Latest / The Favorites Sports Betting Podcast / The Buffet with Chad and Scooch, Episode 22 - Featuring Daryl Morey and Jeff Ma

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The Buffet with Chad and Scooch, Episode 22 - Featuring Daryl Morey and Jeff Ma · The Favorites Sports Betting Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Coming to you from fabulous Las Vegas. The right side
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Speaker 1: is the winning side. The late move is the correct move.
0:10
Speaker 1: Sports betting capital of the world. We all know when
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Speaker 1: a sharp like me weighs in the lines move, it's
0:17
Speaker 1: a party for your ears. This is the Buffet with
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Speaker 1: Chad and Scooch. I want to buy that guy at Buffet. Hello,
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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Buffet Podcast with Chad and Scooch from
0:37
Speaker 1: the Action Network. Scooch is off this week. We are
0:42
Speaker 1: dedicating this podcast to these Loan Sports Analytics Conference, which
0:46
Speaker 1: we do it at least once a year. When I
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Speaker 1: say we, I mean I And in all the years
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Speaker 1: I was at ESPN UM and I was involved in
0:53
Speaker 1: ESPN was involved with the Loan Sports Analytus Conference. We
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Speaker 1: were do a podcast every year highlighting the conference. Today's
1:00
Speaker 1: guests are going to be later on in the show.
1:02
Speaker 1: Jeff ma famed gambler from Bringing Down the House now
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Speaker 1: super big wig at Twitter, still very involved in the
1:10
Speaker 1: sports betting community. He's going to be on a panel
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Speaker 1: with me at the conference uh this Friday. But first up,
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Speaker 1: the superstar of the conference, the GM of the best
1:21
Speaker 1: team in the NBA. As we speak on a Tuesday, Morning,
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Speaker 1: subject of a Michael Lewis book, and most importantly, Daryl
1:31
Speaker 1: Morey guest of the podcast UH creator with Jessica Gelman
1:36
Speaker 1: of these Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Welcome to the show,
1:41
Speaker 1: my friend. Thanks Thanks man Chick. I think Obama is
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Speaker 1: the superstar of the conference this year. So I think
1:48
Speaker 1: he is so um we um. You know. I I
1:56
Speaker 1: joined this new company, the Action Network, which we started
1:58
Speaker 1: by the Churning Group in October, and I joined in
2:01
Speaker 1: September and we launched in January. And I had called
2:06
Speaker 1: Jess in I think before we launched um and maybe
2:13
Speaker 1: in December, and was like, you know, the folks at
2:16
Speaker 1: Sloan who come are like our core audience, right, Like,
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Speaker 1: we are trying to reach people who want to use
2:22
Speaker 1: analytics and data and reporting and research to make smarter
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Speaker 1: decisions about how they're gonna be sports investors for lack
2:30
Speaker 1: of a better term, And so I want to get
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Speaker 1: in front of them. And you know, I know when
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Speaker 1: I was at ESPN and we ran the magazine and
2:36
Speaker 1: we were involved in the conference, we'd always get the
2:38
Speaker 1: magazines and the gift bags, and so I was like,
2:40
Speaker 1: jess what do we do to get in the gift
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Speaker 1: bag and she's like to sponsorship and she tells me
2:44
Speaker 1: what it costs. I'm like, all right, we can do that.
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Speaker 1: And she goes, by the way, you know, the main
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Speaker 1: stage sponsorship is still open, and she tells me what
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Speaker 1: it costs, and I'm like, wow, that's a lot for us,
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Speaker 1: where you know, we're still startup company. She's and she's like,
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Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I think you're gonna want to do it.
3:00
Speaker 1: And this was a Friday, and Jessica is amazing and
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Speaker 1: we've been friends for a while and I'm like, all right,
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Speaker 1: let's just do it. Like I'm just gonna trust her.
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Speaker 1: And so, uh, later that day is when you announced
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Speaker 1: on Twitter and that Jessica calls to tell me that
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Speaker 1: President Obama is going to be the speaker on the
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Speaker 1: main stage, which is just fantastic because I love that.
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Speaker 1: Now we this small startup sports betting company is going
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Speaker 1: to be the main stage sponsor for the conference in
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Speaker 1: which he's speaking at under Promise over deliver, but a
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Speaker 1: good model. She certainly did that ad and so we're
3:35
Speaker 1: appreciative of the opportunity. And by the way, I have
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Speaker 1: to remind people follow the buffet pot on Twitter, micro
3:41
Speaker 1: Nell would be remiss if I didn't offer that. So, Darryl,
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Speaker 1: the premise for this is, um, the risks you've taken.
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Speaker 1: It's a segment we call you bet your life. And
3:53
Speaker 1: so naturally, yesterday I saw, you know, I got my
3:55
Speaker 1: alert that Simmons to put our new podcast and he's
3:58
Speaker 1: got you on and he's to do your career path
4:01
Speaker 1: and so I listened to it and it was anxious
4:03
Speaker 1: little time because I'm like, oh my god, he's gonna
4:05
Speaker 1: do all the stuff. Unfortunately, I don't think he got
4:07
Speaker 1: to what you and I are going to talk about, um,
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Speaker 1: which was basically as simple as this, tell me about
4:13
Speaker 1: the biggest risk you've taken and what happened next. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: So let me set the stage a little bit. I'm
4:21
Speaker 1: in my first year officially as the GM of the
4:26
Speaker 1: of the Houston Rockets, where we're having uh uh you know,
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Speaker 1: a very you know, very solid solid year on our
4:37
Speaker 1: way to winning mid fifties with Rick Adelman as the coach.
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Speaker 1: And it's around the trade deadline and you know, we're
4:49
Speaker 1: obviously we we are. Strategy at the trade deadline is
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Speaker 1: basically kick every tire. Now, this may not be a
4:56
Speaker 1: good strategy. There some pluses and minuses to it, but
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Speaker 1: we've we've basically focused on deal flow and then so
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Speaker 1: you know, versus sort of maximizing every deal. And one
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Speaker 1: one deal that came up that trade deadline I was
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Speaker 1: extraordinarily nervous to do. Meaning essentially, our starting point guard
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Speaker 1: that year was Raper rayper Austin UH and obviously we're
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Speaker 1: playing extremely well. I think we were maybe the three year,
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Speaker 1: the four seed at the time, and a player we
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Speaker 1: had our ian we were hoping to draft the year.
5:38
Speaker 1: The year before started maybe two years before UM was
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Speaker 1: Kyle Lowry. And one deal that we were working on
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Speaker 1: was essentially trading Rayper Austin ended up being a three
5:52
Speaker 1: way where rayfer was going to Orlando, Orlando was going
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Speaker 1: to send the first round pick to Memphis, and then
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Speaker 1: Memphis would send us Kyle Lowry. Now now that sounds like, well,
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Speaker 1: of course that's a good deal, but at the time,
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Speaker 1: Kyle Lowry had never played for Memphis. He was the
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Speaker 1: third string point guard at the time, and we were
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Speaker 1: trading our starting point guard with thirty games to go
6:15
Speaker 1: in the season. UH in a strong playoff season, H
6:21
Speaker 1: four third screen point guard, and I distinctly remember sitting
6:26
Speaker 1: with Rick Adelman in the office and basically him saying,
6:31
Speaker 1: are you know, are you crazy We're going to trade
6:35
Speaker 1: our starting point guard in the season when we're doing
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Speaker 1: this well. But you know, he basically like, look, you've
6:42
Speaker 1: got the job. If you vouched for it, it's good.
6:45
Speaker 1: You know. We had an assistant coach of the time
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Speaker 1: was with us now again, Brett Gunning, who actually coached
6:51
Speaker 1: at Villanova, who was also instrumental and sort of stepping
6:55
Speaker 1: up and making Rick comfortable with the move. But doing
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Speaker 1: a move like that and the middle of my first
7:01
Speaker 1: year officially as a GM, it was probably the biggest
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Speaker 1: risk I took in my career. A lot of a
7:07
Speaker 1: lot of folks didn't know what you know, what uh
7:11
Speaker 1: what to think of me? Obviously was sort of an
7:14
Speaker 1: unknown guy coming from Boston, uh And so all the
7:18
Speaker 1: initial moves are extremely magnified when you get a job,
7:21
Speaker 1: as you know, folks like Sam Hinky found out and
7:24
Speaker 1: others like you know, you don't get as long as
7:27
Speaker 1: a runway as you as you might want. So things
7:29
Speaker 1: don't work out, I can go bad fast. So that
7:32
Speaker 1: was probably the biggest risk I can remember in my
7:36
Speaker 1: career and it hadn't gone well, I might not be
7:39
Speaker 1: talking to you. Um, So that's uh, that's probably the
7:43
Speaker 1: biggest one I can recall what made you comfortable making
7:48
Speaker 1: the decision. So they're a bunch of factors. I would
7:52
Speaker 1: say one was we really thought Kyle was gonna be better,
7:57
Speaker 1: and even in his very limited time, I think he
8:00
Speaker 1: had played for sure less than a thousand minutes I
8:03
Speaker 1: want to say somewhere between three hundred and six hundred
8:05
Speaker 1: minutes he had he had gotten in Memphis. He did
8:08
Speaker 1: play very well in those minutes. And this was back
8:11
Speaker 1: when basketball hadn't really still figured out what pioneers like
8:16
Speaker 1: John Hollinger did, which is, you know, if you play
8:18
Speaker 1: well even in in shorter minutes, you know often you
8:22
Speaker 1: can expand those into a larger role. And so we
8:26
Speaker 1: we were able to take advantage of arbitruge. So he
8:29
Speaker 1: did play well in the time that he did get
8:30
Speaker 1: a chance. Obviously we were able to watch all the
8:33
Speaker 1: video of him playing, So I felt comfortable there. Second,
8:37
Speaker 1: we felt a little bit comfortable because we had some
8:40
Speaker 1: depth at the guard position that year. We felt like,
8:43
Speaker 1: even though even though Raper was the starter, that if
8:47
Speaker 1: Kyle didn't work out that Aaron Brooks could give us
8:51
Speaker 1: solid minutes, So that was another thing that that heads
8:54
Speaker 1: the risk. But to be fair, if you go back
8:56
Speaker 1: and look at that deal, it was a head scratcher
8:59
Speaker 1: for the local media. It's just generally not done where
9:02
Speaker 1: you shade your starting point guard, your quarterback essentially of
9:06
Speaker 1: your team in the middle of a fifty one season
9:09
Speaker 1: where you know so much as magnified and and a
9:12
Speaker 1: veteran coach who came here to win right away. So
9:15
Speaker 1: in Rick Hattleman. So uh tho, I think the key
9:18
Speaker 1: factors were that, yeah, both both we felt good about
9:21
Speaker 1: our evaluation and also that we were a little bit
9:25
Speaker 1: heads that we had some depth at the guard. So
9:28
Speaker 1: what happened next? Yeah, so what happened now? Obviously Kyle
9:33
Speaker 1: went on too, went on to be an All Star,
9:35
Speaker 1: not with US but with Toronto. But Kyle was just
9:38
Speaker 1: a major contributor to that team. Against the we took
9:43
Speaker 1: the Lakers. We lost the Almang and Tracy McGrady that
9:46
Speaker 1: year in the playoffs, first we lost Tracy, then we
9:50
Speaker 1: lost Yeah, in the second round of the playoffs we
9:52
Speaker 1: lost to Kimba Mattumbo. Are other backups center in the
9:54
Speaker 1: first round of the playoffs to Portland. UH and um
9:59
Speaker 1: we the Lakers won the title that year, actually won
10:02
Speaker 1: the title against the Orlando team with rafer Alston as
10:05
Speaker 1: the starting point guard of the Orlando team. So the
10:08
Speaker 1: trade actually worked out for Orlando too, you could argue, um,
10:12
Speaker 1: and Kyle was very instrumental in getting us. We're the
10:16
Speaker 1: only team to take the Lakers to seven games that
10:18
Speaker 1: are uh in the year they won the title, and
10:20
Speaker 1: that was without Yeoman or Tracy McGrady. So um, you know,
10:24
Speaker 1: it obviously worked out amazingly, which is maybe one reason
10:28
Speaker 1: why I am talking about this story. I think folks
10:31
Speaker 1: are biased and maybe talk about the ones that worked out. Um, yeah,
10:35
Speaker 1: I can. I can definitely name ones that didn't work out,
10:38
Speaker 1: you know, if we have more time. So we got
10:41
Speaker 1: plenty of time, so tell me because it's actually interesting
10:43
Speaker 1: a lot of people who come on and do the segment,
10:46
Speaker 1: we'll talk about how things went egregiously and horribly wrong. Um.
10:53
Speaker 1: What it taught them about the failure, but also it
10:56
Speaker 1: led them into some place where they wouldn't be sort
10:59
Speaker 1: of the massive excess they are if they hadn't taken
11:02
Speaker 1: that completely wrong turn at one time or another, like
11:06
Speaker 1: one guy came on and talked about how he quit
11:08
Speaker 1: his job because he wanted to move to Florida and
11:11
Speaker 1: didn't like what he was doing and took a job,
11:14
Speaker 1: ended up taking a job as a paint salesman that
11:18
Speaker 1: ultimately led him to selling paint to a prison in Florida.
11:24
Speaker 1: And he was sitting in the room trying to sell
11:28
Speaker 1: this special kind of paint that they were pitching, and
11:32
Speaker 1: he thought to myself, what happened? Like what am I doing?
11:35
Speaker 1: And like that day he quit his job and went
11:38
Speaker 1: back to find himself in the career that he was
11:41
Speaker 1: in before, but realizing how much he loved it. And
11:44
Speaker 1: now he's flourished and become majorly successful and sort of
11:47
Speaker 1: hiss built and incredible life only because he took a
11:49
Speaker 1: risk to quit the job and then flame out considerably
11:53
Speaker 1: at the new job that he took. What's a much
11:56
Speaker 1: better story than mine? Well, it doesn't have Kyle Lowry. Yeah,
12:00
Speaker 1: so the next keyboa and actually also relates to Kyle
12:04
Speaker 1: Lowry and involves quite a bit of failure, So I
12:07
Speaker 1: think so, I think maybe that's an interesting segue. So
12:12
Speaker 1: that team that took the Lakers of seven games. I
12:15
Speaker 1: believe it was an ah nine um was you know,
12:20
Speaker 1: it was actually the peak of Yeaowming and Tracy mcgrady's
12:23
Speaker 1: career here. Um, neither of them played significant minutes in
12:28
Speaker 1: the NBA after that. Uh, Yeaomin came back one more
12:33
Speaker 1: year and and played like five games. Tracy McGrady I
12:38
Speaker 1: ended up playing a couple of places. But but you know,
12:41
Speaker 1: obviously injuries derailed both of them. So we found ourselves
12:45
Speaker 1: in the early you know, two thousand ten range, two
12:49
Speaker 1: twos in twelve range, essentially trying to rebuild with a
12:53
Speaker 1: mandate to not actually ever be bad, um and to
12:57
Speaker 1: be fair even though being bad is the best way
13:00
Speaker 1: to do it. Um. We had a team with just
13:03
Speaker 1: just packed with very solid players like Louis Skola and
13:07
Speaker 1: Shane Battier and Kyle Lowry that that you know, you know,
13:12
Speaker 1: basically trying to take the path of getting a high
13:14
Speaker 1: draft pick was going to be extraordinarily difficult. So we
13:18
Speaker 1: were forced to say, how are we going to turn
13:20
Speaker 1: our team around without, you know, without actually getting really
13:24
Speaker 1: bad like losing you know, below thirty or winning below
13:28
Speaker 1: thirty games, which is mostly what it requires. And so
13:33
Speaker 1: we essentially decided to just take tons of very risky bets,
13:39
Speaker 1: and we did that with mostly mostly really terrible failure. Frankly, UM,
13:46
Speaker 1: so a lot of those moves in they're all all
13:49
Speaker 1: didn't work out, with the exception of yet another Kyle
13:52
Speaker 1: Lowry trade. But I'll first walk through the very risky
13:56
Speaker 1: moves we did that didn't work out. So we traded
13:58
Speaker 1: a first round pick to the Nets for Terence Williams.
14:02
Speaker 1: Because Terence was picked I think twelve the year before, Uh,
14:08
Speaker 1: sort of flamed out with the Nets, and we thought
14:11
Speaker 1: he was much better than that, and we knew we
14:13
Speaker 1: were going to never pick high. So trading our pick,
14:16
Speaker 1: which I think was gonna land somewhere in the fifteen
14:19
Speaker 1: to twenty range for a guy we thought was, you know,
14:21
Speaker 1: maybe the fifth, sixth or seventh best player in the
14:24
Speaker 1: draft the year prior. It seemed like a great idea.
14:27
Speaker 1: Uh worked out really horribly. Uh never turned the corner.
14:32
Speaker 1: And and frankly, was something you know, I should have
14:36
Speaker 1: been smarter about. Anytime a team is willing to give
14:39
Speaker 1: up on a first round pick, you know, one year in,
14:42
Speaker 1: you know they're sitting on way more information than you are.
14:45
Speaker 1: But the reality is we were a little bit desperate
14:48
Speaker 1: to find high upside bets in a in a in
14:51
Speaker 1: a strategy where we were gonna never pick high. So
14:53
Speaker 1: he was he was one. We were able to trade
14:57
Speaker 1: our way into three first round picks. One I think
15:00
Speaker 1: this is eleven, and we we took no, might have
15:04
Speaker 1: been twelve. We took three players. We took all higher risk,
15:08
Speaker 1: sort of high return players, with the most famous one
15:11
Speaker 1: being roy Swhite, who we thought again was a top
15:15
Speaker 1: you know, five six seven talent in the league, but
15:20
Speaker 1: had had had had you know, obviously had had some
15:23
Speaker 1: off the court, um, you know, issues that we were
15:28
Speaker 1: willing to bet on because you know, we again needed
15:31
Speaker 1: high upside players. Uh, you know, we took roy Swhite,
15:35
Speaker 1: We took Terrence Jones, both out of the league now
15:38
Speaker 1: both high high risk character and guys. Both of them
15:41
Speaker 1: did not pan out. We then signed Jeremy Lynn to
15:46
Speaker 1: have to a very large contract, um, knowing that he
15:51
Speaker 1: was playing in extremely high level, knowing that it was
15:53
Speaker 1: in a very small sample size of obviously the very
15:56
Speaker 1: famous insanity run. Uh, Jeremy actually worked out incredibly well. Um,
16:03
Speaker 1: but it just wasn't it wasn't for us. Necessarily, he
16:07
Speaker 1: obviously had the great one of the knicks, and he's
16:09
Speaker 1: gone to be an extremely productive player in the league.
16:13
Speaker 1: But you know here he Um he didn't work out
16:16
Speaker 1: for reasons. I'll go into Um in a second. Really
16:20
Speaker 1: weren't his fault, Um, And so those are all like
16:23
Speaker 1: the high risk ky return moves we did over and
16:25
Speaker 1: over trying to hit one and basically rolling Snake guys
16:30
Speaker 1: every time. And then the one worked out was when
16:33
Speaker 1: we traded Kyle Lowry out, and I'll go into that,
16:37
Speaker 1: but I'll pause since I've just been rambling on in
16:40
Speaker 1: case you had any questions. Chad, No, No, I want
16:43
Speaker 1: to hear. I want to hear sort of the Kyle
16:45
Speaker 1: Lowry and the Jeremy Lynn sort of resolutions. But I
16:50
Speaker 1: also have so many questions about Royce White because I
16:54
Speaker 1: remember when you guys did that, and I think when
16:56
Speaker 1: I was in the magazine, we did a story about
16:59
Speaker 1: Um when he was in college and fascinating player, so
17:06
Speaker 1: open about sort of what was going on in his life.
17:10
Speaker 1: What is the calculus in a decision like that? Again,
17:14
Speaker 1: I wish there was more calculus to it than we
17:17
Speaker 1: were desperately chasing any player who we thought had all
17:21
Speaker 1: star potential and if you're not picking high you know
17:26
Speaker 1: you're gonna take some you're buying some risk, like in
17:29
Speaker 1: a big way UM. With with Terence Williams, it was,
17:35
Speaker 1: you know, the risk that they're sitting on more information
17:38
Speaker 1: and at the nets in terms of his ability, his
17:41
Speaker 1: work ethic, how he interacts with teammates, things like that.
17:45
Speaker 1: With Jeremy Lynne, we were buying big risk with sample
17:47
Speaker 1: size with Royce why we were buying big risk with UM,
17:52
Speaker 1: you know with you know, off the court potential issues
17:56
Speaker 1: with UM. With Terrence Jones, we were buying, you know,
18:00
Speaker 1: risk in terms of what you had heard from the
18:03
Speaker 1: background and him from his coaching staff. So UM, there
18:06
Speaker 1: was we were basically buying the risk. You're always buying
18:10
Speaker 1: significant risk when you're chasing talent outside of where they're
18:14
Speaker 1: normally picked the top ten in the draft. Uh. And
18:17
Speaker 1: it's really which which problems are you're hoping are less
18:21
Speaker 1: than other people anticipated. The market obviously has valued them
18:24
Speaker 1: lower for a reason. Which one do you think has
18:27
Speaker 1: the best chance of fixing itself? As that makes sense?
18:31
Speaker 1: So what happened? What was the first with with Jeremy
18:35
Speaker 1: Lynn and then second with Kyle Lowry. What resolutions. Yeah.
18:40
Speaker 1: So our biggest hit, our biggest hit actually in this
18:43
Speaker 1: whole period, was we trade. We traded Kyle Lowry out
18:47
Speaker 1: to Toronto who needed a starting point guard. We knew
18:50
Speaker 1: we were just sort of trading water as a five
18:53
Speaker 1: hundred team, and they were willing to give us a
18:55
Speaker 1: first round pick, but we we insisted to be structured
18:59
Speaker 1: in a unique way that had never been done in
19:01
Speaker 1: the NBA. Most of the time, first round picks are
19:04
Speaker 1: traded and you say, hey, I'll give you this first
19:07
Speaker 1: round pick for the player, but if the pick ends
19:10
Speaker 1: up in the top ten, we get to keep it
19:12
Speaker 1: um and you'll get our pick the next year until
19:16
Speaker 1: we're not in the top ten. That's how picks have
19:18
Speaker 1: been structured every year until this trade. When we talked
19:22
Speaker 1: to Toronto, we were able to structure the pick because
19:25
Speaker 1: they were very interested in Kyle, and correctly by the way,
19:27
Speaker 1: he went on to be an All Star for multiple
19:30
Speaker 1: years with them. And instead of it being if it's
19:33
Speaker 1: in the top ten, you don't get to pick, it's
19:36
Speaker 1: you only get the pick if it's in the top
19:39
Speaker 1: fourteen essentially, so so it was basically a reverse protective
19:42
Speaker 1: pick that was guaranteed to be a high pick in
19:45
Speaker 1: the draft, and we thought that that would be a
19:48
Speaker 1: really useful trade piece, either as a trade piece or
19:53
Speaker 1: obviously we were looking for a high pick in the draft.
19:55
Speaker 1: So that trade ended up being actually the key the
20:00
Speaker 1: key piece in the in the James Harden deal. We
20:02
Speaker 1: gave up a lot in the James Harden deal, but
20:05
Speaker 1: the number one asset that Oklahoma City was interested in
20:08
Speaker 1: was that pick that we traded Kyl for. So in anyways,
20:12
Speaker 1: my career was essentially made on these two sort of
20:15
Speaker 1: risky bets. One trading our starting point guard in the
20:17
Speaker 1: middle of the playoff run for a guy who's third string,
20:21
Speaker 1: and then two trading out Kyle Lowry are are unquestioned
20:26
Speaker 1: best player at the time for a question mark draft
20:29
Speaker 1: pick that then ended up being the key piece and
20:31
Speaker 1: the hardened trade later. Haroller, Maury, that's what they call you.
20:37
Speaker 1: What's up? Hell? Yeah, Well, as you know, it's a
20:41
Speaker 1: we have a great team of people. You've met a
20:43
Speaker 1: lot of them, Chad and uh and uh. It's it's
20:46
Speaker 1: a whole system here is that I just happened to
20:50
Speaker 1: be the one they get mad at when things feel
20:52
Speaker 1: bad and sometimes get too much credit when it goes well.
20:55
Speaker 1: I was surprised you didn't bring up the hardened deal.
20:59
Speaker 1: That did not That was not a risk to us.
21:01
Speaker 1: You know, we felt extraordinarily confident on our evaluation of
21:06
Speaker 1: him that he was going to be a player we
21:09
Speaker 1: could build around. We did not know he'd be this
21:11
Speaker 1: good at all. I mean, he's he's gonna be a
21:13
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame player and probably the best player in
21:16
Speaker 1: the league right now. That you can't anticipate, but we
21:19
Speaker 1: felt very confident he had a high probability to be
21:21
Speaker 1: an All Star. They You mentioned something earlier about the
21:30
Speaker 1: minutes that Kyle Lowry had played and that no one
21:33
Speaker 1: had really discovered that you can sort of glean a
21:36
Speaker 1: lot from a short a small sample size, how much
21:39
Speaker 1: of when you're making any of these decisions because you
21:42
Speaker 1: are so steeped in analytics, and like Simmons, I thought
21:44
Speaker 1: the podcast that that Simmons here yesterday and you're going
21:48
Speaker 1: back to sort of the Bill James conversation and you're
21:50
Speaker 1: you're working at stats, and you know, I grew up
21:53
Speaker 1: in Highland Park, you know, so I know all about
21:55
Speaker 1: stats and what was happening in that area at that time. Um,
22:00
Speaker 1: I thought that was fascinating. But as you've, as you've
22:04
Speaker 1: your career has gone on, how much of the human
22:06
Speaker 1: element takes over? You know, there's been a lot of
22:09
Speaker 1: conversation from Billy Bean about sort of the way he's
22:11
Speaker 1: transitioned and moved out of just thinking statistically, how much
22:15
Speaker 1: is that playing into your risk factors when you're making
22:18
Speaker 1: decisions on deals or draft picks or anything else. Well, yeah,
22:22
Speaker 1: when you're a team of guards is very good. The
22:26
Speaker 1: the locker room type elements, leadership elements, the type that
22:31
Speaker 1: the media talks about a lot, So you don't you know,
22:34
Speaker 1: as a team, you don't really need to talk about
22:35
Speaker 1: it much because it's it's probably it's generally overvalued by
22:39
Speaker 1: the marketplace and the media. But when you're a very
22:42
Speaker 1: good team like we are, those those those variables become
22:46
Speaker 1: fairly valued, I would say, I mean, they become big factors.
22:49
Speaker 1: Were very careful when we were a good team to
22:53
Speaker 1: not add any elements that some might sort of mess
22:57
Speaker 1: up what we have going. So we didn't do any
23:00
Speaker 1: trades of deadline. When we added Joe Johnson and Brandon Right,
23:03
Speaker 1: it was after a lot of research that these are
23:06
Speaker 1: two guys that will integrate wall with our team, are
23:10
Speaker 1: coaching staff, our style of play, things like that. So
23:13
Speaker 1: I think when you're very good, you take take less
23:16
Speaker 1: risks on those things when you're when you're and people
23:20
Speaker 1: perceive that we were like necessarily not sensitive to those
23:24
Speaker 1: issues because during the period I was just talking about
23:27
Speaker 1: from two thousand and ten through two thousand and thirteen
23:31
Speaker 1: roughly in there, we were you know, I had to.
23:34
Speaker 1: We were basically telling fans, look, don't buy a jersey.
23:37
Speaker 1: If you buy a jersey, buy it with your name
23:39
Speaker 1: on the back, because that's gonna be the only safe one. Uh.
23:43
Speaker 1: And the reality is that's right if you're not a
23:45
Speaker 1: good team, Like why have stability when your team isn't good? Like,
23:49
Speaker 1: to me, that doesn't make any sense. In fact, the
23:51
Speaker 1: risk is that you are too complacent in that period.
23:55
Speaker 1: Um so yeah, so we you know, we uh, that's
23:58
Speaker 1: sort of when because it was early in my career,
24:01
Speaker 1: that was sort of when people sort of started to
24:03
Speaker 1: say all the Rockets just shuffle players in and out,
24:07
Speaker 1: And that was true during that period, but it was
24:09
Speaker 1: the right It was the right plan at the time.
24:11
Speaker 1: And now the right plan is to do what we did,
24:12
Speaker 1: which is you know, not making any trades with the
24:14
Speaker 1: trade dove on. Well, look, it's working out for you
24:19
Speaker 1: so far. I'm glad for you guys. You know, I
24:23
Speaker 1: hope it continues. Daryl, I'm gonna see you this week
24:26
Speaker 1: the Sloan Conference uh at m I at the Sloan
24:29
Speaker 1: supports an ALIS conference UM starts on Friday. It's Friday
24:33
Speaker 1: and Saturday. People can follow it along on Twitter. People
24:37
Speaker 1: will probably be able to stream a lot of the
24:40
Speaker 1: UM stuff after the fact with some cool videos. Uh.
24:45
Speaker 1: You know, it's a huge success story. Like in the
24:46
Speaker 1: sports world. UM, it's become such an event. It's a
24:51
Speaker 1: super bowlesque atmosphere in terms of people, you meet people,
24:55
Speaker 1: you see the conversations that are had. Uh. What you
24:58
Speaker 1: and Jessica have done pretty impressive. So congratulations and I'll
25:01
Speaker 1: see you this week. Well, I gotta show at the
25:03
Speaker 1: m I T students who uh who really make the
25:06
Speaker 1: whole thing go and appreciate the kind of words and
25:08
Speaker 1: and the fact that you help us every year. Is
25:11
Speaker 1: is very appreciate it. So thanks for me. I appreciate it.
25:14
Speaker 1: Joining me now on the buffet with Chat and Scooch,
25:18
Speaker 1: one of my fellow panelists on the Sloan Sports and
25:21
Speaker 1: It Looks Gambling panel this week at the conference. Jeff, Jeff,
25:26
Speaker 1: how you doing, buddy. So that's what I've become to you,
25:29
Speaker 1: just another one of your fellow panelists. I used to
25:31
Speaker 1: be introduced as like one of your friends. What's going on? Well,
25:35
Speaker 1: I was gonna get into more of it, like I
25:38
Speaker 1: wanted to give people the top line here. I don't
25:40
Speaker 1: know if they're all that interested in like personal relationships. Well,
25:43
Speaker 1: I'm very sensitive these days yet, So it's it's it's
25:47
Speaker 1: always good to know that we still we're still friends
25:49
Speaker 1: in the industry. I would say, friends inside and outside
25:53
Speaker 1: the industry. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Um, well,
25:57
Speaker 1: my friend, I'm going to see you this week, and
26:01
Speaker 1: the panel is gonna be really good because it's gonna
26:05
Speaker 1: have you. It's gonna have Ted Olsen, who is the
26:08
Speaker 1: former Solicitor General of the United States who argued the
26:11
Speaker 1: case for I believe it was George Bush over Al
26:15
Speaker 1: Gore in UH two thousand UM that ultimately had George
26:22
Speaker 1: Bush become president UH. And he most recently argued the
26:25
Speaker 1: case in front of the Supreme Court to have UM
26:30
Speaker 1: in favor of on the side of New Jersey. He
26:32
Speaker 1: was the lawyer for the state of New Jersey arguing
26:36
Speaker 1: that they should be allowed to have sports betting. Um,
26:38
Speaker 1: so he's gonna talk about that. Uh, you're gonna be
26:41
Speaker 1: on the panel. And I feel like this is a
26:44
Speaker 1: good time to have this conversation because in Eurola, Twitter
26:47
Speaker 1: as sort of puba of product. Uh, you are smacked
26:51
Speaker 1: ab in the middle of what could be a monumentally
26:55
Speaker 1: important tool once sports bet and becomes legalized. How do
27:00
Speaker 1: you see Twitter activating against that? Well, well, one, I'm
27:07
Speaker 1: not Poba product. UM. That's actually a guy by name
27:10
Speaker 1: Keith Coleman, another guy name of Edo who kind of
27:12
Speaker 1: run that. I'm more puba of data and data science
27:15
Speaker 1: and analytics UM, which obviously is an important role, but
27:20
Speaker 1: not quite the same as Pooba product. Now that being said,
27:23
Speaker 1: obviously I spent a lot of time with those guys
27:25
Speaker 1: and we talk a lot about the ramifications of different things.
27:28
Speaker 1: I mean, as Twitter, um we are tagline or where
27:32
Speaker 1: we've gone the last couple of years has really been
27:35
Speaker 1: about to show you what's happening, or to be what's happening.
27:39
Speaker 1: And what that means is that we've been focused a
27:42
Speaker 1: lot on the real time aspect of things being the
27:44
Speaker 1: first to get information. UM, it's sort of simplified the
27:48
Speaker 1: use case around Twitter, and I think it dovetails really
27:51
Speaker 1: well with the idea of legalized sports betting because so
27:55
Speaker 1: much of sports information is being first to get that information,
28:00
Speaker 1: whether it's injury information or you know, coaching changes or
28:04
Speaker 1: personnel changes, anything like that. Um, you want to be
28:07
Speaker 1: the first to get it. And the first used to
28:09
Speaker 1: be for you know, like fantasy or just for the
28:12
Speaker 1: pride or you know, the being able to say like,
28:16
Speaker 1: oh I knew this first. UM. I don't know if
28:18
Speaker 1: you remember the whole like Rick Riley thing that was
28:20
Speaker 1: pretty embarrassing when he was on Monday Night Football and
28:23
Speaker 1: they accidentally saying like yeah, yeah, like make sure everyone
28:27
Speaker 1: knows I got that first. But in the Twitter parliamance,
28:31
Speaker 1: and especially in the world of sports gambling, there's a
28:33
Speaker 1: real financial reason to be first. Um. Even now, you
28:36
Speaker 1: can see sports information and especially injuries breaking on Twitter
28:41
Speaker 1: even before it's reflected in the line moves sometimes and UM,
28:45
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that is interesting to
28:47
Speaker 1: do is to watch how line moves, especially in the
28:51
Speaker 1: n b A UM where they're all are all sorts
28:54
Speaker 1: of new sort of trends around people sitting when you
28:59
Speaker 1: don't effect them to sit UM, and just so much
29:02
Speaker 1: uncertainty around who's playing on any given day. Sometimes you
29:06
Speaker 1: see the market reflect the line move before the injury
29:11
Speaker 1: is announced, and sometimes you see it happened twice where
29:14
Speaker 1: you'll see the line move and then you'll see the
29:16
Speaker 1: injury announcement go and you'll see the line move again,
29:19
Speaker 1: which either means the line the market was pricing in
29:22
Speaker 1: some level of uncertainty, and then when the certainty came
29:25
Speaker 1: out that they weren't playing, it reacted even more. Sometimes
29:28
Speaker 1: I believe it's really overreacting to a lot of the
29:31
Speaker 1: century information. So Fantasy Labs, which is a company that's
29:38
Speaker 1: in the Action Network, has an NBA Twitter handle UM
29:42
Speaker 1: that is entirely built on what you're talking about. Like
29:45
Speaker 1: they are phenomenal at tracking down d nps or expected
29:52
Speaker 1: d n p s or injury news in the NBA,
29:55
Speaker 1: because so much of daily fantasy obviously is driven by
29:58
Speaker 1: you know who's not No, I follow them, and I
30:01
Speaker 1: actually don't have UM notifications set for very many people. UM.
30:05
Speaker 1: They are one of the accounts that I do have
30:07
Speaker 1: notifications set for because I want to see who they're saying.
30:11
Speaker 1: But that's but the interesting thing is, you know that
30:13
Speaker 1: they're sort of limited by, you know, the information that
30:16
Speaker 1: they're able to get through writers and things like that.
30:18
Speaker 1: And sometimes I do believe the market knows things even
30:21
Speaker 1: before they do, which which begs the question like how
30:24
Speaker 1: do you continue to get even better information? Because I'm
30:27
Speaker 1: sure they're working very hard to get the best information,
30:30
Speaker 1: and as far as I know from like a definitive source,
30:33
Speaker 1: they are the best information. But the market can often
30:37
Speaker 1: reflect um things even before they do. Like you know,
30:40
Speaker 1: you'll see things priced into the market, um, and they'll
30:44
Speaker 1: say like oh and be still, um, you know, questionable
30:47
Speaker 1: for tonight, and it's like clear from the market that
30:50
Speaker 1: he is playing or that he isn't playing. Now, the
30:52
Speaker 1: market isn't always right just like they aren't that they
30:55
Speaker 1: wouldn't know as be right, um, But it is interesting
30:58
Speaker 1: to know, like what are the source says that the
31:00
Speaker 1: market is getting that even fantasy labs can't get. Well,
31:04
Speaker 1: I wonder do you think that that is something that
31:08
Speaker 1: will ever be revealed? Like is the market you know?
31:13
Speaker 1: Betters are making decisions and they're not. The people who
31:16
Speaker 1: are really moving the market aren't necessarily going to be
31:19
Speaker 1: releasing on Twitter what they know before they're making their bet. Um.
31:26
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, obviously like the people that are moving them.
31:29
Speaker 1: I mean, but but you'd be surprised about like the
31:31
Speaker 1: people moving the markets because this day and age, a
31:35
Speaker 1: lot of these sports books are really afraid of sharp
31:38
Speaker 1: So there are people that will get labeled in certain
31:41
Speaker 1: you know accounts, like a bet Chris or like a
31:43
Speaker 1: Pinnacle the Sharper books. And if you get labeled that
31:45
Speaker 1: way and you bet, um, you're automatically going to move
31:49
Speaker 1: the market, even if you don't really know anything, and
31:51
Speaker 1: they'll move the market a little bit against you. And
31:53
Speaker 1: then if someone else that you might happen to trade uh,
31:56
Speaker 1: you know, picks with also bets and that same account
32:00
Speaker 1: or bets in that same sports book, that will move
32:03
Speaker 1: the market also. So I think sometimes we give the
32:07
Speaker 1: market too much credit, um, and sometimes sometimes people are
32:11
Speaker 1: just you know, speculating and now I'll with the market.
32:14
Speaker 1: So I think one of the things that will become
32:17
Speaker 1: more interesting if sports gambling or when sports gamily becomes
32:21
Speaker 1: legal is how much injury information is actually regulated in
32:25
Speaker 1: terms of like the league's mandating that you have to
32:28
Speaker 1: announce at a certain time who is and who isn't playing.
32:32
Speaker 1: But I guess even in that case, people will still
32:34
Speaker 1: speculate before that announcement. My guests is sports books will
32:38
Speaker 1: try to like hold back limits until those announcements are
32:40
Speaker 1: made because they're they're petrified of being beat by you know,
32:45
Speaker 1: information asymmetry. So it'll be interesting to see how that
32:48
Speaker 1: all plays out. What does that mean? Information asymmetry? It
32:53
Speaker 1: just means that like they have information or someone has
32:56
Speaker 1: information that they don't. There's like when when you have
32:59
Speaker 1: information asymmetry, It just means that like the two sides,
33:02
Speaker 1: like I have information that you don't, and therefore my
33:05
Speaker 1: opinion on something is different than your opinion because I
33:08
Speaker 1: have actual information that you don't. Like markets, and like
33:12
Speaker 1: the stock market in the old days, information asymmetry would
33:16
Speaker 1: cause you know, opportunities in the stock stock market because
33:19
Speaker 1: like you know, certain types of news about companies was
33:22
Speaker 1: not necessarily transparent, or certain like economic trends weren't transparent,
33:26
Speaker 1: so that would create information asymmetry. You've had so many
33:29
Speaker 1: experiences in studying markets. What would you say is from
33:37
Speaker 1: from first to last, the most transparent of all the
33:43
Speaker 1: markets that you've studied and been a part of, from
33:46
Speaker 1: financial markets to uh sports betting markets too. I guess
33:53
Speaker 1: you could frame you know, blackjack. You know you were
33:58
Speaker 1: part of the bringing down the house rue in the
34:00
Speaker 1: movie twenty one that was that was turned in the
34:02
Speaker 1: movie one like to sort of. I guess card game
34:07
Speaker 1: markets I don't know how to the market markets aren't
34:10
Speaker 1: really markets, right, and those if you were going to
34:12
Speaker 1: talk about what was the most transparent, they're certainly most
34:14
Speaker 1: transparent because they're a closed system. Um. I think maybe
34:18
Speaker 1: what you're asking about is studying systems versus market systems
34:22
Speaker 1: that you can be and certainly blackjack is a closed system.
34:25
Speaker 1: The rules are predetermined, Um. Everybody knows the rules. You
34:30
Speaker 1: can't change things. And then if you move into something
34:32
Speaker 1: like poker, where the rules are determined but you don't
34:36
Speaker 1: necessarily know how the players are going to act at
34:38
Speaker 1: certain times. Um. And then you go to like betting
34:42
Speaker 1: markets and the stock market where you don't even know
34:45
Speaker 1: the rules. You don't know how people are going to act. Um,
34:49
Speaker 1: I guess, And I guess in betting markets, you know
34:51
Speaker 1: the rules like theoretically of winning and losing. In stock markets,
34:56
Speaker 1: you don't even know the rules right like you you know,
34:59
Speaker 1: you watch stock and you watch their earnings come out,
35:02
Speaker 1: and you would think like, oh, the market's going to
35:03
Speaker 1: react a certain way, and they don't because that was
35:06
Speaker 1: already priced in and that kind of thing. UM. I
35:09
Speaker 1: think one of the reasons that the betting markets and this,
35:13
Speaker 1: you know, I think you'd be hard pressed to argue
35:15
Speaker 1: definitively one way or the other between the betting markets
35:18
Speaker 1: and the stock markets. Which ones are more transparent or
35:21
Speaker 1: which ones are more are easier to understand. You can
35:24
Speaker 1: certainly make a case that like, you don't really know
35:27
Speaker 1: what's going on in a publicly traded company. You don't
35:29
Speaker 1: like see the the stuff played out on the field.
35:32
Speaker 1: You don't get necessarily the same interviews in the same
35:34
Speaker 1: inside look that you do UM at sports teams. But
35:39
Speaker 1: in sports teams you have sort of ever changing UM landscape.
35:44
Speaker 1: I think that that is even more it's even harder
35:47
Speaker 1: to understand, like because there's all these new players that
35:50
Speaker 1: have come into the But I guess that's true of
35:52
Speaker 1: of stock market also with you know, high sprens trading
35:56
Speaker 1: and all the things that have changed those markets, so
36:00
Speaker 1: and like, I'm basically arguing between the two of them
36:02
Speaker 1: and I can't come up with a real answer. So,
36:05
Speaker 1: speaking of transparency, what do you do if sports betting
36:09
Speaker 1: becomes legal or even if it doesn't. Listen, I love
36:13
Speaker 1: Twitter and I'm honored all the time and it's an
36:15
Speaker 1: invaluable tool for what I do. But from the information perspective,
36:20
Speaker 1: you talk about information asymmetry, it's easy for someone to
36:24
Speaker 1: start a rumor, do you know what I mean? Like,
36:27
Speaker 1: how do you how do you manage that? Because like
36:30
Speaker 1: on Twitter, that could spread like wildfire and all of
36:33
Speaker 1: a sudden it's having a tremendous impact on a betting market. Yeah,
36:38
Speaker 1: I mean that is that is the notion that is
36:40
Speaker 1: a very challenging thing to face that both you know,
36:44
Speaker 1: us and Facebook and YouTube to some degree are having
36:49
Speaker 1: to deal with, which is like what role should we
36:52
Speaker 1: play or do we do we have to play in
36:55
Speaker 1: the world of this kind of concept of fake news
36:58
Speaker 1: or real news or validating news. UM. What I think
37:01
Speaker 1: that we have to do our best at is validating
37:04
Speaker 1: the source of where that information is coming from. UM,
37:08
Speaker 1: And we're spending a lot of time thinking about how
37:10
Speaker 1: our verification process works and maybe even like different sort
37:14
Speaker 1: of tiers of verification at some point. UM, But just
37:17
Speaker 1: this idea that you know, verifying the sources the best way.
37:22
Speaker 1: It's hard for us to verify each piece of individual
37:25
Speaker 1: news because it's it's just it's just impossible the way
37:29
Speaker 1: things go and how fast things go and whatnot. Um.
37:32
Speaker 1: The other thing is like again like you have to
37:35
Speaker 1: use leverage the market or leverage leverage the people in
37:37
Speaker 1: the community to help you know, you validate some of
37:42
Speaker 1: these things. Also, UM, there are there are machine ways
37:45
Speaker 1: to try to do this, but generally it's it's definitely
37:48
Speaker 1: an unsolved problem that, um, that we're all facing right
37:52
Speaker 1: now together, and we're all facing this as a as
37:54
Speaker 1: almost like as a world together because if you look
37:57
Speaker 1: at what happened in the last selection, which has obviously
37:59
Speaker 1: been publicized, there was a lot of things going on
38:03
Speaker 1: that were sort of you know, manipulations of different platforms, um,
38:07
Speaker 1: and it was it was a challenging thing for you know,
38:10
Speaker 1: for platforms like ourselves on Facebook to deal with. You know,
38:15
Speaker 1: Twitter was way ahead of the game on verification, Like
38:18
Speaker 1: that blue check mark kind of meant everything, uh in
38:23
Speaker 1: the beginning, and like getting the blue check mark, it
38:26
Speaker 1: felt like you were validated in a very specific way. Um,
38:31
Speaker 1: what work can you do to verify? Like? What is
38:34
Speaker 1: another level of verification for someone like me? Do you
38:38
Speaker 1: know what I mean? I've got a blue check mark?
38:39
Speaker 1: What more is there to verify? Well, I think it's
38:43
Speaker 1: more not necessary verification, but it's more just um, reputation
38:48
Speaker 1: around what you're known for, what you're good at. Right,
38:52
Speaker 1: So that idea would be like what you know, Like,
38:54
Speaker 1: you're verified, But should I trust your opinion when it
38:58
Speaker 1: comes to the best uh sushi restaurant in New York
39:02
Speaker 1: or whether Hamilton's is the best musical ever? Um? I
39:06
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean maybe maybe your your opinions. But
39:09
Speaker 1: really what you're verified for, what you're known for is
39:12
Speaker 1: sports and sports betting and that aspect of things. So
39:16
Speaker 1: that would be the area, um, that we might be
39:18
Speaker 1: able to push into, which is actually trying to help um,
39:22
Speaker 1: you know, verify you or give you reputation or or
39:25
Speaker 1: help you have more reputation around specifically what you are
39:29
Speaker 1: known for. That's interesting. That will be really interesting to
39:35
Speaker 1: bring it back to gambling, because that is a that
39:40
Speaker 1: is an interesting that is reputationally challenged, like how do
39:45
Speaker 1: you figure out if someone is someone that you want
39:49
Speaker 1: to verify and someone who's reputation and information is good. Yeah,
39:55
Speaker 1: I mean it's again like this isn't I'm not m
39:59
Speaker 1: I don't want speak ahead of anything we're doing, like
40:01
Speaker 1: this is not necessarily anything that we're planning on doing,
40:04
Speaker 1: Like I'm not I don't want to give up any
40:06
Speaker 1: of the thoughts around what we're doing before we actually
40:09
Speaker 1: do them. But you know, when I when I envisioned
40:11
Speaker 1: personally what some of these things could look like going forward, Um,
40:16
Speaker 1: it really is around you know, just just what like
40:19
Speaker 1: just like when you before we went on air, we
40:21
Speaker 1: talked about gambling Twitter, right, and there are people that
40:23
Speaker 1: are known for giving out good gambling information or there
40:28
Speaker 1: are people that are known for you know, being the
40:31
Speaker 1: contrarians on gambling or whatnot. And if you go on
40:34
Speaker 1: to Twitter, you don't really know what who to trust.
40:37
Speaker 1: You don't really know who's good and who's bad, and
40:39
Speaker 1: who's a tow and who's whatnot. So certainly having some
40:44
Speaker 1: aspect of understanding like who you can trust and who
40:48
Speaker 1: you can't trust would be an interesting move um for
40:53
Speaker 1: you know, like for for up for content generally, like
40:56
Speaker 1: to understand what content you could trust and you know,
40:59
Speaker 1: to bring it all back idea of like sports betting
41:01
Speaker 1: become legal. It's it's just like the concept of having
41:04
Speaker 1: you know, analysts in the stock market that you can
41:06
Speaker 1: trust that are are giving you good information. Boy, that
41:10
Speaker 1: would put Twitter at the white hot center of having
41:16
Speaker 1: a tangible impact on a nascent legal industry. Right Like
41:21
Speaker 1: if Twitter is bringing it upon itself to say, this
41:25
Speaker 1: guy's it's out, this guy's not it's out. This guy
41:29
Speaker 1: has good information, this guy doesn't have good information that
41:32
Speaker 1: has a material impact on who people follow and who's
41:35
Speaker 1: making money and what a particular person or a company
41:39
Speaker 1: can do in the market and their value in the market.
41:41
Speaker 1: Different the different level of verification. Then hey, I got
41:46
Speaker 1: you know, twenty followers or a hundred thousand followers or
41:50
Speaker 1: four million followers, um, And there's value in that. Yeah,
41:54
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's an interesting concept. Certainly, I
41:58
Speaker 1: think that it's a challenge in concept um And it
42:02
Speaker 1: comes back to this idea of you know, what's our
42:05
Speaker 1: role in this world? Right? Are we this platform? Like
42:10
Speaker 1: the thing about Twitter is it's a phenomenon, right, It's
42:12
Speaker 1: it's this amazing platform for communicating from one too many. Um,
42:18
Speaker 1: and all those things that you talked about, whether it's
42:20
Speaker 1: you know, the number of followers you have, or that
42:23
Speaker 1: the actual like the you know, the people that engage,
42:25
Speaker 1: how much engagement you get worth of your tweets. All
42:27
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff is stuff that like almost I
42:31
Speaker 1: when I look at a someone new, that's what I do. Like,
42:34
Speaker 1: what do you do? You click on their profile, you
42:36
Speaker 1: see how many followers they have, You kind of look
42:38
Speaker 1: at some of the things they tweeted, You look at
42:40
Speaker 1: the people that follow them, and that's what you used
42:43
Speaker 1: to decide what, you know, how much stock you want
42:45
Speaker 1: to put into what this person says? Um, So I
42:48
Speaker 1: would say to some of great Twitter already has that
42:50
Speaker 1: it's just like a manual process that you do yourself
42:52
Speaker 1: to figure out like whether this person is worth anything
42:55
Speaker 1: to you. All right, So we're gonna do this panel
42:58
Speaker 1: on Friday morning. It's at nine thirty at the Slow
43:02
Speaker 1: and Sports ANALYTIS conference. You and I have been doing
43:04
Speaker 1: it together for years. UM, what do you who do
43:10
Speaker 1: you think will be the most interesting person on the
43:12
Speaker 1: panel and why the panel is uh? You it's um
43:18
Speaker 1: Daniel Wallack, who's a lawyer who's been studying what's happening
43:22
Speaker 1: with UM, the case that's going through the Supreme Court. UH.
43:27
Speaker 1: And the woman who runs sports radars domestic operations and
43:31
Speaker 1: sports radars, you know, a data company that is the
43:34
Speaker 1: official data provider for several leagues including the NFL, NBA,
43:38
Speaker 1: and Major League Baseball, and then they sell that data
43:41
Speaker 1: to people who wanted but also in Europe they have
43:43
Speaker 1: a massive operation in which they are selling data to
43:46
Speaker 1: bookmakers and part of their businesses about integrity. And then
43:50
Speaker 1: Ted Olsen, who argued the case in front of the
43:52
Speaker 1: Supreme Court on behalf of New Jersey, UH, handicapped for
43:55
Speaker 1: me who you think will be the most interesting panelist
43:59
Speaker 1: and why I can vote for myself. You are not
44:02
Speaker 1: a lot of vote for yourself. Although I did have
44:03
Speaker 1: a conversation UH with Ted Olson this morning and he
44:07
Speaker 1: asked me like, how does this panel go? And I
44:11
Speaker 1: was explaining to him, you know, some of the questions
44:12
Speaker 1: I'll ask and the topics will discuss. And I was
44:15
Speaker 1: giving a background and the people on the panel, and
44:17
Speaker 1: I said, I promise you at some point on the panel,
44:21
Speaker 1: Jeff will pose a challenging question that is going to
44:23
Speaker 1: make everybody in the panel have to think quickly about
44:26
Speaker 1: what their answer is going to be. So I did
44:29
Speaker 1: give you, I did give you credit to ted Olsen
44:32
Speaker 1: as being a guy who could essentially be the most
44:36
Speaker 1: interesting or troublesome person on the panel. So you referenced
44:39
Speaker 1: me both knowledgeable and troublesome, which is probably pretty accurate
44:43
Speaker 1: in terms of like how the panel goes. You know,
44:47
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be really interesting just because the
44:49
Speaker 1: those guys come from a very different background than I
44:52
Speaker 1: come from, and and they're the ones that are sort
44:54
Speaker 1: of like have pushed around a lot of the legal
44:58
Speaker 1: rims cancers of this, I'm a lot of what I'm
45:00
Speaker 1: sort of interested in is the commercial implications, i e. Like,
45:05
Speaker 1: when this becomes um legal and you know, the the
45:09
Speaker 1: NBA is out there talking about this this concept of
45:12
Speaker 1: integrity see. So you know, the NBA has run out
45:15
Speaker 1: this concept of the one percent integrity see and this
45:18
Speaker 1: is either ignorant or disingenuous um. In both cases, I
45:23
Speaker 1: think we're in trouble if it's if it's disingenuous, which
45:27
Speaker 1: I hope it is. What I'm saying is that they
45:29
Speaker 1: are actually you know, anchoring the rest of the world
45:32
Speaker 1: in terms of thinking, like a one percent fee is
45:34
Speaker 1: where they're starting, and they're gonna come back and ask
45:37
Speaker 1: for like a point one percent fee, and everyone's say, oh,
45:39
Speaker 1: well that's not reasonable. One percent. See, there's just no
45:42
Speaker 1: way that sports book could be competitive or make money
45:46
Speaker 1: in that case. And I've heard some like ridiculous things
45:49
Speaker 1: like oh well maybe they should only do it off parlay.
45:52
Speaker 1: It's just it's silly. Um. You know, I wrote an
45:55
Speaker 1: article a while back for Chalk that basically talked about
45:58
Speaker 1: this sort of top myths behind you know, what will
46:01
Speaker 1: happen or the top sort of things that I predict
46:03
Speaker 1: will happen when sports spending becomes legal. And I think
46:07
Speaker 1: one of the things I said was just this idea
46:09
Speaker 1: that the leagues, we're going to be greedy right away,
46:12
Speaker 1: We're going to kind of ruin things, um and make
46:14
Speaker 1: it really hard at least in the first path to
46:16
Speaker 1: make this successful. UM. I mean, I believe they should
46:19
Speaker 1: just sort of sit back and let this happen and
46:21
Speaker 1: benefit from, you know, the increased engagement, increase marketing dollars,
46:25
Speaker 1: and increase people spending money in this area. UM, And
46:28
Speaker 1: maybe down the road there could be some other ancillary
46:30
Speaker 1: revenue streams, but at least let this industry, you know,
46:33
Speaker 1: become you know, a real a real industry, not just
46:37
Speaker 1: like a Nathan struggling industry struggling to fight with the
46:39
Speaker 1: illegal bookmakers. They are going to use some Trumpian negotiating tactics,
46:44
Speaker 1: is what you're saying, Trumpian goodellion. I mean, I'm not
46:49
Speaker 1: sure if there's a big difference at this point. This
46:52
Speaker 1: is like a very um challenging thing to get right.
46:56
Speaker 1: And I think again, like the thing that concerns me
46:59
Speaker 1: the most is like this shows a general lack of
47:02
Speaker 1: understanding of the sort of like industry itself and understanding
47:06
Speaker 1: like what the you know, actual economics of bookmaking or
47:10
Speaker 1: or you know, actually sports books are all right, Well,
47:16
Speaker 1: we're gonna get into it on Friday. It's gonna be
47:18
Speaker 1: a great panel. Yeah, it's on Friday afternoon, Friday morning.
47:21
Speaker 1: I mean, it's gonna be a great panel. I have
47:24
Speaker 1: no doubt you'll stir things up. I'm looking forward to
47:26
Speaker 1: seeing you there. Um, I don't want us to get
47:28
Speaker 1: off the phone without talking about BET the process, because
47:32
Speaker 1: between you and Rufus it might be more i Q
47:34
Speaker 1: points than is generated by the rest of the sports
47:37
Speaker 1: betting community combined. And so please tell us that you're
47:41
Speaker 1: not going to go on permanent hiatus now that the
47:44
Speaker 1: NFL season is over and you have recapped the Super Bowl. No,
47:48
Speaker 1: we actually are going to try to do one every
47:50
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. We're gonna change the format a little bit. UM.
47:53
Speaker 1: We actually launch or we released one of UM earlier
47:56
Speaker 1: this week, and one of the topics that we talked
47:59
Speaker 1: a lot about our sort of analytics around detecting fraud
48:02
Speaker 1: UM or you know, match fixing and how you know,
48:06
Speaker 1: RUFUS did some work early on that with La Vega
48:09
Speaker 1: Sports Consultants. UM certainly talking about some of the work
48:12
Speaker 1: that was done trying to figure out fraud and tennis
48:15
Speaker 1: matches and things like that. This is certainly something that's
48:17
Speaker 1: going to have to happen UM when sports betting becomes legal,
48:21
Speaker 1: because there is gonna be a lot of scrutiny on
48:23
Speaker 1: this and feeling like you you could have like we
48:26
Speaker 1: have machine learning and all that kind of stuff UM
48:28
Speaker 1: that allows us to identify this type of fraud will
48:30
Speaker 1: be a really good marketing thing for people to talk about.
48:33
Speaker 1: But now that's the process is gonna live like this
48:35
Speaker 1: is a project that both of us are committed to. UM,
48:37
Speaker 1: we'd like to have some guests on. We'd like to
48:40
Speaker 1: also go outside of the world of sports and look
48:43
Speaker 1: for people that can talk through this whole concept of
48:46
Speaker 1: like process driven, UM, you know, process of being process
48:49
Speaker 1: driven versus results driven. Okay, I'm looking forward to that.
48:54
Speaker 1: I want that to succeed. People should go listen to it. Jeff,
48:58
Speaker 1: I will see on Friday. Yeah, we'll see on Friday.
49:03
Speaker 1: Looking forward to brother, I'll talk to you, super Bo