Latest / Rosters to Rings Podcast / Mavericks Pull the Plug and Giants Pull the Rug

Transcript

Mavericks Pull the Plug and Giants Pull the Rug · Rosters to Rings Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Roster Syrings. Alongside Ryan McDonough, I am fad Levine.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: We are really happy to have Tom Telesco join us
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this week tremendously busy time of the year for professional sports.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: We've got an action packed show. In future segments, we
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: are going to address the trade deadline in the NFL.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: We're going to hit you with some pressing baseball stories.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: A bomb show was dropped in Major League Baseball. But
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: first we've got some breaking news in the NBA that
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Dallas Mavericks have relieved Nico Harrison of his job. Ryan,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: can you please break down the situation in Dallas.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, tough day for Nico Harrison personally fad in Dallas
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: and Fort Worth and the Metroplex. Nico Harrison was fired
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: from his job as general manager of the Dallas Mavericks
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: on Tuesday morning. This is about nine months after the
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: much maligned LUKA donstage to the LA Lakers trade that
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: and I think one of the things we're going to
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: try to do on this show and we'll continue to
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: try to do, is give a holistic perspective because Nico Harrison,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: prior to that trade, I thought made some really good
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: moves at the twenty twenty four trade deadline, which is
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: hard to believe that was less than two years ago.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: It seems like a lifetime ago, especially if you're a
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Mavericks fan. But he made two moves at the deadline
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: in twenty four, acquiring Daniel Gafford from Washington in PJ
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Washington from Charlotte. Those two guys were integral parts of
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: the twenty twenty four Western Conference championship team in Dallas,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: team that lost to the Boston Celtics in the twenty
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: twenty four NBA Finals. But unfortunately, you guys know how
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: this works in pro sports. The three of us in particular,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: are familiar with this. Nico will be remembered for the
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: move that the big move that he made, the shocking
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: move just before the trade deadline this past February. That
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: was sending young superstar Luka Doncic, just approaching his prime,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: to the LA Lakers, something that the MAVs did inexplicably
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: without canvassing the entire league for trade offers. And I
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: think that's one of the things that the three of
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: usocus on and are probably more focused on than most
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: fans and media members given the jobs we've done so
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: you guys know, sometimes the decision it works out or
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: it doesn't. But I think the three of us are
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: processed driven and as I look back at the MAUS process,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: and this is not hindsight. I said this at the time.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I said, I can't believe they traded a player of
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Luka Donsich's caliber without canvassing the entire league. If you're
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: going to if you're gonna do that, you canvass the
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: entire league. You try to get teams in a bidding war,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: you play them off against each other and get a
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: package that sets your franchise up well going forward. The
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: MAUS front office, led by Nico Harrison, did not do that.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: They focused in on one team, the LA Lakers, and
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: specifically one player in Anthony Davis, who I'm not trying
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: to pick on a d but there's a reason Charles
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Barkley calls him street close for his nickname. Anthony Davis
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: only played in thirty two percent of the games since
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: he joined the Dallas Mavericks. And the irony of it, guys,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: is Nico Harrison. I don't think it says this publicly.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: I don't think he can say this publicly, but privately,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: what he's told people is part of the reason he
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: moved Luka Donsich was he he did not want to
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: give him a giant, five year MAX contract that would
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: have been the biggest in NBA history because he's worried
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: about his health. But I think if you look at
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: it objectively, somebody in the front office and ownership says,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, Okay, if you're worried about his health,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I understand that we know more about Luca's medical than
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: anybody and we'll see if those concerns were justified or
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: not in time. But the guy we're trading him for,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Anthony Davis, look at his record. Of course, he's not healthy.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: We know his track record. He's five years older than
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: the Luca, He's frequently out of the lineup, and guys,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: the shocking number looking at it today is that since
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: that deal was made in February, now spanning parts of
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: two NBA seasons, that Anthony Davis has only played in
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: thirty two percent of his games as a Dallas Maverick.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: So on one hand, you have Luka Donsis thriving and
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: his MVP candidate, if not MVP favorite with the LA Lakers,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: and then on the other side, you have Anthony Davis
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: out of the lineup again, the MAVs three to eight, underachieving,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: and so Patrick DeMont, relatively new owner in Dallas, decided
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: to make the change by firing at GM Nico Harrison.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: You know, and Ryan, we've talked about this before. Our
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: goal as general managers is to always try to sell
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: high and buy low. I think when you see deals
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: like this, you have to believe there was a misguided
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: notion that there was almost an addition by subtraction. They
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: were taking the under. They thought that Luca would never
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: get into shape, and lo and behold, he comes in
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: this season. He looks like he's lost a lot of weight,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: He's playing exceptionally well. He's picking up for where Lebron
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: is not playing right now, and he's filling a void.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: And so I think, unfortunately, when you don't canvas the league,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: when you make kind of rash decisions, part of that
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: is embedded in the fact that you believe that this
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: asset probably isn't as good as the rest of the
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: league thinks it is. But that's really not our job.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Our job is to maximize these situations, never try to
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: sell low. And I think once you start describing a
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: notion of that you're adding something by subtracting a player,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: and the league's not quite aware of that yet. That's
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: when you really can be compromised in some of these trades.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: Hey, so does this fall into the category of because
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: you know, we've been in front offices, we've had superstars before,
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: and even though they're superstars, there's no perfect players. So
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: you have a loss, you have a bad stretch, You
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: vent about your best player, you know, whatever his negatives
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: may be. You vent about it. But then eventually you
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: either come around or you have staff around you that hey,
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: let's some perspective here, and you kind of work your
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: way out of it. But this seemed like a knee
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: jerk reaction to the trade. Was that part of this
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: at all that there was nobody else there to kind
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: of sit down and say, hey, look, big picture of
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: perspective of what we have, what the pros are versus
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: the cons.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: I think it was Tom, and I think it was
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: a snowball effect from a very high starting point. I mean,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: you think of where the Dallas Mavericks were just in
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: June of last year of twenty twenty four, they won
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: the Western Conference and they ran the gauntlet. They played
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: a very difficult schedule to get out of the Western
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Conference and get to the NBA Finals. They lost in
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: the finals to a loaded Celtics team, and that's where
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: things started to turn. Luka Donsich, fairly or not, became
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: the scapegoat because of the defensive struggles, the request about
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: his conditioning, and frankly, whether he was in shape or not.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Boston was just a better team over the course of
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: a seven game series. In the NBA playoffs, especially the finals,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: the better team usually want wins. We saw it last
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: year with the Okac Thunder. The year before that, the
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Boston Celtics were the superior club. So to pin that
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: on Luka Donsich or all on Luca, that was the
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: start of it, Tom and then it snowballed from there
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: where Luca went and played for Slavenia, his national team,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: over the summer and then coming back. Those European off
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: seasons for the guys who play at the highest levels
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: of international basketball can be pretty grueling as well. So
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: you have a very long NBA season followed by a
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: long international season, very little rest time between the end
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: of the European season. In the summer and then the
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: start of training camp. So Luca was kind of working
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: his way into shape. He was taking some time off,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: and then he got injured. And it seems like when
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: that injury happened, it was a reason for any Luca
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: critics or skeptics or people who were blaming him. Mighty
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: carried the team to the finals. He was the only
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: reason they were there, the main reason they were there
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four, that they were blaming him for
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: being out of shape, and so I think that's how
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: it started. And then there were famous, you know, now
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: infamous disputes about well, he needs to travel with the team,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: No he doesn't, he needs to stay in Dallas and
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: rehab and should it be with his guys because a
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: lot of the NBA superstars have their own guys they
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: work with, versus guys who just work for the team,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: you know, So all of that snowballed, And you're right.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: I think this is where a number of factors that, unfortunately,
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: if you're a Mavericks fan, worked against the organization. You
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: had a new owner and Patrick Dumont and a very
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: inexperienced owner who had never been part of an NBA ownership, group.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: But a lot of these guys, as you guys know,
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: minority owners somewhere else. They kind of get familiar with
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: the league and then they buy their own team. Dumont
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: was different than that. He came in He's from a
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: casino magnet family. That's how he came into ownership. And
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: then the transition from Mark Cuban as the primary governor
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: to now in a minority owner role. Mark Cuban huge,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Luca Donsi's proponent, you know, would have reportedly put his
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: foot down and squashed this deal. He wasn't anymore. And
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: then a GM and Nico Harrison, who did not draft
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Luca Donsie. He had a relationship with Anthony Davis from
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: his time at Nike. We know this as much as guys,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: I guess, Haye to admit it. With certain situations, egos
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: do become involved sometime. So Nico did not draft Luca again.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: He you know, he obviously helped build a team that
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: led him to the finals. But but for a number
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: of reason now I'm not going to you know, pile
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: on Nico Harrison the organization. It was not the right process,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: and it turns out it was not the right decision.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: That that's clear now after nine months of hindsight. But
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: the process was really flawed, and you know that I've
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: never seen anything like this where it was reported a
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: few days ago that the MAVs kind of refitted their
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: arena and built like a special staircase for Nico Harrison
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: to get into and out of his seat because it
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: got so vitriolic with the fans in Dallas that he
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: could not go through the stands anymore. And I think
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: the three of us are uniquely sensitive to that. You know,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: fans are passionate. We get that, and we understand the passion,
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: but there is a line, and it seemed like when
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: I'm watching the game last night when they lost to
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Milwaukee Bucks, It's a close game and the fans are
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: just chanting repeatedly, Fire Nico, Fire Nico. It became a distraction,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: and unfortunately, you know, nobody's bigger in the organization, player
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: coach or at GM and Patrick Demonts decided, I think
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: it was best to remove the distraction, to move on
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: from Nico.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: What I didn't see, to be honest, a lot in
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: his letter to the fans was a lot of self
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: reflection and apologies for his role in green highlighting the
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: trade for you know, for Luka donstage to go from
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Dallas to la But he's the owner. That's his right.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: And as you guys know, as executive, sometimes you just
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: got to take the high road, keep your mouth shut
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: and roll with the punches.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Well, the notion that the odors with you when the
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: loser draws probably sometimes disavowed in some of these moves.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: One other thing I just wanted to bring up about
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: this was, you know, I'm looking at trade rumors this
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: morning and like everybody, and you see that before the
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: actual announcement was made, three extremely well regarded members of
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the NBA media effectively said by ten am Central time,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: this announcement will be made. And it always just sits
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: not too well with me when you see those things,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: because let the executive have the conversation internally with the owner.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Let them take care of that and button it up.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: This notion that the media has to break these stories
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: before the actual employees sometimes gets notified, to me, is
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: really one of the most distasteful things about sports. Like
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: there has to be a line of like there is
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: some humanity in this and Ryan, you just referenced it
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: whether it's how fans treat these these executives. We deserve criticism,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: but we also deserve like safe safety and safeguarding. Similarly,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: like you should be able to have this announcement, you know,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know if Nico's family situation, Like you want
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: to be able to tell your family, your kids, who
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: maybe in school before it gets announced. It's always rough
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: to me when you see the media just clambering to
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: break these stories before they're actually communicated internally.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that I have a significant problem with how it's handled.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: And then I want to go to Tom to get
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: his takes on you know, Brian Dabole and how the
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Giants handled that situation. But in this one started even
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: before the announcement on Tuesday morning that Nico is going
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: to be fired over the weekend and earlier this week,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: the reports that is not a matter of if Nico
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Harrison gets fired, it's when he gets fired, and that stinks.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: I think the three of us will we all agree
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: on that when you're in that position, you never want
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: to be in that position. I don't think the three
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: of us would ever want to put somebody in that position.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: You know, coaches and general managers get hired and fired
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: all the time in pro sports. We know what we
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: sign up for. But you're right that the family impact
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: and just letting somebody twist in the wind, you know,
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: the emotional impact to the individual. One other thing I
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: would say too, that you know we're he'd never admit it.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Nico Harrison's a really nice guy. I know him, not
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: extremely well, but I know him well enough from his
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: time at Nike and now with the Mavericks. You know,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: he had to hire private security and things like that
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: to watch his house and his family. So at some
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: point Nico would never admit this. But I wonder if
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: this is a relief, you know, because it could not
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: have been fun going to that aren every night, hearing
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: the fans chance you know, fire you basically if you're Nico.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: The added staircase. I mentioned the security and all the
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: negativity around it. So I know not many, if any
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Dallas fans remember this, but I do hope they remember.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: You know, you did help put together that team that
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: went to the NBA Finals about a year and a
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: half ago, but you know, you know, and keep that
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: in mind, you know, with some dignity in class as
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: he exists, the organization but Tom, let' let's talk about
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Brian Dable and the Giants. You know, another another fire,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: not a GM in this case, the head coach and
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: one that you know seemingly was at least maybe thought
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: about after the season. Last season, they brought the GM
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Joe showon and they head coach Brian Dable back with
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: the New York Giants, and then mid season, Tom, the
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Giants decided to move on from their head coach Brian
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Dable after two and eight start.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and full disclosure, Brian's a friend of mine. We
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: actually went to the same high school. He's just a
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: couple of years behind me, so, you know, former class
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: being former teammate at Saint Francis High School in Buffalo,
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: so I know him extremely well. But yeah, I mean
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: it's a tough league. The record is what it is.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: The close losses this year, and like you said, coming
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: off last year, there was some you know, some possibility
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: that they make changes last year. They come into this
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: year and they have some tight losses and then you know,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: the handling of Jackson Dart and his injuries. There were
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: just some bad optics involved with that. I know Brian
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: had the best intentions, but it just didn't look great.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: You know, when you've got your quarterback goes into the
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: blue tent to get evaluated for a concussion and the
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: coach runs over there just to try and speed up
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: the process. He just that can't happen. And I don't
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: think he was being up the process. He just wanted information.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: But there's a different way to handle that. But it
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: was just a it was a bad look, unfortunately, and
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: then you combine that with the record right now. But
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you what. He identified the right quarterback for
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: the future of the Giants. He advocated to draft him
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: and and he is, like he is the future. He
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: is He's going to be an excellent player in this league.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: But as the team as a whole, and I thought
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: going into the season their defense was going to be
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: the strength of their team is certainly the front seven,
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: and they've all they've just unperformed. They've underperformed, they haven't
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: played well. The offensive line is the same five this
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: year as it wasn't in twenty twenty four, and that
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: group struggled in twenty twenty four, so you know that
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: group hasn't played well and then had injuries with the
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: lak neighbors and scataboo, so you know at that point
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: he's just trying to hold the offense together. But you know,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: it is what it is in this league, and as
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: far as how organizations handle these, no one is more
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: classy than the New York Giants as far as professionalism
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: and how they handle these situations. So it very it's
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: not on brand for them to let go of a
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: coach in season. There's very few positives that doing it.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: But I think that probably tells you, like, at least
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: behind the scenes, where they thought they were and the
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: fact that they had to do it right now. But
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: Brian will land on his feet. He'll be an offensive
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: coordinator next year somewhere if he wants to, and I
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: think there's a good chance you get the second opportunity
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: as a head coach down the road. But yeah, it's
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: the difficult part of the league. And I've been in
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: this position before. When you're the general manager, you're part
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: of this too, and it's hard when you're letting the
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: head coach go and you're still there because you feel like, hey,
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: like I'm part of the problem. I've made mistakes. This
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: roster isn't where it needs to be, so it's an
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: uncomfortable situation, but look, it's the nature of the business,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: and he keep rolling.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: You know, Tom, One of the things that jumped out
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: to me about this firing is exactly what you talked
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: about with regards to Jackson and Dart, their future star quarterback.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: When you have a head coach or a manager in
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: baseball who's on the hot seat and they're inherently playing
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: to win every game. They're trying to maximize the roster
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: to win every game, but you've got a player who's
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: part of the future, and if those two things are
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: misaligned sometimes it's not to me, it's not shocking that
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: he may have put Jackson Dart a little bit in
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: harm's way, whether it's the running plays that led to
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: the concussion or as you said, handling that event in
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the blue tent. He's trying to win every game because
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: he understands his next loss could be his last loss.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Whereas if you make that decision where you have these
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: young players and unfortunately who knows where they'd be today.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Malik Neighbors in Scatibo stayed healthy, maybe they do win
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: a few more games, but it seems to me like
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: when they lost four games when they're up by double digits.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: When you said that the defense was supposed to be
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: where they had invested a lot of money at a
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: lot of draft picks, that really was troublesome. But now
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: you also have a head coach who's totally misaligned with
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: a young player group. I think that's where it becomes
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: a little bit challenging. And I wonder if that's what
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: inspired them to make this move now, because as you said,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: it's really difficult making these mid season moves. It's really
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: against what they've done in the past. But when you
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: see that misalignment, and when you see them mishandling the
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: talent based upon their desire to win night in night out,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I think you probably are forced to make a change
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: at that point.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know two things. You know, you
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: have a double digit lead with this defensive line which
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: is built to rush the past or not only on
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: them edges, but inside. That's the perfect formula you close
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: the games out with your defensive line. And it didn't happen.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: Is that on the head coach? I mean, in the end,
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: I guess everything is on the head coach, But they
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: didn't fulfill that and that and you do have to
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: protect your young, you know, rookie quarterback. And part of
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: protecting him is you have to develop his style. I mean,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: you don't want to take away from what he does great,
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: which is he does playoff schedule and plays well like
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: he can scramble. He's a very good athlete. Jackson is fast,
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: and he's fast. He probably would run probably you know,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: mid four sixes for a quarterback. That's very good. And
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: he's tough, but in the NFL, like he's not built
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: like Josh Allen is built. You know, Jackson dart Is.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: He's a thick quarterback, but he's maybe you know, six
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: two six one and a half, you know, two twenty
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: rather than six four sixty five two forty two forty
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: five where he can take those hits. So he has
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: to develop a style that you have to know when
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: to say when, when to slide, when you get out
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: of bounds, when maybe just to take a sack and
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: not take a hit, just just eat it or throw
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: the ball away. So that's part of the development process
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: and that takes time. I don't think Brian Dable was
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: putting him in harm's way just to get a win.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: I know Brian too well. For that, but it's going
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: to take some time for the quarterback to figure out,
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: working with this head coach of how we're going to
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: play this, and then you take out your playmakers and
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: the quarterbacks like, look, I'll just take it over. I'll
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: do this because he is capable of doing that, but
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: as we've seen, it puts him in harm's way. So
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: but I do think probably from a ownership and fro
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: an office level, they're probably uncomfortable with the amount of
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: hits the quarterback was taking. And actually not a lot
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: different when Josh Allen was a younger quarterback in Buffalo,
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: and we've seen it some other with some other teams too,
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: where you run some design quarterback runs with your quarterbacks.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: He's really good at it. It's nice, but there's a
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: line he can't do it too often because if you
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: don't have a franchise quarterback, you're going to be out
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: of a job. You know, everybody be out of a job.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: So you have to pick and choose when you want
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: to use it. Buffalo I think has done a really
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: good job right now as far as you know, choosing
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: when they want to run Josh Allen when they don't.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about the sign designed runs, and that's we're
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: going to have to figure out with Jackson Dart. It's
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: just that Jackson, you know, he doesn't quite have that
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: same frame to be able to handle the hits. But
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: they'll figure that out. And that's going to be as
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: they interview head coaches, one of the first questions, it's
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: going to be, what's your plan for Jackson Dart as
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: far as his style of play. Now, the good thing
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: is they already have the quarterback. I think he's their
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: franchise quarterback. I think he can they can win a
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: lot of games with them. But they got to come
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: up with a plan that best fits that quarterback. And
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: that's going to be the major question for all these
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: head coaches when they get interviewed.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Terrific Well, stay with us through the break here and
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Rosters Rings, where you're going to tap into every bit
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: of Tom's expertise as we break down the NFL trade deadline.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Rosters to Rings. Ryan McDonald joined by
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Tom Toe LESCo and Thad Levine and Tom. Now we
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: want to get into the NFL trade deadline, which seems
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: to be a more active event than it was. I
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: assume when your career started. I looked at the number
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: of trades across the NFL and it's kind of a
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: straight line up into the right where it seems like
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: there are more deals every year. So one of the
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: things I think we need to talk about some are
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: is kind of the notion that the three of us,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: I think laugh out to some extent the trade deadline
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: winners and losers, that as soon as a deal has made,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: people rush out and put a letter grade on it,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: like they know exactly how it's going to work out.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: But the team I want to start with, specifically, Tom,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: was the New York Jets. The Jets have one of
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: the worst records in the league this year. They have
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: a first time head coach in Aaron Glenn, who's obviously
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: struggled to win games. There's been quarterback controversy in New
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: York surrounding justin fields. But they were the surprise to
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: me Tom as far as how aggressive they were unloading.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: I know that this is easy to do in theory
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: when you're losing, sometimes harder to do in reality when
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: you're trading some of your best players. But what were
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: your thoughts on the Jets specifically they traded Sauce Gardner
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: to the Indianapolis Colts. They also traded Quinn Williams of
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: the Dallas Cowboys.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, those were significant trades and not not your common, uh,
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: trade deadline type trades. Usually trade deadline in the in
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: the NFL is you know, typically a half year rental,
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: usually a player that that's his contracts are going to expire,
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: and you're talking about the compensation being you know, typically
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: mid to late round draft picks in return. But this
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: was completely different with these two players as far as
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: their age because they're both young, you're younger, their level
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: of play, and then the compensation that went back and forth,
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: and you know, you mentioned about the winners and losers,
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: and yeah, there's no way to pick a winner or
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: loser until you see what these picks turn into, which
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: you know we're years away from that. The way he
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: kind of usually works with the media and the fans
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: is whoever gets the player and the bigger the name,
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: the better they win the trade. And you know, it's
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: going to take years for us to figure out what
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: those what those picks turn into. But there was what
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: I saw, I think it was on Monday. So Mike Sando,
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: who's an NFL writer has been an NFL writer for
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: a really long time. He's really big into research and
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: he had a stat in the last ten years, half
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: the teams that made trade deadline deals didn't even make
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: the playoffs and seventy percent didn't win a playoff game. So,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: you know, this activity at the trade deadline, and I
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: was part of the media is you know, kind of
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: talking it up. The activity isn't always equal productivity. For
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: every Von Miller who the Rams trade of four and
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: they won the Super Bowl, and Christian McCaffery, there's far
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: more that, you know, don't make a huge impact. They
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: may be have a small roll down the stretch and
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: help you a little bit, but they don't. They're not
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: the difference of getting into the playoffs or not. But
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: certainly the Jets trades were unique and they're a little
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: bit both a little bit different. So you know, Sauce Gardner,
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: you know, he's twenty five years old, he's a premium
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: player at a premium position. You know, corners, pass rushers,
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: left tackles, quarterbacks the hardest positions to find. And he's
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: under contract for three more years, which is which is
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: why the compensation was so high. Which is why the
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: why the colt said give two ones to get him. Now,
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: the one issue with for the Jets. You know, when
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: you trade a proven player and you get back two ones,
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: it sounds great, Hey, it's a haul of picks. We
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: got two number one picks for this player. It sounds good.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: But in the end, you guys have this in your
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: leagues too. In the NFL, in the first round, the
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: success rate of that pick, and it's subjective obviously with
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: the success you know what you want to use for
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: to measure success. But it's been about fifty fifty four
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: percent success rate on the first round player. So if
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: you have two first round picks, odds tell you you'll
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: hit on one out of two. Okay, Now, the odds
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: of hitting on a Pro Bowl player a premium position
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: or even lower. So it's hard trading. It's hard to
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: get true value when you trade a player like Sauce Gardner.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: But let you know, but actually hats off to the
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: Jets contract negotiator because they just did a long term
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: contract with him in the summertime and then they traded him. Now,
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: it's usually very hard to trade a new contract. Usually
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: it's such a big cap pit they structured it very well,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: so it must have been in there thinking at some
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: point that we need some flexibility with this player. We
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: may want to trade him earlier than later, So that
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: must have been part of this. And then with Quentin Williams,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: to me, this was a little bit different because this
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: is a player that it sounds like when I've heard
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: he didn't want to be there new regime, the Jets
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: had lost for a long time, and he wasn't fully invested.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: I think he went to them asking for a trade.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: And I think if you're a new head coach, new gym,
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: you're starting a culture and building a new culture. If
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: one of your best players has not invested, it's a
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: difficult situation to have. And old school gms, you know,
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: if your best player comes into your offices he wants
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: to trade, an old school gym would just say, hey,
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: pound sand, get back down in the locker room. We're
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: playing new school generation. There's a little bit of you know,
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: not liking confrontation as much, and hey, look we'll move
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: him and get what we can get. So you know,
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: they got a decent return on Quinnin Williams. I mean,
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: he's twenty eight years old, so he's you know, still
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: in his prime, but you know, more towards the end
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: of the prime then the early in the prime. But
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: he's an interior defensive lineman that he can play the
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: running the pass at a high level. And those guys
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: are really hard to find. But certainly the Jets are
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: just they're selling off their top players. I guess they
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: felt these both these players were not going to be
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: part of their long term answer. And now you got
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: to hit on the draft picks, and it's going to
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: take patients because it's going to take twenty twenty six,
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight to get this team
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: going again. We'll see if ownership hass the patience to
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: play through this. If they're gathering these picks to get
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: a quarterback, then this may make sense. This may not
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: be the year for that. I don't know if there's
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: going to be a top quarterback in this year's draft.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: A little bit earlier right now to tell twenty twenty
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: seven may be a better bet. But they're going to
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: have a lot of flexibility moving forward.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: You know, from a big picture standpoint in baseball, I
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: always felt you wanted to make these types of trades
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: when you were going to make the playoffs, and then
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: it would help you when you got to the playoffs.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I think the mistakes I saw made were when you
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: tried to make deal that you thought could propel you
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: to the playoffs, but you were on the outside looking
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: in to be in with. And that kind of references
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: what you said Tom about how oftentimes these trades don't
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: lead to playoff appearances. If you're trying to force your
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: way into the playoffs with the deal, I think usually
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: you fall short on these cases. The other observation I'd
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: have specific to the Jets is the last time they
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: stockpiled picks, it was to get a guy like Sauce Gardner.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Now they're going to try to use sauce Gardener already
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: to try to stockpile the next grouping of picks. And inherently,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: when you make these deals in the NFL, you're helping
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the team that you're trading to so that pick becomes
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: less valuable. Like so not only you reference it's the
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: fifty to fifty four percent hit rate, but they're now
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: expecting I assumed that those picks are going to come
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: the latter half or maybe the end of the first round,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: and I assume the success rate of those picks are
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: even less so than what you referenced earlier.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: Great point, great point. And then you know, with with
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: Sauce Gardener and Quinn Williams what they it gives those
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: two teams, the Cowboys Nicoles is some short term game
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: but then long so you're getting the best of both worlds.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: As a GM, they're gonna help right now and they're
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: gonna help long term. Certainly. Sauce Gardner, he said, brand
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: new contract, twenty five years old. So it's it's good
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: investment for those teams. Is it a lot, sure, sure
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: it is a lot. But from the Jets perspective, you know,
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: you do have to identify the talent that you have
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: and decide, you know, who's going to be a part
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: of this future. Corners are so hard to find, and
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: the premium ones are even harder. So look, it's great
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: they got two draft picks back, but the odds of
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: them hitting on another premium player at that spot they're
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: just a little bit lower. So but I think right
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: now they realize they don't have the future quarterback. I
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: think they knew that when they signed Justin Fields. Justin
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: Field was there to kind of get make a bridge
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: to the next player, but it seems like at this
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: point they're just going to stockpile picks and move forward.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: Tell you what they played better last week, So you
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: got they got a little bump there, because if you're
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: a player in the locker room and there's two issues. One,
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: it's hard for those players if to see player there
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: are good players be traded out and then hey, look
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: I got to go leave my career in the line
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: every week to go play for you guys. But there's
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: also a little bit of a chip on your show, like, hey, look,
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: we have better players than just those two guys. You
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: know we're going to show you this week. And they
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: played reasonably well last week against the Browns, So we'll
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: see how this works out long term. Brian Burke, who
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: was an NHL GM who, by the way, you guys
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: should have on the show's amazing content. He was a
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: GM for a long time in the NHL want to
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Stanley Cup with the Anaheim Ducks. But he used to
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: always say he measured trades with calendars, not stopwatches, and
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: these trades it's going to take a couple of years
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: to see, really who won or who lost these trades.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: One of the things I found so interesting, Tom, were
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: the two teams that the Jets traded with, the Indianapolis Colts,
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: in my opinion, the surprise team in the NFL this year,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Daniel Jones resurgence, Jonathan Taylor as an MVP candidate, and
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: then Dallas. That Dallas is kind of like the team
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: that Dad was describing earlier, who I don't think any
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: of us would list as a Super Bowl favorite. Still
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: making a very aggressive move, you know, Jerry Jones does
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: some things that are a bit orthodox. But I want
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: to get into one other thing that I read this week, Tom,
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: that I thought was really interesting about Micah Parsons. I
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: think it was Adam Schefter and some of the other
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: top newsbreakers in the NFL reported that a condition of
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: the deal the contract that Michaeh Parsons signed. We all
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: remember he was traded from Dallas to Green Bay in
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: the off season. One of the conditions, I guess, Tom,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: of that contract was kind of a limited no trade
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: clause where he cannot be traded to the Philadelphia Eagles.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: I think it may expand to the rest of the
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: the NFC East as well, if you could take our
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: listeners inside. You know what you know about that deal
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: specifically and generally? How common is that as far as
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: these you know, no limited no trade clauses or specifying
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: that a player either can't be traded to a specific
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: team or a division rival or a conference rival. How
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: often does that happen in the NFL.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm not going to have a whole lot of
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: enlightening information this because I haven't heard of a clause
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: like that before. That was the first for me, And
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: you know, twelve years of the GM, thirty years of
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: the NFL, I'm sure it's happened before. I'm just not
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: aware of it. Not sure I care for it, to
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: be honest with you, I think if the player trading
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: tips the scales that much, then just don't trade them
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: to anyone. Then keep them as as a player. That'd
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: be number one. But yeah, I mean, I'm always more
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: concerned about how the trade affects my team, not anyone else's.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: And I would always want flexibility because things change quickly
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: in this league. So to me, if somebody wanted that
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: as part of the clause in the trade, that probably
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: be a deal breaker for me. I just you never
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: know how things are going to change. I don't want
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: to no trade clause and a player i'm bringing in
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: I just doesn't like I said, I've not heard of
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: that before. We've done and I've been a part of
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: having no trade clauses for your own players that you're signing,
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: usually a quarterback. It's necessarily it's not necessarily no trade clause.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: There's really a trade restriction where the player has to
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: okay the team that he's being traded to. That is
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: much more common. But as far as with the Cowboys
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: and Packers did that to me, I had not heard
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: of a clause like that before.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know how much you guys experienced
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: this in your leagues, but we often would get teams
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: in our own division to call and say, hey, listen.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: For us to deal with in our own division, we
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: would have to get a premium because we don't want
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: to see our players go in division and perform. And
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: I always thought that was short sighted. I always wanted
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: to trade within division. If if I'm rebuilding, I want
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: to trade to you now you're already beating me. I'd
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: rather take some of your future values so I can
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: beat you more demonstratively in the future. But we also
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: we felt there was this concern like if I traded
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: somebody to I was working from the Minnesota Twins, if
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I trade them to Pittsburgh Pirates the very next day,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: they could trade them to the Detroit Tigers. Like we
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: just didn't control that. We never tried to control that
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: to your point, Tom, we were just trying to get
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: the best deal we could for our team. We didn't
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: once we traded the player, we didn't have any future
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: control over them, and we didn't really factor that into
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: the value of the trade that we were making at
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: the time.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think there's all different situations. If I
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: have a really good player of my team who's disgruntled
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: or where having issues with and I feel like I
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: have to trade them, but I know he's a good player,
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: I'm not sending him in the division. Probably more than likely,
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: I'm sending them somewhere else. If it's a player that
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: I feel like we need to move on from that
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: we don't think can help us win, I'll send them anywhere.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, at that point, I would like to send
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: them in the division. If you can't help us play,
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: there's probably a reason why so I'll send them to
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: a division team they can take on the problem and
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: we'll get something back. So I think each situation is
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: unique to itself. But the clause with this particular situation,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: like I said, I just have not heard of that before.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: I agree with what you guys said too. It's very
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: shortsighted to put in those kind of clauses. And at
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: the end of the day, to get to where we
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: all want to go in pro sports, that's raising the
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: championship trophy. You need to beat them, all right. It's
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: not like you just need to win your division. If
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: you win the NFC East, they don't throw a parade
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: for that, and then you got to win the conference.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Then you got to win the Super Bowl. So I think, yeah,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: putting any kind of restrictions on it doesn't make a
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: whole lot of sense.
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Dallas again, just objectively looking at it from the outside
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: tends to do things a little differently. That's Terry Jones m.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: We'll see how the Quinn Williams trade works out for
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: the Cowboys. We're going to take a quick break right here.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Coming back after this is going to give us an
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: update on the MLB pitch betting scandal. There's some wild
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: things that have happened here. We're also going to get
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: into your questions, listener questions. Stick with us on Rosters
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: to Rings. We'll be right back after this short break.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Rosters to Rings. Ryan McDonald joined by
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Thad Levigne and Tom Telesco. Thad A wild past week
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: in Major League Baseball. The World Series is over, the
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: LA Dodgers are the champions. We're already into the GM meetings.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: But the story I want to get into with you
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: because it's really, I think, potentially the tip of the
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: iceberg for sports betting in Major League Baseball in particular.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: We know about the NBA scandal involving Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: and dam Jones, but that this Emmanuel class A and
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Luis Ortiz scandal in baseball, with being thrown told to
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: thron throw specific pitches and having those pitches heavily bet on.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: It took some wild twists and turns over the past week.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, as much as the NBA hated this
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: story to start their season, MLB's hating the story as
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: it's clouding the World Series, which was such a spectacular
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: world series, but this story just won't go away. So,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: as we touched upon in the past, Emmanuel class A
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Luis Ortiz were both suspended additionally with pay by the league,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: then they were converted to being suspended without pay, and
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: now they've been indicted. And as we talked about your
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: breakdown last week, Ryan about the NBA's situation. When the
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: FBI is involved in federal investigations, usually they're exceptionally thorough.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of smoke to this fire at this point.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: So what we now know is that they both have
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: been indicted and they could serve up to sixty five
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: years in prison. Now I'm not sure if that's a
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: realistic thing, but right now now with the amount of
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: fraud and felonies that they've been charged with, the maximum
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: they could serve as sixty five years in prison. Class
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: was accused of rigging pitches dating all the way back
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: to May of twenty twenty three, and in some cases
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: he was actually accused of funding some of the bettings,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: so he was betting on behalf of these outcomes. And
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: what was happening was he was being convinced to throw
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: a very specific pitch as a ball and when you
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: look at some of the video, it's really damning you.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: So these pitchers are thrown five feet in front of
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: the plate, they're thrown in the opposite batter's box. They're
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: not even competitive pitches. And he was standing to gain
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: off of that. And then he convinced Louis Ortiz, a
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: teammate of his, a relief pitcher on the team, a
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: spot starter, to also participate in this. And it is
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: rumored that about four hundred thousand dollars was one on
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: pitches that Classe threw, only about sixty thousand on the
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: pitches that Louis Ortiz through. And thing that is so
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: tragic about this is in some cases these guys were
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: making five thousand dollars per transgression. Just as a point
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: of reference, Emmanuel Classe in this average season, is making
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: about one hundred and thirty six thousand per inning he pitched. Ortiz,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: who is on a lesser contract, was making nine three
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars sprintings pitched. And here they are gambling way
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: their futures on five thousand dollars incremental subsidies that they're getting.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: At its worst, it looks like Class A was a
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: ringleader here may have been betting on these outcomes as well,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: which there's very few things in Major League Baseball that
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: you can't do and still get to play the game baseball.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: But once you bet on the game of baseball, it
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: is a death sentence, and we saw that with Pete Rose.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: It's the one thing that we stand up in front
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: of the every single player at the beginning of every
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: spring training, they have to listen to a speech with
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: where this rule is read. They have to sign off
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: that they heard about it. But there's a lot of
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: transgressions of guys who have made it to the Hall
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: of Fame. Gambling on the game of baseball is the
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: one thing you can't do. These guys have now done that,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: in addition to what is now wirefraud and getting caught
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: up with some illegal gambling rings. I think just this
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: is the tip of the iceberg. As you said, Ryan,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: we're seeing it in the NBA, we're seeing in a
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Major League Baseball. Hopefully these are cautionary tales so that
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: we don't see this anymore, but I'm concerned that we
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: may hear many more stories about this before this is
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: ultimately resolved.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: Tell you what tough week in Cleveland. I mean they
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: lose to that, the Browns lose of the Jets, which
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: is never a good loss. And now you find out
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: to your baseball players are not giving their full talent
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: level and betting on prop bets. I mean, that's unbelievable.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: Thank God. In the NFL, it'd be really hard to
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: influence any prop bets unless you're a quarterback, and I
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: think the rest of our league it just doesn't lend
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: usself probably well to that, thank God, because like you said,
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: we're seeing it in basketball, we're seeing it in baseball. Boy,
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: it's just not something. I mean, that just kills the
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: competitive nature of sports.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: So when time's your point, I'm sure these guys were told, hey, listen,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: we're just asking you to do one pitch a ball,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: a strike to a ball. That's all we're asking for.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: No one will ever notice this is happening. But as
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: we discussed in one of these previous episodes, Tom, there's
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: such sophistication to these gambling sites now that they're they're
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: looking for any irregularity, and when they see four hundred
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars made on a singular pitch, that strikes them
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: as very anomalous. When they see it happen multiple times
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: over the course of a two and a half year period.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Then they start investigating, and now indictments came down the line.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Criminals are supposed to be smart, aren't they. I mean,
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: four hundred thousand dollars on one pitch. I think that
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: would raise some eyebrows, wouldn't you think?
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: Well, Tom, I'd also think if you had a twenty
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: million dollar contract getting five grand for one ball and
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: then seven thousand for another ball thrown, it would not
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: be worth the twelve thousand dollars in my opinion, if
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: I had twenty twenty million guaranteed. But apparently Emmanuel class
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: I didn't agree with that logic.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: Now, you know, I don't know what happened, but you know,
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: sometimes these guys that they get, you know, if they're
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: gambling on other sports and they get own some money
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: and they owe people money, and you know, typically the
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: people that are behind this are not good people certainly
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: to owe money to, and you kind of feel like you're,
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: you know, you're forced to do things like this. Hopefully
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: that's not what happened, but you know, it's dangerous to
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: get in bed with these guys, are you know, they're
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: professional criminals, the guys that do this. So, but they
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: have the one thing I wanted to ask you about
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: because I saw this story, but then I saw the
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: other one about Major League Baseball and how they use
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: international scouting, and then I had no idea that with
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: if you're going to bring a player over from from
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: a foreign team, that you actually have to pay that
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: team a certain amount of money, which I would worry
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: that would really skew towards the big market teams that
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: have a lot more cash to smaller market teams to
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: have to be able to tap into that talent with
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: the international team. So, you know, it kind of take
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: me through that.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So, Tom, you're talking about players who came over
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: from some of the professional leagues, the one in Japan
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: and South Korea in particular. These are players who have
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: achieved free agent status in their leagues and they then
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: get post by their team, and so the premise of
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: this was to subsidize the teams over there that are
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: losing the players to Major League Baseball. Believe it or not,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: there was a time in which there was no limit
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: as to what you could spend on these players, and
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: that really favored the big market teams. It was a
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: blind bid process. Every team would have by a certain
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: date the ability to submit a posting fee. We were
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: in Texas when we did this with you, Darvish. We
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: ended up winning the bid, and we swore to our
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: owner that we won by two hundred and fifty thousand
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: dollars on what proved to be an exceptionally large posting fee.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: We actually don't know if that's true, but we just
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: said that to make ourselves look good. We also could
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: have won by forty million dollars in that case, and
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: then in that case, you're absolutely right, the big market
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: teams were the teams that were really playing on those guys.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Keep in mind also that as far as Japanese and
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: South Korean players go, they tend to want to stay
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: in the big cities, tend to want to go coastal,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: so places like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, see
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: at all already have a huge advantage, but then you
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: also factor in the payroll advantage. So to level the
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: playing field a little bit, they've actually implemented a very
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: different type of posting fee. And so the way it
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: works right now is the foreign team gets twenty percent
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: of the contract's first twenty five million dollars that you
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: spend on the player, seventeen and a half percent of
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: the next twenty five million, and fifteen percent of any
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: money above the fifty million dollar mark. And that is
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: inclusive of guaranteed money as well as incentives earned. And
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: so as you as you map out these contracts, that's.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: How it works. Now.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: The goal was to believe it or not, so that
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: all teams could play on these guys. What we're seeing
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: is still these teams in these major markets, especially the
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: coastal ones, are winning most of these bids. And we
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: just saw it in the World Series on full display.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Between Otani, who was actually came over as a as
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: an amateur free agent to the Anaheim Angels, signs as
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: a major league free agent with the Dodgers, but then
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: also Yamamoto who they got as a posting player they
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: gave them three hundred million dollars, and then Roki Sasaki,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: who was another amateur who they signed, but they only
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: spend five million dollars of their amateur international signing bonus
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: pool to secure his rights. So they're winning on all fronts.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: It's really still favoring those teams on the coasts because
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: that's where there's more of a a South Korean and
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Japanese community in the United States. They want to be
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: in those environments. It's also quicker flights home for them
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: that the Midwestern cities are not winning these buy and
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: large unless they truly just outbid everybody else.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: So, if you're a professional player in Japan or South Korea,
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: let's say you had a five year contract, you played
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: out the five years. Now you're a free agent. You're
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: really not a free agent to sign anywhere you want,
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: whether it's in the MLB or anywhere.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: So that's how it used to work is the winning
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: bid was the only team that could negotiate with you. You
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: had a thirty day window to negotiate. Now what they've
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: done to give that player a little bit more freedom
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: of where they sign is once they get posted by
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: their team, there's a forty five day period where all
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: teams can negotiate with them, and then they have to
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: pay that fee based upon how much they ultimately agree to.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: So you're exactly right, tom Previously, the team was really
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: only allowed to discuss opportunities with the team that bid
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: the most money for them. My hunches in hindsight, you
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Darvish Mayhem not have prioritized Arlington, Texas as his number
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: one destination, but at that time that was the only
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: team he could negotiate with. Now these players can negotiate
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: with all thirty clubs. Whoever wins ultimately then pays a
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: percentage of what they paid the player to the posting
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: team in Japan.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: It's a great position to be in for these star
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: international players negotiating big deals. Kind of like our producer
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: why I tried to do after his first listener questions
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: last week. We're going to get to that coming back
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: after this your listener questions covering Major League Baseball, the NBA,
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: the NFL, and more, stay with us. I'll be right
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: back on rosters, Drank.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: Welcome back to rosters.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: To rings back by a flavor of popular demand. We
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: have questions, listener questions as posed by producer Wyatt.
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: Thank you that all right, let's get right into it.
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: First question is for Tom. This one's from Ryan's friend
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: Scott in Louisville. As a franchise owner or front office member,
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: is the absolute best bye week the week after the
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: trade deadline?
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: It's the best by week after the trade deadline. Yep,
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: don't you know. I was like dark bye week could
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: be kind of in the middle of the year just
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: because training camps long, and then the season you'll get
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: about seven eight weeks and the trade deadline ends up
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: being right now between weeks nine and ten, which is
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: right about the midway point. Yeah, it wouldn't be a
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: bad spot, and if you do make a trade, it
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: just gives you a little extra time to get that
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: player that transitioned in so but uh yeah, sure, all right.
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: Now, next question is from Devin in Brooklyn. This one's
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: for Ryan. If you were advising an NBA rookie today,
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: what's the number one skill or focus area that leads
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: to long term career success that most young players overlook?
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: The most important skill thing to be, in my opinion
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: is low maintenance, easily coachable. I think that's not specific
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: just to the NBA, but I think that and talent
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: at a test and Major League Baseball and the NFL
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: organizations want guys who they can sleep well at night
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: knowing they're going to give maximum effort, you know, on
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: the court, in the weight room, in the locker room.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: They're going to be easy to coach and manage. If
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: you're at the other end of the spectrum, if you're
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: high maintenance, you better be pretty damn good, because if
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: you're not that good, team just sharn't going to want
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: to deal with you. We've seen high profile basketball players
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: in particular who were kind of anointed in high school
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: and college and au as the next big thing, and
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: a lot of those guys never made it, never had
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: any significant career at all. At the other end of
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: the spectrum, you have guys like Steph Curry, James Hard
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: and Jannis you know, guys who were not on any
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: kind of recruiting radar or scouting radars, and those guys
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: went on to be all time great player. It's just
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: with the work and with the skills. So I'd say
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: from a skill perspective, right now in basketball, it's shooting.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: I think that's obvious with the pace and space and
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: three point revolution, the analytical slant that the game has today.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: But more than anything else, so what we're looking for
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: is guys who are good teammates. I know Brad Stevens
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: and the Boston Celtics in particular, they want high character,
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: low maintenance guys, guys who defends I think again, that
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: transcend sports. As we say in the NBA, you have
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: to be great in the sum of your problems. And
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: if you really don't have many problems off the court
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: and you're a good teammate, I think that gives you
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: a lot more chances to be successful.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: It's interesting in baseball, we liked guys who are extremely talented.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: That was one of the things we liked, and frequently healthy.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Those were two things that also were benefits.
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: All right, don't worry. The next one's for you. This
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: one's from Jared and Raleigh, North Carolina, that if you
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: were running a small market MLB team right now, would
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: you prioritize investing in player development, analytics, or better in
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: clubhouse leadership?
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: First, it's a great question. I think the backbone of
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: everything we're doing in professional sports right now is analytics.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: You know, we're grounding all of our decisions in all
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: this reams of information that is flooding into our sports,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: and then ideally we're making those decisions humanly. So I
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: think I would say that would be the backbone. The
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: second choice, certainly would be player development, you know is
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: certainly in a smaller market dynamic, we just have to
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: be better than the payroll behemoth foes that we're playing against.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: We have to draft better, we have to identify talent,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: and then we've got to make more out of that
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: talent than the rest of the league is doing to
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: be able to still compete with them. And I think
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: that's what we see places like Tampa, places like Cleveland
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: and Milwaukee. They're just doing that on a very consistent basis.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Part of what is so daunting in major leagues right
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: now is that the Dodgers have caught up in I
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: mean we see that. You know, when you look at
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: the last fifteen years of drafting, I think they rank
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: fourth in terms of total war they've produced out of
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: the draft. That is very concerning to the rest of
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: the league. It used to be at the top of
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: every one of those lists, used to be Pittsburgh and
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Minnesota and Cleveland. Well, now you're seeing the Dodgers creep
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: up there. So you have to have all your decisions
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: grounded and all this information you have to be able
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: to process it. It's not who has the most information,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: it's who implements the most information to meet the best
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: decisions about players and ultimately strategic decisions to help win games.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: But you've got to develop that talent a little bit
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: better than those teams that have much more financial resources
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: than you do to be able to compete with them.
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: All right. Next question is also from Ryan's friends Scott
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: in Louisville, and it's for Tom. Tom.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: I think he's got to big NFL fan, this Scott
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: in Louisville.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: By the way, good Cowboys fan.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: Tom.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's been itching to get you back on
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: the show.
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: All right, Tom, Bear with me. Here is long winded one.
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: NFL players get paid in weekly installments over the eighteen
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: week season. If Trey Hendrickson, for example, gets traded to
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: a team who already had their bye, does he play
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: this week, which would mean he would have had a
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: season with no bye week. Yes, Okay, Scott's got his
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: answer perfect. All right, I got another one for you, Tom.
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: In your opinion, does the Cowboys Quinn Williams trade give
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: them any chance at making the playoffs?
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: I thought they still had a chance to make the
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: playoffs before they made the trades, so obviously making the
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: trades gonna help them. Their offense is really good and
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: they can score with anybody. The big problem, as everyone
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: has seen, is just getting stops on defense. They don't
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: have a lot of talent on that side of the ball.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: Quinnin Williams is a legit, real player. Like interior defensive
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: linemen who can also rush the passer are really hard
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: to find. That's why they go high in the draft.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: God just doesn't make a whole lot of three hundred
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: pound men that have speed, explosiveness, flexibility. They're just they're
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: so hard to find. So is equally good against the
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: run in the pass. He hasn't rushed the passer as
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: well this year with the Jets as he has in
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: the past, but honestly, the whole Jets defense hasn't played
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: as well as they have in the pass. So I'm
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: not so much concerned that he's on the way down.
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: I think he's going to be fine with Dallas, so
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: he'll help them short term. But in the end, it's football,
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: you like, you can't add one player unless it's a
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: quarterback and make a huge jump. You know, their defense.
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: It may improve a little bit, but even adding Kenny
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: Clark and adding Quinn Williams, who they're both good players,
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: you know how much Bump is going to give it them.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: You know, real bump is going to give them, you know,
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: probably this much. But I still think they have a
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: chance with Dak Prescott in that offense to score some
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: people if things go right. So you know, to me,
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: the trade I mean helps them a little bit. It
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: probably doesn't bump their odds that much higher. It will
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: help them in the future as well, but we'll see
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: if they can still get in on a well card
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: spot going down the stretch.
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: All right, Next one, I think all of you guys
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: could take a few turns answering. This one's from Harrison
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: and Santa Barbara. We've seen more retired athletes purchasing ownership
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: stakes in pro teams. Are we now starting to see
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: current players negotiating clauses that give them future ownership rights
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: or other team equity benefits.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll take this one first. You can't do that,
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: at least not in the NBA right now.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: You can't.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: You can and not have that be a condition of
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: the contract. It's not allowed for the Collective Bardner Agreement.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: It's something that clearly the players and the Players Association
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: I think across sports would want the right to do that.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: It's something that the owners do not want for obvious reasons.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: You know, once one player gets at one star gets it,
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: then everyone's going to be asking for it. And the
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: equity in the franchise is extremely valuable, So I'll be
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: interested to see how it goes. I think what you're
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: going to see a lot more of it. In fact,
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: I know what you're going to see a lot more
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: of going forward. That are players who are recently retired
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: who have made a ton of money. Because the money
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: is so significant now across all three of the sports
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: that we cover, NFL, NBA, in Major League Baseball, they're
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: going to buy into teams pretty soon after retirement because
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: they've just made a ton of money in players contracts
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: and endorsements. But I'm also fairly certain that the leagues,
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: all the leagues are going to draw a pretty hard
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: line as far as not granting a player equity in
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: the franchise because that I think, if you know, Otani
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: or somebody gets equity in the Dodgers, then the next
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: free agent's going to want it. The Yankees and on
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: and on the NBA and NFL, major League Baseball are
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: really concerned about precedent. I think, as much as they
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: never say it publicly, that they really don't want to
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: open kind of that Pandora's box.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: And right, I agree with you.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: It's the same rules in baseball right now. The one
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: thing I would just add to the conversation is in baseball,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: we're seeing a lot of changes in ownership. And it
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: used to be that individuals own major league teams or
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: families own major league teams, and now it's much larger
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: entities coming together to form groups to own major league teams.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: And so I think we are going to see more
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: retired players participate in that at that time, and there'll
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: be more avenues for them to gain ownership, but it
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: will be after they retire and no longer playing the game.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think Ryan answered that perfectly. The same thing
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: in the NFL, it's it's not allowed, and just about it.
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: If you had an NFL player with equity and a
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: team and then he gets traded to another team, that's
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: not a great look. But the one thing with the
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: NFL is the value of the teams is so so
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: high that even an NFL player who makes a lot
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: of money in his career, it's just hard to buy
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: in anywhere even one percent of a team. I mean,
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: the numbers are just astronomical. So you may see some
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: NFL players get in on some ownership, maybe by name,
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: but it's just so hard just with the amount of
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: money you have to put into it, it's just difficult
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: to achieve.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: And one final point I'll make guys before producer why
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: it asked his next question is an owner I talked
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: to in the past made a good point about this
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: equity in the team. It sounds great, and it is great,
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: but does that mean, say, going back to the show
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: Eotani example, the Dodgers say they had a horrible year,
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: could they then go to a Tani and say, hey,
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: we need some cash. We need to give you money
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: back out of your player contracts. So that's one of
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: the challenges with the owners. Again, they won't say this publicly,
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: but privately we'll just say it's okay. When when stuff
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: is wrong, do they want to be part of fixing
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: that too? They're pouring more cash into it taking less money.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: Usually those conversations are pretty one sided. You know, the
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: players see it one way, the owners see it another way.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: So I think that's something that why at a cross
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: sports the owners are going to continue to draw a
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: bright line and say we're not going We'll do a
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: lot up to this line, but we're not going to
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: go over this line because if we cross this line,
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: it opens up a whole host of other issues, including
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: the one Tom just mentioned. What if a player is
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: not on that team shortly after he buys into the
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: ownership group.
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: Good stuff, all right, Ryan, Next one's for you. We've
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: got two more. This one's from Mitch and Sacramento. Ryan.
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: Early thoughts on how NBC Prime Video and ESPN have
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: handled NBA coverage to start the season.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think the newcomers NBC in particular, Amazon
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: Prime have done great. You know, I've been critical of
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: ESPN's coverage in the past. I think when you bring
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: in new ideas. NBC and Amazon have poured a lot
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: of money into NBA coverage on their staff. I think
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: that's reflected in the broadcast, the pictures and studio shows.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: They look good, they sound good. I've really enjoyed it. Frankly,
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: I think it'll make ESPN kind of raise the bar
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: on its content. ESPN has been doing this a long time,
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: but anytime you have two new players in the mix
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: with a lot of money and a lot of new ideas,
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: which NBC and Amazon have.
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: Why.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: One of the things in particular I love are the
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: interactive sets that they're using technology now, where they can
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: actually put guys out there on a virtual court and
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: show exactly what teams are doing. I saw my buddy
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: Brian SCALABRAINI break down a forty five cut, which is
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: something pretty technical and specific, but I think interesting. It
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: led to a game winning shot Nikola Vusovich hit for
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: the Chicago Bulls the other night in the corner. So
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: I would personally like to see more of that. I
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: think Tom and Thad would as well. Insiders really want
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: to learn something when you're watching the broadcast, and I
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: think they've NBC and Amazon so far have done a
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: nice job making it informative educational while also entertaining personally
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: sign me up for that versus you know, a lot
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: of the hot takes and flaming players and things like that.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's good for the game, and I
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: worried that ESPN, in particular, you know, drifted too far
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: in that direction at times.
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: Last one is for Tom, but Ryan Thad feel free
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: to chime in. This one's from Evan in Kansas. Tom,
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: do you have a memorable trade deadline story, whether it
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: was a big deal you made or a deal that
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: fell through.
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a deal that fell through, and I
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: can't go in to the specifics of it, but so
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: on the West Coast, you have to be done by
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: by one o'clock on Tuesdays, the trade deadline four o'clock Eastern.
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: We had a deal I felt with the team just orally.
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: It was about twelve thirty. And then when you're making
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: a trade, you have to there's paperwork that's involved. There's
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: there's emails that have to be sent back and forth
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: with the league office and then teams involved, and then
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: you have to inform the player you know that he's
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: being traded. You would hate to be a player that
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: you see his name go across the screen he's being
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: traded somewhere. So there's some work that has to be done.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: So you can't wait till twelve fifty five and then decide,
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: you know, hey, we're going to consimate a trade. There's
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: just not enough time. So we had one that I
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: thought was going towards the direction of being done. It
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: was like twelve forty twelve forty five. I call the
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: team nobody picks up. I wait a couple more minutes.
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: I call again, they pick up, Hey, we're checking on
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: a couple of things. And then we just said and
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: then they decided before I said, we're gonna have to
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: pull the plug, he said, hey, look we're gonna We're
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: gonna pull back. We're not going to do it. So
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: it's it's funny we have, you know, months to get
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: this done, but whenever there's a deadline, that kind of
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: spurs action. And this was not a big name player,
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: but you know, for us, they're all these are all
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: these are important decisions you make, and dealing with players
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: is important, so you have to make sure you do
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: it the right way. But they got to about twelve
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: fifty five when when when they said they end up
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: pulling out of the deal. And nature of the business
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: sometimes there's this and it's very rarely is it one
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: GM to one GM. You've got ownership sometimes involved on
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: either side or maybe one side. You've got coaches involved,
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: you've bet maybe director or player of personnels, you have
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: contract negotiators. There's a lot of a lot of talking
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: that kind of goes through, but in the end, you
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: know that particular one just didn't didn't get done.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Well on behalf of Tom Telesco and Ryan McDonough. I'm
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: sad Levine. Thank you for tuning in this week. Join
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: us next week and every week on Rosters to Rings