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MLB and NBA Draft Strategies · Rosters to Rings Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rosters Ter Rings alongside Ryan McDonough. I'm
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: fad Levine. We got such a tremendous outpouring of questions
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: from our fans and listeners, Ryan, that I thought we'd
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: dedicate this whole episode to getting to them as many
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of those as we possibly can. But in our last episode, Ryan,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: you talked about the Knicks and they're firing of Tom Thibodeau,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: that it really only made sense if they had a
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: plan a candidate lined up. Well, how do you assess
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the situation a week later?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Both that great to be with you as always, and
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: it's pretty clear to me at this point that the
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: New York Knicks did not have a candidate in waiting.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: In fact, they've reached out to five current head coaches
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: around the league for permission, and their teams have all
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: had the same answer belief, no, no, we're not going
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: on to allow you to talk to our coach. As
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: you know of that, there's a lot of downside even
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: for the team just receiving the call, because if you
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: received the call and then say no, the agent turns
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: around to his current franchise, the coaches says, well, you
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: got to take care of my guy, Now you got
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: to give them an extension. That seems like that was
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: the case, is the case with Billy Donovan in Chicago,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: and that we know the NIXT history, it is what
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: it is. New York Knicks have had thirteen head coaches
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: since Jeff Van Gundy resigned in New York in two
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: thousand and one. Tom Thibodeaux lasted longer, and I say longer,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: I mean just five seasons. But Timms was lasted longer
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: and was more successful than any Knicks head coach since
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Van Gundy, who led the franchise to its last NBA
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Finals appearance in nineteen ninety nine. So the k next
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: seat after firing their most accomplished coach of the two thousands.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: A lot of people around leake exactly what you said. Well,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: they must have a replacement in mind, and I'll keep
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: in mind what the Knicks did this year, that just
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: a month or so ago they beat the defending champion
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Boston Celtics. They were just two games away from getting
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: to the NBA Finals. Frankly, this has been one of
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: the least successful franchises in the NBA this century. Despite
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: the fact that they're in New York. Its biggest media market,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: So they called about Chicago's Billy Donovan, Houston's Ema Odoka,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Minnesota is Chris Finch, Atlanta's Quinn Snyder, and Dallas as
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Jason Kidd. They were rejected on all accounts, so we'll
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: see who they end up getting.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Fad.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: The Knicks are reportedly interviewing former NBA head coaches Mike
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Brown and Taylor Jenkins this week. But you and I,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: as former executives, we look at the process. The process
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: here has been sloppy at best. To me, it seems
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: like scattershot and like they just decided they did not
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: want Tom Thibodeaux and really didn't have a plan beyond that.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Wow, it's remarkable when you see that happen in professional sports,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: and I think it's best laid plans aren't always executed.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: And we've talked about this in previous episodes, where as executives,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: you always have to have a plan A, Plan B,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Plan C. I've never had success when you just had
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: a plan A. It's so rare that you're afforded the
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: latitude and luxury of just going from A to Z
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: with unencumbered you know, in Major League Baseball, we just
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: we don't see this as frequently as we seem to
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: see this in the NBA. You know, a few times
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: famously in my career, but honestly, it's been very few.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: In two thousand and two, lou Pinelo was traded from
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: the Seattle Mariners to the Tampa Bay Rays. I think
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Randy Winn was involved in that deal. In twenty eleven,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Ozzie Dean was traded from the Chicago White Sox to
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the Miami Marlins, and then I guess. Most recently, there
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: was a lot to do about Craig Council's candidacy as
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: a free agent. His contract was expiring at the end
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: of the twenty twenty three season with the Milwaukee Brewers.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: He was widely regarded as one of the most successful
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: and one of the most progressive managers in Major League Baseball.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: He didn't re sign with Milwaukee. He became a free agent,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: ultimately going to the Chicago Cubs. You know, slight irony
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: was that. Then the Milwaukee Brewers in twenty twenty four
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: won the division beat the Cubs. Pat Murphy, who replaced
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Craig Council as the manager of the Milwaukee Brewers, emerges
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: as the manager of the year in the National League,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: which we've talked about in episodes past, hopefully won't be
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: the same kiss of death that it's been for other
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: managers in baseball NBA head coaches. One thing. Also as
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: a wrinkle of note, you know, Craig Council left in
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: part because he felt like he was honor bound to
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: try to raise the salaries of major league managers. They've
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: tracked well behind their NFL head coaching counterparts, their NBA
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: head coaching counterparts. Well. He ultimately signs a pre robust
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: deal with the Cubs. Interestingly, though, that would make him
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the fourteenth highest paid NBA head coach, despite the fact
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: that he broke the bank, and I think he may
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: have matched Dave Roberts as one of the highest paid
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: managers in Major League Baseball. But the highest paid major
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: league manager would be the thirteenth highest paid NBA head coach.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Craig Council would be the fourteenth highest paid. So it
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: doesn't happen quite as often in baseball. It happens very infrequently,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: but there have been a few trades involving major league
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: managers over the last twenty five years.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the salary structure in Major League Baseball on the
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: front office side and the managerial side seems a little
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: more balanced, where I think the number two and three
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: guys are making closer to what the number one guy
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: makes in both the front office and in the dugout.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: In the NBA it is more top heavy, where usually
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: the number one guy makes a lot, whether it's the
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: head coach or the president of basketball operations, the general manager, whoever.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: The top guys are on the basketball side, and then
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: there's pretty significant gap down to it, which is why
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: you and I have talked about this in the past,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: but not many guys turn down these kind of jobs,
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: because if you have a chance to whatever the multiple
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: is right triple, quadruple, quintupple, make x amount times your
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: money in a new contract, even going from the number
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: two guy within the organization to the number one with
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: your own organization, or to the number one spot with another,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: just about everybody takes that opportunity. That even though some
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: organizations like the New York Knicks have a track record
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: and in a history of churning people in and out,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: you went over the numbers in a recent episode in
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: the NBA, it is just two plus years on average
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: the head coaches stay employed a Major League Baseball it's
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: around three years, three plus years. So you know, I
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: think the coaches in the NBA, fat you do a
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: particularly good job of this. As you say, in the NBA,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: you're hired to be fired, and they take the money
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: and realize that if they get churned out at least
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: they'll get well compensated for it. But that I do
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: want to stay on the baseball front because one of
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: the things we like to do on rosters to rings
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: is go back. We like to predict what's going to happen,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: and then when something does happen, we like to circle
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: back to it. And I feel a little bit pression
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: here doing the show with you because of you know
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: what we were talking about, Tom Thibodeau, and now what
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: we talked about on a recent episode involving the Boston
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Red Sox, the public disagreement between their designated hitter Rafael
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Devers and Craig Breslo. When that came up to that,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: you expressed some concern about the level of negativity that
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: was swirling around the franchise. Now that Rafael Devers has
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: been traded from Boston to the San Francisco Giants, how
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: would you assess the situation? Because as somebody who's been
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: a long time Red Sox fan and lost a little
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: bit of his fandom when the Socks traded moviie Bets
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: to the Dodgers about five years ago, this is another
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: tough blow as a Red Sox fan.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, we talked about it two weeks ago. I
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: think this is eye opening. I mean, this is something
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: that gets attention of everybody, I think, not only in
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Major League Baseball, but across all the professional sports. They
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: traded Rafael Devers, a guy who, keep in mind, just
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: two years ago they signed to a ten year, over
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: three hundred million dollar contract. He's got eight years, two
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty four million dollars left on the deal,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: which may be part of the reason he was traded.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: But let's just rewind a little bit. This past offseason,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Boston was prognosticated to be a team that was kind
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: of on the up and come, a team that really
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: needed to get into the playoffs, and made some really
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: assertive moves this offseason to push a lot of chips in.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: So that's the framework. We discussed ad nauseum last week
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: about how they signed Bragman Well Ever since Bregman's gone
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: on the IL, Rafael dev has been their best offensive player,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: and not by a small margin. Over the last four seasons,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: I believe he's been the second most productive third baseman
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: in all of Major League Baseball. He's been a top
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: twenty five producer across all position players in all of
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Major League Baseball. And oh, by the way, he's in
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: his prime. He's twenty eight years old. So I look
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: at it and say, okay, so why would a team
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: trade a player like that? And I think there are
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: a few things to point to here. There's two sides
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: to this conversation. One is the contract we just mentioned.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: He does have eight years and two hundred and fifty
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: four million. When executives signed these types of deals and
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: random shirt it's the same in the NBA. You understand
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: that the first four ish years are the best years
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: you're going to get out of that deal. In the
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: last couple are probably going to be years that you
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: wish you didn't have signed. So they've burnt down a
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: season and a half of the good years. They still
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: have eight years and two hundred and fifty four million.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: He's still in his prime and probably will be for
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the next handful of seasons. But they do recognize on
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: the outset of that, on the backside, it's going to
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: get a little bit cumbersome for the team. Secondly, he's
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: a DH, you know, and I think they knew at
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: some point in that contract that he was going to
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: become a DH. I'm not sure they thought it was
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: going to be a year in. Now. The flip side
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: of both of those arguments are they were the ones
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: who signed him to that deal, so they shouldn't think
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: of it a year and a half in as being
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: so cumbersome. And they were the ones who actually demoted
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: him to being DH. So that's a little bit of
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: a peculiar thing. So I'm digging a little bit deeper
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: than that, you know, you hear a lot. I listened
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: to the press conference they had yesterday in which they
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: really went into detail as to why they made this decision.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Some of the common themes that I heard from them
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: was they're really investing in their core of their future.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Christian Campbell, Marcelo Meyer in Roman Anthea are three guys
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: that they already have in the big leagues more to come.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: They have a great farm system and they want to
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: put those guys in the best environment to succeed. Somewhat
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: of an insinuation was that with Devers there, maybe that
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: wasn't the best situation to succeed. But how much discord
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: would there have to be to take part ways with
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: a guy of this caliber of how much of a
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: disruption would he have to create? I think the answer
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: it has to be some like the this has to
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: be more than just a contract, has to be more
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: than just the fact that he's a DH. They talked
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: a lot in the press conference about that just wasn't
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: an alignment of putting the team first, And I think
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: the insinuation clearly was that they didn't feel as if
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Devers was doing everything that he could do to put
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the Boston Red Sox first. I just want to appease
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: to Ryan McDonough, the Boston Red Sox fan, and agree
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: with you. You know, from a bigger perspective, you look
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: at the twenty eighteen team that won the World Series
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, they were turned by and large that same
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: group they finished the season where Devers was twenty two,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Bogarts and Bets were both twenty six. They represented three
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: of the top fifteen position players. Performance Wise in twenty nineteen,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: no other team had more than one. They had three.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: It looked to the rest of the industry like they
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: were poised for a dynasty and dominance. They obviously won
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of world series, hyper successful franchise. Well, now
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: fast forward, that was traded, Devers was traded, Bogarts wasn't
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: re signed. It does leave you questioning a little bit.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: You know, why has this major market team with such
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a legacy of winning seemed to continually opt to not
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: retain their star players. It's quite quite a transition, such
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: a transition that I want to ask you a question, Ran,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: and this question comes from Sean in Phoenix, Arizona, and
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: he wants to know about another type of star player,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: and that's Kevin Durant. And the question is, should Kevin
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Durant be drawing as much attention in your opinion, as
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: the featured free agent or player that could be acquired
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: this offseason and trade in the NBA.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I understand why he does that, because he still
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: does move the needle. He's going to be thirty seven
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: years old when next season starts. But we're talking about
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: one of the all time leading scorers in the history
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: of the NBA, his numbers are still off the charts.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: And as far as the team impact, I know Phoenix
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: had an underwhelming year. That's an understatement that they're now
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: looking for their fourth coach in about two calendar years,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: which is remarkable how much Charon there has been with
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: the Sons. But frankly, when Kevin Durant played, the Sons
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: were a pretty competitive team, and when he didn't play,
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: they were awful. So that's the concern I would have
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: as somebody who worked for the Suns for five and
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: a half years, brought in Devin Booker and others Booker
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: is the only one still on the roster, is that
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: if they trade Kevin Durant, probably when they trade Kevin Durant,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: that I think they should try to get a number
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: of players to help them be more competitive now because
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: even when they had Devin Booker and Bradley Bual last season,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: without Kevin Durant, they were horrible. I mean, their numbers
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: are among some of the worst teams in the league.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: So that's why Kevin Durant is in demand. And the
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: other part of it that and you know this same
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: and MLB I would imagine is supply and demand. It's
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: not a great free agent year. In fact, there's only
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: one team, the Brooklyn Nets, ironically, Kevin Durant's former team
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: that had a quote unquote super team with Kyrie Irving
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: and James Harden. Brooklyn Nets are the only team that
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: have max salary cap space. I don't know if they're
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: necessarily going to use it to try to upgrade the
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: roster because they're that far away from championship contention, that
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: they may use it more to absorb bad contracts, you know,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: in salary dumps and things like that, and gain more assets,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: more prospects, more draft picks, etc. As they build it
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: back up slowly having been burned by the Kevin Durant,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Kyrie Irving James Harden experiment. So Katie's in demands now
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: one of the things that teams around the league are
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: trying to gauge. That is, is Giannis Antonokombo, who's clearly
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: a better player at this stage in his career, right
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: around thirty years old and has a much longer runway
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: going forward than Katie does, is he going to push
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: his way out of Milwaukee at some point? So that's
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: why that, combined with Kadi's age as I mentioned he's
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: going to be thirty seven years old combined with the contract,
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: and that's one thing I think that you and I
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: have and will continue to emphasize to our listeners. In
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: a front office, you cannot separate the player from the contract.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: That's how guys like you and I look at it.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: It's the same thing. So whether that's Raphael Devers in
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Major League Baseball or Kevin Durant, Durant only has one
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: year left on his deal. He's on an expiring contract.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: He's going to be an unrestricted free agent really about
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: a year from now, late June of twenty twenty six,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: if he's not extended, and he wants a contract extension.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: So that is you know, that depresses the price the
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: teams are willing to pay. And kd and is probably
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: through his agent, they're putting out messages about where he
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: wants to go, and the latest is specifically San Antonio.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Kevin is from the DC area, but keep in mind
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: he played college ball at the University of Texas in Austin,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: not far away from where the Spurs play. So he's
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: saying that Houston, San Antonio, Miami with the Spurs in
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: particular standing out is where he wants to go.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: So will that help the Spurs.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: It remains to be seen, but that I think a
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: lot of people are going to be shocked around the
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: league really shouldn't say aund the league should say fans,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: who are you maybe more casual follow the NBA peripherally,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: because I don't think the Suns are going to get
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: anywhere near trade hall for Kevin Durant that the Brooklyn
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Nets got from mckill Bridges, who is ironically traded for
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Katie from Phoenix to Brooklyn a couple of years ago,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: or that just a couple of days ago that the
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Memphis Grizzlies got for Desmond Vaine. And I think, you
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: know a number of listeners probably say, why in the
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: world would Desmond Vaine bring back so much more value?
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: You know, two rotational players, four first round picks, another
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: first round pick, slop in the price for Katie be
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: so light? Well, it's the age Bain is ten years
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: younger than Durant, and the contract. Maine's on a long
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: term deal. Katie wants to get extended. And as you know,
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: for all his individual talent in Brooklyn and Phoenix, Kevin
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Durant unfortunately has an impacted winning at the highest levels.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Hey, Ryan, I can't let you off the hook without
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: asking this question, and I'll attribute this to my son.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the teams that Kadi has earmarked that he'd
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: like to go to. Well, it sounds like he's come
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: out and said he particularly not want to come to Minnesota.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: First of all, I guess I just would ask what
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: is your person perspective on that? And also from an
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: executive standpoint, if you were working in Minnesota's front office,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: do you take that as the gospel or do you
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: keep pursuing the player regardless of hearing.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: That In the Timberwolves front office, you can't just accept
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: that on his face. I know Tim Connelly and Matt Lloyd,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: who have done a great job running the Wolves, or
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: two good friends of mine. Obviously, the last two years
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: have been the most successful stretch in the history of
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: the franchise. As we know, prior to a year ago,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: the team had been to the conference finals once. Now
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: they've been there two years in a row. So that's
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: what those guys have done in a short period of time.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: So my guess is that you know they've asked the
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: suns and probably been granted permission from the Sons to
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: talk to Rich Cleman, who's Kevin Durant's agent. KD is
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: his only NBA climate, and just try to convince Kevin
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: why it's a good fit. And I think we all
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: see that it's a good basketball fit. But that's one
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: of the hard things about running an NBA team fat
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: or a team in any sport. But I'd say the NBA,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: in particular in a smaller market or Minnesota, is actually,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: you know, bigger than most people realize. It's more of
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: a mid market, but it's not New York, La, Miami,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: et cetera. It's not one of these magnet plate the
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: places that players generally want to go, even when those
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: teams are bad. So that is one of the challenges.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think if you're Minnesota, you're trying to
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: convince KD ideally directly, But if you're Phoenix, you want
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: to put some guardrails on that and say, well, wait
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: a minute. If we have a deal kind of pending,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: you're close, and you need to talk to Kevin Durant
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: as the final piece of that, maybe we'll consider it.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: But before we have an offer in our pocket that
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: we like, we're not going to let you just talk
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: to our player, you know. So that's that's something that
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: you know is a little bit sensitive. Now, I'll be
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: honest with you. Teams do end a rounds all the time,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: especially to the agent that there's not much anybody, especially
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: the league office, can do to police that. So that's
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: that's the challenge if you're in Minnesota's front office, Tim Connolly,
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Matt Lloyd and company, and at some point that is
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: you know, it comes down to the price. I think
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: there is a price that the Timberwolves would absolutely pay
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: and roll the dice to get Kevin Durant, even if
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: it's on a one year rental. The Toronto Raptors famously
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: did that in twenty eighteen when they traded for Kawhi
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Leonard on the Spurs. They won their first and only
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: NBA championship the next year. But then the downside is
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Kawhi left to go to the La Clippers in Toronto
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: hasn't had nearly the same success since then. So it's
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: it's difficult that as you know, these things are tricky.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: You know, we should all be so blessed to work
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: in one of the biggest markets where players are begging
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: to come there. That's not always the case in some
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: of the some of the clubs you and I have
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: worked with. And you know right after this that we're
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: going to get into that a little bit more the draft,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: you know, value compensation, all that. It ties into what
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: we're talking about, you know with kd endeavors. But with
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: the NBA Draft coming up next week, we're going to
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: get into all that, what a team's pay and I
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: want to see how the NBA compares to Major League
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Baseball in terms of quantity versus quality, stacking picks to
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: move up or move back, and all that kind of stuff.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: He is Stad Levine. I am Ryan mcdillan.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: To stick with us.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: We're right back to break down the drafts and Major
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: League Baseball and the NBA right after this, Welcome back
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: to Rosters, to rings everyone. Ryan McDonough with you as always,
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: joined by former Minnesota Twins general manager, longtime Major League
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Baseball executive Fad Levine. And that as we record this show,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: we're about a week away from the NBA Draft. Relatively
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: new format in the NBA, where the draft is spread
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: out over two days. It used to be one chaotic
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: night where you do rounds one and two, and the
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: picks would come fast and furious, especially in the second round.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: That in the first round NBA teams have five minutes
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: to make a pick in the league makes you take
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: the full five minutes, mainly for television and you know,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: so they can have their TV partners or radio partners
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: know when the picks are going to come approximately and
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: go to commercials, et cetera. The second round is the
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Wild West and Nikola Jokic with the Denver Nuggets, which
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: famously drafted in the second round during a Taco Bell commercial.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that'll be brought up time and time again
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: when he's way to the Hall of Fame. Is one
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: of the all time great players in NBA history. But yeah,
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: it does come fast and furious. And what you and
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: I wanted to do with the NBA draft approaching is
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: take our listeners inside a draft room in the NBA
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: and Major League Baseball. So the first question I have
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: for you thatad is in the NBA, they're only sixty
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: players drafted each year, so you'll spend time as a
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: top executive scouting several hundred players, and your top evaluators
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: will see virtually all of them in person. That to
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: me seems very different than Major League Baseball, where you
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: guys have thousands of players spread out, you know, really
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: all over the place. So how many top prospects doesn't
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: and major League Baseball general manager see in person? And
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: assuming you're not seeing a whole lot of them, how
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: do you then weigh the opinions of others in the
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: room when they're giving you their feedback on prospects that
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: you've never seen play in person.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Well, I just want to tell one brief story that
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Nikole Jokich Taco Bell complement in baseball and just how
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: different than Major League Baseball draft is is that. You know,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: there's so much made of the NFL draft, the NBA draft,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: there's so many draft shows out there. Major League Baseball
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: really has one show, one show only. And Rock obaal Deli,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: manager of the Minnesota Twins, famously in the draft, was
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: grew up in Rhode Island, had a full right to
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: go to Wake Forest as on a volleyball scholarship, who
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: was going to play baseball there as well. Was out
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: fishing on the day of the draft and a buddy
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: of his called him and said, hey, listen, you just
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: got drafted. He's like, what are you talking about. It's
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: the first round. He's like, yeah, you were picked sixth
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: in the country and he had no idea. So it's
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: a little bit different in the Major League Baseball draft.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: But to get back to your question, Ryan, I think
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: it varies general manager to general manager. AJ Preller, the
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: longtime general manager of the San Diego Padres, famously goes
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: out and sees hundreds of players each year. Josh Burns,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: when he was a general manager, was somebody who saw
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: a ton of players. Jerry Depoto in Seattle has always
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: gone out and seen a lot of players. But I
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: think the average general manager, unless you're picking in the
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: top let's say five to ten picks, really leaves it
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: up to their scouting department. And so here's the structure
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: in Major League Baseball, and I'd be interested how this
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: compares in the NBA. The scouting department, you have a
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: scouting director, You have area scouts who are responsible for
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: specific areas throughout the United States. Some of those areas
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: are as small as Los Angeles, or they may be
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: as big as Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas. And
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: it's all based upon a number of players who've come
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: out of their population densities baseball the strength of the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: baseball programs. So if an area scout sees a player
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: that he likes, he submits a report that then would
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: trigger what is called a regional crosschecker, And so most
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: teams have three to five of those, and it's based
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: upon East coast, West Coast, Midwest. Sometimes we have two
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: in the South because there's a bigger preponderance of players
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: coming out of the South. So that would then trigger
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: one of your regional cross checkers to go see a player.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: If that regional cross checker also likes the player, it
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: triggers the national cross checker, of which you have two
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: of those, one who covers kind of central West and
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: one who covers central East to go see the player.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: If that person also likes the player, it triggers the
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: scouting director to go see him. So the players who
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: are getting drafted, especially in the first couple rounds, are
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: seen by probably four to five to six different scouts,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and they're seen multiple times over the course of the
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: amateur season, and then what happens in the draft room
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: is all of that information is put into a model
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: that's coupled with video data, excessive amounts of data all
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the medical team will weigh in and it produces most
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: baseball draft rooms a top let's say four hundred ranked
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: one through four hundred. That the model is done. But
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: what the Twins did, and I think so many teams
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: do now, is they banned players. So they'll put players
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: in bands of let's say two to ten players, and
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: that suggests all of these players within a band are
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: like talented, like valued, And then the scouts spend weeks
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: on end beating up those bands and determining within the
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: band do they want to move a player up and
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: down based upon makeup information, health and medical information, or
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: just their talent evaluations. If a scout wanted to move
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: a player up a band or down a band, that
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: required a larger conversation. But outside of that, they had
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: latitude to move within those bands and create a really
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: what we thought was a refined look at the whole class.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: So in short, ran we really did. The general managers
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: don't get out there and see them. It's really different.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: I'd be curious how does that compare to a scouting
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: department in the NBA. And one thing that is so
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: different in the NBA relative to Major League Baseball and
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Major League Baseball, there's two different draft processes for international
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: players and for domestic players. In the NBA, it's all
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: bundled into one. So how does the scouting season look
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: like in the NBA when you have to go scout
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: people in Europe as well as the United States? And
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: then how do your models look and how do they
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: value high school players and compare them to college players
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: and international players.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: I think the biggest difference stat hearing you talk about
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: it is in the NBA, we do have called tiers
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: and seems like similar to bands where we have you know,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: once you get to groupings of players, you evaluate them
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: against each other and there's some pretty robust conversations and
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: discussions that can get heated at times in rooms as
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: you're trying to rank players. But prior to that, I
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: would say that most of the presidents or gms try
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: to see as many of the players in their projected
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: pick range as they can in person. And so I
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: think the different statu is I hear you talk about
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Major League Baseball in the process is that you do
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: have fewer players to evaluate, and I know as an
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: assistant GM of the Celtics, when I was in charge
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: of worldwide scouting, I think my last six years in Boston,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: or especially when I was channel manager of the Phoenix
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Suns for five and a half years. I'd look at
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: the events with multiple prospects, especially multiple top prospects, because
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: the position you never want to be in that obviously,
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: is saying, well, we have a pretty good team, we're
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: picking mid to late first round. We don't need to
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: worry about those guys at the top of the draft.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: And then sure enough a trade scenario comes your way
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: that you want to do to move up to the
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: top of the draft. So you do have to be
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: prepared for all of them. And so that's what I
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: would do, is go to the doubleheaders. They have some
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: of these pre conference tournaments. Now, the Maui Invitation is
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: probably the most famous ones, but they have similar tournaments
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: in the Bahamas and Puerto Rico and other places around
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: the country. A lot in Madison Square Garden or the
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Barclay Center in New York, you can go see a
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: bunch of top prospects at one time. So I think
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: that's the difference that usually you'll have regional scouts is
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: kind of the you know, lowest level on the totem pole,
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: and they may just watch players in their own region.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Some you know, NBA teams have those guys cross over
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: and go out of the region where they live occasionally,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: but they're more filing reports and kicking it up to
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: director scouting, director player personnel and then maybe you know,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: to an assistant GM as well. Each team structure is
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: the operation a little bit differently, So that's that's the
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: challenge I think with both organizations is how do you
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: have accurate evaluation at all levels Because the biggest difference
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: for me is, you know, the guys who were look
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: I was one of these guys starting out as a
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: video slash regional scout. Is you watch everybody and you
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: try not to miss anything and then just kick it
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: up the totem pole and the decisions are made obviously
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: higher up the chain, but with the top evaluator is
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: the last thing you'd want to do, especially if it's
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: geographically inconvenient to your point. Players are now, they're all
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: over Europe. That's been the case since I started the
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: NBA over twenty years ago now, but now guys are
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: playing in China, in Australia and New Zealand, and more
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: far flung places that if you put a president or
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: general manager on a plane and have them take four
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: to seven days to go down there and fly back
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: with all that he's going to miss in the time change,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: the guy better be at least decent that you know,
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: that's not a real pleasant conversation as an underling if
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: you tell one of those guys to go do this
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: and then the guy can't play at all. So I
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: think it's a combination of in person scouting, you know,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: video scouting as well the analytical piece of it. And
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: so the game has changed now where in the NBA
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: it's virtually impossible to hide a player or stash a player.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: You know, historically teams tried to do that. Now, I
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: mean you can get stats in video uh and you know,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: really information from any player in the world. And if
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: a guy is good, the NBA is great at not
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: letting him slip through the cracks. It just comes down
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: to who evaluates and better. We know, one of the
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: questions you know, I had for you Thad kind of
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: going going forward is you know you talked to us
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: about you know, the models, and so how would as
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: a general manager? You know, we we know the moneyball
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: historically and and and that kind of model that Billy
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Bean and uh, you know that some extent the U
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Seen and Company made famous and had a lot of
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: success with. But as a executive, how would you personally, uh,
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: you know, way analytics versus the eye test and kind
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: of more old school scouting scouting and across the league,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: where do you think you've kind of fell in onto
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: the spect on that spectrum because imagine different teams based
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: on the top decision makers pedigree and the organizational philosophy
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: approached that fairly differently.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's been the biggest evolution in sports, uh,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: in my career without question. You know when I started
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: in Colorado and then Ultimate in Texas, Texas, we were
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: you know, there were two schools of decision making. One
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: was are you kind of an analytics based decision making
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: group or you a scout based decision making group? And
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: I think everyone today is a blend of the two.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: But at that time, I'm dating myself back about fifteen seasons,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: you probably were in one camp or the other. And
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: in Texas we were really a scout based decision making group,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: which you know, candidly and reflection had a lot more
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: subjectivity to it and a lot more volatility to it.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: But we had a general manager at the time, John Daniels,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: who was absolutely excellent at executive decision making, and he
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: was able to assimilate a ton of information, pull it
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: all together, strip away the biases, strip away the subjectivity,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and ultimately make excellent decisions. Historically, it's not to say
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: we didn't make mistakes along the way, but we learned
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: from those mistakes. But I think he was about the
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: best I've been around in terms of assimilating information and
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: acting really boldly and creatively to better the franchise, and
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: so we did not get burned as much as you
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: probably normally would with the level of subjectivity that we
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: introduced into our decision making. I think at the time
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: we also had some of the best scouts in the game,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: and they were informing his decisions, our decisions, so it
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: was really set up to succeed. When I went to Minnesota,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: part of the appeal for me to go to Minnesota
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: was because I was aligning myself with Derek Valvue came
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: out of Cleveland, and Derek was part of a franchise
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: that was on the cutting edge of analytics and building
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: out processes. And so I've really gotten exposed to a
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: very forward thinking scout based decision making group and a
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: very forward thinking analytics based decision making group. And I
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: think the answers of balance. I've always felt in decision making,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: you want to ground all your decisions in the data.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: You just be remiss not to. There's so much information
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: out there. Use as much of the information as you
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: possibly can. But then I want to make those decisions
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: humanly and for two reasons, And it shows up so
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: prominently in the draft. I think with regards to this
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: is the sense that these scouts have gone out there
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: and you know, in the NBA they're literally pounding the
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: pavement of the globe for the draft. It's really the
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. But they're spending, you know,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: in some cases two hundred days away from their families
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: to submit these scouting ports. We have to include their
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: information into our models, otherwise you're disenfranchising a large group
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: of your employees. So all of these models, and maybe
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest misconceptions for fans, the biggest driving
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: factor of the models are those scouting reports that those
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: guys submit now we marry it up with a lot
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: of information to try to refine our decision making. But
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: I think at the end of the day, as long
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: as we're dealing in sports where players are human beings,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: you have to make these decisions humanly. There's no model
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: that singularly captures everything that goes into being the best
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: NBA player the best Major League Baseball player. So I
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: think it's incumbent upon us to really incorporate both into it. Ryan.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: One thing a few of our listeners had asked, and
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: I want to throw this to you, is because I
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: certainly felt this is you kind of alluded to it earlier.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Take us into to draft night. You know, in Major
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: League Baseball we cannot trade draft picks. In the NBA,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: you can trade draft picks. You mentioned earlier that you'd
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: be remiss, even if you're picking twenty second, not to
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: be very familiar with the top of the draft, because
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: you never know when a trade could come along. We
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: really didn't have to do that in Major League Baseball.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: One of the refinements is if you were picking twenty
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: to thirty, you really didn't spend a lot of time
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: on the guys that you knew were going to go,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: you know, in the top ten in the draft, so
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: you really were able to refine your search process. U
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: guys can't do that. Well, you're the envy of all
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: general managers in Major League Baseball because we'd like nothing
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: more than to be able to trade draft picks. When
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: you if you could take the listener into draft night
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: in an NBA war room, like, how much time are
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: you spending on the phone talking to other general managers
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: about potential trades? Is that exclusively you as a GM
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: or do you assign other people to have some of
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: those conversations? How do you stay as nimble as you
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: possibly can? You said there are five minutes in between picks,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: but as we all know, that goes by extremely quickly
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: when you're wheeling and dealing.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: No, it absolutely does. And the way it works in
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: the NBA is you can trade picks relatively easily up
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: till the afternoon of the draft. And I'm talking about
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: mechanically you can do it, whereas I think it's usually
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: around two o'clock on the first day. Before the first
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: day of the draft, the NBA says, okay, the board
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: is locked because what they don't want is a bunch
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: of confusion with the broadcast partners, the media folks. But
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: as you know, we're all human and people work best
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: when there is a deadline. Either picks are usually made
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: right at that deadline, or team verbally agree after the
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: deadline but can't execute it before the draft start. So
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: that's where it gets a little complex in the NBA.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: To remind our listeners to actually formalize a trade, you
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: need to have every party involved, so at least two
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: teams on the to the league office. If there are
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: more than two teams, the third fourth, however, many teams
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: are involved, need to be and they need to confirm
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: every part of the trade, every single aspect of it.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: And so the challenge is that especially on draft night
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: when things are moving so quickly, and look, if there's
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: a mistake, you don't get to reset it right, you
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: don't get to unwind it. We talked on a recent
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: episode about the now infamous trade between the La Lakers
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: and the Charlotte Hornets where the Lakers got Mark Williams
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: in a deal the Dalton Connect and pick it's going
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: back to the Hornets, and then after the deadline, the
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Lakers didn't like something they saw physically with Mark Williams
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: and then avoided the trade, so the players and assets
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: returned back to their respective teams. You can't do that
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: on draft night, and I bring that up because if
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: you pick somebody thinking you have a deal in place
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: with another team, but it falls apart for whatever reason,
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: you're stuck with that player with that and so that's
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: where the pressure comes in is you can't say, oh,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: you know what, NB, I know you just did a
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: round or two of the draft, but something got screwed up.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Let's go back to the twelfth pick and start over.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: If you guys can just wipe your boards plane and
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: let's just hit the reset button. So that is the
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: challenge in the NBA. You're right, you have five minutes
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: on the clock. What we would do with different teams
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: in Boston or Phoenix is usually take the entire five minutes,
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: or I actually say most of the five minutes. We
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: would have our boards set and usually, frankly, you know
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: picks in advance who you're going to take. It's usually
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: an either or. Where as players get drafted, you take
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: them off the board, and then when you get within
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: a couple of picks of your range, you hope you
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: have multiple guys you were comfortable with. That's one of
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: the challenges that sometimes you get really got one guy
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: and you know, I remember in twenty fifteen with the
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Phoenix Suns, it was Devin Booker. Utah Jazz were just
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: ahead of us, and it was you know, we were
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: a bit nervous because if they took Devin Booker, then
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: what do we do because we really didn't have anybody
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: we liked. There was a huge gap for him to
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: the next guy. Fortunately, we got lucky Devon was still
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: there and you know, we'll go on to become one
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: of the best sons in the history of the franchise.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: But but that's not always the case. Sometimes you're sitting
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: there and saying, oh, man, the guy we really liked,
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: we thought would be there is not. So in that point,
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: I think you dive into more trade scenarios, drop down,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: drop back. And one of the questions I had for you,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: Tha was because as I you know, I know obviously
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: the most about the NBA Draft. I'm a huge fan
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: of the NFL. That draft gets a ton of attention.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: They do a great job promoting it and having you know,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: months after the Super Bowl to really build up to
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: the draft. They've done an incredible job making that a
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: big event and now moving it around to different markets,
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: which I think is really smart. I'm not as familiar
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: with the NBA draft, excuse me, the Major League Baseball
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: draft in terms of the quantity versus quality debate. NBA
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: clearly is a quality draft. You don't see teams of
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: the Dallas Mavericks, for example, they would not take a
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: handful of picks to drop back a few slots, maybe
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: even one slot from the number one pick when Cooper
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Flag is available. You see that a lot more frequently
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: in the NFL. Where does Major League Baseball and I
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: generally fall, you know, between those two ends of the spectrum,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: NBA and NFL. And then what was your personal philosophy
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: on you know, quality versus quantity and you know, kind
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: of moving around with with you know, trading draft players
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: or doing things that are a little bit unique to MLB.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So, I mean it's a great question. We have
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: so recently the Major League Baseball has trimmed the draft
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: down to just being twenty rounds, So it's twenty rounds
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: times thirty teams, so that's six hundred players selected. I
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: believe it or not. As recently as ten years ago,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: it was fifty rounds, so you had fifteen hundred players
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: drafted every year. So once you got to about the
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: twentieth or thirty thirtieth round, like your board is picked clean.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: You're picking people you're not familiar with. I will just
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: share a few stories. When I was in Colorado, our
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: scouting director at the time, Bill Schmid, who's now the
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: general manager of the team for the Colorado Rockies, to
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: turned to Danny Montgomery, one of our senior scouts, and
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: we got into the thirtieth round. He's like, hey, take
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: take the best athlete out of your region. He said, okay,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: I got a guy, and so we announced the Colorado
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Rockies select Michael Vick out of Virginia Tech. And they
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: turned to him and said, do you know if he
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: plays baseball? He's like, I have no idea, but he's
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: a hell of a quarterback. I bet you can play
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: center field and pitch. And so we've trimmed down the
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: draft a little bit. There's six hundred players taken now,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: believe it or not, in major league baseball, just because
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: there's the minor league system. The average college player and
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about the good ones take three years to
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: get to the big leagues. The average high school player
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: who's good in the major leagues takes about five. So
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: we're really drafting the best available player. I think teams
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: really make mistakes when they go into the draft and say, hey,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I've got to get a catcher, I've got to get
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: a short step or a pitcher. You really have to
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: take the best available because that player is so unlikely
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: to help your team in the immediate term, so you
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: just don't know what you're going to need when that
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: player is available. So we've always taken the best available player.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: And just to share some of the numbers with you,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: it's really kind of stark. So six hundred players taken
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: every year approximately in the average draft of about four
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: to seven percent of those players, so about twenty four
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: to forty two players out of each draft will make
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: the major leagues. Only about six ten of them will
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: sustain a career longer than three years. So I think
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the teams that are not selecting the best available player
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: really pay a penalty. Another way of looking at it
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: is war is one of these universal stats that tries
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: to capture the total value of a player. The average
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: war delivered by the first pick in the draft over
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: like the last twenty years, is approximately twenty war. Once
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: you get to the fifth pick in the draft, it
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: drops to ten. Once you get to the thirtieth pick,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: which is approximately the last pick in the first round,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: it's two war. So if you're getting a little bit
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: too nuanced and selecting a specific position, you have a
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: chance to really cost your franchise value. And so I've
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: always been part of franchises that have prioritized picking the
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: best available player. Don't try to look too far into
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: the future. Get the assets. If they help you as
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: a major league franchise by playing for you, wonderful. If not,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: they're great trade assets to help you in other positions
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: when you're more aware of what your needs are three
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: to five years down the road. Ryan, one other quick
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: story I'm just going to share with you because you
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: alluded to this, is like, how when you go and
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: send one of your general managers, let's say to South
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Africa or someplace in Africa to see a player and
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: he's not that good that there's a price to be
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: paid for that. Well, I think the other thing we experienced,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: and I wonder if you had any experiences like this
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: was Since general managers in Major League Baseball don't see
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: a ton of players. When they do, it's noteworthy. So
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking back to a draft we had in Texas
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: where we had the fourth pick in the draft. That
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: the scouting director of the Texas Rangers then and now
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: is a gentleman named Kip fag who is absolutely stupendous
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: human being and a wonderful talent evaluator. He had a
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: guy in his hip pocket. He wanted to select a
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: guy named Alex Bregman, and he thought Alex Bregman, who
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: was going to Alice He was a little bit below
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: the radar streen for one reason only. He wasn't that tall,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: and so we thought models weren't going to favor him.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: They weren't going to believe in the power because of
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: his physical stature. So at four, we thought we had
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Alex Bregman in our hip pocket. Well, John Daniels goes
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: and sees the SEC Tournament that year. The Houston Astros
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: are picking second and fifth due to not signing their
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: previous year's draft picks, so they got an extra draft pick.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: So when they saw John Daniels show up the SEC tournament.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: They ended up taking Bregman two, and they saved Kyle
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Tucker to take five, which is one of the most
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: epic top five drafts in recent history. We ended up
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: picking fourth. We actually almost had to take a time
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: out because we were so convinced Alex Bregman was going
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: to fall to us that we were a little bit
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: thrown off. We ended up taking Dylan Tate, who goes
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: on and has a nice but not spectacular major league career.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: But there is that risk of when you have general
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: managers sitting in stadiums, people take note of that, and
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: in that case, the Houston Astros, who were one of
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: the savviest teams in the game, made a significant adjustment
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: to their draft board to account for the fact that
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: we were encroaching on one of their players. I don't
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: know if Ran you have any of those types of
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: situations where your board has been scuggled a little bit
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: by the fact that you were a little bit too
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: prominent in your pursuit of certain players as amateurs.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you do have to be careful. Although
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: in the NBA there are less secrets, right especially at
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: the top of the draft, It's not unusual to see
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: even the most prominent executives, whether it's Danny Ainge beside you,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: Jerry Tim Connolly at watching all the top players that
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: those guys all watch you probably a number of times
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: this year, not only for Cooper Flag who's going to
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: be the number one pick next week, but for kon
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: Kin Nipple, Common Malawatch and others. And usually Duke's plaining
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: good opponents as well. So there is some of that yet,
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: but there's also we like to take our listeners behind
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: the curtain here on rosters the rings. There's also internal disagreement,
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: including on draft night, even on the clock. And yeah,
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: I can't be too specific, but my last draft was
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: as general manager of the Phoenix Suns, I thought our
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: biggest need was a primary ball handler. I was pounding
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: the table for a primary all handler. We took DeAndre
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: Ayton with the number one pick, who you know, I
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: thought was going to make more of an impact and
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: develop better than he has. He's had a solid career.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: But but yeah, there was a playmaker. I really liked that.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Not to be too specific, but just generally he goes
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: by three letters. Those three letters aren't MVP, but probably
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: both of those things apply and there was a battle
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: and so you know, I lost it to someone higher
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: up the totem pole than me shortly after I was fired.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: But by the way, as on the side, I'm really
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: enjoying watching the finals. Looks like, okay, seem might pull
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: this thing off. So we'll see who gets the MVP
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: of that as well. Not not to jump around, but
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: so yeah, there is you know, internal disagreement. There are
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: trade offers, and you have to be concise, and I
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: think that's what stands out that to me. You mentioned
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: it with your history, is the communication internally, and okay,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: let's have the debates in advance and try to anticipate
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: what is going to happen, because the last place you
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: want to be is on the clock, you know, debating. Okay,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: we need to call the commissioner and put a name
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: in who is it? That's a really bad feeling and
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: that's where a lot of mistakes are made if internally
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: you can't agree. So what I'd always try to do
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: to the extent I could impact it. And yes, sometimes
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: the owner does get involved and overrule you. That happens
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: fairly often in the NBA. Anyways, is that okay, you
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: know kind of decision trees. If this guy's available, we
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: take him. What if he's not available, at what extent
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: are we out of players that we're comfortable taking, and
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: what do we have on the board As far as
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: trading back trading, you know, out of the draft entirely
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: trading the pick for a player. Obviously, that's a lot
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: to process in real time. So I think the best
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: organizations go through all those iterations and scenarios before it happens. So,
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: just like anything else being on the field or on
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: the court, if and when it happens, you're prepared to
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: react accordingly.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: You know, Ran, I think you're illuminating a point which
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: is really valuable for the listeners to hear, Which is
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: the part of the science of decision making at the
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: executive level is understanding all the inf all of the data,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: all the analytics, all the video, all of what your
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: scouts are saying. But part of the art form is
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: incorporating the voices of the people around us. And so
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: you know, I know you were saying with a little
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: bit of a stomach acid, the story where you acquiesced
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: and ultimately took a player who turned out to be
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: a very good NBA player, maybe in lieu of taking
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: a player who's been an absolute superb one. But that
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: is part of the art form, right is if you
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: are always lording your executive decision making power over the
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: people around you, they're going to have less of a
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: vested interest in the outcome. And so there's times at
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: which they're pivot points in all of our careers where
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: maybe we didn't go with what we thought was actually
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: the best decision in lieu of deferring to the people
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: who were experts in the field in which we were
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: tapping into to try to engender, you know, not only
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: their loyalty in their morale, but really acquiescing to their expertise.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: And that is part of the art form of decision making.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure we both have countless situations that and
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you I was on the other side of
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: that a few times where that what I thought was
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: the right decision didn't prove to be the right decision,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: and I was saved by the fact that I had
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: the humility to acquiesce to some of my senior leaders
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: within the room. But that really is a challenge, you
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: know that that is something that I think each and
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: every major decision we made, we listed the thoughts an
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: input of five, ten, fifteen people around us. You couldn't
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: keep a score book as to who was right and
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: who was wrong. You had to do the best you
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: could to assimilate as much information as you possibly could.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: But part of this of making these decisions humanly is
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: making sure that you do maintain a vested interest in
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: the outcomes of the people around you, no question about it.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: And nobody's right one hundred percent of the time or
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: anywhere close to one hundred percent of the time. We
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: are dealing with humans. And as you know that, I
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: know this is true in MLB, it's certainly true in
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: the NBA. The biggest question is that once somebody is
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: handed a life changing sum of money, how will that
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: impact positively or negatively? Will he be motivated to show
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: it's worth it and that he's going to go on
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: to become an exceptional, all time great worker. Know Kobe Bryant,
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: the NBA comes to mind. The work ethics stories are legendary.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: I was around Kevin Garnett with the Boston Celtics. He
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: was absolutely like that it didn't matter all the all
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: NBA accolades, MVPs Defensive Player of the Year. KG wanted
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: to win the game that night and win the drill
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: and practice that day. And that's what makes those guys exceptional.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: On the other end of the spectrum of the guys
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: who say, well, geez, now I got one hundred or
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: now hundreds of millions coming, it's easy to get complacent.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: I think that is human nature. So hows somebody going
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: to react when you give him a big sum of money?
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: I think is something that kind of cuts across sports.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: But that we're going to come back after this. We're
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: going to tell some more draft stories. I know you
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: wanted to hear. I got some good ones about twenty
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: two thousand and seven with the Boston Celtics lottery night
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: in that draft. I want to hear some of your
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: Major League Baseball stories as well. He is Dad Levine.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: I am Ryan McDonough. Stick with us on Rosters to
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Rings right back after this, Welcome.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Back to Rosters to Rings. We have an awesome opportunity
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: now for Ryan to take us behind the scenes and
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: explain all of the decision making that led up to
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: the epic two thousand and seven draft and how it
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: impacted the Boston Celtics franchise.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that it was a nerve wracking time in Boston.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: I was hired by Wick Rousbeck, the owner of the Celtics,
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: in two thousand and three entry level video room at
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: worked for the franchise for four years. A few months
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: after I got hired, they brought in Danny Ainge to
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: run bask Co operations. And the Celtics were the only
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: team in the league, I believe with three max contracts
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: Paul Pierce who was worth a max contract, Antoine Walker
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: and Vin Baker who were probably not worth Max contracts.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Not to pick on those guys, but so the organization
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: just decided to do kind of a full set other
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: than Paul Pierce, try to rebuild on the fly around.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: Paul Pierce was a very talented player. So the team
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: had won, you know, it was a consistent playoff team
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: that we inherited, but a long way from we thought
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: winning the Eastern Conference championship. And then at that point
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: that you remember the early two thousands, the Lakers, led
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: by Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal were dominating the league.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: The New Jersey Nets at that time, led by Jason Kidd,
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: Kenya Martin and company. They were the best team in
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: the East. They win the East couple of times and
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: get to the finals, and the Lakers would whack them
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: pretty good. So we just determined that, you know, we
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: need to go through a you know, kind of a
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: rebuild on the fly. But that twenty two thousand and
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: six two thousand and seven season was brutal. The Celtics
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: had the second worst record in the league at twenty
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: four and fifty eight, and we set the mark for futility,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: which anytime you lose eighteen games in a row in
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: any sport, but especially in Boston. That and with that
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: franchise and the illustrious history in particulars you know, in
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: Boston at the Guarden, the only hand championship banners. You
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: don't get the division championship or even the conference championship.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: You need to win the whole thing to get the
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: banner up in the rafters.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: So that was it.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: That So on lottery night, we're slotted second. There was
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: a consensus top two in the two thousand and seven draft,
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, and well you probably know
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: what happened. That the lowest we could fall was five,
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: and ESPN told us that they were going to send
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: in a camera crew, which we agreed to because they
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: told us we're only going to show this on our
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: network if you guys win or get the second pick.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: The celebration, well, you can probably guess what happened next.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: A few hours later, the lead on Sports Center was
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Doc Rivers and Danny Ainge. One of them was kind
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: of put at his head in his hands, running his
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: finger through his hair. The other kind of slammed his
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: hat down on the desk. And it was the headline
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: in Sports Center that night with Boston Celtics fall to
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: five in a worst case scenario.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: My goodness. Okay, so you guys are picking up the pieces.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: You're you're now picking fifth? What what what is plan
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: B now? Like you know, walk walk the listeners through.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: If you stayed at five, who do you think you
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: would have taken? Was it clear cut in your mind
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: if they had said, okay, the Celtics are picking one.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: Do you know for sure who you guys would have
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: taken or was there a debate between Odin and Durant
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: If you stated too, I know you've said before you
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: just taken the guy who fell to you, but tell
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: us iterations along the way. At what point did you
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: guys flip your conversation to let's consider trading this. How
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: far would you have had to fall? Clearly five as
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: a yes, but what about three? Four? How would you
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: guys have conducted yourself in the draft of that it happened? Yeah,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: great question.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know, because we didn't really think about the possibility.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: I think we always we actually realized what the numbers were.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: And you know, sometimes it's it's hard because the fans
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: don't look at the odds. The odds were most likely
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: that we would end up I believe with the fifth pick.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: The lottery structure has changed over the years, but that
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: was also the worst case scenario. But that is where
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: we ended up. And to answer your question, there would
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: have been robust and there was robust internal debate between
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: Greg Odin and Kevin Durant. Now this is going back
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: almost two decades, but the school of thought in the
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: NBA at the time and historically was that you need
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: a big man to protect the rim, to rebound to
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: score in the post. On the other hand, Kevin Durant
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: was a scoring prodigy, so there had already been frankly,
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: firmly entrenched camps established on either side, but we had
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: not had the time to or been able to bring
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: in the players to work them out, interview them, and
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: go through the medical process in particular. And I feel
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: bad for Greg Oden because he always gets brought up
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: in this conversation that it really wasn't his fault. It
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: wasn't like he underperformed. He just broke down physically. He
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: couldn't play. And that's why the medical evaluations were such
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: a significant part of the draft process, I imagine in
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: Major League Baseball as well, because just like we discussed
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: in the last segment, not every executive or scout is
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: right all the time, and we all make a number of mistakes.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: Not every team doctor or medical experts right all the time.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: So you're going, you know, on their best guest, off
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: of X rays or scams or you know, if they're
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: able to get their hands on a player and manipulate
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: them a little bit, what they think. So yeah, and
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: answer your question, I am on record for Kevin Durant
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: and Angel attest to that if we ever have them
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: on the show, I would have pounded the table on
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: that one. But to fast forward, to the draft that
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: the first question we had is what can we do
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: do to avoid getting fired? The next question was, you know,
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: with the fifth pick, Paul Pierce at this point is
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: very unhappy given the season we were coming off of,
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: so we decided to explore trade opportunities if we kept
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: the pick. You know some of the players from memory
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: in that draft where guys like Jeff Green, I think
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: Corey Brewers in that draft, Al Horford, Mike Connelly, who
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: have had very successful NBA careers, went just ahead, so
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: they would have been gone at five. So on draft
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: night with the then Seattle SuperSonics, which is kind of ironic,
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: we're having this conversation during the NBA Finals. We'll see
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: if ok so he's able to hang on and close
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: this thing out win the title. But shortly before the
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: Seattle SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma and became the Thunder a
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: young Sam Presty, one of the best executives in all
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: of sports, had taken over and he wanted to rebuild.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: So Seattle actually got lucky that they moved up to
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: the number two pick. They ended up with Kevin Durant.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: They wanted another pick high end the lottery to build
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: alongside him. So there were a lot of parts in
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: the deal, but the most important pieces were the fifth
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: pick going from the Boston Celtics to the Seattle SuperSonics,
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: ray Allen coming back in return, and the brilliance of
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Danny Ainge. And I'd like to think I helped a little,
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: but mainly this was Danny and and Wick Grauspeck, the owner,
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: where that they were able to get Ray Allen to
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: join Paul Pierce and hold enough other things. And when
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: I say things, I mean expiring contracts, draft picks and
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: young prospects to then with Paul Pierce and Ray Allen
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: and tow go back to Kevin Durant and his representative
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: and the Timberwolves granted us permission to do this, but
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: talk to accumeing to Kevin Garnett and his representatives KG
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: and his agent Andy Miller. You know, let us talk
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: to Kevin about, Hey, what if you come to Boston
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: and play now with Ray Allen, who we have in
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: addition to Paul Pierce. And luckily we were able to
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: consummate the deal with the Timberwolves about a month after
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: the draft. And it's funny that we're sitting there in
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: training camp, which was in Rome, Italy that year on
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: one of the NBA's foreign tours, and we're watching the
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: group say, you know, you know, I don't know a
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: lot of talent.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: On the floor.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: I think we're going to be pretty good. And our
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: international scout, an Italian guy. He was like right out
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: of Central Casting. He's a great guy. I go, hey,
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: what do you think and he goes, man, these guys
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: are bleeping good, you know, and it is Italian accent,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: and I said, okay, well, maybe we're better. Maybe we're
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: you know, we're being a little too cautious or defensive here.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: I believe that team started out twenty nine and two
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: fad and it remains the biggest turnaround from one season
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: to the next in the NBA. The team went from
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: twenty four wins and the second worst record in the
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: league to sixty six wins, the best record in the league,
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: and the two thousand and eight championships. So yeah, fond memories,
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: a lot of you know, fascinating fascinating stories stat about
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: what could have been. I don't want to think about
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: what could have been, because I'd probably be digging ditches
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: or making sandwiches somewhere had that not worked out. But
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: I do want to ask you about Major League Baseball
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: in the draft because I know when you were with
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: the Rangers and then left Texas and got to Minnesota.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: I believe it was a similar situation that right where
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: you were coming into a team that was picking near
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: the very top of the twenty seventeen draft. Take our
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: listeners inside that process.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: You know, I hate to say that because you know
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: such reverence for Terry Ryan, who was the general manager
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: of the team in twenty sixteen, But it was about
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: the best case scenario when you join a franchise that
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: had finished worst, which means you're picking first in the draft,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: but you didn't have to watch a single one of
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: those games. So we got to benefit from the losses,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: but we didn't have to watch any of the losses.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: So we walked into the twenty seventeen draft preparation with
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: the first pick in the draft, and it was one
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: of those drafts, as we've referenced before, where there wasn't
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: the clear cut phenomenal player who was going to be
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: the consensus first pick in the draft, and so there
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: are five players at the top of the draft. They
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: ultimately go one through five in the draft that we
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: thought were all worthy of consideration with the first pick.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: So you know, you reference. Leading up to the NBA Draft,
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of trade discussion, well leading up to
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: the Major League Baseball Draft, there's a lot of discussion
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: with agents. So Sean Johnson, the longtime scouting director of
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: the Minnesota Twins, who's extremely talented, talent evaluator and leader,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: what he's doing is he's working the board in the room.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: He's looking at all the information, all the analytics, He's
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: talking to all the scouts concurrently. He is then asking
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: a few of us to get on the horn with
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: some of the agents of these players to find out
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: what their demands are. Because there's not a firm number
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: that you pay players based upon where they're selecked in
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: the draft. You have some latitude. So there's a handful
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: of us who are doing that, who are making those calls,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: and so we would come back in the room and say,
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: I got this amount for this player, and he's like, Okay,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: now we're going to reconfigure the board a little bit
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: because now we understand that the acquisition costs. So the
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: top five players in that draft go and order Royce Lewis,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: who we ultimately selected, Hunter Green, who's gone to have
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: a great fledgling career with the Cincinnati Reads, Mackenzie Gore,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: who was part of the Juan Soto trade and is
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: now one of the starting pitchers for the Washington Nationals.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Brendan McKay was actually the first guy to get to
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: the big leagues out of that grip, a two way
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: player out of Louisville, who unfortunately has had a series
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: of injuries which has derailed his career. And Kyle Wright,
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: who came up and pitched for the world champion Atlanta Braves.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: And all five of those guys were in consideration. They
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: were a handful of us who were mining information with
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: the agents. We were trying to be as strategic as
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: we could to not indicate who the order of preference
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: we had. We were just trying to find out information,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: what would this player sign for if we selected him first.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Once we got all of that information, in addition to
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: the scouting information and all the analytical information, Sean Johnson
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: ultimately made a decision under our direction to say, let's
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: pursue Royce Lewis, and so we ultimately did sign Royce Lewis.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: All five of those players have had wonderful starts to
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: their career, McKay unfortunately having some injuries. But time will
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: tell whether or not that was ultimately the right decision.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: It was the right decision for the Twins at the time.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: Royce has been a wonderful player, a wonderful contributor in
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: the community. So I think it all works out. You know,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: to circle back to your experience, Ryan, very briefly, is
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: you know there is good fortune that takes place in sports, right,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: and some of these things where you are, you are
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: making lemonade out of lemons, and you guys could have
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: been derailed by the fact that you dropped to fifth.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: You made the most of that situation. And it's a
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: testament to always being able to map out different options,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: different alternatives, trusting the people around you, making the best
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: decisions that are in front of you. But in that situation,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: you guys couldn't have ultimately done much better than what
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: you did. But it was a win win scenario, right
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: because Oklahoma City benefited from that. And I just want
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: to give a quick hat tip to Sean from Arizona
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: here we are talking about the two thousand and seven
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: draft with KD. Now we're looking at the off season
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty five, and we're still talking about how
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: relevant he is in these conversations. You mentioned Mike Conley,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: you mentioned the group out of al Horford, out of Florida, Like,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: these guys are still playing in today's game, these are anomalies.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: These are excellent players. They were excellent in two thousand
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: and seven, they're still excellent in entering twenty twenty six.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: It's pretty remarkable, it really is that, and that's the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: next evolution I think sports science, in addition to the
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: professionalism those guys have, how well they've taken their care
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: of their bodies. We know that Lebron James is famously
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: not in the NBA, Tom Brady in the NFL, and
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: I think you'll continue to see that trend where guys
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: are shattering records on the agent Kurr, playing longer than
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: ever before and better at later ages. I throw Steph
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: Curry into that group as well, but he's still doing
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: at a remarkably high level. For the Golden State Warriors,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: they're off the chartstead when you look at historical trends
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: in the NBA that I really enjoyed this and one
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: of the things we want to hear from our listeners
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: here on Rosters to Rings, you know, is is their thoughts,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: you know, kind of on the on the format, any
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: specific guests we did the first show the two of us.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: We had a few great guests over the last couple
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: of weeks and we'll get back next week to having
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: more guests. So please, you know, give us a review
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: if you want to put five stars. I'm not going
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: to complain about that, but also send us your comments
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: either on Twitter. I know people call it x now,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: but I still refer to as Twitter or Instagram. Let
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: us know what you think of the show, and if
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: there's anybody you'd like us to have on that now,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: we'll see if we can track them down. Or any
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: issues you want us to discuss, we'll get into those
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: as well. But rejoin us next week on Rosters to Rings.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: The NBA Draft will be upon us. We'll know at
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: that point who the who won the NBA Championship. We'll
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: probably talk about free agency, which is approaching as well
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: in the NBA and Major League Baseball, coming up to
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: the trade deadline as teams get into the heart of
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: their season, we'll touch on all that and more. He
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: is sad Levine. I am Ryan McDonough. Thanks for joining
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: us and come back next week on Rosters the Rings.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: Please join me host bad Levine, Ryan McDonough and other
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: general managers every week for Roster Syrings on Apple, Spotify,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts