This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible. Financial geniuses.
Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home, and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it, so your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates.
Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back in.
And it's your guy, Jim Jackson, back in effect. On the road right now, you can see I'm in my hotel room. Beautiful hotel here, post-hope.
In Houston, Texas. Here for a home and home series, Clippers versus the Rockets. Back on the road. Took a tough loss last night, but it's all good. Got a good chance on Friday. Friday when it's the first game of the Emirates Cup. So, looking forward to that. Sorry we missed last week.
Part of the big production crew was in Germany for the football game, so didn't want to shortchange any of the production by doing it when the crew was out of the office. But back in effect, back here on Thursday, a lot of stuff is going on. Not just an NBA, but the election was just last week and there's a lot of happy people.
There's also a lot of upset people. Maybe we'll jump into that, but I have a great guest coming on today, Howard Beck. I mean, if you understand journalism and writing and the NBA, it's a name that always pops up.
Currently now with the Ringer. It was with Bleacher Report before New York Times. He covered LA here in LA.
Well, not in LA. I'm in Houston right now, but a lot of stuff for the Lakers, for Brooklyn Nets. I think their inaugural season for the Knicks, but a lot of insight, a lot of knowledge, institutional knowledge on the NBA and also in journalism, like where we're at right now in journalism. In the past, a lot of the stories about our athletes were narrated by journalists. So you got to know them that way, but the nuances now have changed because of social media and podcasts such as this, that now you're more entertained, more intertwined. You get to know more about an athlete, whether that's good or bad, through these different vehicles. And so we dive into that.
Is it better in today's world with having all the access to some of your favorite athletes and entertainers or the mystery of not knowing about a person, kind of back in the day, not knowing the depth of that person, so to speak, was that better with regards to an aura? So we'll dive into that a little bit. So basketball news, which has been great. The surprise with the Cleveland Cavaliers, 13-0 right now. How about the Golden State Warriors at 9-2? I know everybody had them at the top of the charts to start the season as the two best teams are, Golden State one of the best teams behind OKC in the West. But along with that kind of excitement of Golden State kind of still being relevant and now the Cleveland Cavs really on a historic journey to see if they can get to 24-0, kind of like what Boston did, the Celtics, you had these rash of injuries. Two key players and not just injuries.
I'm talking about the Kevin Durant, Sajad Marantz, you have Ben Carroll that's out, Chet Holmgren that's out, Zion Williamson is back out, in and out of the lineup with Paul George, but also with Embiid. And that whole thing, we'll with Howard kind of dive into maybe what are some of the effects or residual effects of less training camp, less time in preseason, how these soft injuries may have resulted from that. But also two more important, how it affects ratings. I mean right now, I know this is the season too because of college football and also NFL, that the NBA ratings are going to be a little bit lower, but compared to last year the ratings are below. Now the numbers don't indicate why, but it's something there. Now could the political climate also with the election this year have something to do with it?
I think maybe that kind of played into a lot of people were tuning into a lot of the political shows early on to kind of get their arms wrapped around what was going on. But man, it's going to be an interesting scene as we trek down the road, get closer to Christmas. We're about to, we're now entering into the Emirates Cup, into the mid-season tournament, kind of will that boost up some of the ratings now that that has begun. All interesting topics man, but I'm glad I'm back.
I'm glad you're back. Howard is going to be great. This week in the NBA, there's a lot of stuff going on regarding, I think, the power of the West. You know, you got eight teams right now that are 500 and above and two teams that are right there at 500 compared to the East where you only got two teams that are above 500. So it shows you the difficulty in the West and how teams that we thought would be there have struggled out the gate a little bit like maybe a Minnesota, a Denver, trying to find their footing compared to in the East because of some injuries with Philly not playing well because of injuries, Orlando and even the thing with Milwaukee. The thing with Milwaukee right now is kind of bizarre.
That is Doc Rivers on the hot seat, of course he is, but how hot is that seat? Because you had Adrian Griffin a year ago, above 500 top teams in the East, less than 30 games, I believe it was, got fired and now it doesn't look like the Dame Giannis experiment is kind of working out the way everybody envisioned it. And I know we're talking about Chris Middleton coming back, but I don't know how much that impacts those two.
Giannis had a big game last night with 59 points, but it doesn't have the same sense and feel of the Milwaukee squads that we saw in the past, especially on the defensive end of the court. So a lot of stuff going on, but let me tell you I'm excited, I'm excited. Thanks for joining me this week.
We're going to have a lot of fun with this podcast, especially when we sit down and talk to Howard. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies.
The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates.
Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Let's talk O'Reilly Auto Parts, people. You love their jingle. You're going to love their friendly, helpful service even better because they're in the business of keeping your car on the road. And the parts knowledge they have, it's all you need for your maintenance and repairs.
They've got thousands of parts and accessories in stock, either in store or online, so you never have to worry if you're in a jam. The team at O'Reilly Auto Parts can test your battery for free in or out of your car. If it needs to be replaced, they'll find you just the right battery for your vehicle. Need your windshield wipers replaced?
A brake light fixed or quick service? They'll help you there and find the right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help. The professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts are your one-stop shop for all things auto. Do it yourself and you can find what you need in store or online. So stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today or visit us at OReillyAuto.com.
That's OReillyAuto.com E-I-S-E-N O-O-O-Reilly Auto Parts. Well welcome back and as promised a good friend of mine Howard Beck with the Ringer but also for me the Los Angeles Daily News Sports Illustrated. Where else?
New York. Where else Howard? You've been everywhere man. You've been like me.
New York Times Bleacher Report. You've been like me man. I've been on 12 teams. You've been more like 12 organizations everywhere so you got a keen insight into everything. The media business NBA all very volatile right like you just you go you go where you can at this stage you know but I'm very very happy to be at the Ringer. But you know before we jump yeah yeah before before we kind of jump into stuff are you where are you at with how the media has changed over the years you went from print to digital to streaming to all of this kind of where do you sit with that? It's it's been really it's it's jarring when you look back on a gym like if I think about the 27 years that I've been covering the NBA this is actually my 28th season which is hard to believe I started off as strictly a newspaper guy I did that for a very long time before I jumped to Bleacher Report in 2013 and I've been primarily digital since then with the exception of a couple years at Sports Illustrated where we were still you know 95 98 percent digital aside from the magazine coming out weekly so so much has changed you know I'm a podcaster in addition to being a writer now obviously I do a lot of video and a lot of podcasts and and everything else we all do and I think all of that it's mostly for the positive like the business itself has struggled to adapt at times and there's just the economics of media have been difficult for the last couple of decades but in terms of the way we deliver our stories our insight our analysis to fans viewers readers oh that's a plus and for me like it's also just you know kind of kept me on my toes and kept me growing I could have just been strictly a print reporter for my whole career and that would have been fine but I'm very grateful that I've been able to work at so many incredible places and right now especially at the ringer where I can do all of these other things but how have you changed from let's say 2012 writing and really diving into an article doing your research to delivering that because now it seems like it's more not so much about the storyline it has to be sensationalized a little bit more in order for it to get the viewers attention you know what I mean because it seems like before the writing part the engaging with the reader and the print has kind of changed to be more I would say dramatic it has to have more nuances in it have you changed that aspect or is it still just pure writing for you? The ecosystem has changed dramatically Jim right like everything we just went through and because of the way the ecosystem has changed and because you can actually gauge who's clicking on what you know when I wrote for a newspaper we didn't know which stories anybody's reading it just lands on someone's doorstep and they might just be picking it up for the classifieds they might be looking at the comics page you don't know so you don't cater to or in some senses pander to the reader you're writing the stories based on what you as the reporter and your editor think is most interesting period so it's a very pure form of it and it is true that in this era of journalism I would argue Jim that not everything has been sensationalized but there's a lot of it and there certainly is a lot of traffic chasing and click chasing and viral content and aggregation and a bunch of other nonsense flooding the system but I think for a lot of us and certainly for me having come up more of a traditional media background I am not looking to write about just let's say Lebron every day just because Lebron gets clicks like that's great Lebron's awesome but I think most of us would still prefer to write about a variety of topics and report as in depth as we can not traffic and simply hot takes that's part of the ecosystem too right takes and analysis are part of the of our world but as a reporter and writer at heart I would prefer to simply find something really interesting and say you know what to my editor you know what I think I want to spend some time making some calls and talking to some people and seeing what this particular trend or this person this player is about and my editor says you know what I agree that sounds great I go to it and then I spend a few hours a few days a few weeks and I report something out I have the you know I would say the benefit of being of working for a place at the ringer that allows me to do that a lot of places I would agree are in fact just chasing clicks which I'm not a big fan of yeah but how do you how do you everybody has an ego everybody wants their article their story to be read their how do you stay away from not being involved in the hot takes it's so easy because in today's world everything is ignited like this by whether it's racial tension religious some kind of sports thing or whatever it is it's easily manifested and it's easy for journalists to kind of either ignite that flame stoke that flame a little bit how do you how do you stay away from that and stay true to who you are honestly I don't think it's that hard I'm just kind of wired this way I came up as a you know strictly a news reporter right you know covering sports and actually I did cover news news for a while to city hall that kind of stuff but when you're wired that way where it's every day is not about what's the take that I can put out there that's going to get attention it's just more about what am I curious about today or just what am I covering today I was a beat writer covering teams the Lakers for seven years the Knicks for nine years and every day is is basically just okay I've got a game to cover and then there's a practice the next day and I'm doing a follow-up story so I'm not thinking about takes I'm not thinking about what what's going to grab attention and I mean look one part of it I do want to agree with you on all of us are in this when whether you're writing whether you're broadcasting you do it because you hope people are interested in what you're doing right I don't write things so that no one will read them I write them hoping that a lot of people want to read them but there's a way to do that without sensationalizing there's a way to do that that is more about the nuance and and providing context and explanation and you know a little bit of color along the way based on whatever the story may be but it doesn't have to be about a take it doesn't have to be controversial doesn't have to be polarizing it doesn't have to be something that's going to you know trigger a response it's and so I don't know that's just always the way that I've preferred it now as somebody who who does multiple things now right when I'm writing and reporting it's not really about my opinion and it's not about takes that's just writing and reporting but I also am a co-host on a podcast twice a week the real ones on the Ringer podcast network and when I'm doing the podcast there's still a lot of analytical aspect to that when I'm doing that with Logan Murdoch and Raja Bell we're talking about trends and stories around the league but you're definitely going to be you know providing more opinion in a podcast format or when I've done radio than in my writing my writing I've opinion has been a very small part of it over the years I got you so I kind of get it and I understand just being on this side of it too from the broadcasting side to now the podcasting side but also doing studio work and everything and kind of trying to balance the two in between because one thing I never wanted to do was let the truth get in the way I always wanted to tell the truth and try to find the essence of a story line and not sensationalize something where now it's taken out of proportion and I think that's the challenge in today's world because with the access to this right here my own platform it's kind of put a dent into newspapers magazines because now the voice of the people whether that's an athlete a political figure an entertainer and now they can control the narrative on what they want out there where there's before that narrative was really controlled by the media you know now these voices are out and the impact is a lot different good or bad because there's some time some people don't really need to be doing it but that's their you know opportunity to kind of get their points across whether sometimes you agree with it or not yeah and listen I think it's a net positive that athletes and others you know their agencies some coaches although people have kind of a lot of like coaches and GMs were playing around in Twitter for a while during peak Twitter and kind of backed away deciding maybe they're better off not being out there so much it's a net positive it is a net positive though that players have their own podcasts that players have social media channels to speak with fans communicate with fans directly right there are I to me I will of course always as a journalist I'm going to tell you if there's a really interesting story to be done about say Kevin Durant I think speaking with Kevin Durant and then talking to people who you know whether it's teammates or family or others you have a much more textured story right the athlete can always speak directly to fans if they want to clarify something or if they want to fire back at an opinion they don't like or if they think that I got something wrong or one of my colleagues got something wrong like that that's all fine but I think the value of what we do as independent reporters is to provide a broader more textured story and you can't do that by yourself and I think I think smart people in the public space not just athletes entertainers politicians anybody they realize that even though we live in an era where anybody can communicate directly with the public there is a benefit to having your story told in a detailed textured way that provides a lot more context and explanation and that's what we reporters do right so let me jump in real quick aura era Michael Jordan because back in the day he didn't have social media so it was just aura and era about him because when he came to town you only saw him once you really didn't know too much about us but you knew about his background but you didn't know you know you couldn't really dig deep he didn't share a lot but it added to his whole persona of this bigger than life figure right in today's world because everybody's involved in whether that's Twitter whether that's Instagram whether that's a podcast you know the athlete a lot more is that better for the athletes today with regards to how people view them or was that time period back when a Michael a magic a bird when you really didn't know but you know you love them so much it just felt different because you know what I mean and in that in that time period compared to now I think it depends on the athlete Jim because I think listen Michael was covered to the nth degree right exhaustively and in a time before the internet before social media before all these other channels we still had like incredible like not just stories and magazine length stories but books entire books written about Michael and I think yeah there's a certain part of him that he kept walled off but I think people had a pretty good feel for him right whereas now in today's media environment in today's NBA you have players who are you know in the public eye constantly and could be even further exposed if they choose to be if you want to let the public in but choose not to be it's possible to have a gazillion cameras on you and social media channels and everybody picking your game apart and talking about you without still being known at all right like we know a little bit about Nikola Jokic but and there's a book coming out by my friend Mike Singer in a few months that I can't wait to read about Jokic but in a lot of ways he's still a big mystery box to us right we know he loves horses we know that he would rather go spend time with his horses than have a championship parade but there's not a lot and so you know even some of the biggest stars of the last ten years right like how much do we know about Kawhi Leonard Russell Westbrook has kept I think us at arms length and that's his you know that's his choice so it's possible to be a player celebrity in the media era that we're living in with so many different ways of people being able to see or appreciate your your talents and still be kind of a mystery because you can you can choose to still hold that back and a lot of guys do.
The Rich Eisen Show is sponsored by Grainger. Does this sound familiar? You're a maintenance specialist and you've been squaring off with a leaky radiator at your facility for hours.
You're both drenched in sweat. You've thrown the whole playbook at it but so far it's got an answer for everything. What you need is a teammate a pro who's seen it all before and that's Grainger. With support specialists always ready to chat the product you need plus a million more just give this ringer a ring. Call 1-800-GRAINGER.
Click Grainger.com or just stop by one of their local branches. For business owners like you the American Express Business Platinum Card works just as hard as you do to help you pursue your passions. With its world class business and travel benefits you can get more for your business wherever it takes you. The Amex Business Platinum Card offers a flexible spending limit that adapts with your business enabling you to flex and adapt as your business evolves and you'll earn five times membership rewards points on flights and prepaid hotels booked on AmexTravel.com so that going that extra mile for your business is even more rewarding. See how the Amex Business Platinum Card gives business owners like you the tools and rewards to do more of what you love. Not all purchases will be approved. Terms apply.
Learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash Amex Business. Thanks for that Howard because I just wanted to get your perspective because you've kind of been through all these errors and seen kind of the changes that have taken place and you had to make adjustments but also as a former athlete, as an entertainer the political individual are now able to take control more of their content of their storylines. They control some parts of the narrative and I do think it's good today because a lot of the interaction I think for not just fans but just people in general they get to know us as athletes or entertainers is quite amusing.
It can go too far sometimes but that's like with anything else but I just know that we're still evolving too with this new media space on where it goes so I appreciate that but I want to jump into a little bit of NBA stuff because I know at the beginning of the season you had in the Eastern Conference Cleveland Cavaliers going 13-0 and then you had the Golden State Warriors going 9-2, right? That's how you had it, right? Oh yeah, absolutely. I can't find it right now. I can't find the link right now, Jim.
I'll get back to you. It's here somewhere. I've got a lot of tabs open. Those predictions are absolutely there. I will say this. Surprised? How surprised?
Surprised but not shocked, I guess, if I'm going to start both. So in my defense I've gotten already a thousand things wrong from the preseason to now but I will say, and this is somewhere probably on the Ringer Podcast Network, on The Real Ones we talked about some preseason predictions. There were a couple things that I did say before the season started. My preseason coach of the year call was Kenny Atkinson because I believed that there was a good chance that Kenny, as offensive-minded as he is, he's a Mike D'Antoni disciple and a Steve Kerr disciple and a Ty Lu disciple that he would go in and maybe be able to unlock some things with the Cavaliers who clearly had a lot of talent. They just hadn't been able to quite get that talent to gel or fully leverage all of the talents that they had to their best effect.
So I did say that. I did not say 13-0 but I did think that Kenny Atkinson could be coach of the year because I thought the Cavs could take a leap. And on the Warriors side of it, I actually did say I think the Warriors are a lot better than people are expecting. I think they have a chance to be one of the top six playoff teams, not a playing team but an actual playoff team. They were only three wins shy of 50 last year and that was despite losing Draymond Green to suspension for weeks at a time. And Wiggins was out with injuries and all this. They've got such admirable depth now. I think they did a phenomenal job. Mike Dunleavy Jr. and his staff turning Klay Thompson's salary slot into Buddy Heald and Kyle Anderson and D'Antoni Melton and their young guys are coming along.
Pajemski and Kuminga, Moody, Trace Jackson Davis. So I thought just their sheer depth, as long as Steph and Draymond are performing near the levels that we've seen and they still were performing at a pretty damn high level last year, absolutely I thought the Warriors were going to exceed expectations. Not that they're necessarily a contender again but I did expect the Warriors to be as Steph put it in preseason, a relevant team. So let me ask you this though, so let's look at the Cleveland Cavs real quick.
J.B. Bickerstaff did a phenomenal job when he was there but it was a disconnect probably in the locker room which caused the breakup of the two and he's doing a heck of a job with the Pistons right now. Could this be a case very similar to Golden State where Mark Jackson was there kind of built the core, some things didn't work out Steve Kerr comes in with a different philosophy but more of a mature team and things take off. Now I'm not saying that Cleveland is going to win four championships and go to the finals six, seven times like that but it has that kind of feel to it, am I right? Kind of the team has been together, now you bring it in a different voice, more offensive minded, utilizing the talents a little bit different and boom you got some success. We see this happen all the time, including the very first team I ever covered, the Lakers right? I covered a young Shaq and Kobe starting in 97 and they only won 60 games under Dell Harris and they were a very good strong and deep team that made the conference finals and all this but they couldn't break through until Phil Jackson became the head coach. It's not an exact, these are not precise analogies but there are various versions of this over the course of NBA history and so yeah I think Kenny Atkinson coming in, J.B. Bickerstaff did an incredible job with the Cavaliers, that should not be overlooked at all and he's the one who molded them into a really high level defensive team and when they grafted on Donovan Mitchell, putting him next to Darius Garland, there was always going to be an adjustment period there and there have been injuries the last couple years, trying to get two ball dominant guards who both are used to scoring a lot, play making a lot, getting them in sync and then getting the two bigs in sync, there was a lot to try to figure out there and frankly I was skeptical that it was going to work, I thought they needed to trade at least one of those core four guys but so far under Kenny Atkinson it's working really well and yeah sometimes you just need a fresh set of eyes or some fresh ideas, sometimes a coach gets you to the 50 win mark and it's the next guy who comes in who gets you to 57 or 58 or to a conference finals or wherever the Cavaliers may ultimately land.
Not for nothing, this is not to pour cold water on their start at all, 13-0 is 13-0. They've had mostly a pretty soft schedule, they're going to play the Celtics I think next Tuesday I can't wait for that one, that will be, you can't place too much emphasis on a November matchup but I think that's going to be an important marker for them and Celtics are defending champs. On top of that too the Easter Conference is kind of a disaster right now, teams like the Sixers, the Bucks way underachieving in both cases, the Knicks were supposed to be one of the top teams in the East and may yet become that but as of right now have had a little bit of a slow start out of the gate and so all of that I think has probably benefited the Cavs too, just in terms of contrast right, like you expected a bunch of teams to be jockeying for a position to try to knock off Boston, right now it looks like Cleveland and Boston and everybody else is trying to catch up but again it's mid-November we can't react too hard right now. Yeah and to Cleveland's defense they got to play who's in front of them, I mean okay I don't care who it is and that is one thing and you talked about the Eastern Conference compared to West there's only two teams right now currently above 500 whereas in the West you got eight teams above 500 and a couple teams that are right there at 500 so the difference between the two is glaring and that helps me transition to this, do you have an idea or thought process on why about these early injuries, especially the soft tissue injury, I think the NBA is anticipating maybe a thousand missed games this year by key players, now again these are some of our superstars too that are out, what's your thought on these early injuries and what may be attributing or causing these injuries? I wish I knew Jim you know the league wishes it knew, all the various well-paid medical professionals across the league wish they knew we are living in a time where there is more sports science more gadgets, more studies, more abilities to measure what a player is going through than there ever has been we have load management and rest and all of these different mechanisms to try to preserve player health and the NBA over the last seven, eight years has made the schedule more efficient and more player friendly, eliminating a lot of back-to-backs eliminating four games in five nights, the list of guys out right now is staggering and I don't know if there is any one thing you can attribute it to, what about this, what about this, is it the NBA can't quantify yet, they haven't been able to quantify where the load management decreases the amount of injuries they haven't been able to, numbers wise, is it the fact that two training camps are shorter, guys are not going to be playing in pre-season, so now you ramp up really quick, you go from 50, 60 to 100 to play these full speeds and then all of a sudden your body can't react to it, because whether we like it or not the body is meant to be, especially at a high level athlete, you got to perform you got to push it, analytics says you need to rest and perform at your best, you know, we need to be able to monitor a player's numbers in order to see fatigue, sleep muscle deterioration, all these kind of things in order for them to perform at a high level, but yet we haven't been able to prove that load management, which is different than load I mean, managing for an injury, you know really does it, and I just tend to think that sometimes not having that early activity, the longer training camps, the time spent on the court may play into it, again I don't have statistical numbers, and this is just from playing the game especially these soft tissue injuries, the hamstrings and things like that that not really pushing the body and running the body may have something to do with that's just me. It's not just you though Jim, I mean I've heard plenty of people around the league kind of posit that same theory that really what we need is to go back to a philosophy of making sure that you build up everybody's endurance and not giving them all this rest and that maybe the rest and all the load managing is backfiring, the flip side of that though is this if you go back a few decades, careers were shorter, they just were, like look at what Chris Paul is still doing at age 39, 40, whatever Chris Paul is right now, look what Lebron is doing at age 39 and granted Lebron's a freak of nature, but still he's having an incredible career, not just still playing but still playing at an all-MBA level. Steph is still playing at an all-MBA level deep into his 30s. So if you wanted to start comparing and contrasting past eras, the thing you would point to today is that guys in this era are playing longer and at a higher level longer than a lot of their predecessors guards especially used to just fall off a cliff in their early to mid 30s and then they were done.
So where all that lands, what the truth is amid all of this conflicting data I'm not smart enough to know. I never did finish my degree in medicine, kinesiology or any other of those disciplines, but I would say it's safe to say that the league and all of its various medical professionals are still trying to sift through all this and figure out what the right balance is. Yeah but with that too is a cause and effect. You sit out, now players are sitting out whether that's low management of these injuries and now it's having an adverse effect on viewership and I wanted to ask you about that because the numbers came out that said right now the viewership compared to last year is lower. Now there are other low factors with the election and with of course always football, but is there a direct correlation in particular this year with these early injuries and you know guys sitting out to the lower viewership?
I don't know. This is one of those things where sometimes we have the data you can look at the ratings and we all immediately start super imposing our own belief systems or concerns and say oh well it must be this thing that I was already worried about. See now it's showing up in the ratings. It's tough because those ratings don't come with reasons.
You don't have any data that shows why X number of households watched or X number of households didn't watch. So it's a little bit dicey when we start speculating on it. I do think there are plenty of people in the public who are tired of seeing players, especially the stars of course, sit out games.
That is definitely a turn-off for fans. Ordinarily I'd say things are a little soft on the ratings side early in the season anyway. Sometimes there's a novelty of the first couple weeks, then it falls off a little bit, it picks up again on Christmas, which is kind of the unofficial start of the NBA season. But when you're saying, as you noted, year over year it's down for the same period, I honestly don't know what to attribute that to. I don't know that there's any one thing that makes sense to me.
With that too, this is a good one for you before I let you go. Parity. Seems like right now we have a lot of parity. It goes back to almost like the 1970s when you had seven or eight different teams that won a championship.
Good or bad for the league? I'm kind of an agnostic on this one. I know it sounds like I'm ducking, but I'm not, I swear. I'm all about nuance, Jim. Don't nuance this thing over here. No, I don't want a hot take. Is it yes or no? Because you're going to get into this and try to break it down a lot more.
Yes or no, then go into it. Parity is good for the league on balance because you have 30 teams, a lot of which are in less glamorous markets, smaller markets, cold weather markets, places that you can't necessarily attract superstars and free agency. For the longest time when we talked about dynasties, those dynasties were more often than not in bigger markets. San Antonio notwithstanding, they're the exception to that rule. There's something to that. I think what's healthy for the league overall economically and for fan engagement in certain markets is that every fan base believes their team has a chance.
They're never looking up and going, you know what? I love what our team is doing, but we're never going to be able to beat the LA teams or the New York teams or the Miami teams because those teams outspend us because they make more in their local TV revenue or they're more attractive to superstars and we can't compete with that. What's happened in the league with the way that the CBA has kind of re-engineered parity or re-engineered just competitive balance and economic balance between the teams is that, yeah, now we've got six champions over six years and it's harder to repeat and it's harder to retain your talent frankly because the NBA has a virtual hard cap now with this second apron feature and the good news is it means that everybody feels like they've got a shot or more teams feel like they have a shot. Fan bases don't feel depressed like they're just out of it right off the bat unless your team is planning to be in a rebuild. But the flip side, and I think this is what you're getting at Jim probably, is that dynasties are fun and dynasties are polarizing and they make you root either for them or against them.
It's nice to have an evil empire for everybody else to root against. I felt like in the 90s everybody was either a default Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan fan or a fan of the Pistons, the Lakers, the Pacers, the Knicks, somebody that you're hoping would knock them off. The Warriors obviously were the big bad for a while especially after they got Kevin Durant and I do think when we're starting to speculate about how why are ratings down, throw that one in there too.
Maybe people are not as attracted to parody. Maybe they like the idea of super teams. We had a super team era from about 2008 when the Celtics won the championship with Pierce Garnett and Ray Allen to about 2020 when the Warriors started to collapse.
Obviously they revived themselves in 2022 but there was a super team era there where it felt like unless you had at least three certified stars you didn't have a chance. We've moved away from that now and the league has engineered it that way. Is that why interest might be or ratings might be down?
I don't know. I think like I say I know you hate me to do a nuance but there's benefits to both sides of this and I do think it's healthy for the league that all 30 teams feel like they've got a shot and that nobody can just be outspent by hundreds of millions of dollars. I go back and forth with this because I love the fact that a Denver, Orlando can compete and get national ratings but I compare it to football. Like in football, parody is great because we don't care who's playing in the Super Bowl. People love to watch football.
You can be in a small market. Now if you have the opposing team still has to be someone that people are going to root for but it seems like in basketball more often if it's not a big market team so to speak in the deep hunt of the playoffs or in the finals it pulls away from the ratings. We haven't seen it in a minute because LeBron has been involved, Steph has been involved but I tend to think that people watch football in the Super Bowl. I don't care who's playing.
You don't have to be a fan of either one. With basketball it's San Antonio playing like Jersey that year. Those two markets are smaller and am I right on this Howard by saying I think at the time it was the lowest rated since tape delay when those finals were being played because despite having the parody those markets didn't draw like that. So I look at it sometimes and I'm like sometimes you need a villain, you need a big market to really draw in the casual fan nationally to watch it.
I don't know man. Think of LeBron's first finals in 2007 Spurs sweep the Cavs and it's LeBron James. The guy has been in the public eye since he was like 15 years old but it was the Cavaliers and it was the Spurs and these were smaller markets and the Spurs never at their best, which was a long time, they never really generated the same kind of interest that Shaq and Kobe did or Michael Jordan did or that the Warriors eventually would. Sometimes it's not just market, it's about the players on that team and how much interest they generate individually, how exciting they might seem to fans. Tim Duncan never captured the public's imagination. He's an all-time great but he doesn't capture the imagination the way that Steph Curry does or that even like say Anthony Edwards does.
It's a lot of different elements that go into this. Before I let you go, since you predicted that it was going to be the Warriors and Cleveland to start off the season the way you did, we got to stay with the predictions. In the finals this year it is going to be who and who and who wins it.
So we did have to at the ringer put our predictions down and they're on the website and now I just have to remember what I actually said. I think I went Oklahoma over Boston if I'm recalling correctly. I thought the Celtics, despite the East, I think having a lot of potential challengers. I did not see the Cavaliers being at this level. I still think the Knicks Sixers, I'm not sure about the Bucks anymore, the Nixon Sixers will still be heard from but I think the Celtics do come out of the East again but I think their road to the finals will be a little bit more taxing and the Thunder are so young and so deep and so spry and obviously Chet Holmgren is out right now, back to our injury issue here. Chet Holmgren is out for a little while Isaiah Hartenstein is out right now but if that team is healthy in the spring I think most of us expect that the Thunder are going to be the best team in the West and so if Oklahoma comes out of the West with a young deep spry roster and the Celtics get banged around a little bit more in this run than they did the last time then I think the Thunder end up emerging as champs. I'm locking that in right now. I'm putting it in, I'm etching it in stone right now. This is what Howard Beck said, OK C, if healthy, wins it. That's what I'm going with.
I'm absolutely going to be wrong, it will haunt me like every other prediction. Alright brother, well hey listen I appreciate you taking the time to jump on, it's been fabulous and of course we'll talk down the line. Absolutely a pleasure Jim, thanks for having me, look forward to bumping into you in an arena somewhere. Alright here we are at that time of the show off the court, something a little bit different not basketball related and of course just because the election had just taken place, I try to really monitor and skew how I get involved in these things. I have a lot of different opinions on the political scene and what happens and America itself and the United States and everybody has an opinion and it was so polarizing this year the election, whether you voted for Trump or voted for Kamala, whatever it may be, Democrat or Republican, it was really polarizing. The rhetoric around it I think we can all agree was probably a lot unnecessary, a lot of the divisive language used on both sides of the table whether it's Democrat or Republican. A lot of happy people right now because Trump is back in office, a lot of people that are unhappy because Kamala and the Democrats didn't win. But at the end of the day it's like as Americans what do we really want?
And this is a question that's been asked over time. The political system is what it is and a lot of people say and this is just my opinion that the system is broken and I say well how is it broken when it was set up this way and it's working perfectly. That in the way the Constitution and the forefather set it up it was set around a set of different rules and a set of people mainly Anglo-Saxons at the time that were in charge and the political system there and followed it. A lot of times people think that the votes don't matter and I talked about this before in these elections but your voice does count especially on the local level. But my big picture, my big thing was this election like we had this year building up to show how far away we are as a country to race relations, political relations, religious beliefs and systems because if we're all really true to what the premise of the United States is about freedom of religion to believe and follow who and what religion you want, freedom of speech and I think that has to be to a certain degree as well that you're protected by the laws of the Constitution not based on you know color, creed, religion but these things have yet to kind of been fully fulfilled throughout the history of this country.
When you have to kind of pass laws in my opinion or bill of rights for certain freedoms I don't think they're lasting, I don't think they have the stick-to-it-iveness I don't think they have the impact because you're trying to convince someone to change the way they think because of a bill or a law and that doesn't change the mindset of the person and that's what we kind of continue to do with I don't care if it's the civil rights, if it's the bill of rights or if it's the voting act, if it's the housing discrimination if you got to pass laws and rights for that that tells you a lot about the mentality because these are rights that should be generated to each and every person that lives here in the United States and you shouldn't have to pass a law in order for that to happen and unfortunately we have. So I mean this week just made me really reflect on how far we have to go. We've come a long way but when you look across the country and you look at the different regions, different states or different small towns on the words and what people were saying they wanted and needed and expected from their presidential candidate and when you look at a lot of the noise that was created around this year's election is a lot of distractions whether it was what was happening in Ukraine, what was happening from the job market, what was happening from healthcare, what was happening from the economy, whether it was global warming, all these different things going on but yet the big thing was the big sticking point was still the racial conversation. All this other stuff is going on but when you really broke it down to me it revolved a lot around race in this particular election and hopefully and you know we can get to a point that I don't know when that's going to be.
I really don't. Whether it's my kids' kids have an opportunity but we haven't had it in this country where we've had true really great race relations. I don't care what ethnicity it is and is it a realistic goal is the question because if you really want it to happen it can happen but is it really a realistic goal to be able to have race relations at a point where we don't have this divisive nature and the question also goes back to in the history of the world have we ever really had that equal playing field and level field?
I don't think we have but there's ways to be able to navigate through that. So just my thoughts and hopefully down the line I'll be able to have some guests on to kind of dive into this subject matter a lot more because I have a lot more thoughts and ideas about it just from reading about the times before us that have kind of predicted what's going on right now but it leads me to believe that these kind of conversations need to be had in a not argumentative way. I think you can agree to disagree. You can have your different opinions but you've got to be open to listening because you may learn something in between that when you have your thought processes in your mind on what you think is really true but yet instead you've got to understand where somebody else is coming from and their point of view and why they think the way they do even if you don't agree.
Even if you don't agree you've got to be able to hear people out and by doing that maybe there's a commonality in there that you can agree upon and agree to disagree to have a civil conversation and hopefully moving forward that's what we can have a lot more of agree to disagree but yet have a civil conversation. Appreciate the love. Appreciate the time.
And I look forward to next week too. Peace. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash listen. And use code listen at checkout.
