Paulie (7:01)
That it's changed that much. Well, that you have three different teams in the quarters. Even then, like I'm going to tune in and go, okay, maybe explain this to me a little bit further. But I Thought it. You know, when you have three teams and you have one game, but trying to combine three teams into one game, and it's the All Star weekend and then you have the rising stars and now we just found out that Cooper Flag is not going to be playing in that this isn't going as scripted for. And then you got the commissioner who is going to be under fire this weekend about tanking because these teams, they're not hiding it anymore. It's like, yeah, you know, we're going to play our starters until the third quarter when that ends, and then we're going to sit them down. Hey, we might win, we might not. But it just feels like it's. Well, it is. It's not a growing concern. It's a concern here. And I can't imagine what David Stern would be doing right now if he was the commissioner. Maybe it's not fair to Adam Silver, but David Stern would not be putting up with this. But I don't even know what you can do. You know, all the media rights, I think it was a total of like $70 billion over the next 11 years. They're swimming in money. They don't know what to do with all the money that they're making. And if I'm a player, and let's say I applied this to Larry Bird, Larry Bird tried to eke out a 10 year career, back issues, and he had to retire. What if Larry Bird played today and he did have a back condition and I could maybe get 14 years out of Larry Bird instead of 10 and maybe he played 65 games? Wouldn't you want that? Do I want Steph Curry to be able to play longer? Do I want Kevin Durant to be able to play longer? LeBron James to be able to play longer? And the answer is yes. I don't think the NBA cares about us. If we say the following, well, I go to one game a year. The NBA doesn't care about that. Now we do. As you know, parents, where you say, oh, I want to bring my kids to a game, but the NBA is worried about filling up the seats every single night. They want repeat customers. They want. The people are going to show up and then you got the TV money as well flowing in. But I, I don't know if I got Commissioner Silver in a private moment and said, hey, if you're looking at the longevity of great players like Cooper Flag, he's going to have load management at some point in his career. They all do. Now at 19, you can run all day, but he gets to be 26 now, seven years, you know, on those legs, and then maybe you're going to have load management. It happens. But if I can extend Cooper Flag four more years by limiting him and, you know, maybe he's only playing in 65, maybe 70 games. It used to be a badge of courage, like you wanted to play as many games as possible. Charles Barkley won the MVP of the All Star Game, and he played on a stress fracture. He shouldn't have been playing in the game. Imagine Michael Jordan breaks his foot and then comes back and you know you're going to play the Celtics who are going to beat you in the playoffs. They never would have let Michael Jordan back in today's NBA. They just wouldn't because they'd say, that doesn't make any sense. We're going to sit you down, we're going to get into the lottery, we're going to tank, and we're going to be better. So the philosophy has shifted. I never, ever worried when I tuned into a game if the stars were going to play or not. Growing up, it was a great luxury. And about 10 years ago, maybe a little longer than that, it all changed. But I understand it from a player's perspective. If I can imagine if you add four more years to Steph Curry's career, that maybe it would have ended, you know, at 36, that's over a hundred, $130 million by just being economical, smart, taking care of yourself, getting your rest. And I know we don't like it, but, you know, we're in a completely different world. What it was like when we were growing up, you know, Bill Russell played every game. And you know, Bob Koozie played every game. Yes. But in today's NBA, they're looking at this from a business perspective. The NBA has business and entertainment. But the player is thinking about, I'm going to sit out. I mean, look at Giannis. He's had a cafe. I don't know how serious it is, but he's been out for a while. And we don't even blink anymore. We're like such and such isn't playing like Kawhi. I'm always surprised when Kawhi's playing. Be like, oh, and Kawhi's having an unbelievable year. He is, yes, Marvin.
