Yeah.

You got all this television inventory.

It makes sense to have more good teams because you have more hours to fill as opposed to having a juggernaut.

The problem is the NBA we grew up watching, the NBA that was created off the connective tissue says that, "Oh, no, these one-offs don't happen." There is somebody you have to chase.

There is somebody who is at the top, and they have mechanisms to stay there.

The problem with the Knicks is if the Knicks are crying poor, what can any other team say? Oklahoma City's saying that.

I'm saying the championship is not a justification for falling off.

I...

The, the Charles Barkley quotes that we can say in public now about Angola, "I don't know anything about Angola, but I know Angola's in trouble." [laughs]

The thing about '96 was that, like '92 would just blow you away from the start.

Like, there was no, you know, the whole Chuck Daly thing, he was never calling a timeout.

He never called a timeout.

In '96, there were a couple of games where two-point game at halftime, and then they just come out and just blow their doors off to start the next quarter or the next, you know, the next half or whatever it was.

It was just, it wasn't the same approach as '92.

'92 was, you know, we're on a mission to show everybody what this team is and what American basketball is and everything else.

Shaquille O'Neal

Yes

... to come play at Auburn when he saw him play I think in the 1996 warmups to the Olympics.

So that was two full years before he got to the league, and Chuck is like, "Oh no, this dude is coming, but I don't know if he can win a championship." Like, Dirk isn't the greatest international player, right? But like you said, pioneering.

He's the one that you feel like you can make another one of, even though you can't make another Dirk.

You can't make another Dirk seven feet tall with that high release, that level of touch.

Young Dirk with that level of, you know, mobility, as much as mobility as someone like him is gonna have.

But the he, way he changed the game in the way of...

They got it done.

But has he actually come back looking like Jayson Tatum? 'Cause I know that's been your question from the very beginning, is just once we start doing this in the postseason, then what are we talking about?

It's, it's atrophy, man.

A- and just in general, like I asked Mike Brown last night after they won, I'm like, "Look, you've got a game five that you just took care of business.

You got a game six in two days.

The Celtics just lost.

They got a game six in two days.

How much is rest?" And he's like, "Rest is important because the games are so much more physical in the playoffs that you gotta get guys off their feet." Now, imagine if you're a guy coming back from an Achilles.

Yes.

Oh.

I am a fan of rivalries.

I like teams that will have to see each other year after year with a similar core, similar stories.

Okay, we're changing coaches, and the Knicks' identity has changed a little bit, but they can locate and find some of that grit that they played with last year.

I don't think the gap is as wide, and I think Jayson Tatum overcame a hurdle last night in some ways in playing in Madison Square Garden, but he was a minus 16.

He did have six turnovers.

He was hounded by Josh Hart for a decent stretch of the game, and Nikola Vučević is a defensive liability, which is why Josh Hart nailed two threes in his eye late in the game.

Oh, come on [laughs]

[laughs]

I'll take care of everything else.

Like, he needs discipline and order on offense.

I can't blame Ime when you got Reese Sheppard and Amen Thompson as your point guards.

And Amen Thompson, who's used to handling the ball, maybe not being a point guard, but used to handling the ball and being, you know, the best athlete in basketball, like, th- that's a lot to put on a guy in his third year.

But they look so inept.

Like, I saw KD in that fourth quarter.

But you are an adamant proponent of 82 games.

How they figure that out will be really interesting if they make this decision that they're going to bring him back this year, which I would not.

You think it's one way, it's the other way.

That's, that, that's the kind...

And here's the thing, is Joe Mazzulla gonna have that conversation with Jayson Tatum and tell him, "Hey, Jay, I know you've been working your ass off since you've had this injury, and, and you have the revenge in your mind of wanting to play the Knicks again and everything"? 'Cause remember, the Celtics looked like a juggernaut ready to repeat, until they ran into the Knicks and blew those first two games, and then blew, you know, blew game four or whatever it was, you know, that, that series.

So he's got that in his mind, and you can't tell a player to not continue to rehab with the goal of getting back.

You can't keep putting that battery in his back and saying, "You know what, Jay? When you get back, we gonna be at full strength," just to get him to continue to do that, and then pull the rug out from under him and say, "You know what, Jayson? You can come back if you want to, but this ain't gonna be what it was." Like, the mental part of that stuff, in addition to the mental part of how that team has become accustomed to playing without him, right? It's similar template.

They're gonna shoot a lot of threes, they lean into all of that, and then they're giving the ball to Jaylen Brown and saying, "Jaylen Brown, take us home." Now that shifts a little bit, and you have to recalibrate yourself, and I don't think in this Eastern Conference, Bo, you have the time to be able to mess around in a first round of a playoff series, even if they get the second seed, right? If they get the second seed, what happens if they're playing Philadelphia in the first round? Or the third seed, and they're playing Philly in the first round, and Embiid is reasonably healthy, and Paul George is back, and you got Maxie and Edgecombe.

[laughs]

Okay

... you, right? And then the second thing, when I'm president, Stephen A, is if you get a top three pick one year, you can't get a top three pick the next year.

You can't have multiple years of tanking to make your s- to insult the customer.

That's what we're talking about here.

It's not even about from a year-to-year basis doing things to rig the game to make your team better because the draft, as it's constituted, free agency as it's constituted, the draft is the single best way for a team to improve itself year after year.

But what we are talking about is from a business standpoint, having the paying customer night after night pay marquee prices, $2,000 for courtside seats, for you to go out there and to not try, or for you to go out there and to play a half a game and then sit your stars in the fourth quarter.

So while what is going on is ugly and unseemly, and I know my man David Dennis has a very radical option that he's gonna get to, I think there's ways to do things that you don't cut off the knees of the bad teams that actually need the help to get better, while also not impugning the integrity of basketball.

... 20 years ago.

Right.

He only took...

He was seven of 13 from three, but he only took 13 threes.

And if someone gets on a heater, I don't know how many threes Donovan Mitchell took or Luka Dončić took, but if someone gets on a heater like that, the numbers reversed.

You're taking as many threes as possible to maxim- just to maximize the numbers, as opposed to maximizing the opportunities.

Like, that's why I think, Bo, it's so very difficult for players who did- or for people, viewers who did not see him, to understand why Allen Iverson was indeed a thing.

Because they're like, "Man, look at the shooting numbers.

That is true

That's right.

...

the Chris Paul meltdown game in game five where he fouls Russ taking that wild three, and then when Russ makes all three free throws, and then on the last play, he gets stripped maybe by Reggie Jackson driving, like he drove too th- Like, it's all these little inflection plays that sometimes you're in the wrong place at the wrong time and sometimes it can't always be you, and that's where hit- it has gotten 'cause think about how many players have played as long as Chris Paul and have been as great as Chris Paul, but have never gotten over the hump.

Usually you wind up, by hook or crook, getting something.

Like it's the Karl Malones, it's the John Stocktons, like th- but it's, the list ain't that long.

Like as much as the championships have gotten monopolized, usually you wind up find, like Clyde Drexler found a way.

He was wound up, he was an unlucky player, and then he was no longer unlucky.

As long as there's one person that's gonna use the schemes, then everybody else is gonna have to do what's necessary to keep up with it, and this is just what it's gonna be.

(laughs)

Like, that is where the Knick fans are.

And the fascinating thing for me, Bo, is, this is the first year in a very long time that the Knicks can disappoint people.

Everything else has been about hope and maybe some bounces going right, right? Like, even 1999, that was about bounces going right.

Like, and I- I wrote about it in one of those preview blurbs that we're doing.

Uh, this is the first time since 1993, since Michael Jordan said, "I'm done with this," that the Knick fans can say, "Oh, we expect to be playing in June." Like, it's been 30 freaking years.

And on top of that, and this makes things even more complicated, I would say, for Knick players-...the first three-game losing streak, you gonna have everybody working the trade machine saying, "Okay, now what permutation can we get to get Giannis here? Now, does that mean Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby and picks, or does that mean Karl Towns?" And you gonna have everybody studying tax aprons and second aprons and becoming a Capologist the first three-game losing streak.

My bad.

You think that's gonna work?

Giannis will leave if he wants to leave, and I think that's the thing that we miss.

We naturally assume that Giannis wants to leave, when we've seen, and we've probably been in situations where you don't le- relieve relationships unless you want to.

And plenty of times, you get reasons to leave, but you stay 'cause you wanna stay.

Milwaukee has given him reasons to leave, and then they have gone and done something in the 23rd hour to try to get him to stay.

Now, this isn't getting Jrue Holiday in 2020, this isn't getting Dame Lillard two years ago to get him to re-sign.

Bo, think about it like this.

I tell you, he did it once, and y'all didn't give him no credit for it.

I'm just telling you what happened.

It just, it- it's, it's just a feeling.

That's all it is.

It's legit just a feeling, and he could very well...

You think about it, you said he, you know, he's gonna wind up...

He's probably gonna wind up finishing fourth in the MVP ballot this year, and the three guys ahead of him will be foreign players, which in theory makes him the best American player year after year, but nobody actually believes it.

And I think to some degree, this is where I would give Jayson Tatum a little bit of grace.

Yeah.

Right.

Where you look up and you're like, "Man, Steph is five for 18," or whatever it was.

It wasn't a sterling performance for the first 40 minutes, minutes or so.

That hand was bothering him.

He was shaking it around.

And luckily for him, he had Jimmy, then in the last three minutes, he made magic.The thing for me, Bo, that, that catches me is this.

You heard Scottie Pippen Jr. holding, hounding him and he wasn't getting no relief from the referees.

It, that Jaylen Brown thing doesn't matter anymore if you've got Porzingis playing, like, well.