seems genuinely motivated. Yeah. Yeah.

Like this young kid, he's just parachutes into my life's work, my sport, and thinks that he could take me out. I understand why anybody would be motivated by that. But yeah, the man is 60. I just can't. The man is 60. I can't believe, like I was watching Mike Tyson fight.

in the mid 80s followed by some like erotic thriller on HBO and it was like the greatest night greatest night oh my god Emmanuel Queen of the Desert the heart was pumping yeah oh the Hitchhiker's on and now 40 years later Bill was watching Emmanuel in space yeah I was like oh she's in space now

See? See, everybody tries to act like it's only me. Waz knows what's up. Oh, my God. What? On the weekends? I never went to sleep before 2 a.m. What's your big boxing fan? Jake Paul. Real boxer?

I think he's an elite celebrity boxer. Yes. He's real enough. He's the greatest celebrity boxer of all time. To me, it speaks to more of the evolution of celebrity boxing, which was in the 90s and 2000s where we would put like Screech against Rorschach and we were ready to go. I don't think he'd be in the top 100 of actual people in his weight class in terms of, you know, especially not in the world, but even in America for that, for that sense. But like to be that famous, like,

And to fight that credibly, I think is an actual... It's impressive. Can I tell you guys a quick story from the gym with Jake? Oh, story from the gym. Story from the gym. Sponsored by State Farm. Sponsored by State Farm. Like, philosophy boxing, Woodland Hills, Phil Polina. Shout out to him. There was a heavyweight in the gym. Jake used to come in the gym. Come in the gym with BJ,

and they would fight. Jake's whole team, Jake Roll, he got a whole team that comes in with him, and they do their whole thing, and they spar different guys. Pros, normally, they would spar people out of weight class, though. So Jake, at that time, he wasn't as big as he is now, 175, 180. The guys he would spar would be middle, sometimes, sometimes even welter that he would spar with. And they were bringing him along, but he was taking it serious. He was in there all the time. There was a heavyweight in there that was like, just hated Jake Paul.

just hated Jake Paul. Like just did not want it. Like, I want to spar Jake. I want to spar Jake. I want to fucking fight Jake. I want to do all of this. This is the start of Creed V. Hated Jake Paul. Hated Jake Paul. They got in the ring and he was like, this was a guy I've been boxing for a long time. He got in the ring and they sparred.

Jake fucked this guy up. When I'm telling you this, like, this is what I consider to be like a real, we haven't seen him since. Jake fucked. I'm like, you guys, I know that Van has a reputation of embellishing stories. This is, when I'm telling you, hurt him bad. And I was like, oh, because I did not think that was going to go the way that it did. This was a guy that was his same size,

Had been boxing for a long time. There's literally pictures of him with gloves on when he's like 13, 14 years old. Jake beat the shit out of him. And I'm like, he's going to win some fights. Waz, are you familiar with Bacoli? No, who's that? Oh, shit. This is Bill's guy. He's your guy, too. He is, but Bill is like obsessed with Mark Bacoli. He's a gigantic guy from the continent. He's from... Okay, which part? He's Congolese. Oh, the Congo, the continent, continent. Okay. I'll just give you the one sentence sell job.

Congolese Ernie Shavers.

1974 George Foreman. Wow. That's Bacoli. So is this like more credible than the Deontay Wilder early clips? Yes. There's nothing like this guy. Deontay Wilder is, I don't want to take anything from Wilder. Nobody wants to fight this guy. Like he can't, he literally cannot get fights. Yeah, I don't want to take anything from Wilder. Wilder is a bronze medalist in the Olympics who became heavyweight champion with one of the most devastating right hands of all time. But

Like Martin Bacoli is like a... There's a big young heavyweight, Jared Anderson. Yeah. Great young fighter. Just got demolished. The Saudis... The Saudis threw him a ton of money. They're like, will you fight Bacoli? He said, no. And they're like, here's a lot of money. And he's like, all right. And he got absolutely... Like his career has been altered. It was one of those... You ever seen...

It's not quite this level. It was like the Frazier Foreman. I was just about to say. That's what the fight was going to bring about. Like Frazier Foreman to where you're like... Ball Frazier just keeps falling over. Halfway into the fight, you're like, ooh. Halfway into the first round, you're like, ah. And Jared Anderson, give him credit. Like one of these guys. He was landing shots. That's what he was doing the whole fight. And fighting his fight. But it's not just that. Like, McCoy is skilled. Yeah, no, but it's... Ultimately, when somebody can just...

And you just see the other guy moving backwards and it's like he's getting hit by a tornado. And then it became, and so now after that, he can't get a fight. He can't. He's my number one. I just want to see him fight. I'd watch him fight every two months. They just made a fight. Jump on the bandwagon once. I made a fight with him. I want it. But it wasn't with Zayn or one of those guys. He's going to kill somebody. Yeah. He's going to kill somebody. All right. Mike Tyson. So we're all watching. Yep. Kyle, are you watching? Yeah. All right.

Oh, news for everyone. Kyle and I going to Frolic. When is that? Allegedly. I don't know. Sounds great. What day is that? When did we say we're doing it? I said the weekend Saturday vibes are great. Will they have the games on? Yeah. Three TVs. Not the best, though. You can go now that LSU season's over. You can start going to bars on Saturday. I'll just let y'all know. Y'all fuck with me with LSU. I'm not like a stable person when it comes to LSU. Yeah.

So y'all, you know how everybody likes to get razzed about their team and all that stuff like that? I don't like that shit. Yeah. But our season is kind of fucked. We're still outside hope, though. We run the table. Now you have Jaden Daniels. You just transfer all your love to Jaden Daniels for his Washington playoff run. And we got, there's a whole NIL battle happening right now. We're about to play probably 10 million for a quarterback.

I don't like this at all. I saw Cam Ward bought his entire offensive line diamond chains. Like he had like a platter out and as a gift for his amazing season, he got them diamond chains. You should have bought them for the defense. You could give me... Maybe they play better. If we had... This is a better podcast for another time, but if you told me what is college sports in 10 years, I'm prepared for 100 scenarios. Yeah. You literally tell me anything. You tell me it's like a 10...

college league and everyone else's D3. And I believe that. Yeah. This is, it's a strange direction. It's headed in for sure. I can't say it's great. Wow. It's great to see you. Same. Van, great to see you. Thanks for coming on. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Cochran and Steve Cerruti for producing as always. Thanks to Van Lathan and big Waz, Wazney Lambre. Stay tuned for part two. It's coming later tonight. I'll see you there. I want to see them on a wayside.

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