Right,

exactly.

No, look, I actually agree with the company CEO when he said, we didn't even think about women's athletes when we did this, for two reasons.

First of all, he's the kind of guy who would never think about women's athletes, thank you, really appreciate that.

But also, it really wasn't a statement about a woman who plays sports.

It was using sex to sell something.

And if you don't think America is still way deep in that pool, like you're kidding yourself, right? I am a woman.

would be nine years.

Interesting.

Um, but it really just to me it is more of an underlying of American society where we are now.

I, I think she's right in some ways that this doesn't have anything to do with her because it really is a bigger picture.

You know, I worked here at CNN for a long time, and people would say, "Oh, you're a sports person.

Why are you working in a news network?" And I would always say it's because sports is still maybe the only great tent in America that we all go into.

Nobody goes to the same churches anymore.

We don't watch the same newscast.

That's, that's the summation of that.

Give me yours.

That is, that is way too low.

Look, I, I think there's two things going on.

First of all, like with Steph Curry, there's one thing about trading a beloved player.

Trading one of the greatest players in franchise history, especially if he's not asking to go, I, I just don't see front offices or teams wanting to be tagged with that.

"Oh, we had Nikola Jokic.

He didn't particularly even wanna leave the team, but we just traded him away for two firsts," you know, or whatever it is.

I know.

... nothing left to prove in the NBA on a basketball level.

I think it is a huge misconception around basketball that Nikola Jokic is not interested in winning championships and is not competitive.

He is absolutely interested in winning NBA titles and is competitive because he could not play at the level he is with the dedication it requires unless he was.

So that's the first thing.

I think he wants to stay around, and I think he wants to win again.

I think that it's a shame for the Denver Nuggets fans that they have to go through this and this uncertainty and these question marks.

But for the front office, I say good.

Um, how will you remember Russell Westbrook, who is, in fairness, like I think one of the most polarizing players of this generation of NBA guys?

Hey, it's Covino and Rich from Fox Sports Radio.

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Two hundred thousand pages.

Yes.

Sorry.

Two hundred thousand pages of documents.

And and again, the detail in this.

I've got some highlights of the report in front of me.

You know, when these three.

What did you think of that part of it?

Yes.

I do wanna talk a little Chiefs, though, first, because their left tackle, Josh Simmons, has missed more than a week now after injuring his back.

Remember, he missed nine games in his rookie season last year due to a fractured risk- wrist, and, and Kansas City was notably worse without him.

Uh, we have a chart, I think.

The points per game dropped six points, so just without him there, their points per game dropped six points, and the yardage dropped more than 100 yards without him there.

This is the guy who is supposed to be protecting Patrick Mahomes' blind side.

I, I don't know, man.

Dan Quinn's on the hot seat?

I like that

...

in the NFL.

Um, look, I think with your top guys, right, I don't think you can put it down to coaching.

If he had this coach, if he had that coach.

Josh Allen has had turnover problems.

That's not a coaching thing.

Yeah

I don't know if it can happen in Golden State with all their actions they've taken in recent years.

I, I just hate hearing this.

I hate hearing it from owners.

We heard it at the end of LeBron's tenure in Cleveland the second time around.

Dan Gilbert wouldn't trade some valuable picks because he said, "We don't wanna be left high and dry again when LeBron ultimately leaves." And so LeBron is stuck looking at JR Smith like this during his last championship run in Cleveland because he wouldn't get the help that he needed because they were so worried about the post-LeBron era.

And then LeBron does leave, and guess what? They still had a huge dip after LeBron left the second time.

Steph Curry comes around once in a lifetime.

It, it's, it stinks that Steph is in these games.

Mm-hmm.

Like, I, I just think that so often when we're evaluating these trades and the teams that get put together, yes, it is ideal to have the 2018 Warriors.

That is what you want.

That would be amazing.

But, like, most teams aren't that.

It's ideal to have the 2026 New York Knicks, but that required your absolute superstar, A, being a surprise superstar who came to you even though that deal was lauded as sort of, oh, they overpaid him.

It was a discount considering what he actually turned out to be, and then took less money for all the reasons that were may have been smart for him to do it, but did that, that enabled you to pay more.

Mm-hmm.

Rachel, any initial reactions? Are they the best team in The East?

I, I'm just very surprised because, yeah, I think I told you the day before yesterday, I said, "Eh, I think, uh, I think Philly's like a red herring," right? Because it doesn't make sense with a lot of the things that we have seen about LeBron's frustrations, what reasons he left the Lakers, with Jaylen Brown's frustrations, the reason that he's no longer on the Boston Celtics.

There is no question that Bob Myers is correct.

On paper, this is LeBron's best chance to win because you have guys at every position who you have either an excellent track record or a lot of promise with the young guys.

The question is, Jaylen Brown doesn't play for the Celtics anymore because Boston was so concerned that he would be so disgruntled with his usage going down just a few percentage points-

Lakers fifth may be a bit hot, but w- would you have the Sixers higher than four, Rachel?

I maybe would.

I don't know.

Yeah.

I mean, that...

What, what else are people more curious about than this right now?

Should he start week one?

Let's get this guy out there week one.

Let, let's start having our growing pains week one.

Let's not, let's not prolong it into October or November or later in the season, when maybe the season's over.

Let's get him out there now.

... did that, yeah.

It was gifted to the city as part of the sort of transition from the late Paul Allen's ownership to get to this point to sell the team and everything for a dollar.

That sounds great on principle, but let me give you an example, and this is how I've been trying to explain to people how I think of it, is if you are a rich guy, and you decide, "Man, I love exotic animals.

I'm gonna open a zoo.

All the kids in the, in the neighborhood can come to my zoo.

All the kids in town can come to my zoo.

Uh, I'm gonna charge, so I'm gonna make money off of, of these animals.

Mm.

This is an iHeart podcast.

[upbeat jingle] Guaranteed human

[laughs]

What I would say, though, is that it really feels like today or tomorrow could be when we finally hear from LeBron.

They're still upset.

They did a lot of defense in that press conference [laughs] um, but I appreciate them giving it.

Look, I, here's what I think.

I think that the Celtics clearly had an idea about what was going to happen over the course of the next season that the rest of us could not have as clear a picture on.

And it could be the correct idea, or it could maybe, if they didn't trade him, would not have borne out that way, and they would've been like, "Oh, thank God we didn't trade him." But what seems clear to me is that they thought was, what was gonna happen this coming season was going to be bad for their ball club, and that is why they had to make this deal.

Uh, the timing still, I feel maybe they could've figured, they could have h- this Philly offer would've held a little bit longer.

But, um, I think that they clear ...

... how much better did the Lakers get in this free agency?

I don't wanna talk." Do you buy that, and are you surprised?

Uh, I'm not surprised because we see this go in these directions a lot in the NBA, and we've even seen it before in LeBron's career where it just, you know...

The end of him in Miami felt a little bit like this, too.

Like, they did want him back.

They were chasing him around Las Vegas trying to get a [laughs] meeting with him, but there was just, the vibe was off.

And you could tell, and LeBron felt the vibe was off, and he ended up going back to Cleveland, so we've seen it before.

What does make me sort of roll my eyes a little bit is that whether it's the LeBron situation, whether it's the Jaylen Brown situation...

Yeah

So if you were Jon Horst, and you were that front office, and you had to weigh these two offers, obviously they made a decision, but would you have made a different decision? Would you have taken the bird in the hand that is Jaylen Brown and the star player that he is, with, by the way, three years remaining on his contract?

Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question.

For me, I am always fascinated by general managers who say, "You know what I prefer? I prefer a draft pick several years from now who may be possibly, with some seasoning, some time in the league, some experience, could maybe best case scenario turn into a Jaylen Brown And instead of that, I'm gonna in, I'm gonna do that instead of taking a Jaylen Brown, who we know who he is.

I don't know if this was a little bit about the fact that if they took Jaylen Brown, they still aren't gonna be a team that's gonna be at the top of the East.

And so by the time his window as a pri- in his prime runs out, are you getting sort of around him what you need? And then you're kind of back to square one again.

You're in a community where you still have to sell tickets.

They're gonna be reeling over using, losing Giannis, and you put Jaylen Brown in there.

So I, I do think the damage is, is much more significant now than it was years ago.

Mm-hmm

... to help him make it up, which is something we don't talk about as much.

He's gonna be able to hit his 10 years earlier and all of that stuff.

However, the reason that was all possible, in addition to the enormous sacrifice on his part, is because his godfather, his actual physical godfather, ran the front office.

Because his dad was an assistant coach.

If you are a player and they come to you and they say, "Can you take not just a little less to make this a championship team, but $100 million less that will physically change the salaries and the level of guys we can have on the court with you? Not just one, but two or three guys different," you have to be able to trust that the front office is not gonna take that contract, turn around, and send you somewhere.

You and I are old enough to remember when the Morris twins took a discount in Phoenix so they could stay together, and the front office assured them, "No, no.

But that to me is where he's gotta be.

So I definitely believe that they're confident enough that they do believe that, you know, if they can win this next game, they can come back to New York and win a basketball game.

There's no question they believe it, but I think what we're missing here when the Spurs keep throwing out numbers, and we heard a lot of it today, not just in Victor's press conference, but a bunch of the other guys being like, "Hey, we have had a lead in all four games in the final two minutes.

We've had a double-digit lead in all four games." That's all true.

The problem is except for one game, they haven't closed any of them.

So to me, that's where the optimism kind of might be a little unrealistic, unless they fix that problem.

And the other thing that I would be worried about if I were the Spurs is the technical situation on Victor Wembanyama.

You know, he is one tech away from a suspension.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But the fact that they have fought back in all these games, the fact that the Spurs have led every single finals game in the final two minutes, and the Knicks have turned around and won three of those games, that is Jalen Brunson.

When you are that short, when you do have the Becky Hammons of the world or all the other people saying, "Hey, I don't know if you can make it in this league," you have to develop every single other part of your game.

Nothing can be left on the table.

And Jalen Brunson's relentlessness has powered this team, and then I would actually credit his size for a little bit of that, and there is nobody else who would have won them some of these finals games with that kind of character.

So I think it's an interesting discussion.

OG has obviously got the numbers, but it's like any finals team, right? A lot of people contribute.

That's right.

Mm-hmm

... you, you have the Knicks.

And so the amount of ups and downs, and rises and falls, and times I can pull out of my head that I walked into that building for different stories.

I remember standing outside MSG for 12 straight hours doing reports for SportsCenter when I knew the Knicks weren't getting LeBron James when he was gonna do The Decision, and yetThe fever in the streets was so much that it was kinda like some of these post-MSG parties.

We had to have barricades around to, like, keep the Knicks fans who were like, "LeBron's coming to New York," and had to tell them that they were getting Amar'e Stoudemire instead.

The Carmelo years, the Jeremy Lin-Carmelo years, the ups- I, I just, there's been so m- the Dolan Oakley, there's just been so many things

Mm-hmm

They've won one.

You buy that or not?

I, I think it was a little bit of that.

It was also some of the youth and decision-making come in.

All of those things that you saw are also symbols of, "Ah, it's the forth quarter of the finals and they've caught up to us, and I'm just gonna take this early in the shot clock three," which he shouldn't have taken.

And then you don't get air balls, you don't get those bad sort of misses and then transition the other way.

There were a bunch of things that Wemby and the Spurs did collectively that felt to me a little bit like that game five in the last series, where they just kinda lost their heads a little bit.

And Wemby talked about it.

[laughs]

Yeah.

And I just say this every game that the Knicks get into a close game in the fourth quarter.

It's like an auto retweet.

It's like, I wouldn't do it.

I wouldn't stay in a close game with Jalen Brunson toward the end of the game.

He is able to create phone booth-sized space, and then work in that space in a way that, frankly, again, I don't think the Spurs were really prepared for.

So it is gonna be a back and forth.

Oh.

Really? Okay.

I am.

Here's why.

Because New York City is 8 million people.

It is the largest city in the country.

By definition, an NBA arena is only so big, so tickets to see their team play at home are so limited.

It's the richest city in America, and it's the biggest city in America.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, and he's, you know, however many wins, g- first round, you know, number one seeds, all that kind of stuff, got into m- one, maybe two finals.

He'll be fine.

His legacy will be fine.

But the stench of how people see him in a certain way-

Yeah.

But the fans, it is miserable watching this over and over and over again.

And people are gonna blame someone for taking some of their joy out of basketball.