News and notes edition of the Mortcast. This week featuring thoughts about James Dolan's terrible letter to the league, Trey Alexander maybe being the savior of The Booth Doctrine and some thoughts on the nature of criticism.
Enjoy the show!
CSG Podcast
CSG #690: News and Notes on James Dolan, Trey Alexander and accepting criticism
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But I wanted to talk about the leaked James Dolan letter to the NBA board of governors, which was essentially him complaining about revenue sharing, which was really weird. But I do believe in there is more about him talking about the TV deal, the media deal, and how it affects MSG, which is his network. And we'll be talking about that in a second. But first, I need to talk to you about Bet Online. Bet Online is the world's most trusted betting platform and your number one source for everything online sports betting. Right now, you can receive a 50% free bet of up to $250 on your first deposit to bet on anything from the Olympics to baseball to Formula One racing. That is a 50% free bet of up to $250 on your first deposit to bet on anything from the Olympics to baseball, the Formula One racing. Bet Online has every stat, every matchup, and even live odds and spreads while the games are being played. 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But I think it went to Wojc, but how the league and the media deal, he doesn't like the way it went and how he prefers the old days and he hates revenue sharing and how the media deal affects MSG, which is his network, kind of like it is for those of you who don't know, it's like altitude out here. But MSG and airs a lot of different sports. The Yankees have the yes network and stuff like that. But MSG airs the nicks and some other sports and the Rangers, I think. And it makes more money than altitude. Altitude's pretty small when it comes to that sort of thing. But it's the same principle. It's that it is a company owned RSN. So I wouldn't say there's a lot to unpack here. I mean, some of it is James Dolan claiming that the nicks are a good team and they're supporting bad teams, which is, I don't know what, I mean, obviously this is a man who wasn't very familiar with his own history with noting the New York Knicks. But the nicks have not been a good team of the 25 years he's owned the team. They've been good for maybe four, including this last year. So this is not something he needs to be crowing about. So it was bizarre, but it was self-serving. And I do think that his complaint was primarily about the media deal and how there are games that are going directly onto Amazon and cutting down on regional sports network games. I do believe that was part of it. And I do think that is why I wouldn't say a legit concern, but it is a definite concern. And I'm sure that is one that others will have who have RSNs and stuff like that. And I would love to hear what Altitude thinks about that sort of thing. But Dolan's other complaints were really kind of incoherent and bizarre, complaining about revenue sharing, which the NBA has had for the entire time he's been an owner, is strange. And it really is weird to see someone who had a player who took a discount to stay in New York and play with his friends in Jalen Brunson to then come out and have your letter exposed to basically how ridiculous you are. It would be different if it was another traditionally good franchise, like with Grouseback, with the Celtics, or another one. I mean, even Joe Lacob would have more weight there, particularly with Dolan saying that the Nick Surrey Good team, which was a really poor wording, I'm thinking meant to say big market because the big markets do supply most of the revenue sharing, even though the revenue sharing is largely based on the tax. And those are redistributed to other teams. The NBA owners don't like revenue sharing. Well, I should say the big markets don't like revenue sharing, and this is true across all sports. Big markets do not like revenue sharing at all. They would like to keep their advantages. And if I was a big market owner and I had that kind of dough, I probably would feel the same. But in a sports world, you need the rest of your teams to survive, and particularly the tiny market teams, like Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Utah, places like that, where you are really, really truly having to get dip into revenue sharing a lot, is just part and parcel to the way the league stays healthy. And Dolan's complaints with that were just incoherent and weird. I don't necessarily think that he made the point he thought he was making with that. The league is healthy with revenue sharing. The league is healthy due to a lot of those things. Now, I don't necessarily agree with Adam Silver's parody approach. I do think that forced parody is a detriment to specifically basketball because people like dynasties. That is my official stance, is that in the entire time I have watched basketball, I haven't really noticed what you would call a desire amongst casual basketball fans, which make up the majority of basketball fans, by the way. I haven't noticed a desire to not watch greatness. And what I've always said about hard caps is that the purpose is not to make bad teams better more than it is to make good teams worse. It is a mechanism designed to make the team that you have not last. It is a mechanism designed to eliminate spending advantages, obviously. Now, the NBA doesn't have a hard cap, but it's got the closest we are ever going to get to one. And Adam Silver defended his approach here with the parody thing a couple days ago at Summer League. But I haven't noticed that ratings follow parody in the NBA specifically. The NFL is different. And I think, largely, that is due to them all their games being national, which, obviously, what the NBA is doing with the media deal and the way they are probably going right now, you would think that maybe they were going to be going to a more NFL-esque model that would be featuring more national TV games, rather than everyone shares from that, like the NFL, rather than the NSRSN thing, which is dying out. So the NBA has to survive. You can see that. And maybe things, thoughts, will change once the NBA fully moves into that model. But as of right now, I have just-- I have never noticed among fan bases casual NBA fans that they like parody. We've had six different champions the last six years. Great. But the notion that people will not like a dynasty is nonsense. The NBA struggled with ratings since the end of the Jordan era. It hit a brief high during the days of the Heat with LeBron James, but that didn't come close to the Jordan era. The Jordan era was everyone like Michael Jordan. And everyone wanted-- everything was on NBC. It was over the air. When you saw these games, it was destination TV. This is one thing that ESPN has really struggled with. And they did lose, by the way, what I've been saying before. You guys need to listen to Jeff. The ESPN lost a percentage of the games that they're airing now. And they're going to NBC. One of the big issues we've always had with ESPN is that they just don't know how to make an event out of things. They just don't understand it fundamentally. And NBC did. And hopefully, having a lot of these games on NBC will hopefully make it eventized that it has not been for 22 years since the NBA got the media rights package to ESPN. But even in then, people tend to like teams if they're great. And the NBA fan tends to like greatness, then they like marketable stars, all of that. The history of the NBA is that if your star is bright, casual NBA fans will follow you. And right now, there's a lot of stars in the league. But there's no real opportunity for a dynastic team. And this is really going to put to a test, Adam. Silver's philosophy of parity, because parity is dangerous if every team is perceived to be mediocre. And you can't really have a good team for a long time, which is what people wanted, looking what happened to the Denver Nuggets. Now, some of this is a fictitious hard cap. This is not a cap that is actually hard. It's got difficult mess mechanisms. There is not an official hard cap in the NBA, nor will there ever be. But this is the closest we're going to get. And owners like Stan Cronkey are going to be damned if they don't stick to it. So we have a different reality in the NBA. And it is one that I am certain we will eventually adapt to. But owners like James Dolan need to understand that this is their new reality. And the new reality will make him money. It just won't give him the advantage of having a multi-year streak of a dynastic team. And look, the Knicks haven't even been that since the late '60s and early '70s, when they went to several finals in 1-2. That's not a thing that the Knicks have been. They've been to two finals in the '90s, and that's it. So this Knicks team is not exactly what you would call historically. Great. It's not like the Celtics. It's not like the Lakers. It's not in recent history like the Golden State Warriors. It's just not even in the same ballpark. So really, in reality, this is a different reality that James Dolan is going to have to get used to. And more than him, the other market owners that just need to face reality that we are in a post-dynastic NBA. And this is the gamble that Adam Silver is making, and we're going to have to see whether it pays off. All right. In the second half of the podcast, we're going to talk about the Nuggets, some league stuff, some notes and stuff like that that I got coming down. And yeah, so we'll be talking about that after the break. What's Next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance. Uncover opportunity, and move upward at MossAtoms.com. When you close your eyes and think about wealth, what comes to mind? Early tee times? Giving back? Seeing your kids go further than you ever thought possible. The thing is, everyone has their own idea of wealth. So no matter what your idea of wealth looks like, our wealth management team is here to help make it a reality. 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Calvin Booth's "The Booth Doctrine" is what I've been calling it on Twitter, which is essentially betting on old rookies and supplementing a roster with rookie contracts. As the nuggets, the percentage of rookies have grown. On Denver's roster, I have made no bones about how I am very, very, very skeptical of this approach and its sustainability, because it really counts on Nicole Yokos playing 20 years like Tim Duncan. And I don't necessarily anticipate from my own view of Nicole Yokos, I don't anticipate him playing that long. This really is a long play in a league that where you have to take advantage of a superstar. Obviously, it's a parody league now. But everyone knows my complaints. However, when I was watching Trey Alexander and to a lesser extent, Julian Strouther. People have really liked Julian Strouther in Summer League, and in both Summer League, he's actually been better, but he was obviously better in this Summer League. He is a high volume guy, and some, I forget, I wish I could credit this person I saw on Twitter. Someone said either his shot's going to be a swish or it's going to break the backboard. And honestly, that is true. He doesn't have much, it is either it goes in or it misses horribly, kind of guy. And guys like this are high volume shooters. So maybe in a certain sense, with a nuggets bench, they need a guy who's going to be a high volume shooter. But Trey Alexander kind of intrigued me more because he seemed like a kind of guy that was just, for lack of a better term, he was a bucket-getter. He's a guy that was going to go out and get his. And in a different way than Strouther, who is more of a pull-up shooter, he's got some drive game, he's got some float game, but it's primarily perimeter guy, I kind of like Michael Ford Jr. But we need more of just a general hooper, a bucket-getter, you know, one of those guys. And Trey Alexander was really like that. And he opened a lot of eyes. Now, caveat here, Summer League is just a terrible barometer for future success, it just is. I always tell people, all you look for in the Summer League is competence. Is this person competent is what you want to know, and that's it. And Murphy-- not Murphy-- Trey Alexander and Julian Strouther have proven themselves to be competent. On the other side of the ledger, the Jalen Pickett experience, and to a lesser extent, Hunter Tyson, look like they are on borrowed time, which is one of those things. And I think that these guys will probably get this year with this team, because the Nuggets really just don't have any other choice. But the Nuggets were looking at the prospect of this team having to rely on Jalen Pickett. Now, obviously, there's some circumstances that are changing right now. Russell Westbrook was traded, and he will be signed by the Nuggets. He will be their backup point guard, so that kind of Christ. And by the way, yes, I will be talking about the Westbrook trade. Westbrook signing once it's official. I don't want to spoil it now, but the news came down. We'll just put it out there. It was Trey to the Jazz. The Jazz are going to cut him, and the Nuggets are going to sign him for a vet minimum, which was the plan all along. This is exactly what I was telling people was going to happen. This was the Nuggets intent. They wanted to just be able to sign Westbrook on a vet minimum, so he can basically have a one-year deal with the rest of the salary that he has owed from the Los Angeles Clippers or the Utah Jazz, in this case. So the Nuggets' point guard situation isn't quite as dire. Once again, I'll be addressing the Westbrook thing here soon. But the issues the Nuggets were having is that a lot of the draft picks, if you count Colin Gillespie, who's now on another team, and you count Hunter Tyson, who didn't get any floor time, and you got Jalen Pickett, who didn't get any floor time, that's a lot of time and just investment into guys who didn't work out. Now, obviously, there's Peyton Watson, Christian Brown, and Julian Strather. So that's the other side of the ledger. But the Nuggets need someone who stays there who's a big time standout. Christian Brown is one of those classic high floor guys that is going to have a long career as a NBA role player. I'm less bought into Peyton Watson than other people are. I think his deficiencies on offense are pretty glaring. And I think that he also doesn't have a great feel for the game when it comes to offense, but he's much better defensively. And that is someone who's going to stick in the league, because everyone needs a guy who can play defense. And specifically in a league that you just-- guys just don't learn it on that end. So that is going to help. Strather, everyone heard my thing on him. But they needed a guy who was just going to be kind of like a wow guy. And the Nuggets really haven't had a wow guy. And Trey Alexander may be that guy. He may be the guy that is a wow guy. He really was standing out at Summer League. Now, Cavio, once again, can't learn anything really substantive from Summer League. It's just not possible. You're not playing against NBA players in the traditional sense. His probably first and second year guys and guys were trying to get the foot in the league again. But it really isn't what you would call NBA caliber players, even on bad teams. This is just lowest of the low. It's a step below the G league. It's just you can't really learn anything. What you want to know is that person-- what you want to know is that player knows what he's doing. And if you are able to just glean that this person, this individual, this person that you're seeing knows what they're doing, the next thing is, does he have any of these tools that you're looking for? And does he stand out? Is there a standout right there? And Trail Exander, even for me, over above Julian Stronger, has stood out because he just seems to have an it thing. Peyton Watson gets a lot of cred. He doesn't really have an it thing. He doesn't really have never stood out to me in that way. But Trail Exander was just kind of like, OK, I can see this. And it's weird to say that in Summer League, because once again, it's terrible competition. But it is something like, look at the hype that Reed Shepherd's getting. Reed Shepherd came in from Kentucky, was drafted by the Houston Rockets, played three games and was wowing everyone. And he really has the big hype coming out of Summer League. Reed Shepherd, by far, has the most hype coming out of Summer League. And that is a guy who was a high draft pick who really didn't have anything to prove, because he was already on a guaranteed deal, is a top three pick. So this was something he didn't need to prove anything, and he went out and proved it. So on the nuggets end, on a much smaller scale, they needed this two-way guy that was signed to stand out a little more, and he did. And I think when I talk about the Booth doctrine of draft picks, one of the things he's missed is that-- and if anyone has heard me, and I stress this, you need to hear me say this, the nuggets needed a guy to be a guy who can identify him as replacing the talent you lost. And until, well, really, even with Christian Brown, is he really replacing what KCP was doing? We know what his good things are, and he's better defensively than he is offensively. But is he replacing what you lost with KCP, a 10, 12-year veteran? Is he replacing that? No. And so the nuggets have been lacking that, because where they've been drafting in the Booth approach is to get old rookies, high floor guys. Sometimes you take a chance, and Trail Exander is on a two-way, and he is not a guy who is-- he is not a guy who anyone had really on their radar. No one I know specifically had him on their radar. And this is a good revelation to have, because it kind of would be the savior of the Booth doctrine. It really would be. If he pops, he is the guy that will be the thing that probably gets Calvin Booth an extension on his deal. As I said before, he's entering into the last year of his contract with the Denver Nuggets. And it would be very hairy to enter into a season without some assuredy, and obviously some discussions I'm sure are going on. But the nuggets right now are any-- anyone has known. It's been a bad vibe summer. The vibes have been awful. And the Nuggets have needed to get something to boost them up. And it's been interesting seeing people react to Trail Exander and how he was able to kind of-- he was kind of able to lift people's spirits, because this has been not the greatest offseason. Now, I think that he's not going to be the savior, and he's going to need some cooking. But he is someone that I think that can sit on the-- and marinate in the background. And hopefully, you start seeing things. You start hearing reports that would lend you to believe that he's going to be part of a future that otherwise we didn't envision when KCP left. So that will be interesting to watch. And it would be the thing, the guy you would be able to point to, because he's got a dynamic thing to his game that, quite frankly, Calvin Booth's other draft picks don't have. Calvin doesn't value certain things. And Trail Exander definitely, definitely, is not a traditional Calvin Booth pick. And I think that this is something that to keep an eye on. And it's say, hey, this is some positivity, folks. Y'all have been bitching about me not being positive, and here we go. One last thing. This is just a personal thing. Somehow, we've lost the ability to accept that criticism isn't always just being negative. And I think criticism is criticism. And the way that I look at it and everything I say as someone who has followed the nuggets since 1987, I need to just drill into you. When I'm critical of the Denver nuggets, it is critical. And I'm coming from someone who has been a fan for almost his entire life. Somehow in the last several years-- and I think it's probably due to social media-- we have an inability to take criticism as criticism. Everything has to be either or. Either you are extremely positive about a team or you're extremely negative. This started, unfortunately, when Denver Stiffs was able to be credentialed. And I kind of hate that that is part of the history of the blog that I invested so much time in. But in the reality, the reality of the situation is that mentally, we are just-- and we, me, everyone, is not really prepared to digest criticism as just that. Criticism. Everything has to be negative or super positive. And that is not where I specifically am coming from. I'm coming from it as someone who has watched basketball for 37 years and someone who has invested a lot of time in watching the Denver nuggets more time than they ever deserved, quite frankly. And I want them to do well. I have a point of view, and I will express that. But I'm not-- I don't hate the team. I love the Denver nuggets. Otherwise, I wouldn't do this freakin' podcast that I don't get paid for, right? This is just me donating my time. You guys have listened to my voice for so long now. It is what it is. I don't have any sort of agenda here other than I want to see the nuggets be good. When I criticize, it's through that lens. And I hope everyone understands that, because I think our inability to just take criticism as criticism is really hurting us. We need to just be able to see it as what it is, whether you agree with it or not, and just deal with it as that. And don't think of it as something personal, because it ain't with me. All right, thank you all for joining me on the latest forecast. I'm gonna be back on-- well, I may do someone one Saturday, but if I not, you'll be my usual Monday spot. So, see you then. Goodbye. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Michelle Beatle, that's right, the Michelle Beatle. You're welcome. You love talking about sports. I love talking about sports. You know the only thing cooler than talking about sports? Sports. And right now, all your favorite sports are on SiriusXM. 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News and notes edition of the Mortcast. This week featuring thoughts about James Dolan's terrible letter to the league, Trey Alexander maybe being the savior of The Booth Doctrine and some thoughts on the nature of criticism.