Explaining the NBA in Tech Terms!

Summary

Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast
Episode: Explaining the NBA in Tech Terms!
Date: June 24, 2026
Hosts: Marques Brownlee (MKBHD), Andrew Manganelli, David Imel, Alex, Ellis

Episode Overview

In this lively bonus episode, the Waveform crew bridges two deeply tribal fan worlds: NBA basketball and big tech. Marques (“MKBHD”) and co-host Alex—self-identified “ball knowers”—guide Andrew and David (“non-ball knowers”) through the rules, structure, lore, positions, and culture of the NBA by translating everything into tech analogies. They relate players, team strategies, and league phenomena to software engineering, startups, product launches, device lineups, and famous tech CEOs. The show is rich with inside jokes, viral chants, relatable analogies, debates, and accidental crossovers into esports, mobile games, and soccer, all with the approachable, nerdy, and fast-paced cadence signature to Waveform.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening and Setting the Stage

• The hosts acknowledge the growing overlap between sports and technology fandoms.
• The challenge: explaining every important aspect of NBA basketball using tech-world analogies, with particular focus on onboarding newly-minted fans (“ball knowers”) and referencing tech culture.

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2. NBA = Tech Company: Teams, Expansion, and History ([04:13-08:54])

• An NBA franchise is like a tech company; expansion teams are like startups—built from scratch, no legacy, seeking a fan/customer base.
• Established NBA teams = legacy companies (e.g., IBM, Apple).
• Team Moves & Legacy:
  • The messy history of team moves (e.g., Seattle Sonics to OKC) likened to product lines/licensing agreements (e.g., Nokia brand, Carl Pei’s moves from OnePlus to Nothing).
  • The convoluted “who owns the Hornets history?” debate = complicated tech brand mergers (e.g., Essential being bought by Nothing but not taking all legacy).

"Whenever you watch those tech companies, you’re kind of like watching the players for the team affect their outcomes." –Marques ([05:13])

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3. Explaining the Rules with Software Analogies ([08:54-12:36])

• Core Tenets: Dribble (software dev), Pass (testing), Shoot (shipping product)
• Product Management: Every “quarter” is a fiscal quarter; “shipping” more products (scoring more points) wins.
• The opposition: other teams are “competitors,” trying to block product launches and disrupt development.

"If you ship more products than the other team, you win. But you only have four 12 minute quarters—the fiscal years." –Marques ([11:30])

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4. Analogy Deep Dive: Knicks Starting Five = Apple Execs ([13:07-16:44])

• The Knicks’ current starting lineup mapped to Apple’s executive team:
  • Jalen Brunson (Captain, MVP) = Tim Cook (CEO)
  • Karl-Anthony Towns = Craig Federighi (SVP, Software)
  • Josh Hart = Greg “Jaws” Joswiak (Marketing)
  • OG Anunoby = Johny Srouji (Apple Silicon)
  • Mikal Bridges = Sabih Khan (COO)
• Emphasis on roles, skill sets, and the importance of “fitting the puzzle pieces together.”

"If they do their role really well... you get through the software development phase really quickly. And then you ship it." –Marques ([12:41])

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5. Basketball Positions Explained via Tech & Esports ([23:13-31:22])

• Point Guard: orchestrator, product/project manager
• Shooting Guard: main “deliverable” role
• Small Forward: jack-of-all-trades
• Power Forward and Center: defensive, operational, infrastructural support
• The cast riffs on analogies to Dota, League of Legends, and “lane” roles.
• Notable Moment: Alex realizes how obscure sports lingo sounds to techies, just as Dota jargon is for sports fans.

"I can feel my eyes glazing over. Is this what people feel like when I explain sports to them?" –Alex ([28:51])

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6. Shooting: Layups, Dunks, Three-Pointers, and Efficiency ([32:29-41:38])

• Layup: Like an “easy feature” shipping—a slam dunk.
• Three-Point Revolution: Software features that seem marginal, then become essential (e.g., wireless charging).
• The math revolution: teams realized shooting more threes is statistically more efficient, akin to optimizing for higher-margin SKUs or more impactful product launches.
• Quote:

"Teams finally did some math and realized that 3 is greater than 2." –Alex ([37:03])

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7. NBA Draft & Tanking: The Tech Talent Parallel ([46:07-53:24])

• The NBA draft ensures parity: weakest teams get first pick of college “talent.”
  • Tech parallel: What if failed startups got first pick of CS grads, not Big Tech?

"Imagine if the least successful tech companies got the top picks of all the best college talent... the most successful didn’t get any." –Marques ([47:08])

• Tanking: Teams lose on purpose (“going last in Mario Kart for the Bullet Bill”)—leads to “balance patches” (Dota), wind tunnel time (F1), RAM allocations (tech supply chain).
• Novelty: Women's Hockey League’s “Gold Plan” as anti-tanking—wins after mathematical elimination improve draft spots.

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8. Roles Beyond Players: Coaches, Assistants, & Referees ([56:21-62:22])

• Coach: CEO/logic board/orchestrator—sets the roadmap, manages egos, keeps the team on scheme.
• Assistant coaches: C-suite or legal counsel (“should we challenge this play—a lawsuit?”), specialized support.
• Referees: Regulatory agencies/judges; their discretion mimics “hand on the scale” in lawsuits and antitrust.

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9. Fouls and Violations as Tech Laws & Bugs ([62:23-78:29])

• Regular foul: Minor infractions—like shipping a bug, results in a “class action payout.”
• Flagrant foul: Like a massive data breach–major hacking, or corporate malfeasance, gets escalated.
  • “Did you throw in malicious code or just find a bug?” = flagrant vs. regular.
• Six fouls = ejected from game; escalation mirrors regulatory penalties and CEO suspensions.
• Shot clock violation: Apple missing the AI moment, product delays (“Apple’s 24-second violation on Apple Intelligence hands the ball to Google Gemini”).

"Apple has committed a 24 second violation with Apple Intelligence... forced to hand the ball over to Google Gemini." –Alex ([74:22])

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10. Lore Drops: NBA Legends as Tech Product Icons ([79:46-96:52])

• LeBron James: iPhone—unmatched longevity, always top player/product for decades.

"LeBron at 41 is still one of the top 20... It's essentially like the iPhone came out a really long time ago." –Marques ([80:16])

• Steph Curry: Tesla Model S, Apple Silicon—changed the “geometry of the game,” just as these changed their respective industries.

"Tesla Model S... is Steph Curry. Before, 3-pointers were a sideshow. Now, after Curry: entire teams built around it." –Marques/Alex ([86:00])

• Michael Jordan: Steve Jobs—GOAT status, demanding, “took things personally,” teams/companies idolized but also reviled internally.
• Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-pt game: Unrepeatable, mythic achievement—like first 1GHz processor or a moon landing via mainframe.

"This record book is filled with this one guy from the 60s ... It's just a mythological performance." –Marques ([91:28])

• “Kobe as 95% Steve Jobs”: The idea of a legendary, but slightly less revolutionary, “clone” leader.

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11. NBA Structure: Front Office, Trades, Free Agents ([97:09-112:22])

• President of Basketball Operations / GM: Like the SVP or lead architect, assembling “systems on a chip” of personnel (Knicks: hiring Leon Rose = Apple designing Apple Silicon).
• Free agents = FAANG engineers post-contract; sign multi-year “employment deals”.
• Players can be “traded”—sometimes with little agency.
• Tech parallel: Premier League “buyouts” = mid-contract poaching, big money transfers.

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12. Fan Culture: Fandom, Tribalism, and Bandwagons ([102:30-end])

• Tech fandom mirrors sports: Apple vs. Android = Knicks vs. Nets.
• Rooting for teams: arguments over legitimacy (“bandwagon” fans), legacy, location, and the emotional rollercoaster of being a “die-hard.”
• Andrew: “Our Android subreddit is insane because it’s so many different company fanboys in one place... but then in the Google subreddit, [it's the opposite].” ([103:32])
• The crew invites co-hosts and listeners to “plant their flag,” choose an NBA team, and ride or die.

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13. Throughout: Humor, Inside Jokes, Memorable Moments

• Ongoing riffing on “Wemby” (Victor Wembanyama) as the archetype of modern argument/controversy.
• “Nixon 5” chant running gag (a reference to Knicks playoff wins).
• NBA positions explained over and over via increasingly-niche tech and esports linguistics.
• David’s innocent, deadpan requests for definitions (“What’s a layup?”, “What’s a jump shot?”) serving the audience.
• The “Streetlight Manifesto” meta-joke: referenced as a perennial, delayed “pump-fake” project of the crew.

"Rockstar... best at pump fakes. Look at this trailer!" –Alex ([61:54]) "Wait, so really the basketball players are like the different Angry Birds?" –Alex ([32:06])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On NBA/Tech Structure

  "NBA expansion shall be like a startup. New team. No history. Build the whole thing fast." –Alex ([04:41])

• On Core Game Mechanics

  "Dribble is like software dev. Passing, that's your testing... shooting, that's your deliverable." –Alex ([10:20])

• On Modern Game Analytics

  "The nerdy math that has basically defined the NBA for the last decade is... teams finally figured out, wait, if we shoot 40% from three, that's the same as shooting 60% from two." –Alex ([38:41])

• On Tech Parity via Draft

  "Imagine if the least successful tech companies... got the best college talent. The most successful didn't get any. Parity would be off the charts." –Marques ([47:08])

• Efficiency Revolution

  "Steph Curry is like Apple being really good at iPhones...there's not many who can stop it. Why do anything else?" –Marques ([35:37])

• On Fandom and Tribalism

  "You pick a team and you ride or die... Rationality be damned." –Marques ([103:05])
  "In tech, I can't believe Google's screwing us, but in Android subreddit, as soon as someone attacks Google, it's, 'You are terrible!'" –Andrew ([103:40])

• On NBA Lore

  "LeBron at 41, still top 20; that's like iPhone for 20 years, always top product." –Marques ([80:16])
  "[Chamberlain’s 100 points]—it's like hitting 1 GHz for the first time, and the US government puts a sanction on it." –David ([92:06])

• On Delays and Missed Opportunities

  "Apple has committed a 24 second violation with Apple Intelligence...now they've had to hand the ball over to Google Gemini." –Alex ([74:22])

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• [04:41] — NBA Expansion = Tech Startups
• [10:20] — Basketball’s Core Mechanics as Software Dev
• [13:07] — Knicks Starting 5 = Apple Execs
• [23:13] — Explaining Positions with Esports & Tech
• [32:29] — Types of Shots = Types of Product Launches
• [36:42] — The Three-Point Revolution as a Data-Driven Breakthrough
• [46:07] — The NBA Draft & Parity, Tanking as “Balance Patch”
• [56:21] — Coaches, Legal Counsel, and Tech Roadmaps
• [62:23] — Fouls, Flagrantry, and Corporate Malfeasance
• [74:22] — Shot Clock Violation = Missed Product Deadline
• [80:16] — LeBron James Legacy = iPhone Longevity
• [86:00] — Steph Curry = Tesla Model S, Apple's SOCs
• [91:15] — Wilt’s 100-point Game = Mythic Tech Achievements
• [97:09] — Building the Knicks: Apple Silicon Analogy
• [102:30] — Fandom and Tribalism Parallels
• [104:38] — The Ritual of “Picking Your Team”

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Final Thoughts

Through an episode packed with fast banter, relentless analogy, and deep dives into both basketball and tech culture, the Waveform team manages to make NBA lore, rules, and culture genuinely accessible to “non-ball-knowers” (and vice versa). The analogies are frequently spot-on, sometimes hilarious, occasionally stretching credulity, yet always bringing the audience into both worlds. If you ever wanted to explain the NBA to your tech-obsessed friends—or vice versa—this episode is the ultimate crossover event.

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Listener Challenge:
If you made it to the end: comment “Nixon 4” to prove your stamina!
([113:56])

Transcript

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[Marques]

I've invested most of my winnings in

[David]

chicken tenders because they're bomb.

[Marques]

But bro, I bought a house and it's sick, bro. I'm thinking the floor is going to be all trampoline, bro, with a helipad on the roof. The contractor said it's structurally unsound, but

[David]

they're just being babies.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

But switching to GEICO saved me hundreds, so my bank account is safe.

[Alex]

It feels good to save some hard earned cash. It feels good to geico.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

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[David]

Context is a pump fake where you pretend to shoot and then you don't.

[Ellis]

Yes.

[David]

Yeah. Steph Curry does that a lot.

[Alex]

Yes, he's very good at it.

[Marques]

It's like when you're about to ship a product, when you don't like airpower. It's like, it's like head fake.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Marques]

What's up, people of the Internet? Welcome back to another episode of the Waveform podcast. We are all of your hosts. I'm Marques.

[Alex]

I'm Alex.

[Andrew]

I'm Andrew.

[David]

And I'm David.

[Marques]

And in this bonus episode, we're going to be covering a whole bunch of things, but mostly sports. And the way that we're going to do it is we have our fellow non ball knower.

[David]

Hey, hey, hey.

[Marques]

Andrew and David over here. Guests, hosts who we want to explain the massive amount of overlap between sports and tech. And we have a lot of analogies and similes and ways of explaining that. And Alex and I ball knowers of the podcast and maybe we'll get some Rufus and Adam over there chiming in as well.

[Andrew]

I don't know anything. We split the Easter table. I don't know anymore. Okay, Rufus is on our side, Adam's on this.

[Marques]

Even better. Even better. Okay, so then we're gonna use all of this to hopefully get you guys caught up to on the incredible world of what's happened in basketball for the last couple weeks, months by using tech.

[David]

Oh, I know. The Last couple weeks. I just do not know.

[Alex]

The last couple weeks, David has quietly become a ball knower.

[Marques]

I mean, if you actually.

[Ellis]

Loudly. Loudly,

[Marques]

you were pretty dialed. But there's still plenty to learn, obviously. There's lots of lore and things to like.

[David]

Mike Bibby.

[Alex]

Can I add the first beef of this episode? Can you, Webby?

[Andrew]

Oh, it's a classic.

[Marques]

There's a couple things you kind of just start chanting when you become a sports fan. That's one of them.

[Alex]

It's a classic chant now.

[Ellis]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Nixon 5. If you just live in the area, you just walk outside and say that, and people, like, high five you.

[Andrew]

That's. We don't say good morning anymore.

[Marques]

Nixon 5.

[David]

Yeah, especially new York.

[Marques]

You make sure whenever you order breakfast for the next six months, you just order Brunson egg and cheese. You don't have to explain it. They'll just know what it is. Is it special?

[David]

Is it different than a regular egg and cheese? No, it's not.

[Alex]

It's a bacon, egg and cheese. It's just a Brunson egg and cheese.

[Marques]

It's just named in his honor.

[Andrew]

No, it has sriracha mayo.

[David]

Does it?

[Alex]

Does it?

[Andrew]

Are you guys kidding me?

[Alex]

I don't know. I just.

[David]

It all stemmed from, like, this.

[Andrew]

This kid asked him, what's your bodega order? And he said, well, I don't actually live in the city, so I don't have a normal bodega order. But if it was going to be that, it would be this.

[David]

I thought you guys were going to teach us.

[Alex]

Yeah. Who knows the Lord?

[Marques]

Damn walnut tables.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it has sriracha mayo on it.

[David]

Oh, that sounds better.

[Marques]

Incredible. Well, we're going to go through all of this, starting from the rules of modern NBA and then the teams and the history and then maybe a little bit of like. I think I want to end this by talking about the fan overlap, because there's so much overlap between fans of tech companies and the tribalism in the sports world that I feel like we need to just bandwagon on to some team before the end of this.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Ellis]

Apple in five.

[David]

Five, bro. Just like that.

[Alex]

Yo, shut up. Google in five, bro. Google in five.

[Marques]

Exactly.

[David]

OnePlus is out of the finals.

[Marques]

Yeah, the NBA all together.

[Alex]

Oneplus got knocked out in the first round. Let's be real.

[Marques]

All right, so I think we'll start with the rules. Just like, what is the NBA? The NBA, obviously a basketball league here in the US and we had. How many teams are in the NBA? 30, 24, 30. Is it.

[David]

National Basketball Association.

[Andrew]

Yes, it is.

[Marques]

Very good.

[Alex]

Good job, David Ball Knower. Actually, wait. There is going to be 32 teams soon, right? They're expanding. Yeah.

[Marques]

Expansion.

[Andrew]

Seattle. Huh?

[Marques]

Seattle.

[Alex]

And presumably Seattle and Vegas are about to get teams and then one team is going to move to the Eastern Conference.

[Marques]

Yeah, yeah. Which is a good opportunity maybe to talk about teams in general because obviously there's lots of tech companies who you can kind of think of as teams. And I'm trying to think of what. What would an expansion team be? It would be kind of like a startup. Right. You need to like, build the whole thing from the ground up very quickly and then just join the league. Yeah, it'd be kind of like a startup. So we're gonna have some startups soon, which is interesting to root for. They don't have any history, but you have some teams that have been around for a very long time who have a history of winning in the past. A ups and downs. They've had rosters, AKA employees, who have done amazing things, sometimes terrible things that have caused the companies to rise and fall. And so whenever you watch those tech companies, you're kind of like watching the players for the team affect their outcomes.

[Andrew]

Can I. Almost every question I'm going to ask is going to preface with saying, this is what happens in hockey. Does this happen in basketball?

[Marques]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And if I'm correct, Seattle had a team at some point. Right. So bringing it back potentially has like an old fan base coming back to it. This happened with the Winnipeg.

[Alex]

If I may. Seattle got really kind of hosed by their ownership group who decided for whatever reason, I think they. I think they changed ownership in the late 2000s. And then the owner, for whatever reason, really wanted to move them to Oklahoma City and just take them out of Seattle. But the Seattle fan base was really passionate, but it was like an arena issue where the. The city didn't want to pay for a new arena or something. And so they moved them to Oklahoma City. And Seattle has been starved for basketball since then. They now have a. They have a WNBA team.

[Andrew]

And are they going to play in the Kraken Arena? There's a new NHL?

[Alex]

I think so.

[Andrew]

Yeah. That's the most recent.

[Alex]

I think they'll play in the new arena. I mean, it's sick arena. It's not final yet, but it. Presumably that is where they will play.

[David]

Climate Change Arena.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's. It's one of the only arenas.

[David]

Climate Pleasure.

[Alex]

Climate Change arena is crazy.

[Andrew]

It's like one of the only arenas that's Down. So if you look from the ice up, you can see this big window, and that's actually the sidewalk of the street.

[David]

It's like my apartment.

[Marques]

Nice.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[David]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Marques]

So for David. Yeah. Nokia.

[David]

Nokia.

[Marques]

Nokia used to be a whole thing. Great company, thriving, and then kind of just stopped. They do telecom stuff now, but they had to bring it back.

[David]

Oh, yeah.

[Marques]

And they bring it back, and they've licensed that name, and they started making phones and doing things with that name again.

[Ellis]

That's.

[Marques]

That. That's Seattle getting an NBA team again. Okay. So they're licensing the name. It won't be quite exactly the same team, but it will be fun to root for, because we know that name

[Andrew]

because when that team moved, all the players moved. So a lot of Seattle fans probably became Oklahoma City fans or were so mad about it that they followed their players. Yeah. But now they're getting a team.

[Alex]

It's actually interesting, too. Not to get too into the weeds, but there's been multiple times in the NBA where teams have moved and then come back or whatever, and it's created this weird history gap for certain teams. Like, so, for example, the Charlotte Hornets back in the day moved to New Orleans. It became the New Orleans Hornets, but then they eventually added another team to Charlotte called the Charlotte Bobcats. And so then they were like, well, do we get the Hornets history? And it was like, no, you're a new team. You don't get history. But then New Orleans was like, well, we don't like the name Hornets. We're gonna change our name to the Pelicans. So they're the New Orleans Pelicans now. And then Charlotte with the Bobcats was, wait, Hornets is on the table again. So let's become the Hornets.

[David]

That's weird.

[Alex]

And now people are like, wait, so do the New Orleans Pelicans own the Charlotte Hornets history, or do the Charlotte Hornets own the Charlotte Hornets history?

[Andrew]

Wait, so I don't understand that. What's a tech version?

[Alex]

I don't know. A tech version of that one analogy. It's not a perfect one to one,

[Marques]

but there's not a perfect one to one of everything.

[David]

Maybe there's like. It's like Carl pay, right? It's like he kind of ran one plus and then he nothing.

[Alex]

But then David is right in the well, but then.

[Andrew]

But how Carl pays then bought essential, but just the name, and now nothing has essential in it.

[Marques]

So do they get the nothing history because they have just.

[Andrew]

Or do they get the essential history? You don't want the Andy Rubin history yeah.

[David]

So if they, if they made a new company called Essential, like, would they get the essential history or would it just be the nothing?

[Alex]

Essentially, yeah.

[David]

Hey, they made that gem phone. I'm all in on the ball. You know what I'm saying? All right.

[Marques]

So anyway, basketball, the rules are pretty simple. I don't know if you need a technology, but obviously the teams are just trying to score the most points. You have four 12 minute quarters. You can pass the ball, dribble. You can't foul or travel. Pretty basic sports.

[Andrew]

Does Wemby know?

[Alex]

Actually, it actually. Well, Wemby's core tenets of basketball is fouling people.

[David]

Can I. Yeah. Can I ask a question based on what I saw last week?

[Marques]

Yes.

[David]

When I was a child and I watched the Sacramento Kings play with Mike Bibby.

[Marques]

Yes.

[David]

They, like, you couldn't. You had to dribble when you were walking, when you were moving down the court. When I was watching last week, a lot of people were not doing that.

[Alex]

Okay, so this brings us to the core tenets of basketball. So why don't we talk about the core tenets?

[David]

Give me the rules.

[Alex]

The three core tenets of basketball. If you go up to any, any court in America and you just want to try to play basketball.

[David]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Three core tenets. Dribble, pass, shoot. Those are your three things.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Alex]

Right.

[Marques]

No defense.

[Alex]

So it's called travel. No defense.

[David]

Is it called traveling if you walk with the ball but you don't dribble? I thought so.

[Alex]

Dribbling.

[Ellis]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Is if you're. If you have the ball and you're moving. In basketball, you get three steps without dribbling at some point.

[David]

Three.

[Alex]

Yes. But if you pick up your dribble and you're like going to finish a layup, you get.

[David]

What's a layup?

[Alex]

We'll get there.

[Marques]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Everyone was like, David knows ball. Everybody asked that.

[Alex]

Never mind.

[David]

I'm asking for the audience. Many of our audience members do not know.

[Alex]

David is playing a character. He's best at acting.

[David]

That's right.

[Marques]

Good save.

[Alex]

That's right. But so dribbling is when you're. You're dribbling down the court. That's how you set up bouncing the ball. Yeah. Dribbling is bouncing the ball up and down into your hand. So that is like software dev. So that is like your core principle to basketball.

[Marques]

It's like step one.

[Alex]

Step one. You got to have your software, your ide.

[David]

Basically.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Marques]

Okay.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Your ide.

[Alex]

Passing is how you get the ball from one player to another. So there's five players on each side. You throw it and you throw it to your teammates so that you can try to break the defense and get inside. So passing, that's your testing. That's like your alpha testing, beta testing, trying to get to the, get to the end. Because the idea is to get a basket, right? So shooting, that's your deliverable.

[David]

So you throw it up.

[Alex]

You throw it up and you deliver and you make a basket.

[Marques]

Shipping your product.

[Alex]

Shipping your product.

[Marques]

They use a lot of the same words, deliverables.

[David]

Does that when you basketball too?

[Marques]

No, when you deliver a product, when you ship a product.

[Alex]

Can you imagine a basketball coach is in the huddle and they're like, guys, guys, we got to really hit on our deliverables right now. We got to get the passes and get our deliverable.

[Marques]

We got to ship. We got to really got to ship.

[David]

The market fit between the basketball and the hoop is really high.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Okay. Yeah. So the entire time these teams are trying to get as good as possible at shipping as many products as possible, more than all the other teams. Okay, I'm dead serious. If you ship more products than the other team, you win. But you only have four 12 minute quarters. The fiscal years, I mean, divided up into quarters. So Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4. The more products you ship, the better. If you ship more than the others, you win.

[Alex]

And in a single game, you might ship like 70 products.

[Ellis]

Yeah.

[Marques]

And the thing is, you are competing directly against the other team who is trying to stop you from shipping products.

[David]

Right.

[Marques]

They're gonna try to interrupt your testing, your development, your shipping process, all of that. Okay, but there are rules, right? So every team has players that have different roles and different styles. And occasionally a member of the other team will try to mess with your team. We don't like those players very much. Some call them like dirty players, like Wemby. You're supposed to play within the rules. Obviously some people kind of try to bend the rules, like Wemby.

[Alex]

What do we say about Wemby?

[Ellis]

But

[Marques]

we always know that there are these pieces fit together like puzzles. These players on these teams, these leaders and these teammates are all trying to ship products as quickly as possible. But if they do their role really well, then they can pass it to the next role. And the next role, you get through the software development phase really quickly. And then you ship it and you market and you do the whole thing really, really fast. Then you're successful. Okay, wait, so everyone has to know

[Andrew]

their role Nix team As Apple executives go.

[David]

Great. Okay.

[Marques]

That's a great place to start. Nick's team. As Apple executives.

[Andrew]

The captain, just players.

[Marques]

You probably start with the captain, right?

[David]

Yeah. Tell me about the roles.

[Marques]

Yeah, great. So players have different size roles and players have different size roles. Different, like appreciation. Yeah. And different appreciation just based on what they're good at. In sports, it might be just because you're taller or shorter or you have a certain skill set that lets you do the thing. Yeah, that's kind of like in tech. You might be a really good supply chain person or you might have a business mind or you're a ruthless leader who's like galvanizing the troops and gets people behind him. So sports team with a captain like the Knicks, that's Jalen Brunson. That's the captain. That's the MVP of the team. The best player. Finals mvp. He's the guy that everybody recognizes when you look at that company. So at Apple, Tim Cook, I think Tim Cook today. That's Tim Cook.

[Alex]

It's also. Brunson is also very well liked.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And so Tim Cook seemed very well liked.

[Marques]

Yeah, I'd say so.

[Alex]

I would say Steve Jobs for being a visionary, but it seemed like a lot of people were not the biggest. Steve Jobs.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Alex]

If we gotta use the. He got results, but you know what I'm saying.

[Marques]

Yeah. Modern Apple. We'll go with Tim Cook just because he's the guy who's getting the results and he is ruthlessly consistent and maybe even a little underrated despite his success. So that's Jalen Brunson. Tim Cook.

[David]

Okay.

[Marques]

All right. Who's the second player on the Knicks?

[Alex]

We should go with Karl Anthony Towns.

[Marques]

Carl Anthony Townes.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

All right.

[Marques]

Karl Anthony Towns is. I mean, there's a starting five on the team, so I feel like we should go through the five. But he's arguably one of the most important players on the Knicks.

[David]

So he's like benched until he's not. Is that the situation?

[Marques]

No. So he plays. He's a starter.

[Alex]

Five players play.

[Marques]

Five players start on the Knicks. Karl Anthony Towns, who happens to be a seven foot center who can shoot and pass and basically do everything a center should do.

[David]

Seven foot.

[Marques]

Yeah. Seven feet tall.

[Alex]

You're a big boy.

[David]

You know what's crazy about basketball? Everyone looks normal sized.

[Andrew]

No, That's Jalen Brunson's 6 foot 2

[Alex]

and he looks tiny.

[Andrew]

He looks like he's 5, most of

[Marques]

his head, but yes, he looks so small. Yeah. So Karl Anthony Towns is 7ft tall, and he's very well rounded. So I feel like I would put him in a, like, executive position as well. I'm tempted to give him, like, marketing management.

[Alex]

So in the. In the postseason.

[Marques]

Federigh.

[Alex]

I was gonna say in the postseason. He actually was. He became a big passer. So if we're saying that passing is testing, he would maybe be like, chief of Software.

[Marques]

That could be. That's Craig Federighi.

[Alex]

Yeah, Craig Federighi.

[Marques]

So Craig Federighi, one of the most recognizable faces at Apple. Pretty versatile, but everyone knows his chops is software. He leads the software team. And yeah, that's. You know, Carl Anthony Towns has his specialty, but he's able to move around in his role and do stuff like ship and test. So, yeah, Carl Anthony Towns. Craig Federighi.

[David]

I like that.

[Alex]

Or Josh Hart is Jaws.

[David]

Josh Hart is.

[Alex]

All right, we'll do Josh.

[David]

Josh Hart is Jaws.

[Marques]

Is that because he's the longest tenured?

[Ellis]

No, that's Mitchell Robinson. I think Josh Hart would be Jaws because he's the marketing guy and Josh Hart is the heart of the team. It's like the slogan. He's all over social media. He's like the face basically next to Brunson.

[Marques]

Okay. Yeah. Josh Hart. His role on the court is maybe not as large in terms of contributing to winning and shipping products, but you still need a Josh Hart on your team. You need someone who's going to do the dirty work. Doesn't get a ton of credit, doesn't have the best counting stats, but he

[Alex]

might only ship one product for the whole game, but he's still going to be a winning party.

[Marques]

He's going to ship the product that nobody else is going to.

[David]

What makes him good?

[Marques]

Just a simple drive to do the dirty work that nobody else would have done. In a basketball sense, that is jumping and getting a rebound that looked like no one was gonna get, or diving on the floor for a loose ball that either team could have gotten.

[David]

There's a lot more diving this season than I remember when I was a child. Yeah.

[Marques]

Yeah. People diving a lot in Apple world. You know, Jaws is interesting because marketing tends to get. I feel like they get a lot of credit maybe for shipping, even though they don't actually ship anything. Right. Like, market. I do like Jaws because. Yeah. It's a face that you recognize when you think about the company. And you need one.

[David]

Got it. How many players are there again?

[Alex]

We're just doing the starting five. So we're through three out of five now.

[David]

Okay. How many players Are there on each team?

[Alex]

15.

[David]

What?

[Alex]

Well, actually 18, including two way players.

[David]

Why do they have that many?

[Alex]

Because it's a long season.

[David]

Wow.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[David]

Everybody.

[Marques]

You can't be shipping products by yourself. You need help all the time.

[Alex]

You need help.

[Marques]

So they got to take breaks.

[David]

The starting five are the ones that always start, and then they rotate out

[Alex]

for the most part. I mean, sometimes the starters change, which is like executive turnover.

[Marques]

Okay.

[Alex]

Sometimes the executive isn't performing the way you want them to, and you. Maybe you. Maybe you demote them, Give them a little. A little step down. Or maybe you just fully cut ties and.

[David]

Oh, like a Siri AI guy cut them.

[Marques]

Yeah. Switching to John Ternus as a CEO is kind of like benching. That'd be like benching. We're not going to do this. It would be like benching Jalen Brunson for a new point guard.

[Alex]

You know, it could be. You know what the real thing is, is it's going to be like in 10 years when Jalen Brunson is getting ready to retire, the Knicks will have a new point guard ready to go.

[Marques]

Right.

[Alex]

And then they'll say, you know what, Jalen? And he'll make his own choice.

[Marques]

This is the LeBron. Luka. Yeah, I think.

[Alex]

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Like we're going to see this soon with LeBron and Luka Doncic, where LeBron is going to finally hang it up, say, you know what? I've had a great career.

[David]

Is he still playing?

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Wow. Just like Tim Cook.

[David]

Why didn't he win?

[Alex]

Because he wasn't. His team wasn't good enough this year. Also, Luca, the guy who's replacing him, didn't play for most of the postseason.

[David]

Oh.

[Alex]

So, okay, okay, okay.

[Ellis]

Let's.

[David]

Let's go through the rest of the guys.

[Andrew]

Okay, so we got typical AI overview. Starting 5 wrong. By the way, even when you click the images, every single photo is the five people you're talking about. But AI Overview does not have Josh

[Alex]

Hart who did it add instead of Josh. Out of curiosity, what number is he wearing?

[Andrew]

5. Precious.

[Alex]

Precious. Precious wasn't even on the team this year.

[Andrew]

Oh, wait, really? I thought you were. I thought I pronounced his name wrong and I was like, that's okay.

[Alex]

Precious. Acua man. Oh, my God. He wasn't even on the team this year.

[Marques]

All right, last two starters.

[Alex]

OG Anunoby.

[Marques]

OG Anunoby.

[Alex]

Jack of all trades.

[Marques]

Definitely jack of all trades.

[David]

And he's the guy that did the tip.

[Alex]

He did the tipping.

[Marques]

Exactly. And was incredibly versatile and useful for Them for the entire playoff run. Helped them ship a lot of products, also helped the other teams helped stop the other teams from shipping a lot of products.

[David]

He's a defense guy.

[Marques]

He's a two way guy. He's doing a lot of the good, positive shipping and a lot of the stopping the other team from shipping.

[David]

Okay,

[Marques]

in Apple executive land, I gotta reach one here. Okay, hit me.

[Ellis]

Johnny Shruthi.

[Andrew]

Oh, I was gonna say, I was thinking Shrugie Shruji.

[David]

Shruji is the guy that makes the,

[Ellis]

he makes the chips and he's the engine behind the reason. I like that.

[Andrew]

I was gonna say Turnus for like launching Apple Silicon.

[David]

Turnus might be better.

[Marques]

I think Suriji is good because not only is Apple Silicon so good that other companies have to like chase that, but it's like, it's the reason that Apple is. It's not the head, it's not the iPhone like Jalen Brunson, but it is also a massively important thing for them. Yeah, yeah, I like that.

[David]

I also like that I've recently found out in recent weeks I watched a couple interviews and he's like a really quiet guy.

[Marques]

Suriji. Yeah.

[David]

No, no, no, no.

[Andrew]

Og og.

[Marques]

OG Anunoby. Oh, you've seen that? Yeah.

[David]

He went on like on a late night show a couple days ago and he was, every question he'd just be

[Andrew]

like, yeah, it's because he probably hasn't slept in four days.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Alex]

He's also extremely quiet. Yeah, he's so funny.

[Marques]

Okay, all right.

[David]

Who's the last guy?

[Alex]

Last guy is Mikhail Bridges. I have a pitch.

[David]

I've never told him.

[Marques]

Iron Man.

[David]

He's.

[Alex]

He's six foot. Oh, five. Yeah. Mikhail Bridges is like six. Five or six, six. He's a wing. He has a very, very long wingspan, which is your. How far your arms go.

[Marques]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alex]

He's great. Also great at defense. Very similar OG Anunoby. But I'm going to say I think maybe he would be. I had to look this up. I'm not going to lie. Sabi Khan, Chief operating OFFICER I knew the position I wanted to give him. I didn't know who it was at Apple, but I think Mikhail Bridges is a chief operating officer because he is extremely well liked. He's a good vibes guy. He doesn't necessarily always make the biggest impact on the game, but he's keeping everybody, he's keeping operations going. And we learned that after they won the championship. All the Knicks players talk so highly of him, really. And his impact on the Locker Room and everything.

[Marques]

What did he do?

[Andrew]

He bought them Rolexes.

[David]

What did he do in the games that was like a big deal in

[Alex]

the finals or in other games?

[David]

In the finals.

[Alex]

In the finals, he played really good defense. He had a couple, actually, technically. The game where Brunson scored almost 50, the final game, he was the second leading scorer with a whole 14 points.

[Marques]

Chips of product.

[Alex]

So he was the. He was the second leading scorer.

[David]

Yeah, yeah. He.

[Alex]

He does similar things to OG Anunoby. Plays really good defense and he actually, he does handle the ball a decent amount. So he did a decent amount of passing. So testing, you know, whatever our analogy

[Marques]

is, it's like the executive that like gets in the testing and actually does some. Some coding once in a while.

[Alex]

Yes. He can do a little bit of

[Andrew]

everything, but isn't really on stage.

[Alex]

He also never misses a game. He has not missed a game his entire NBA career.

[David]

What?

[Andrew]

What a jinx.

[Marques]

That's crazy.

[Alex]

No, I mean, he.

[Marques]

It's out there.

[Alex]

It's out there. No jinxing it at this point.

[David]

That's wild. Okay.

[Marques]

Yeah. So there is obviously some puzzle piece nature to it. You gotta have pieces that fit together. Not everyone can have overlapping roles. If you have a bunch of Jalen Brunson's, it sounds great, but you're gonna be missing some parts of the game. So you have these complementing pieces, kind of like different parts of an executive team on a tech company, and they all combine together to do the thing, ship lots of products, stop other companies from shipping products, take competitive wins, give other teams losses. That's it.

[David]

Can we talk about the positions? Like.

[Marques]

Yeah, yeah, I guess the positions. Yeah, we kind of tried to. I mean, so chief operating officer being like the small forward who's kind of just in the middle of a whole bunch of things called forward. The captain is often point guard doing most of the visible. Yeah. So the point guard in basketball.

[Andrew]

These are fair questions.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

It is.

[Andrew]

I never understood these except for center.

[Alex]

Should I just list these real quick? Yeah, okay, I'll list them and I'll just give the basketball explanation. Then we can start relating.

[David]

Okay.

[Alex]

You have five positions. And these positions become more and more fluid over time. Like, I feel like these used to be more hard and fast, you know, like each position did a specific role. Now you're having people have to be way more multifaceted in how they play.

[David]

Yeah.

[Alex]

So they.

[Marques]

In general, it's a one through five.

[Alex]

And the Golden State warriors, who a lot of tech people maybe are familiar with because of their Silicon Valley roots.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah. Let's compare them to Dota.

[David]

Yeah. Dota also has five different roles.

[Alex]

It actually probably is pretty solid.

[Andrew]

I'm going to try and help. And we're going to get these as mobile lanes.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Okay. So you're not going to understand.

[Marques]

We're just going to explain a niche thing in terms of an even more niche.

[Andrew]

They know mobile lanes more than.

[Alex]

But so the five positions. Point guard traditionally is the smallest player on the team.

[David]

They're guarding the points from the other team.

[Alex]

No, they're running the point. They're running point. Right. That's a common term. So that they're running point, which is to say that they are the one bringing the ball down the floor and starting what your team does. So they have the ball in their hands the most. They're setting everybody up.

[Marques]

Orchestrator.

[Alex]

Orchestrating.

[David]

I'm kind of surprised that they even like have a guy that's supposed to do that every time instead of just everybody.

[Alex]

Teams that don't have that struggle mightily. It's like an IGL not having a good point guard. The Knicks for a long time did not have a good point guard, which is why we all love Jalen Brunson so much. So the point guard is the guy who brings the ball down the floor, sets everything up for everyone. The shooting guard is the second position. There are two guards. So the shooting guard also generally a little on the smaller end for a basketball player, but slightly bigger. Yeah, which is to say six foot five.

[David]

Yeah, I'm five nine, baby.

[Marques]

Point guard.

[Alex]

That player, typically high level athlete, good shooter, scores the basketball a lot, delivers lots of products.

[Marques]

Right.

[Alex]

Small forward. So there are two forwards.

[Andrew]

This is the three.

[David]

Now one of them is called the small forward.

[Andrew]

What was the second one?

[Marques]

The first one was the one. Point guard, point guard, point guard. Second one is the two, the shooting guard. Now we're on the three. Even bigger.

[David]

Small forward, which is always shorter.

[Alex]

No, I mean, you know, Kevin Durant is considered a small forward, but he's like 7ft tall.

[Marques]

We're roughly going in order of size.

[Andrew]

6, 11.

[Ellis]

Alex.

[Marques]

The one is the point guard. The shooting guard is a little bigger. The small forward is a little bigger.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Okay.

[Alex]

Everybody keeps getting a little taller. Traditionally, the further you go down the numbers.

[Andrew]

Got it, got it.

[Alex]

So the three is a guy who's maybe six foot seven. Six, seven, six, seven, you know.

[David]

Damn.

[Alex]

And will be a versatile player, defensive minded, usually plays good defense, can shoot well, that sort of thing. And then you have your power forward. Four big Powerful.

[Marques]

Now we're getting the biggest guys, right,

[Alex]

Tank OG on an obi on the Knicks is the four. Big strong man, big broad shoulders.

[David]

Okay.

[Alex]

You know, typically like 6, 10, 6, 11, 6, 9, maybe something like that. And then you have the center, which is the biggest player. The five. And otherwise known as the pivot, because they pivot in the post and they score down low.

[David]

Oh, that's.

[Alex]

They bang elbows and they get.

[David]

Is not Jalen Rudson.

[Alex]

No, no.

[Marques]

I feel like he does that.

[Andrew]

Do they do that the least amount of times?

[Alex]

Depending on the center. Some of the most prolific scores in NBA history have been centers like Wilt Chamberlain, who we'll talk about later. Wilt Chamberlain. We'll talk about him later. But in the modern game, Yes, I would say centers generally scored the least the players on the team. For the most part.

[David]

It feels like Jalen Brunson, kind of. Because he's shorter, he's kind of like shoving people getting in there, really shoving his way in and then doing the twos.

[Alex]

That's because Jalen Brunson is a dog. Okay. That's another basketball term with a W. Right? Yeah. And. And that's why you sing who let the dogs out? Like. Like the Knicks head coach does.

[Andrew]

Didn't you say stop that at the.

[Marques]

He did.

[Andrew]

I think she was like, I asked you to stop doing that.

[Alex]

Yeah, I think Brunson did that.

[Andrew]

Or.

[Alex]

Yeah, it's. It's hilarious.

[David]

I think that's pretty.

[Andrew]

Okay, wait, I have. So my terms are from League of Legends, but I think it should be pretty close to what are the five. Okay, so I have point guard is mid, mid, carry. Usually.

[Alex]

Don't call Brunson mid.

[Andrew]

No, mid is like the most important lane that once you can make it to both lanes. They're usually have the most kills in a game. Like they are.

[Marques]

Okay.

[Ellis]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Solo.

[David]

Okay. So mid is dominant. It seems mid should be. Is the same in dota and league.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And they can like win a game. If you are a really good mid laner, you can. That's true.

[David]

Yes.

[Andrew]

I have shooting guard. We call them ADC or like that means AD is.

[David]

Are they the ones that we have

[Andrew]

it as like a bot lane carry that generally brings a support with them. They're farming a lot in league. It's generally attack damage versus. Yeah.

[David]

So just called carrying dota.

[Andrew]

Okay. So carry. So that's like bot carry also can have a lot of kills but has a little more support with them in and like kind of is like a damage. Whereas the point Guard scoring all the points, so maybe ADC bot carry is getting attack damage. Carry.

[Marques]

Oh, okay.

[Andrew]

Small forward. I have his jungle.

[Marques]

We don't have a jungle lane in there.

[Andrew]

There's no jungle in Dota.

[David]

There is jungle, but do they kind of push you out of meta?

[Marques]

Oh, it's not.

[Andrew]

Okay. I'm like 15.

[Alex]

I could feel my eyes glazing over. Is this what people feel like when I explain sports to them?

[Andrew]

Have you seen us the last 20 minutes?

[Marques]

Yeah, I get it now.

[Alex]

Oh my God. I understand so much about myself and others now.

[Andrew]

Okay, imagine old jungle then.

[David]

Well, there was never a dedicated jungle lane.

[Andrew]

Okay. It's just not a lane, but it's a position in Dota.

[David]

You have mid carry, you have Tank,

[Marques]

which is called offlane, which.

[Andrew]

I know that one.

[Alex]

I know that one. This is like when you know one basketball thing. I know Tank. I know Tank.

[David]

Yeah, but they don't call it Tank and don't.

[Alex]

It's called let's call it whatever.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[David]

And then there's two supports. There's hard support, which is like the weakest support. That's supports the hard carry.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[David]

And then there's a soft support which supports the Tank slash.

[Andrew]

I don't want to say this out loud because I'm going to get destroyed by the Dota fans that have made it this far into the basketball con.

[David]

Right.

[Andrew]

I have a feeling jungle and soft carry or soft support are probably pretty similar. Like jungle in league is they're just farming the middle and not taking farm from everyone else. And then they're supporting all of the other lanes by jumping into them and.

[David]

Yeah, sort of like soft support and.

[Ellis]

Sorry, what is farm is this Farm Bill?

[Andrew]

Farm is farming in. In these games, in order to get money, to get more items, there's also you have to get non playable creeps and if you hit them last, you get money. So you are fighting each other and fighting to get money.

[Alex]

What did the creeps do to get categorized as creeps? Were they not for this podcast?

[Marques]

They were for the wrong.

[David]

They are kind of creepy, to be honest. They're creepy looking.

[Andrew]

Okay, so then I have power forward is top. Which power forward. Power forward as a basketball term.

[David]

I've never heard that in Dota before.

[Andrew]

I have it as top lane, which for you is off lane or off lane. Yeah, yeah, which it sounds like they're very similar. And then just main. Did you call it main support? Hard support.

[David]

Hard support.

[Andrew]

Hard support. Bot lane support is center.

[David]

Center. What is the center one in basketball?

[Marques]

Big boy he's the guy in the middle.

[Alex]

Big boy in the middle.

[Marques]

In the middle. He's gobbling up rebounds and playing it back out.

[Alex]

Playing defense, I feel like that would be off lane. Who's the last line of defense in?

[Andrew]

Power forwards score more than center.

[Alex]

Traditionally, I say a top lane.

[David]

Off lane is usually the initiator. So I feel like the initiator has got to be the point guard.

[Andrew]

Okay, maybe the. No, no. Point guard should definitely be mid lane. They're the carry. They're getting all the kills. They're scoring all the points.

[Alex]

Maybe that could be variable in basketball. Could be the point guard. Whoever your best player is.

[Andrew]

Jalen Brunson's a mid laner.

[Alex]

He definitely.

[Marques]

Here's the thing. Here's the thing. And this might be true about Dota 2, you know, and there's. There's the roles and the play style from the 1 through the 5, but different teams have a different member of that team being the best player. So if your best player is your one, then you build your team around that. If your best player is your three, then you build your team around that. If your best player is a five, you build your team.

[Andrew]

I don't think how much you compared them perfectly. Like, that makes this argument even stronger. Like, yeah, a top lane can carry as an unkillable tank. Like, sometimes.

[David]

And all sports are the same.

[Marques]

Yeah, that's what we're saying.

[Alex]

Even esports.

[David]

Even esports.

[Marques]

Even esports. Can you guys. So I play CS and Valorant. Can you explain? Oh, my God.

[Andrew]

And I don't think.

[David]

How about Candy Crush?

[Alex]

Wait, so really the basketball players are like the different Angry Birds?

[David]

No.

[Alex]

No.

[David]

I mean, you're not wrong.

[Alex]

Honestly. I could do that. I'm a big Angry Birds guy, so I could do that.

[David]

Let's continue with the basketball tech stuff because we are a tech podcast.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[David]

So allegedly.

[Alex]

Allegedly.

[Marques]

What's so far off?

[David]

What's next?

[Marques]

On your.

[David]

On your.

[Alex]

Should we talk about types of shots?

[Marques]

Yeah, well, sure.

[Alex]

David did ask what a layup is.

[Marques]

Yeah, yeah. So the basket. You know, the basket looks like. And you know what it means to score a basket. The ball goes through the basket, right?

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marques]

So further away from the basket. Harder. A shot.

[David]

Yeah, Right.

[Marques]

Right next to the basket. If you're just laying it off the glass and in, that's called a layup. You just literally go lay up right next to the basket. If you actually jump up and slam it through the basket, that's a slam dunk.

[David]

Slam dunk.

[Marques]

You've Heard of that term?

[David]

I've heard dunk. Yeah.

[Marques]

You've heard of a slam dunk product? Like something is a slam dunk. It's like the easiest. Bam. Guarantee it's going to be a winner for sure.

[David]

Like that's Apple made a fitness band Slam dunk.

[Andrew]

Apple added USB C to AirPods Max Slam Dunk. Slam dunk.

[Ellis]

Exactly.

[David]

I don't know about that.

[Marques]

As you get further away, all of these, all these shots, by the way, are worth two points.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Unless you're far enough away. If you get far enough away, there's a line, an arc around the basket. It's a three point line. If you shoot from behind the three point line and score, it's worth three points. You can imagine the distribution being like, the easiest shots are right next to the basket. They're worth two points.

[David]

Yeah. Unless you're Steph Curry.

[Marques]

We'll get to him.

[Alex]

He makes it look really easy.

[Marques]

He makes it look really easy.

[David]

Okay.

[Marques]

Analytically, the next easiest shot is slightly further away and slightly further away. But you get to a point where if you're at the longest possible two pointer, you might as well step back and make it a three pointer because it's not much harder, but it's worth 50% more points.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Marques]

A lot of teams study this and they realize, wow, if we want to ship a lot of products, it would be more efficient for us to ship a lot of three pointers.

[David]

Right.

[Marques]

Even though they're a little bit harder, they're worth a lot more points.

[Andrew]

Every EV startup ever who's like, we'd rather ship the really expensive ones right now. Oh, before the cheap ones.

[Marques]

The ones that feel like they're slightly harder to ship but that you know you will ship way more of.

[David]

Right.

[Marques]

That's the stuff.

[David]

Which is like Apple's strategy. Right. Like Samsung ships like a bazillion SKUs of their phones and so does Evo and Oppo. But Apple's just like, we only make five products, but every single one of them is going to sell a bazillion.

[Marques]

That's a really good. Yeah. So certain companies like Samsung who ship a ton of stuff, they're like, I'm trying to think of a team that just shoots whatever. The Hornets.

[Alex]

The Brooklyn.

[Andrew]

Where are they going to say the Hornets?

[Marques]

The Hornets shoot their shot chart, which is like the graph on the court of where they shoot from is all over the place. And it's fine because they're equally good

[Alex]

at everything and they score a lot of points. So they take a Lot of weird shots, but they hit a lot of them.

[Marques]

But you might have heard of the Golden State warriors, who are maybe closer to Apple, conveniently because they're a California team, but they have a slightly more selective shot chart, meaning they're really good at three pointers and layups and dunks.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

And why bother with the mid range stuff? Like Apple could add stuff to their plate and ship more products, but iPhones, Macs, that's all they really have to ship.

[David]

Unless you're Steph Curry and you shoot from half court and that's like if the Vision Pro is successful.

[Marques]

Yeah, yeah. You've probably heard. Yeah, there's terms like a hail Mary or like a. Like a deep buzzer beater. Yeah, yeah, that would be like deep three.

[David]

Deep three.

[Marques]

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So yeah, three pointers. Steph Curry is really good at three pointers. That's like Apple being really good at iPhones.

[David]

Right.

[Marques]

They ship a ton of them and there's not many who can stop it.

[David]

Right.

[Marques]

And why do anything else at this point. Right.

[Alex]

Adam and I actually related that when we were cooking up this episode to like a software feature that initially you didn't think you needed, but that then you get it and then you never want to live without it again. It's like it was. The three point shot was disregarded for a long time as just sort of

[David]

a luxury, a wireless charging.

[Alex]

Right. And then it became.

[Andrew]

I love three pointers.

[Alex]

Yeah. And then, and then, and then suddenly teams came around on it and they said, wait, three is greater than two. Why don't we shoot more of these wires?

[Andrew]

No, wire is better than wire. I don't get how people can't figure that out.

[Alex]

Right. And then, and then teams just became. Now it's like you can't live without it. It's. It's the feature.

[David]

Wireless charging.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

I've. Oh, are you still going to talk about points? Because I have two questions about points I could do.

[Alex]

Do you want me to give the nerdy math that is defined the NBA for the last 10 years?

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I want to make your guys eyes glaze over real quick.

[David]

I'm ready.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Alex]

All right.

[Andrew]

So accomplished.

[Alex]

Glaze. All right. So the three point shot used to be a luxury in the NBA. In the NBA it was introduced in the 1979-80 season, where before that, any shot on the court was worth only two points.

[David]

What?

[Marques]

Yeah, they used to not.

[Alex]

There was no extra line.

[David]

That's crazy.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Wow. The 80s. So we're 40 years away.

[Alex]

He's Already gone off the rails.

[David]

When I was watching the NBA in

[Alex]

the 90s, there was a three point.

[David]

There was already a three point.

[Alex]

Did you hear when I said that they introduced it? 79, 80 season.

[David]

Yeah. That's crazy. That's so wild.

[Alex]

Okay, okay, so I'll start from the top.

[David]

No, no. All right, all right. Come on.

[Alex]

So the three point shot is longer than a two point shot. There's a line that defines where you do it. And it's worth, as the name implies, three points instead of two points. Right. So teams for decades still ran most of their offense inside the three point line because that was previously what was considered like real basketball or whatever. And that's just what teams were used to.

[David]

Yeah.

[Alex]

But around 2014, 15, Steph Curry's rise with the warriors, and they're getting Steve Kerr as head coach, teams finally did some math and realized that 3 is greater than 2. So explain how this works, percentages wise. Right. So the nerdy math that has basically defined the NBA for the last decade is this. Every possession in the NBA is dictated by the amount of points you can get per possession.

[David]

Right. So what is a possession?

[Alex]

So possession. Each time you hold the ball and bring it down the floor and try to score. Right. A good point per possession number is generally anything over one. If you're scoring 50% of the time on a two point shot, that's one point per possession. Right. So shooting 60% on two point shots has generally been kind of the line considered good for shooting a two point shot. If you shoot 60% of the time, you make it. Yeah, that's considered too good. That's 1.2 points per possession.

[Marques]

Okay.

[Alex]

However, teams finally figured out, wait, if we shoot 40% from three.

[David]

Right.

[Alex]

That's the same as shooting 60% from two. It's all 1.2 points per possession.

[David]

Right, True.

[Alex]

And therefore teams put a huge emphasis on shooting threes about 10 years ago.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And it has completely changed the entire game of basketball.

[David]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And made it more focused on shooting threes instead of twos.

[David]

Would you say that trees are also harder to guard to.

[Alex]

To an extent. It's also changed how defense is.

[Marques]

Yeah, yeah. I think the idea is it's easier to get above 40% from 3 than it is to get above 60% from 2.

[David]

Right.

[Marques]

So people are, if you can get a layup or an easy two, that's great. But those mid range shots that are like a jump shot and someone's guarding you, you might as well step back behind the three point line. 40% of those instead of taking a long two and trying to make 60% of those.

[Alex]

Do you need an explanation of what a jump shot is, by the way?

[David]

Jump and then you shoot it?

[Alex]

Yeah. Okay. It's pretty self explanatory, but I want

[David]

to even have a name for that. Thank you.

[Alex]

Because you could take a set because

[Marques]

a layup, you don't have to jump.

[Alex]

You can also take a set shot. You can take a shot without jumping

[Marques]

right next to the basket. Yeah, you just, you just sort of lay it up.

[Andrew]

That's what layup is where you like so early.

[Alex]

Also, the jumping is part of strategy. Early on you used to have your feet set when you shot. But then people discovered that if you jump and then shoot, you can get your shot even higher up so nobody can block it.

[David]

How long did it take for them to realize that?

[Andrew]

Yeah, basketball seems like they're just discovering the simplest.

[Marques]

This wasn't discovery.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Closer to basket.

[Marques]

This is all in the 60s, like at the beginning.

[Alex]

I think the jump shot came about like the 50s.

[David]

Wait, when about basketball?

[Alex]

Start 1930. Something.

[David]

Okay.

[Alex]

With a peach. A peach basket. What is that, James NASA? A basket that you would collect peaches on.

[David]

I put a basket on a pole.

[Ellis]

1891.

[Alex]

Oh, 1891. Man, I thought it was when I was reading 1891.

[Ellis]

The first game was an 1890 and

[David]

it took them till the 50s to figure out if you jump, it goes higher.

[Alex]

I'm a proxy.

[Andrew]

Three is more than two.

[Marques]

It's not that it took them. It's not that it took them that long to figure it out, but it's like the whole point of like scoring points is you want to be consistent and make it easy. And if you're jumping, that introduces a variable of like, well, if I jump a different height, I gotta compensate for that. And it's difficult. And so a lot of training and a lot of people doing it, eventually they figured out how to jump consistently and make shots. It's the same as the three point line. Like that existed for many, many years. It's not like nobody realized it was worth three, but teams finally got good enough at making that very long 25 foot shot that it finally became worth it. We can finally shoot 40% from three.

[David]

Okay.

[Marques]

So the evolution of the game has pushed slowly, slowly, slowly, incrementally. Better and better. Kind of like the chip getting slightly faster on the iPhone. It's not like we didn't know the faster chip could eventually play this game, but we've been working towards this. Slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly. Generation after generation until it's gotten to where it is today.

[Andrew]

Okay. Okay. Two questions about points.

[Marques]

Yes, points. Points.

[Andrew]

Do you want the short one or the long one first?

[Alex]

Either.

[Andrew]

I guess both at the same time. 1. Basketball players, why do they miss free throws?

[David]

Why do they miss.

[Marques]

I can answer this.

[Andrew]

So much money.

[Marques]

Why? I can answer this.

[Andrew]

It's literally the same thing every time. It's called free.

[David]

It's true.

[Marques]

It should always work.

[Andrew]

It should be a free throw.

[Marques]

Fantastic question.

[David]

I mean, do you hit three for them?

[Marques]

So here's the real answer.

[Andrew]

I'm not getting paid millions.

[Marques]

Here's the real answer. If you watch an NBA player in an empty gym, they basically make every shot they take. I've never seen terrifying, Clarkman. It's kind of terrifying. Like they make basically every shot. Right. When you introduce the variable of the real world, stuff gets a little weird sometimes. There's a crowd behind the basket. They're cheering. There's pressure, there's a score. There's people who are, like, hoping, you know, there's a whole bunch more to it. This is like shipping software with bugs.

[Alex]

Yeah, I was literally about to say bugs, dude.

[Marques]

In theory, it should work 100% of the time. I'm just pressing the button and the software is supposed to do the thing. Of course it should work every single time. It should be free. It should be a layup for these companies. It should work every time.

[Andrew]

That's a really good analogy.

[Marques]

But for some reason, you put it in the real world, and then people get their hands on it, and it's doing stuff that you didn't expect, and it's odd and it's not so much. Yeah, obviously some of it is a skill issue, but it is just the fact that the real world variables sometimes throws you off. It throws some off more than it throws others off.

[David]

It's like, why did the Screenshot tool in iOS 27 just not crop things anymore?

[Marques]

Like, I.

[David]

They couldn't have changed the code where they're like, we're changing the way screenshots work completely. They didn't do that. It's the same as before, but now it just doesn't work.

[Marques]

What happened?

[Alex]

You know, and that's like, free throw. That's like changing your shooting form. Sometimes players, they go, I don't. I don't think the way I'm shooting is proper. And then they change how they shoot, and then it ruins it.

[Andrew]

They drag their liquid glass slider.

[David]

That's crazy.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Yeah. Okay.

[Andrew]

Okay. I really like the bug analogy. My second question. When do I cheer for a point? Because they're.

[Marques]

When so many of them.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I listen, if you have to cheer 50 times a game, you're not sure.

[Marques]

No, that's a val.

[Andrew]

No, I think this is a super.

[Marques]

Comes from a sport where they score once or twice. So you can't.

[Andrew]

This ain't soccer.

[Alex]

The general rule of basketball is you wait. The most important times of the game are the final two minutes of each half.

[Andrew]

So why wouldn't you only show up for the final two minutes?

[Alex]

Because you're a real fan.

[Marques]

So for the whole game, there's a storyline.

[David]

Okay.

[Alex]

So it all adds up.

[Marques]

There are some more important baskets than others. So obviously if you're shipping 100 products in four quarters, not every product is going to get a standing ovation.

[David]

Sure.

[Alex]

But we could do an Apple analogy for this.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Alex]

The bucket that they make in the middle of the third quarter is the polishing cloth.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Nobody needs to.

[Alex]

There might be a dunk. It might be a drink.

[David]

It's really good cloth.

[Marques]

There is going to be some. Some fans that are going to cheer for that for sure. That's fine.

[David]

Worth the $20.

[Alex]

The.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

The.

[Alex]

The buzzer beater at the end of the fourth quarter that wins you the game is the iPhone.

[Marques]

Yeah. You know they're going to ship this iPhone and it's going to push them over the edge. And the iPhone ultra now are the best.

[David]

They.

[Marques]

They cheer a lot of M1 chip maybe that.

[Ellis]

I have another analogy here.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Ellis]

So staying for all of the points is kind of like going to see these developer conferences at IO so you can see what's coming down. Like if you're there in the middle of a game and your team makes a bucket that is like they haven't scored in so long, but then they finally make a bucket, you can feel the momentum shift and you can be like, okay, this team is now gonna from this point forward do well. And that's kind of like these developer conferences. You go to the developer conference and you can see where the company's vision is going. Okay, wait, they're onto something here. And those are the like points in the middle that don't really matter.

[Andrew]

Quote unquote is like that's like the filler episodes in Anime Me. Sure, sure. It like it means something to the story. But you can probably just watch the important.

[Ellis]

It's like the bonus episodes on the way form podcast.

[Andrew]

I was going to say.

[Alex]

Oh my God, this is like Inception. Now we're on a Bonus episode.

[Marques]

I just felt the momentum shift.

[Andrew]

I think.

[David]

You know how on the Waveform podcast when they do the bonus episodes, like they're not really that important to the story but.

[Marques]

But the fans stay and they change.

[Alex]

This is a filler. They know where we're going as a filler episode. This is the most anime filler episode of all waveform episodes.

[David]

This is our crossover, dude. This is our crossover.

[Ellis]

Okay.

[Alex]

This is the baseball episode of Dragon Ball super right now.

[Marques]

I like the draft because this is a really interesting one. It's unique. The basketball draft. The draft, yes. It's unique to sports. There is no equivalent for this in the tech world. So I'm going to give you a what if that might keep it interesting because we have these tech companies operating, competing against each other and you know, capitalism is supposed to say that the best products and the best ones win in sports. If we leave it like that for too long, you're gonna get teams that are just so far ahead of other teams that the other especially newer franchises will never get any chance to catch up. Yeah. So here's what we do after every year, every season we have a draft. And the team that was the worst this past year gets the first pick in the draft. Roughly. This isn't exact science, but they get the highest picks in the draft and the teams that were really, really, really good. Okay. You don't need a bunch more talent. So get the last picks in the draft.

[David]

Okay, so how.

[Marques]

And the draft is drafting among this brand new upcoming talent from college, similar to tech companies.

[David]

Okay.

[Andrew]

So when they hit 18.

[David]

Right.

[Marques]

Basically. So here's a what if for you. Imagine if the least successful tech companies the last year got the most, the highest picks of all, the best college talent going to them. And the most successful teams, the best tech companies in the world didn't get any of that talent. Yeah, they have to pick the scraps from who's left.

[Alex]

Just pretend for a minute that money doesn't exist.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's almost the exact opposite. This will keep it even of what tech does because when you graduate college at like top year class, you're probably going to be poached by the biggest and you're going to want to pick the biggest company because you'll make the most money and go to the thing that's already doing really well. So it's the opposite. I guess if college players didn't have a draft, they would leave college and be like, oh, the team that just won the championship wants me. I'm going to want to play for the team that won the championship.

[Alex]

Maybe this is how we bust up big tech. We institute a draft, and then the lesser companies will become better.

[Marques]

It's more easy to see in sports because the teams are smaller and one high talent can have a big impact on winning. But if you imagine essentially the draft from college, upcoming talent in that way, in tech, it would be like if the best companies who are the most successful, made the most money, do not have access to the best talent. They have to do it again next

[Alex]

year with their same talent.

[Andrew]

Best guy out of Stanford's like, I have to go work for Humane.

[David]

Ouch.

[Marques]

But sometimes what happens is all of that talent goes to Humane, and then Humane has a great.

[Alex]

And then Humane figures it out.

[David]

And then HP makes a printer that

[Marques]

can work, and you're like, wow. See, we have all this competition. It's an even playing field thing again.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Marques]

So people like that in the sports world. We really like that. It keeps it even and interesting. The worst teams get way better.

[David]

Yeah. I mean, it would be cool if, like, you know, instead of Apple having 40% of the RAM supply every single year, if suddenly that went to, like, an up and coming company.

[Alex]

Oh, man. Yeah. Maybe that's the way we do the draft.

[Marques]

We.

[Alex]

We make it RAM supply.

[Andrew]

That almost feels like Formula one in terms of, like, wind tunnel time, where, like, the worst teams get more tunnel time.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

To, like, develop their car.

[Marques]

I mean, it's sports still, but. Yeah, exactly.

[David]

Okay. I like. What do they call that in Dota? That's a balance patch, basically.

[Andrew]

Oh, balance.

[Marques]

Balance patch.

[Andrew]

Man. If tech had balance patches, you know,

[Marques]

you know the physics. I don't know how real this is, but you know the, like, video game slingshot physics where if you're in last place in Mario Kart, you get all the better power ups.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marques]

It's like that.

[David]

Yeah. Okay.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[David]

Socialism.

[Marques]

Yeah. So if the team. If you're in last place, here's a. Here's a weird thing.

[David]

Okay.

[Marques]

And this is. This is kind of a problem in the NBA and in sports. Sometimes someone will intentionally go to last place in Mario Kart to get the better power ups, because they know that that's going to get them back to totally.

[Alex]

That's a. I don't know why right

[David]

now,

[Andrew]

explaining it to, like, your child.

[David]

Do they do this in basketball?

[Andrew]

Dude.

[Marques]

Yeah, they do this in basketball. They will intentionally.

[Alex]

They'll do what's called tanking. Yeah, you tank your.

[David]

Shouldn't that be against the rules?

[Alex]

It should. And they're and they just instituted new rules to stop it.

[Andrew]

Wait, what is it? The PWHL has an awesome rule for this, actually.

[Alex]

Okay. Without getting too into the weeds on it, basically. What the. So the NBA has a lottery at the end of the season. Typically, if you're worse, you get a higher chance of getting the number one overall pick. What they're now doing is they're flattening those odds, so they're making it so that the worst teams actually only get, like. Instead of. It used to be like, a 25% chance against the number one pick. Now you have only like a 10% chance. And then the teams in the middle get a slightly better amount. And then the teams actually that barely miss the playoffs now get, like, an 8% chance of getting the number one pick.

[Marques]

So what's that power up in Mario Kart where you just get, like, the black thing, the bullet thing?

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marques]

And you just soar across everything. That's like the number one pick in the draft. It's not a guarantee, but the number one pick in the draft is going to be immensely talented and push you

[Andrew]

from the no to like, the middle

[David]

of the dramatic, at least to like.

[Marques]

So there will be a team slash, Mario Kart player.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

With more than enough talent and skill to come in second or third place. But they see that they're not going to win, so they just hit the brakes and go all the way to last place. They pick up the bullet, and then they go all the way back to second or first, and you're like. Like, that's just.

[Alex]

So your reaction is the general public's reaction to tanking in the NBA. So, yeah, you nailed it.

[David]

It took them this many years to make that against the rules.

[Alex]

They tried to.

[Marques]

It's actually hard to. To force. So initially, it was literally like, if you are the last place team, you are the first pick in the draft. Right. Then it was like, okay, I will literally lose all of my games because I want to be the first pick of the draft. They're like, okay, okay, okay, okay. If you are in the bottom five, then we'll have this little lottery system and you'll get more of a chance of last of first pick. But you're not going to guarantee first pick.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

And it's still a pretty good chance of first pick if you're in last place. So the teams are still trying to get last place. They're like, all right.

[David]

Has there ever been a circumstance where multiple teams are trying to tank literally this year, and nobody could win because Everyone was trying to lose.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Is that what the Sixers did, or are they.

[Alex]

They did last year. Yeah. The Sixers tanked last year.

[David]

And Ellis is a fan of these.

[Marques]

Yeah, well, he's watching, you know, is

[Andrew]

on his plane back from vacation listening to this.

[Marques]

It's kind of funny because kind of like, in tech and in a lot of other things, the worst thing to do is be, like, in purgatory in the mid.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

You want to be winning franchise, top of your game, in your prime, like, unbeatable.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Or just bankrupt. Wipe it. Start it over. Right. Because if you're in purgatory, like petering, and you can't really do anything about

[Alex]

it, like OnePlus, the draft is like a government bailout.

[Marques]

Like, you don't want to be a mid team forever. So a good draft pick could finally change that for you. So a mid team will tank to try to get a good draft pick.

[David]

They penalize you if you. If they catch you tanking.

[Alex]

Allegedly. Allegedly. But it's. Yeah. It's like, hey, billionaire owner, that wasn't great. It was a $50,000 fine. It's like, oh, okay, whatever this might

[Andrew]

be, we're going further from tech. But I just want to explain to you guys what the Women's Hockey League is doing. They do something called the Gold Plan. Well, once you are mathematically eliminated, then your wins start accumulating points towards the draft pick. And then. So every time a team gets eliminated, every win they get after that gets them closer.

[David]

That's so smart.

[Andrew]

So it, like, incentivizes you to win.

[David]

Why don't they do that in basket?

[Andrew]

Wow.

[Alex]

Take no Adam Silver. Come on, man.

[Marques]

Specifically. Good. Because a lot of late season games are boring, are mathematically irrelevant. It'll be like, oh, we've scheduled this out from the beginning of the season, but it turns out this Charlotte Hornets vs. Chicago Bulls game is two teams that are already mathematically eliminated and have no reason to win. And so they sit all of their best players and people will go to the game and pay and show up and get to watch horrible basketball.

[Andrew]

Or not show up at all. And the arena's empty, and it's just a pain.

[Marques]

So that would make those games interest.

[Ellis]

Watch.

[Marques]

Because those. Those are used.

[David]

Yeah. Because then they might get a draft pick. None of the statisticians.

[Marques]

That's a really good idea. Shout out to that league. That's awesome. Yeah.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Cool.

[Marques]

Cool.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Marques]

Should we take a break? We've gone way into that.

[Andrew]

I assumed you were putting a break in there somewhere.

[Marques]

Here is a natural spot for a break. Okay, we'll be right back.

[Alex]

When I scraped my car in that parking garage, I was worried that it could be a long process to take care of it. Like a landscaper's first day trim a hedge maze.

[Marques]

I have definitely already been here.

[Alex]

Now, was it left, right or right?

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Left.

[Marques]

Well, maybe I'll cut a path out

[Alex]

and find my way back later. But it wasn't like that. I filed a claim in under two minutes on the Geico app and they handled it from there. It was taken care of almost as quickly as it happened. It feels good to get help quick. It feels good to Geico.

[Andrew]

Whoa.

[Marques]

Okay, this one says you get a free phone if you switch. Hey, this one also says you get a free phone if you switch.

[David]

Yeah, they all do.

[Marques]

Hun.

[Ellis]

Huh?

[Marques]

The T Mobile one says their customers had the lowest wireless bills versus the other big guys over the past five years. And their latest experience plans have Netflix included, plus a year of dash pass by DoorDash. Hang on, let me see that. Oh, yeah, we're switching. That's what I'm talking about.

[Alex]

Do we clap now or AT T Mobile? Get savings that keep stacking up. That's value you can feel every day. And right now, bring your phone to T Mobile and we'll give you $400 when you switch.

[Marques]

Savings based on Harris X billing snapshots from Q3 2021 to Q4 2025 compared to average AT&T and Verizon bills. Comparison includes discounts, credits and optional charges. 400 with new account on qualifying line. Unlock device credit ported 90 plus days with device and carrier and timely redemption required. Virtual MasterCard typically takes 14 weeks. No cash access and expires in six months. Card issued by Sunrise Banks and a member [e-mail] and we're live from the living room as Doug eyes up the match. Say spread. He's reaching for the buffalo wing.

[Ellis]

Perfect.

[Andrew]

Hang on. What's this?

[Marques]

Oh, he's gone for a can of Pepsi too. Incredible. What a finish. Sensational combination. Look at the delight on his face. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi.

[Andrew]

Food, dessert.

[Marques]

Grab a pack of Pepsi. Zero sugar for today's match. It's poetry in motion.

[David]

Welcome back. I have a question. What does the coach do?

[Marques]

Yes.

[David]

Okay, so like, you know Mike Brown, you know, he's the Knicks coach. He coached the Sacramento Kings before this.

[Ellis]

Yes.

[David]

Got booted off the Sacramento Kings.

[Marques]

Wow.

[David]

Ball.

[Marques]

Ball knowledge.

[David]

Just saying.

[Alex]

You know how many teams he's been fired from, like, half a dozen. It's crazy.

[David]

And it's because coaching and stupid.

[Marques]

There has to be. I think there's a tech analogy for that, too. The top teams, like, trade tech.

[Andrew]

Just every employee of a major tech company, look at their LinkedIn. They look like a coach in the

[Alex]

NBA that goes somewhere else. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Tesla, Apple, Google.

[David]

Because my question about the coach is, like, you know, they, like, call timeouts and then they talk to the players. But, like, what are they talking to them about? Like, how does this work? Yeah.

[Marques]

So the coach knows the range of talents of the players really well. And before every game, they do the hard work of looking at what the other team is really, and how their team compares and what they should do to beat the other team. So the players, they come to the table with their skills and they're like, yeah, I'm a dunk it. And they're like, all right, you're good at dunking it. I'm going to put you in positions where you get a lot of dunks. Okay. But if you're playing against a team that's really good at defending dunks, they're like, all right, you're going to get rebounds and pass it out to the shooter. Because they're bad at defending shooters. So they're the brains orchestrating what the players are doing. In theory, yeah.

[Alex]

I mean, if we're talking about, like. Like a technology. If we go to the hardware side, they're like the logic board or whatever

[Ellis]

it is you with a bunch of agents who have the orchestrator, all the

[Andrew]

players think they're building this incredible thing, but they need the person from outside to wrangle them back in. Right. Like, Snapchat could have used a coach to tell them those glasses are ridiculous.

[Alex]

Yeah. Okay, so the Snapchat CEO in this analogy, who clearly is the one that thought those were a good idea.

[David]

Well, I don't know about that.

[Alex]

I think you have to wear them. It seems like it. I don't know. But. So whoever the person was that was pushing for the Snapchat spectacles the most.

[David]

Yeah, specs.

[Alex]

The specs. That person is like a basketball player that needs to be wrangled in and needs to be told you're shooting too much and you're not making your shots.

[David]

Yeah.

[Alex]

So we're gonna bench you.

[David]

Okay.

[Alex]

So that's the purpose of a coach,

[David]

is that's like the board.

[Alex]

Sure.

[David]

Maybe because the board can, like, switch out.

[Alex]

Can kibosh.

[David]

It can switch out the CEO if they're not doing a good job.

[Alex]

Yeah, kind of.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Alex]

This is not a pure one to one, because there's also some way to say that, like, the coach could be the coach and the assistant coaches could be like a CEO, CEO, cmo, that sort of thing.

[David]

There's an assistant coach, too.

[Alex]

There's like multiple assistants.

[David]

What are they?

[Alex]

Mike Brown, famously this year was very collaborative. That was part of why they hired him. He was very open to listening to his assistant coaches that focus on different, you know, areas of the game. So in pure basketball terms, the Knicks had like an assistant that was more focused on the offense. They had an assistant that was more focused on the defense.

[David]

Okay.

[Alex]

They had another guy that would sit on the second row that literally his whole job was, should we review this play or not? Because you get to challenge plays if you think that the referees got the call wrong.

[David]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And the Knicks had a super high conversion rate on successful challenges of bad calls.

[Marques]

That's like the legal team.

[Alex]

That's like their legal team.

[Marques]

Should we appeal this lawsuit?

[Alex]

Yeah, it's like, is the lawsuit worth pursuing? Yes or no? That's basically, they have an assistant that's like that. That's like their legal counsel.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Okay. But yeah, the coach makes decisions that it leads to the overall success and cycles people in and out. So a board is probably a good thing. You know, brings in turnover, has some churn, you know, to make sure that things stay fresh. Manages egos. Yes.

[Marques]

Players doing pretty well, but kind of getting tired. Hey, I know you're good, but you're getting tired. Let me put the bench player on.

[Alex]

Okay. They also set the roadmap in a way, because. So, for example, the Knicks this year played a style of defense under their old coach where you would try to force people to the perimeter to try to get them away from the inside of the.

[David]

So that they could get more two pointers. Cause Jalen Brunson's good at two pointers.

[Alex]

Well, so this. I'm talking about what they would do on defense. So the Knicks would try to make the other team not get to the inside for each.

[Marques]

Right.

[David]

Oh, I see.

[Alex]

And then the Knicks, during their worst stretch this year, tried something new and said, what if we defended the perimeter a lot, the three point shot, and let teams get to the inside. And then teams were just getting layups left and right, and it was not pretty. So then they switched their scheme back.

[David]

Okay.

[Marques]

They didn't push outside like a Wemby.

[Alex]

Yeah, right.

[Marques]

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

Alex just broke a little bit.

[Marques]

The spurs they didn't have anyone to

[Alex]

flagrant foul the other team.

[Marques]

Yeah, the spurs, you might know, have a player who's 7 foot 6 with really long arms called Victor Wembanyama. Defensive player of the year. Defensive player of the year. And so their entire defensive strategy, if you were smart, the coaches would go, hey, really close out on anyone trying to shoot a three pointer, make them stop, pump fake and try to dribble and drive for a two, because we've got an alien in there who will just block everything.

[David]

Is it pump fake where you pretend to shoot and then you don't?

[Ellis]

Yeah. Yes.

[David]

Yeah. Steph Curry does that a lot.

[Alex]

Yes, he's very good at it.

[Marques]

It's like when you're about to ship a product and then you don't like air power.

[Alex]

It's like head fake.

[Andrew]

Like the Street Life Manifesto album we're releasing. Just kidding. Let's go.

[Alex]

You got pump fakes, bro?

[David]

Yeah,

[Alex]

David just broke inside.

[David]

Okay. Okay. Speaking of gta. Gta.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah, Rocks are. They are the best at pump face.

[David]

That's true.

[Alex]

Look at this trailer.

[Andrew]

Look at this trailer.

[David]

You mentioned, you mentioned the, the ref.

[Alex]

Yes.

[David]

So I went to a basketball game with you.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[David]

Well, no, we watched it.

[Alex]

We watched it on tv.

[David]

On tv.

[Alex]

I yelled at the refs a lot. I lost my voice.

[David]

So there were multiple points in the game where the ref would come out and he would talk about the type of foul. So can you explain the types of fouls that exist?

[Alex]

Yeah. Wow. It's so good. That's literally the next thing on the document.

[Marques]

Oh, nice.

[Alex]

Are you sure you didn't read this?

[David]

I'm not in the doc.

[Alex]

That's crazy.

[Marques]

There's two types of fouls.

[Alex]

All right? So there's, there's different types of fouls and violations. Yeah. So we'll start with just a foul. Okay, so a foul is when a player prevents another player from taking and or making a shot.

[David]

Isn't that what you're supposed to do?

[Marques]

Well, we should start with the fucking basketballity of it. Basketball is a non contact sport.

[Alex]

Yes.

[David]

Oh.

[Marques]

So in the basic sense, you can guard, but you can't make too much contact. And that would be a foul.

[David]

Unless you're Victor Wembioma.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Marques]

If you make too much contact, it's a foul. The referees are the ones who decide how much contact is too much contact.

[Alex]

And the thing is, especially with shooting, you're allowed to affect them however you can without touching their body while they're shooting. Unless you're Victor. Wembiama Unless you're Victor Wembiama. Yeah. So unless you're Victor Wembanyama. Anyway, but so the basic rule of fouling is if someone is trying to shoot, you can do whatever you can without touching their arms. You can also touch the ball. That's legal. And if you just touch the ball, that's called all ball. You hit the ball, that's a block.

[Ellis]

All ball.

[Marques]

Nice block.

[Alex]

Yes, a nice block.

[David]

The block.

[Alex]

Right. But if you hit their arm, then you're affecting their ability to shoot, and that's a foul.

[David]

Okay.

[Alex]

Right.

[Andrew]

I feel like it's got to be more than just your arms, because if I just punch someone in the gut.

[Alex]

Well, now that also I'm trying to make it as simple as I can. But yes, if you do anything that's a Wemby foul, it's any level of

[Marques]

contact with the player. Yeah, yeah. Like breaking their ACL while they're shooting,

[Alex]

while they're dribbling intentionally, anything.

[Marques]

It's obviously more important to not foul when they're shooting because if you foul someone while they're shooting, then they go to the free throw line to make up for it.

[David]

Okay.

[Marques]

So if I go to take a shot and you don't foul and I make it great if I miss. Oh, well. But if I go to take a shot and you foul me now, I can go take those two free throws because I probably would have made it if you didn't foul me.

[Andrew]

So if you think someone's got a lot of bugs, foul them because they suck at free throws.

[Alex]

You can also think of this a bit like a data breach where a company goes, whoopsie, we accidentally gave your credit card information away. You can join a class action suit and get $5 from us now. And that's your free throw.

[Andrew]

That's why I told you one point.

[Alex]

So.

[Marques]

Yeah, right. Yeah, one point. Yeah, one point.

[David]

Okay, yeah.

[Andrew]

$5.

[Marques]

One point.

[Alex]

Yeah, $5. Each point in the NBA is worth $5.

[Marques]

Now, the thing, the thing that you're talking about, which is the referee going to the table and figuring out what type of foul it is.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Is if you foul someone so hard and so egregiously, you break the rules so hard, it is more than a normal foul, then they'll penalize you even more than just free throws. So if someone goes to shoot or whatever and I punch you in the chest or whatever. Andrew said, yeah.

[Alex]

If you do what wemmy would do,

[Marques]

that average play, that would be called not just a common foul, but that's a flagrant foul. And there's actually flagrant foul, level one or level two. There's two. The penalty is worse. A flagrant foul, level one is free throws. And you get the ball again.

[David]

Oh, you get to start with the

[Alex]

ball after the ball. And a flagrant foul, level two is free throws and the ball again. And the player that committed it gets immediately tossed from the game.

[David]

For the rest of the game.

[Alex]

For the rest of the game.

[Ellis]

It's a red card, baby.

[Alex]

It's a red card.

[Andrew]

But you're allowed to have a player sub in for them right on the court.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Red cards, you lose.

[Alex]

Red card, you lose the player spot.

[Andrew]

Wait, hey, Adam, have you ever watched soccer before? That's weird.

[Ellis]

It's called football, actually.

[David]

Wait, so. So if you. What do you have to do to get a red card?

[Marques]

That would be flagrant level two.

[Alex]

Flagrant, level two.

[Marques]

So sometimes you just have one less

[David]

player the whole game?

[Alex]

No, no, no, not in basketball. That's only for soccer. Soccer, you do lose a player for the whole game.

[Marques]

Right. So sometimes there's some super heavy level of contact and the player falls over, it looks like he's hurt. And they called it a regular foul, but they're like, well, actually, maybe that was a lot. So they'll go and review it, look at the replay, and decide we're going to upgrade that or not to a flagrant.

[Alex]

A large part of flagrant fouling, too, is that they determined that it was not a basketball play, that it was just with the intent of hurting someone, basically.

[Marques]

So the tech equivalent would be like, see, it's a little different in tech again, but there are rules.

[David]

There are laws.

[Marques]

There are laws, There are laws. There you go. And these companies are supposed to follow these laws, but sometimes they will do things that are against the rules and they should be penalized for it. And that will come in the form of, like, you broke the law, now we're going to sue you. You'll get sued. Yeah.

[David]

And BMW cheating on gas emissions, for example.

[Marques]

That might even be considered a flagrant foul. Sometimes the things that they do are so obviously cheating and so obviously against the rules that they get penalized above and beyond almost to make an example of them. Yeah, this happens all the time in tech with companies. That would be like a flagrant foul.

[David]

Yeah. Okay.

[Marques]

It should really affect you.

[David]

So, physically, what's the difference between flagrant foul level one and level two?

[Marques]

Often it's just intent or follow through. They'll say things like wind up, impact and follow through or excessive.

[Alex]

It actually, it actually carries sort of a similar thing to like manslaughter versus murder.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Alex]

It's like, were you just reckless or did you have malice at forethought about what you were going to do?

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Marques]

Did you put a. Did you. Was there a bug in the software or did you put a tracker in the software?

[David]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

When Motorola had the affiliate, was that

[David]

a whoopsie or was that. We're trying to make a lot of money.

[Marques]

Exactly.

[David]

Okay.

[Marques]

And so that. That is the tech equivalent.

[David]

Okay. So you.

[Marques]

In theory, the teams play by the rules the whole time, but it's competition. Like, they're going to be pushing the rules, they're going to be pushing the limits all the time. Fouls are expected to happen. We would hope that the referees accurately set the line in the same place every time so that the players know exactly how aggressive they can be. Sometimes they don't. And then. Refs, you suck. Is one of the chants that sports fans will say because they don't get it right every time.

[David]

And am I correct that if you get three flagrant fouls in a season, you get kicked off for the rest of the season?

[Marques]

No, there's a couple of rules around fouls. If one player fouls six times in one game, Regular foul, Regular foul. Six regular fouls in one game, they're out for the rest of the game.

[David]

Okay.

[Marques]

Yet that's the limit for regular fouls.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Marques]

If one player has two flagrant penalty ones.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

They're ejected for the rest of the game.

[Alex]

For the rest of the game.

[Marques]

If a player has a single flagrant penalty, two, they're rejected for the rest.

[Alex]

But the other thing that I was explaining. I know that. I know why you're asking this, because I explained this to you the other day.

[Marques]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alex]

But basically in the postseason especially, there's. You get a certain number of points.

[David]

What's the postseason?

[Alex]

The postseason is the playoffs.

[Marques]

That's like September, October, after the regular

[Alex]

season is done, then you play for the championship. That's called the postseason.

[Ellis]

Yeah.

[David]

You're gonna have to explain this.

[Ellis]

That's busy season.

[Alex]

Yeah, it's busy season.

[Ellis]

When we have our iPhone events.

[Marques]

That's our playoffs.

[Alex]

Our playoffs. Which is our analogy from. You'll watch it. But yeah. So basically in the post season, during the most important games, during the playoffs.

[David]

So the postseason is the playoffs.

[Alex]

It's the playoffs. Those are.

[David]

Yeah, there's playoffs are when the Eastern

[Alex]

Conference and the Western Conference compete against each other. And then the winner of each conference Faces each other in the finals, which is why the Knicks just face the Spurs.

[Andrew]

And all the points you get in the regular season, only some teams make it to the playoffs.

[Ellis]

Yes.

[Andrew]

So in the regular season, you're trying to make it to the playoffs, then matching happens, and then you're slowly working,

[Alex]

and then you all play each other and then figure out who the true best team is.

[David]

Okay,

[Alex]

So as it relates to fouls in the postseason, the playoffs synonyms, if you get a certain number of flagrant fouls in the postseason, then you get suspended for an additional game. So Wemby should have been suspended for an additional game against the Knicks because he committed numerous flagrant fouls that they didn't call, but we'll call him. Like, OpenAI. They get to steal your data, train their models on stuff illegally, and yet somehow there's just a government blind eye to it and they never really get penalized.

[Marques]

He'll get over the number of flagrant fouls.

[David]

Well, he should have.

[Alex]

He should have had a number of more flagrant fouls.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it was like. OpenAI. Did you flagrant fouls steal all those videos from what.

[Alex]

So the play where he shot shove Brunson into the ground was a basketball play is what you're telling me?

[Marques]

This was a referee issue that you have?

[Alex]

Yes, it's a referee issue. It's a regulatory issue.

[Marques]

If you are. This is. And we'll get into fandoms in a second. If you are a fan of one of these tech companies, slash teams, then you may interpret. You may interpret the lawsuits that hit them a little bit differently than if you are not.

[David]

Oh, I see.

[Alex]

That's all I'm saying is your dad and I are fans of the same tech company in this analogy, so speak carefully, pal.

[Marques]

I'm just saying there are a lot of people who are especially like. I try to consider myself neutral. I don't have a horse in the race. I've seen lots of fouls that I would think are flagrants that don't get calls from both teams, but that's up to the refs. So the referees are humans instead of machines. And so they almost act like a hand on the scale a little bit sometimes where it can feel like they're being paid off. Certain referees are. Are almost like, only judging one way. They're only enforcing the rules for one company. And like the other series, yeah, it feels kind of weird. There's famously a couple Knicks pilled, so. Dude, there's famously a referee.

[Alex]

David's a bigger Knicks fan than Me at this point. It's crazy.

[Marques]

There's famously a referee. I'm trying to remember the stat, but Chris Paul is like, oh, for 12 against Scott Foster or something. Like every time this one referee has refereed this one player in a playoffs game, he has lost. Similar to every time this one judge judges this one company in a lawsuit, they lose every time. And it's like, okay, they're a judge, they're supposed to be impartial, but they're not. And every case should be unique. But damn, 0 and 12 against this judge. This seems kind of like a vendetta at this point.

[David]

Have they ever charged any of the

[Alex]

refs for like, oh, famously a ref in the 2000s was busted for betting on games and fixing games.

[David]

That's probably happened more now, right?

[Andrew]

It's gonna probably start happening way more actually in coffee Zillow. It's not refs, but yeah, players are like doing stuff like this because there

[David]

were players that were like talking about betting websites.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Marques]

There was promotion.

[Andrew]

There's some who are like, I'm gonna go out in the first quarter with like a foot injury. So yeah, bet that I'm.

[Alex]

That happened. There was an NBA player within the last couple years that got banned for life for doing that. He was a very low level player and he would, he would. He had. He had a discord group all things funny and would put. He would be like, guys, bet the under on my rebounds today. He's like, I'm gonna. He's like, I'm gonna check in for 30 seconds and then say my tummy hurts and sell myself out.

[Marques]

That's insane.

[David]

He put that in writing.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

There's a good coffee Zillow in a discord, dude.

[David]

Stupid.

[Alex]

Crazy.

[David]

That's so stupid.

[Marques]

So anyway, yeah, we hope for the refs to be just like judges, impartial, but they're not. That is interpreted very much based on where you are. If you're maybe working for one of companies.

[Alex]

I do feel like we should. This is going so long already. I feel like we should start moving. But I have one other violation I want to highlight because I'm so proud of my analogy.

[Ellis]

Okay.

[Alex]

Okay. So there's a thing called a shot clock violation.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Alex]

Have you noticed when you're watching basketball, David, since you're a huge basketball fan now, every. Every time the team gets the ball, there's 24 seconds, it starts.

[David]

I didn't know it was 24, but I've seen the clock go down.

[Alex]

So there's. When you get the ball when you're on offense, when you're trying to score the ball, you have 24 seconds to take a shot that at minimum hits the rim. Him.

[David]

Right.

[Alex]

That's the. That's what resets the shot clock each time. That's a 24 to 24. Or if you get your rebound and

[David]

resets it to 14 seconds every time you have the ball, every time you pretty much try to hit.

[Marques]

For simplicity. Yes.

[Alex]

For simplicity.

[Ellis]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And it's four if you're ahead. So you don't just keep playing keep away.

[Marques]

Four seconds.

[Andrew]

No, no. Like if you're the team that is winning.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Then you can't just play keep away. Yeah.

[Alex]

You can't just hold the ball forever.

[David]

And if you don't do it, they just give it to the other team.

[Alex]

Yes. So that's. You nailed it. That's what I was about to explain. So if you go 24 seconds and you don't shoot, then you give the ball to the other team. You've turned the ball over.

[David]

That's called the turnover.

[Alex]

Right. So my analogy for this, that I think looking through this is my favorite one. Apple has committed a 24 second violation with Apple Intelligence. They said they were gonna release it and they took way too long to release it and now they have been forced to hand the ball over to Google Gemini.

[Andrew]

Wow.

[Marques]

Oh, that's good. Wow, that is good.

[Alex]

Shock violation on Apple because it.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Streetlight needs a shot clock violation.

[Marques]

Rockstar. Rockstar is committed numerous 24 second violations.

[Andrew]

I could do the Rockstar one and our audience would love it.

[Alex]

But Streetlight street light hurts David more.

[David]

There have been at least two comments about my street light manifestation.

[Andrew]

Well, those two people, if they made it this far, are very street.

[Alex]

Streetlight Manifesto hurts David more.

[Marques]

What's the shot clock violation on the roadster?

[Alex]

That's also a shock.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Tesla has committed a shot clock violation.

[Alex]

I think they committed about. I think they committed about five in a row. Yeah.

[David]

Okay. I have one question.

[Alex]

Yes.

[David]

At least. So you know there were a couple instances during this series where the ball was like over the hoop and then a guy knocked it over and he got in trouble for knocking it off.

[Andrew]

Off. I know.

[Marques]

Why do you get in trouble for that?

[Andrew]

I know the term explain goaltending, correct?

[Marques]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Goaltending is it once the ball is on the trajectory down, you are then not allowed to stop the ball.

[Alex]

Yeah. Why so?

[Andrew]

Because players could just reach over the net every time.

[Marques]

They're so tall they could just jump

[Ellis]

up and knock it over.

[Andrew]

So you could just.

[David]

Okay. Is that considered like a foul type thing?

[Alex]

It counts as a made shot.

[Marques]

Breaking the rule.

[Andrew]

Oh, it counts as a made shot.

[Marques]

Yeah. Yeah. So if a player goes to shoot it and it goes up and starts coming down towards the basket and you reach up, up and hit it when it's supposed to give it a chance to go, to go in.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

That is a breaking the rules violation.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

They will count that as a mage shot. They'll count that as a ship. They give them the point, you get

[Alex]

the full two points or three points.

[Marques]

So you really don't want to commit that violation because you just give them a shipped product.

[David]

So. But if you hit it out of the way while it's heading towards the apex of the parabola, then that's fine.

[Alex]

That's a block.

[Andrew]

That's cool.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Similarly, if the ball is NBA specific, bounces off the rim and is still over the rim, like in the cylinder of the rim, you're not allowed to touch it.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Marques]

Until it leaves.

[Alex]

And actually in international basketball, you are allowed to, which is interesting.

[Marques]

That's a weird.

[Alex]

It's such a weird discrepancy of how basketball is played around the world. Yeah, that's the EU. Oh my God.

[David]

This is.

[Alex]

That's USB C on iPhones is being

[David]

able to hit it off.

[Alex]

But then sometimes the rules from international come back to the NBA. They have not. They have not adjusted.

[Marques]

I think it's more like in the eu there's different power plugs.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Marques]

So like every power plug here in the US we kind of know is basically the two prong or the three prong. And then you go to Europe and it's like, oh, that's kind of still a two prong, but it's a little different. Like they have a slightly different rule set, right? Yeah, but it's mostly the same.

[Alex]

And there is. We're not even really getting into this, but there's robust other forms of basketball in college basketball, international basketball, multiple international leagues around the world. And in many of the leagues it's played, oh, so slightly different.

[Marques]

Okay. We're mostly doing NBA rules here.

[Alex]

Yeah. But NBA rules is where we're sticking

[Marques]

to that is goaltending that you speak goaltending.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Marques]

I don't know if there's a tech equivalent of goaltending. Like the 24 second violation is pretty obvious, but fouls are pretty obvious. But I think goaltending is just another like breaking the rules thing where it's pretty clear, the referee can see it, you will get sued.

[David]

You Will, is there anything else small like that that you're not allowed to do?

[Marques]

Yeah, there's little things. You're not allowed to kick the ball. If your foot makes contact with the ball, it's a kickball violation.

[Alex]

You're not allowed to stop dribbling and then start dribbling again or move without dribbling. That's either travel or a double dribble.

[Ellis]

Unless you're OG and an og.

[Alex]

Yeah. De' Aaron Fox got to double dribble right in the middle of a finals game. And they didn't call it for some reason.

[David]

You see on the Spurs.

[Andrew]

Uh huh.

[Marques]

All right. Now you guys understand the game. We'll talk about some lore after the break. We'll be right back.

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[Marques]

All right, welcome back. I think now we've basically covered the rules and violations of the game enough that the last thing we should do is fill you in on some of the lore that got us to this point in the modern NBA. And there's so many things we could talk about, but I think the ones that have the best tech equivalents are the ones that we should give you guys. I'm gonna start with one of my favorite LeBron James. Have you heard of LeBron James?

[David]

I know that guy.

[Ellis]

Yeah.

[David]

Great. They call him the King.

[Marques]

Do you know how old he is?

[David]

45.

[Marques]

He's more or less. He's over 40.

[Alex]

You nailed it.

[Marques]

He is still to this day at 41, one of the top 20 best players on the planet. I would say.

[David]

That's crazy.

[Marques]

That is crazy because he came in as a rookie in. I'm gonna get this wrong. 2000-2007-2003-2003.

[Alex]

He was drafted first pick of the 2003 NBA Draft.

[Marques]

So LeBron James, straight from high school.

[Andrew]

I was in high school.

[Marques]

Straight from high school with the longevity of his career and being one of the best is essentially like the iPhone came out a really long time ago, was one of the best. And many others competitively have come and gone since then. And maybe at certain peaks could have been considered slightly better than him, but he was always one of the best. And here we are two decades later, still one of the best. A lot of this competition bankrupt, totally gone. LG HTC Essential come and gone. IPhones still around. Nokia and come back and probably gone again.

[Alex]

BlackBerry, bro. Blackberries were big.

[David]

So why didn't he win the championship?

[Marques]

So he is. I mean, it's a team sport, so you can't win every year by yourself. But he is from an era where when he first came around, there were like these big dynasties of teams of the past. Almost all of the players that were actually. Sorry. Every single player that was active when he was drafted has retired.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Marques]

Every single one.

[David]

Has Yao Ming retired?

[Marques]

Yao Ming has retired.

[Alex]

Long time ago. I loved Yao Ming, though.

[Marques]

And there's. And you know, when you look at that time in the past, it was like, oh, BlackBerry was really big. No key was really big. Samsung was kind of starting to get big. And you look at all the waves of all the things that have happened since then and. And now he's part of the modern NBA and the landscape is totally different. And he's still one of the best. The iPhone. It's kind of insane. His longevity.

[David]

Yeah, okay.

[Marques]

Some people call him a goat. There will always be debates about it, just like the iPhone. But that is LeBron James career.

[Alex]

Do you want to know a fun fact?

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Alex]

LeBron James has been playing elite level NBA basketball four years longer than the iPhone has existed.

[Marques]

That's insane.

[David]

That's crazy.

[Marques]

He's literally more. He literally has been around longer than

[Andrew]

the Taco Tuesday keep keeping him going.

[Marques]

Isn't that like he's played against 40% of the NBA ever or something?

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like 40% of all NBA players that have ever played. He's played what?

[Andrew]

He's so good. I imagine if he had kids, they'd probably be really good in the NBA.

[Alex]

He has one and he has a second one. Who maybe will make the NBA? I don't know.

[Ellis]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Is there a tech equivalent of that? If, like, Apple had, like, a sub brand that spun off and, like, became another crazy smartphone company, but they would.

[David]

Well, there's a nothing in CMF.

[Alex]

I was thinking nothing in CMF. Yeah, but nothing isn't like LeBron level.

[Andrew]

We already put. Who's the CMF? Phone Pro 2. Oh, was that CJ McCall?

[Marques]

CJ. Yeah.

[David]

There's also, like, Oppo and Realme and like Vevo and.

[Marques]

Yeah, you know, that's a bad analogy. Sub brands are way too easy to make in tech. It's impossible to have a son in the NBA.

[David]

Is it really?

[Marques]

He's done it. It's insane.

[David]

Wait, what about.

[Alex]

Hey, Jalen Brunson.

[David]

Jalen Brunson. Brunson.

[Marques]

Sorry. It's impossible to have a son in the NBA while you were still in the NBA.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah. He was the only one to ever do that.

[David]

Yeah, I think Jalen Brunson did that.

[Alex]

No, no, no, no. LeBron playing with his own son.

[Marques]

Playing with his own son in the NBA. In the NBA on the same tip. Threw him an alley oop in.

[Alex]

Yeah, I was about to say LeBron has thrown an alley oop to his son.

[David]

To his son in a real NBA game.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[David]

That's unbelievable.

[Alex]

I'll show you the clip after this.

[David]

That's so cool.

[Alex]

It's so cool.

[David]

Wow.

[Alex]

There's also. Wait, can you turn your computer towards them? There's my favorite NBA photo ever. Is LeBron recording the all Star game on, like, a next cell phone back in the day? That was LeBron.

[David]

That doesn't even look like him.

[Alex]

His rookie year.

[Marques]

That's how long he's been.

[Alex]

That's him as a child before his facial hair. Yeah.

[David]

Damn.

[Alex]

Yep.

[David]

That's crazy.

[Marques]

So, yeah, good stuff.

[Alex]

Okay, so if we want to jump more to the current NBA, we're doing lore drop. Yeah, but this is. This is where I get to speak the praises of the New York Knicks.

[David]

Is there any lore about my.

[Andrew]

Hasn't happened yet. First is where it starts.

[Marques]

This is where it starts.

[David]

I just to need. Is there any lore about Mike Bibby?

[Alex]

I didn't write any down, but something up. Wait, Mike Bibby is awesome. Are you aware of what Mike Bibby's up to these days?

[Marques]

Don't Is he a crypto scammer?

[Andrew]

No.

[David]

Tell me he's a crypto.

[Alex]

He retired as like a very like lithe NBA point guard and then randomly just decided to get mega jacked?

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Dude. Wait, wait.

[Andrew]

What?

[Alex]

You're Mike Bibby. You're Jack.

[David]

The last time I saw Mike Bivy, he was really, really lanky.

[Alex]

Look up a picture of Mike Bivvy in the current day. He randomly just decided to get like mega jacked, dude.

[David]

Okay, I also need to know about the guy that did the Palm phone.

[Alex]

Steph Curry.

[David]

Steph Curry.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[David]

Yeah.

[Alex]

What about him?

[David]

I just need to know his lore cause I feel like he's listening.

[Marques]

Oh, is he has a tech product.

[Alex]

Did I put the phone.

[Marques]

Steph Curry has changed the game. And I do want to think of a good product that has changed the game in the way that Steph Curry is changing.

[Alex]

Let's Brainstor. So what's a product that existed for a long time and then someone came along and redid it a little bit and completely changed it for the future?

[Marques]

The iPhone or Apple Silicon is another Apple Silicon or electric cars like Hyundai

[Andrew]

specifically were like Hyundai. They're doing decent, but they weren't. And then like they kind of made a Pivot with their EVs.

[Marques]

Yeah, I like Tesla Model S. Okay.

[Andrew]

For.

[Marques]

So we had cars for forever. Everybody could make cars. We had a whole competitive landscape, lots of lore, lots of cars. Somebody comes along and makes an electric car that's actually effective because electric car's reputation before wasn't all that. But then the Tesla Model S comes along and then you look at post Tesla Model S and there is a vibrant landscape of electric cars. Everyone is doing an electric car.

[David]

True. Okay.

[Marques]

That is Steph Curry. Before Steph Curry, there were some threes, There were some teams that had sharpshooters. Peja Stojakovic, you might have heard that name before. Asia shot some threes. Exactly. I'm just saying that because you've said that before.

[David]

That's why it's toy accurate.

[Marques]

But you look at post Steph Curry, entire teams build their entire strategy around multiple people being as good at three point shooting as possible on their team. It is just a different landscape now that he's done that.

[Alex]

It's actually. It really works with the Tesla thing too, because the Tesla Model S, I don't know if anyone would ever say like this is the greatest car of all time, but they might say that this is the most influential car of all time. And I think Steph doesn't often get talked about as the greatest basketball player of all time. But I think most hardcore basketball fans would say that he's the most influential basketball player of all time.

[David]

Of all time.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Marques]

Wow.

[Alex]

Because he completely by his mastery of three point shooting changed how the entire league played.

[David]

But the Knicks don't really focus on threes as much.

[Alex]

They do.

[Marques]

Every single team now shoots way more threes than they did.

[David]

I felt like the Knicks missed almost

[Marques]

every three they shot.

[Alex]

Well, the good thing was that the Knicks were adaptable. But they, they did. They set a lot of team three point records. They set some playoff three point records in the earlier rounds and stuff. They shot a lot of threes.

[Marques]

This year the spurs set a first half three point record in the game that they lost to the Knicks because they stopped making threes. Oh.

[Andrew]

Back in the day.

[Alex]

Because they're chokers.

[Ellis]

You have like one or two players that can shoot threes.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Ellis]

So you would have like a whole team of people that just played regularly and then one guy that shot the three.

[David]

Okay, got it.

[Ellis]

And now it's like the whole team is built around people that can shoot threes.

[Marques]

And even another thing that's interesting about this is that now gets you to a lot of the comparisons between old NBA and new NBA where it almost feels like a totally different sport. Like when you look at cars today and how crazy they are versus like the record setting cars of the past were goaded for their time. But it's hard to compare them with modern cars. Electric cars are fastest because they're so different. Exactly. That's kind of what like the record books look like today. Like you've heard of Michael Jordan. A lot of people consider him the greatest player of all time. He didn't shoot threes like very much and wasn't very good at them. And so a lot of people would argue if you put Michael Jordan in today's NBA, he wouldn't be one of the best players. A lot of other people argue. While he was all mental, he would have figured out a way to beat.

[David]

What was he good at specifically?

[Alex]

He did add threes to his bag late in his career.

[Marques]

Very, very late. But not like modern NBA.

[Alex]

Yeah, actually for the second three peat, he was a much better three point shooter.

[Marques]

Michael Jordan was freakishly athletic and basically made every two pointer he looked at. Okay.

[Alex]

And was also the most psychotically driven athlete of all time. Probably. He like famously would make up narratives against him.

[Marques]

Steve Jobs.

[Alex]

Yeah, he is sort of Steve Jobs. Cause he would be like, he would be like this Guy said that I'm trash and that he can guard me and whatever. And it would be like one passing comment that a guy had made five years prior that was like, yeah, I think I could try to guard Michael Jordan. He'd be like, he thinks he can stop me. He thinks he can stop me and he can't.

[David]

So he would just create motivational energy for himself.

[Alex]

Like there's. If you watch the documentary the Last Dance, they talk about this a lot with Michael Jordan making up fake narratives against him.

[Marques]

And I took that personally.

[Alex]

Yeah. Yeah. Literally the meme. And I took that personally.

[David]

That's a Michael Jordan meme.

[Alex]

Yes.

[David]

Okay.

[Alex]

That was just him all the time.

[Andrew]

Now he owns a NASCAR team, right?

[Marques]

Yeah. His post NBA career is a whole lot.

[Alex]

He owned a basketball team at one point, too. He owned the Hornets for a minute. He was real bad at that nose. Protest games. As far as we know, he sells sneakers.

[Marques]

I do think Steve is a really good. Because a lot of the upside is, like, savant, possibly the goat. Nobody could do what he did. But also some of his shortcomings were kind of insane.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Marques]

And maybe this is like post career Michael Jordan, but like, like one of the worst owners, probably because he's bad at judging talent. He's just like, hey, why can't you jump over the other guy? Like, I did, like, just be better. So he's a bad owner.

[David]

Sounds like Steve Jobs to me.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[David]

Honestly, I know this is physically impossible, but just do it.

[Marques]

Like just be better. Like, just be better.

[Alex]

And that's what MJ asked of everyone around him.

[Ellis]

Wow.

[Alex]

At all times. And that's why teammates did not love him. They talk about him now with reverence because they won championships, but they hated playing with him at the time.

[David]

Just like everyone that worked with Steve.

[Alex]

Just like with Steve Jobs. Yeah.

[Marques]

So I have another one. I want to make an analogy a technology. I don't have this fully fleshed out, but this one right here.

[Andrew]

Oh.

[Alex]

We were trying to figure this out and we wanted your opinion.

[Marques]

Okay. I want to try something.

[Alex]

Yeah. Okay.

[Marques]

The goal is to ship products, as many products as possible. There are record books for the most products anyone has ever shipped in a single day, AKA the most points any player has ever scored in a single game.

[David]

Okay. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Didn't we talk about this on the pod?

[Marques]

I think we did, because. Okay, famously, you know, NBA teams today are scoring roughly 100, 220 points a game.

[David]

I was going to ask if that's gone up over time.

[Alex]

It's with the Three point revolution, higher score, et cetera.

[Marques]

The most points any one player has ever scored in a single game was back in the day. This man named Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points by himself in a single game against. Against the New York Errants. Yeah, in color.

[Alex]

It's against the Knicks.

[Marques]

Now there's a lot of lore around this because one, there's no video of this, but there is tons of eyewitness accounts and radio, and it's definitely happened. It's just a bit of a mythological performance.

[David]

Oh, interesting.

[Alex]

And there's a little bit of conspiracy about fudging the scorekeeping to get him to 100, but.

[Marques]

Yeah, but the idea is this was one of the most dominant players of all time. But it's the 1960s, so what equivalent. It's kind of like in tech. It would be like the fastest car of that time. It'd be like Jesse Owens or something. And you're like, that's not tech, but that's like a different sport. But the fastest thing of that time, the fastest computer of that time was so much faster than every other computer. It's like, wow, that clearly is record beating, etc.

[Alex]

A computer the size of a house with one megabyte of RAM.

[David]

Let's say like the first time they hit 1 gigahertz because I think the US government put like a sanction on like an export sanction on the first computer that hit 1 GHz because they were so scared of it, like, like going to China or whatever.

[Marques]

That sounds about like Wilt Chamberlain and

[Andrew]

the sounds like mythos right now.

[Marques]

That's basically. Yeah. Nobody has gotten anywhere near 100 points in a game. And if you look at the record books, most of the top 50 performances for most points ever in a game are also. Wilt Chamberlain, he also had like 70 something.

[Alex]

He had a season where he averaged over 50.

[Marques]

Yes. Which is impossible in today's NBA. So this really is like. This record book is like filled with this one guy from the 60s. And today this year there was a player who got 83.

[Ellis]

Whoa.

[Marques]

Which is the second most anyone has ever scored in a game. And it's the closest anyone's gotten in a while. And so it was technically a legendary performance, but it was just by this one guy who doesn't really. No, it's a guy who doesn't really have any other records. You might not even have heard of him. His name is Bam.

[Alex]

Adebayo.

[Marques]

Adebayo.

[David]

Adebayo. You've said that.

[Andrew]

We talked about it. I Think we did explaining that in tech terms as a segment.

[Marques]

And so we explained it as if it was like, I forgot what we said. But it would be like if the. If the LG Wing shipped like 50 million phones or something. It's just like this crazy. You're like, this doesn't seem right. But I guess it is record breaking, so congrats. Yeah, it was an anomaly. And his team, once he got to like 65, 70, 75, was like, just, just keep going. Give him the ball. We gotta try to get this record. And that was the closest anyone's ever gotten.

[David]

Was the other team trying to stop him at that point or were they just kinda.

[Marques]

So anytime anyone is near setting a record, everyone is trying to stop you from setting the record against you.

[Alex]

Because he also got a little bit of help from the referees. He shot about 40 free throws in that game.

[David]

What?

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Ellis]

Yeah.

[David]

That's crazy.

[Andrew]

They're free. Take them.

[Marques]

Which if you get fouled a lot, you gotta make the free throw.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Marques]

You don't just get.

[Alex]

And I think he made about 30 free throws on his way to 83 points.

[Ellis]

So.

[Marques]

Yeah, it's hard to come up with a tech analogy for that, but the third most points of all time was Kobe 81. Another legend. Everybody respects the 81.

[David]

81. Wow.

[Marques]

In one game. In one single game. Which is crazy. There's a lot of career highs right around the 70 mark. But those are legendary, iconic performances. Wilt. Bam. Kobe.

[David]

What was Kobe specifically good at that made him so legendary?

[Marques]

Kobe was.

[Alex]

He was. He was like a Michael Jordan clone with all the sliders set to like 90%.

[Marques]

Okay, 96.

[Alex]

96. Yeah. Depending on the day. 90 to 96%, depending on the day. But he. He basically modeled his entire game personality, everything after Jordan.

[Marques]

Okay, is there a Steve Jobs equivalent to that? Is there like a 96% Steve Jobs, like also a psycho, but just a little bit less.

[Alex]

Less Sam Altman, like in the current era?

[David]

Yeah, same Altman.

[Marques]

Really? Okay. I mean, I don't know, but I mean, who.

[David]

Who else is like, ruthless? Like, I think St. Alton's pretty ruthless because he just lies about everything, but

[Marques]

also, like, gets to the point of like, everyone outside the game thinks you're a savant and sees all of the massive changes.

[Andrew]

I don't think anyone thinks that of

[Marques]

Saint Altman because Kobe. Kobe has a much better basketball reputation than Sam Altman has a tech.

[Alex]

Yeah, I would say so.

[David]

Maybe, like, I guess.

[Alex]

I guess we don't really know until Sam Altman's Done, though, because the same thing with Steve Jobs, where it was like, people at the time, like, didn't necessarily love working with him, but now we'll idolize him.

[David]

What about, like, Linus Torvald?

[Marques]

That's a little more niche, but yeah, like, very positive reputation.

[David]

Yeah, generally. But he's like. Can be mean.

[Marques]

I think the Michael Jordan Steve Jobs thing is perfect because in the moment, he was, like, levitating. Like, everybody understood that what this guy was doing was only something he could do. And then it would come out to people who know more ball and were like, it's kind of hard to work with this guy, but he will ruthlessly get you across the finish line because he's a psycho.

[David]

Right.

[Marques]

And you're like, all right. Yep, it worked.

[David]

So it's like the CEO that they pull in when the current CEO is not working just to, like, get you across the finish line.

[Marques]

Maybe. I don't know if that's a tech thing.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Like, sometimes like an interim CEO, a culture setter. Oh, interesting. Yeah. But, yeah, I don't know if there's a Kobe equivalent in.

[Alex]

I don't know if there is, but that was what Kobe was. So if you. If you could find a tech CEO that's like 90 to 95% Steve Jobs.

[Ellis]

I have a bad one.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Ellis]

Elon.

[Marques]

Oh, maybe old Elon. Yeah.

[Andrew]

That almost is.

[Marques]

New Elon is not.

[David]

It's kind of even hard to compare.

[Marques]

It's like winning in the way that Steve Jobs.

[David]

Right.

[Marques]

Like, he's winning in a different way. 2015 Elon with Tesla maybe. Maybe just Tesla. Elon maybe is Kobe when people kind

[David]

of saw him as a safant at the time.

[Marques]

Interesting.

[David]

Okay, what's the next legend?

[Alex]

I was going to talk about the current New York Knicks real quick because I think I have a pretty good analogy that matches up actually with an. Exactly. With a tech thing. So let's wrap up. Talk about the best and worst teams of each conference right now.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Alex]

So we'll talk about the New York Knicks first. I think I'm uniquely qualified to talk about this. Let's go. Nix Nixon 5. Let's talk about Apple Silicon. Okay. Right. Apple Silicon comes out in 2020.

[David]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Apple decides to put everything in their own hands. They're going to make their own system on a chip. They're not going to rely on intel anymore. Right?

[David]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Entire system on a chip. It works with Apple hardware. And then all of a sudden, now it has completely redefined what computers are capable of. Honestly, like, not to. To Praise Apple too much and get accused of being fanboy.

[David]

So it's true though. It's true.

[Alex]

It is true. It removed all the fragmentation, made everything. They are designing their entire system from the ground up.

[David]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Another thing that happened in 2020.

[David]

The New York Knicks could have come a different way.

[Alex]

Hired Leon. Hired Leon Rose to be their president of basketball operations. Right.

[Marques]

Okay.

[Alex]

So while they were way worse than Apple and years prior to that and way worse than Intel Macs, because Intel Macs were still good computers, the Knicks were not a good basketball.

[David]

The i9 one was kinda.

[Alex]

Yeah, I guess kind of like right before the Knicks hired Leon, they were like the butterfly keyboard.

[David]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I9.

[David]

Putting in the freezer to cool it down.

[Alex]

Not great. Yeah. So they were not doing great. Things were fragmented, things were not working well.

[David]

Sure.

[Alex]

They hire Leon Rose and he made it his mission to build a cohesive team, like an M chip.

[David]

Okay.

[Alex]

He prioritized first team, teammates that play for each other, guys that are interested in working together, being collaborative.

[David]

Power, friendship.

[Alex]

The power of friendship.

[David]

Wow.

[Alex]

With Jalen Brunson, Mikhail Bridges, Josh Hart, college teammates, all that.

[David]

So they were college teammates.

[Alex]

They were.

[Marques]

They won college.

[David]

I already knew this, but I'm just for the audience.

[Alex]

Yes, they were college teammates.

[David]

Wow.

[Alex]

Oh, well.

[David]

UC Santa Cruz.

[Andrew]

No, Villanova.

[Alex]

Villanova.

[David]

Where the heck is that?

[Alex]

The Nova. Knicks. Philly.

[Andrew]

Philly.

[David]

Okay.

[Alex]

It's a pretty big school, you know.

[Andrew]

It's a very big school.

[Marques]

I'm from California.

[Alex]

All right, well, anyway, so the Knicks make it back to the playoffs in 2021 for the first time in almost a decade. They signed Jalen Brunson in 2022, eventually brings in a ton of cohesive players, builds them around Jalen Brunson and makes a perfect team that plays for each other and wins through the power of friendship. Much like Apple system on a chip.

[David]

So there's a different guy that does the team organizations. That's not the coach.

[Alex]

Yes, he's called the president of basketball operations. There's also a general manager in basketball. It depends on how you want your team to run. Some teams, their highest guy is the general manager. Other teams, they go, well, we want someone above the general manager. So we'll have the president of basketball operations and a general manager and whatever. The Knicks have a general manager also? Basically, yeah.

[Marques]

The Knicks have president of basketball operations. Sounds like a title you make up as a six year old when they ask you what you want to do.

[Alex]

I want to be the president of the Knicks someday. Yeah, that's me. But anyway, now the New York Knicks are NBA champions before Joel Embiid has ever made a conference finals.

[David]

So they all played basketball together in college.

[Alex]

Not all the Knicks, but three of them.

[Marques]

Three of the starting five.

[David]

That's pretty storybook.

[Alex]

Yeah, it is.

[Marques]

That's pretty cool.

[David]

Yeah, I like that.

[Marques]

That makes them the best team in the East. The best team in the west was San Antonio team. The worst team in the east is Sacramento Kings.

[Alex]

The Washington Wizards.

[Marques]

Definitely not Washington Wizards.

[Andrew]

Oh, was that in the East?

[Alex]

In the East.

[Marques]

In the East. In the East. And the worst team in the west

[Alex]

was the Sacramento Kings.

[David]

No.

[Marques]

Really?

[Alex]

I don't know if that was actually true, but they were pretty bad this year.

[David]

I don't think they could have been

[Alex]

that we picked it. No, they were.

[David]

When I was there in December, they shot the laser, which they only do when they win the beam.

[Alex]

They call it the beam.

[Andrew]

They play 80 games.

[Marques]

They were tied for the worst.

[David]

No way.

[Marques]

With the Utah Jazz.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[David]

Wasn't Michael Jordan on the Jazz?

[Alex]

No, no. He famously stole their soul year after

[Marques]

year on the Wizards. But, yeah, the Wizards were turned into the blues.

[David]

Okay.

[Marques]

Also, I will say that there's probably a tech equivalent to this. The San. The. The Pacers.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Marques]

The Pacers were the best team in the east last season. They lost one player and were now the second worst team in the entire.

[Andrew]

Sounds like the Devils. The last couple years.

[Alex]

And then we didn't lose our player.

[Andrew]

Our player got his hand cut at dinner, and then we just fell apart.

[Alex]

How did he cut us?

[Andrew]

He leaned on a piece of.

[Alex]

Did he mistake his steak for a hand or his hand for a steak?

[Andrew]

No idea. It was a steakhouse. But he absolutely destroyed our team.

[David]

Damn. Golden State did pretty bad this year.

[Marques]

Is it tech equivalent to being one of the biggest, most successful companies, losing a single person, and then being one of the worst.

[David]

Steve Jobs, when he left Apple, and then they basically tanked, and then they brought him back.

[Marques]

All right, Tyrese Halliburton, we heard it here first.

[Alex]

And then Halliburton will come back, and hopefully they'll be better. I guess the Knicks need a little bit of competition next year, so I would love if the Pacers could come back better, because the rest of these doesn't come back.

[Marques]

They're essentially the Same exact team, minus 10.

[David]

What do you want them to have a competition?

[Alex]

Because it's more fun, honestly. It felt too easy this year, actually.

[Marques]

That's a perfect place to end this. Perfect place to end this. Okay.

[Andrew]

Nick's missing the Playoffs next year.

[Marques]

We've been using this entire podcast to try to explain sports, specifically NBA basketball, in tech terms. And I think the number one overlap, the most obvious similarity between the two is fanboy isms in sports. You pick a team and you ride or die with this team, Rationality be damned. Right. They might be the best team. You get to cheer for them. They might be one of the best teams. You call them the best team, they might be kind of mid. You call them the best team, but as soon as they start to get a little bit bad, you ruthlessly rag on them until you get them back good again.

[David]

But you're mean to your own guys.

[Marques]

You're mean to your own guys. We gotta get them better. This is and unacceptable. They have to be the best. They have to be the best.

[Alex]

Knicks fans, famously, during bad years, will boo their own team to tell them that they sucked.

[Marques]

Tell them that they sucked. But it's the same thing in tech, where, I mean, the fanboy isms of iPhone versus Android, of all these different companies, Macs versus PCs, this is a tale as old as time.

[Andrew]

I feel like it's even similar in the sense of in tech, let's say. Like the. Our Android subreddit is insane.

[David]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Because it's so many different company fanboys in one place. Where if you went to the Google subreddit, they would be like, I can't believe Google's screwing us again. I can't believe it's only 100 doing their own team. Yeah, yeah. But then in the Android separate, if someone says something bad about Google, that same person who's like, how dare you? We are the best. You are terrible. I don't care. What's your problem? You're an idiot.

[Marques]

And that is a one to one perfect replica of what happens in sports.

[Alex]

It's like, I'm allowed to say that. You're not allowed to say that. I'm allowed to say that about my team. You can't say that about my team. And your team is even worse.

[Andrew]

And you're not allowed to like your team.

[Alex]

You're an idiot. You're an idiot for liking your team. Oh, that's what Knicks fans were told for years.

[Marques]

Yeah. Okay, so I would like to give you guys an opportunity to pick an NBA team now to ride or die with and to defend them and to live with them the exact same way till death do you part for a tech team.

[David]

Wait until you. Because I feel like you should just root for wherever you live.

[Marques]

So that's the easy version of this. We're also conveniently located in a. A desert where there used to be an NBA team. Rip. New Jersey Nets. You can pick the New York team. You will just warning you.

[David]

In New York.

[Marques]

I'm just warning you, you will get accused of bandwagoning. That's okay. That's okay.

[Alex]

I've already.

[Marques]

Hey.

[Andrew]

He watched for 15 days before they watched.

[Alex]

I've given David the path.

[Marques]

Many people do. And the people who are already fans will give you a pass, but the people who are not fans will call you a bandwagon. That's fine. I will give you the best.

[Ellis]

There were some very dark years as a Knicks fan. Yeah. So we're in a high.

[Alex]

We're past that. We're past that. We'll never go back there again.

[Marques]

As long as you, like, sort of acknowledge that.

[Andrew]

Let's just pick a new team later, right?

[Alex]

Yeah, he can just move and get a new team later on.

[Marques]

David's from Brooklyn, so you should be with the Nets.

[Alex]

No, the Nets.

[Andrew]

See, that's true.

[Marques]

That's not. You live in Brooklyn. You live in Brooklyn. Brooklyn. So if you want.

[Alex]

No, it doesn't matter. You don't.

[David]

Closer to Queens, to be honest.

[Alex]

Dude, the Nets aren't a real team. You don't need to root for them.

[Marques]

I. I have similar. So this is the thing. I grew up in New Jersey, and when I first started watching NBA basketball, coincidentally, the New Jersey Nets were an incredible team. I remember I went to this. This basketball camp randomly as a kid and got to meet some of the players. I remember bald Richard Jefferson. Prime. Richard Jefferson comes over and like, rustles my hair and he's like, what's up, kid? I'm like, oh, my God, Richard Jefferson. Like, that moment I will have forever. Kenyon Martin, Kerry Kittles, Jason Kidd.

[Andrew]

Like, you got to meet all that.

[Marques]

This was a team that went to the Finals. Incredible. They have not been the same since they have thus moved to Brooklyn and have been one of the stinkers who's been tanking and just horrible to watch. Yeah, that's what happens to a lot of people that move to Brooklyn.

[Alex]

Come.

[Marques]

A real stinker. I come from, you know, that's the team I used to root for. But I'm not a Die Hard. They left me. I don't have a team anymore. So I kind of just root for play.

[Alex]

You know what's hilarious about that whole situation? Maybe there's a tech analogy here. Jay z was a 5% stockholder or whatever in the Nets, right. They do this whole Thing to move to Brooklyn for Jay Z. Because they're like, yo, we're moving with hov. We're moving to Brooklyn. Whatever. Jay Z, like, one year after they move, starts a sports agency and has to immediately divest from the company.

[David]

Damn.

[Alex]

And leaves them high and dry. And now is back to, like, cheering for the Knicks again.

[David]

So. Okay, here's the thing. I feel like you should, for life, have to cheer for, like, the closest team to where you were born. Okay. The problem with that, for me specifically, is that the Kings have not won since 1951.

[Alex]

Yeah. They're bad.

[David]

And they were called a different.

[Marques]

This is your.

[Alex]

They were the Royals back then.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

This is your opportunity to get on your Knicks. Like, this is the feeling that Knicks fans have had for 50 years, all my life. Which is they've been bad for your entire conscious lifetime. And they're finally good.

[Alex]

David, plant your flag right now.

[Marques]

You can plant your King's flag now.

[Alex]

No, no, no. Not your king's flag.

[Marques]

If you. No, if you. I mean, you can.

[David]

I do have the Mike Bibby bobblehead. So if they do win, then I have, like, some with the baby bobblehead.

[Alex]

That's true.

[Marques]

I think that's a more credible, deeply rooted. Like, you could celebrate with if the Kings win.

[Andrew]

Here. I'll give you this. Also, people are less mad if you have two teams you really like when they're in different conferences.

[Alex]

Yeah. So if you have a. If you have, like. If you're like, the Knicks are my Eastern Conference team and the Kings are my Western Conference. That's all right.

[David]

Oh, it's my flag.

[Alex]

I've kind of always had, like, a Western Conference team that I like, which is the Spurs.

[Andrew]

Oh.

[Alex]

I mean, it's varied. No, absolutely not. Yeah, it's actually varied for me. But, like, for a long time, I like, liked the Sonics when Ray Allen was there.

[David]

Where's that?

[Alex]

Seattle. They're no longer there anymore. And hopefully we'll be coming back in the next couple years. But then I liked when Tracy McGrady was on the Houston Rockets with Yao Ming. I was a.

[Marques]

See, you're doing what I do, which is, like, I follow a player for a while that I really like.

[Andrew]

I wanted to bring you some.

[Marques]

And when they're a West coast team, it's tough because I can't watch many games because they start their games.

[Alex]

See, I like that because I'm a night owl. So I like having a West coast team that I mess with.

[Marques]

And at, like, 1:00am, I've been a Chris Paul fan for basically his entire prime and he's bounced around a bunch of west coast teams and all of those teams have had heartbreaking, disastrous losses by the way. So it's been tough. But I'm trying to watch more east

[Alex]

coast because I also don't really have a Western Conference team right now because that was always a coping mechanism for me. When the Knicks were terrible was like oh, what other team can I like just while the Knicks are terrible.

[David]

Andrew, what is your. What are your.

[Andrew]

Well, so I was going to kind of bring that up. So I feel like I have to be a Knicks fan one because. Because Alex then roots for the Devils with me when he watches hockey and he's not. So I, I have so many friends that are Knicks fans.

[David]

Friendship.

[Andrew]

Watching them throughout this was very funny. I mean in Game 4 when they were down, my friend was like that's it. We lost the series. We're losing two, four. And I was like that's the Knicks fans. I know they were already up like they're going to win. Cuz that's the dejected nature that I'm used to.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

But then I was going to say in basketball, you know, working with Marquez for song. I've never seen a sport where people follow players as much rather than teams.

[David]

What about.

[Andrew]

So Darius Garland, who does he play for?

[Alex]

He now plays for the Clippers.

[Andrew]

I'm a Clippers fan.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Andrew]

That's my West Coast.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Darius Garland all the way.

[Alex]

The reason for that by the way. This. Well, maybe, maybe we can relate this just.

[Andrew]

NBA players are more marketable.

[Alex]

They're marketable because you see their face all the time. 100 and then also in NBA. NBA player. A single NBA player can influence the entire fate of a team more than a single player in any other sport. It's like any other team sport.

[Andrew]

It's like if you were a quarterback that didn't have to suffer and you could see their focus.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Alex]

But even a quarterback like with a bad offensive line. Still a bad team.

[David]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

But it's still like they're still the guy.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Like it's hard to be the guy in a lot of things unless you're Connor McDavid.

[David]

I have a question I should have asked earlier but is related to the players. What exactly does it mean to be.

[Marques]

Be a free agent.

[David]

Yeah.

[Alex]

So basically the way that basketball works is you sign con. Actually this, this relates.

[David]

We didn't really talk about this.

[Alex]

Contract employees in tech.

[David]

Right.

[Marques]

Companies.

[Alex]

A lot of tech companies have contract employees.

[David]

Yeah.

[Alex]

All of basketball. All of basketball are contract.

[Andrew]

They have no competes.

[Alex]

Yeah, they have non competes, non competes until they become a free agent, at which point they can sign with whatever team they want.

[David]

So they have to stay with one team until.

[Alex]

For the length of their contract.

[Andrew]

Although if Tech could trade, that would be crazy.

[David]

Yeah, they kind of do.

[Marques]

They kind of do, but in a different way.

[Alex]

Actually, Tech is kind of like Premier League Soccer because they allow buyouts. Premier League Soccer, I'm learning about this. I'm learning a new sport. You can pay a transfer fee. So if you see a player on another team that you really like, you'd be like, hey, I want Erling Haaland or whatever who's player on Manchester City.

[Ellis]

And.

[Alex]

But he's really good. So the team doesn't want to give him up. So they say, fine. If you want to even negotiate with him, you have to pay us $200 million. And then the team might be like, okay, here's 200 mil. And we're going to also negotiate a contract with him to pay him hundreds of millions of dollars too.

[David]

Holy crap.

[Alex]

So that's. But that's kind of like Tech, where you can have, you know, people get buyouts and whatever.

[David]

Is there a certain number of years that have to go by before you become a free agent?

[Alex]

It varies by contract.

[Andrew]

Negotiated. Yeah.

[Marques]

Just based on your contract. So typically a three, four or five year contract, there's a max long contract.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Once you get MBA is a max of that contract. Then you like Nick's.

[David]

Okay.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Okay.

[David]

So when you first start out of college, you are automatically in a contract and then after that you're a free agent.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[David]

So you start as a free agent when you're right out of college.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

No.

[Marques]

You get drafted and then you sign maybe a rookie contract for that one year with that team.

[David]

Okay.

[Marques]

Then you may be. You're a free agent again. You might sign another one or two year contract. As you get to your prime and you're more desirable, teams want to lock you down for longer. That you might sign a three, four or five year contract where you're there for a long time, but once that contract ends again, you're technically free agent.

[Alex]

But then teams can also arbitrarily decide to trade you.

[David]

Got it.

[Alex]

And be like, oh, actually you're not as good as we thought, so we're gonna trade you to another team.

[David]

So you have to go live where they want you to live.

[Alex]

Yeah. Players don't like it. I don't like that either. Yeah, yeah. But I Mean, they're making millions of dollars to do it, so they.

[David]

Yeah, I guess I can get that.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[David]

Well, I feel like I know ball now.

[Marques]

Yeah, I think this is a great place to wrap it up. Ideally. Now, when we do our Smartphone awards at the end of the year, we can have, like, a sports equivalent. Like, you guys will know. Like, when I give an MVP award to a phone, you'll now have that much more lore and context to the Jalen Brunson Awards.

[Alex]

Can we call it the Jalen Brunson Memorial Smartphone of the Year this year? Memorializing it season.

[Marques]

Yeah. You'll now be able to draw the equivalent. You'll be like, I can see how that phone is. Jalen Brunson.

[David]

The jvp. The Jalen.

[Alex]

Jalen Brunson Valuable player.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

There's a million more strings that we didn't tie in this episode. I'm sure the comments section will help us out with that. There's many more crossover things between tech and sports, but what do you think

[Alex]

the percentages of usual Waveform listeners have made to this point in the episode?

[Marques]

I think we'll find out because zero spurs fans. I know that if you made it this far, comment. Knicks in six, Knicks in five. That's how we'll know.

[Alex]

All right, all right. Everyone is saying Nick in last episode.

[Andrew]

But then everyone who comes in is going to be like, oh, waveform's talking about basketball. Look at the comments and be like, they obviously didn't do a very good job.

[Alex]

Wait, what if you do Nixon four? That's like another cut because they did four in every other.

[David]

Oh, Nixon four.

[Alex]

So we say Nixon four.

[Marques]

All right, that's your comment. That's how we'll know you made it to the end of the episode Nixon 4.

[Andrew]

And now we'll know if you made it to that part of the episode.

[Alex]

Of the episode. There's gonna be so many. Nixon 6. Wait, no. Nixon 5. Wait. Nixon 4.

[Marques]

Well, so that's been it.

[Andrew]

Thank you for watching Degrees in this room right now.

[Alex]

It's so hot.

[David]

Just know that.

[Marques]

Hotter than a New York Kings win.

[David]

I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna be there with my mic baby bobblehead. Okay.

[Alex]

I'll be there with you. I'll work for them with you.

[Marques]

On your bubble bar.

[David]

On my bubble bar.

[Marques]

You will have really earned that.

[Andrew]

Thank you.

[Marques]

Sick. All right, catch you guys in the next one.

[Andrew]

Peace. Waveform is produced by Adam Molina and Rufus Mulhaupt. We are partnered with Vox Media podcast network and our giratro music was created by Vain Sill.

[David]

Bingo.

[Andrew]

Let's go. Nixon 5.

[David]

Nixon 5.

[Marques]

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[Alex]

It feels good to have support. It feels good to Geico.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

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