Two Writers Slinging Yang
David Aldridge: All-time great basketball journalist
So it's Thanksgiving week, and even though I fear for the future of democracy, and even though I lost my father less than a year ago, and even though a winning time died after two seasons, and even though I have this rash, actually scratch that last one. Despite all the bad, I am a very fortunate person. And one of the things I am very much grateful for is you, the listener of this podcast. When I started two writers singing Yang seven and a half years ago, it was just a lark. The name was silly. The goal, honestly, was just to talk to other writers. But here I sit, almost 400 episodes down, and I am incredibly appreciative. So thank you. My name is Jeff Perlman. I'm the New York Times bestselling author of ten books and a host of two writers singing Yang. A podcast for one writer, me, talks writing with another writer every single week. And today's guest is David Aldridge. The veteran basketball journalist whose career has taken him from the Washington Post to ESPN, to the Philadelphia Inquirer, to Turner Sports, to the Athletic, and now to authorship. As one of the names behind the excellent new book, The Basketball 100. This is episode number 392. Let's sling some Yang. Your podcast sucks. And what kind of loser uses TikTok when he's in his 50s? All right, David Aldridge. So I noted when we started this, that you have excellent book placement, literally sitting behind you over your right shoulder. It's the basketball 100. The story of the greatest players in NBA history, a ranking of the 100 greatest players in basketball history. You and John Hollinger, both from the athletics, sort of. I was going to ask, what is the right word here? Are you cultivators? I know you wrote some of it, but how would you define this? I don't know. I guess I would say John and I kind of shepherded the project in it to its next iteration. Because originally, it was a top 75 that we did in 2021 when the NBA had its 75th anniversary team. So we had this project that was two and a half months, you know, a different player every day, 75 down to one. And then our people at the athletic had done baseball book, had done a football book, football 100, baseball 100. They said, hey, we'd love to do a basketball 100. And it looks like you've already done most of it. Could you add 25 more and we'll do a basketball 100? And we said, sure. And so I would say John and I were primarily responsible for the last 25. And then along with Rob Peterson, who's our great NBA editor, we kind of had to rearrange the order because we were adding 25. We didn't take anybody out of the original 75. I thought it would be like really disrespectful to do that, to put them in the 75 and not put them in the 100. So we kept them, but we did move some people up and down because we had to add 25 new guys, like in the original 75, Yokich wasn't in there because he had only won one MVP at that time, right? And hadn't done anything. So now he's got three and he's won a championship. Of course, he has to be in the 100. So that means somebody else has to move down because he moved way up. So it was a process that John and I and Rob, I think kind of helped reform the original 75 into the final 100 that now was in the book. So all right, when I was at Sports Illustrated way back when we did, and I had the horrible task of being intimately involved. We did the top 50 athletes from every state for the century. This was heading into 2000. And it was awful. We left Evando Holyfield out of Georgia just accidentally. And I wonder like, how do you, now obviously the book is excellent. It's great. We're not taking away from the book when I asked you. How do you feel as a guy who's devoted much of your life to covering basketball, to the idea that, you know, what sound unsowed is 62, but Patrick Ewing is so and so. And right, it's a Bronnard. Obviously, there's a lot of flaws in the whole, like, this guy's the best ever. He's like, sure, you actually know about ranking these guys. Is there a conflict in it all? Do you just, is it just fun? Like, how do you kind of view it? I mean, I think, look, I think Jeff, you have to understand the absurdity of it, right? Like, you know, if you, if you accept the absurdity of the premise, which is how did you, how could you possibly put an order to 100 basketball players who played in literally five different eras with five different sets of rules with, you know, with some played with no free agency, some play with complete free agency and that impacts where they played and who they played with and that impacts how much they won, right? So, so yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's a lot, it's a logical to think you can do this. You know, scientifically, right? So it's, it's, there's a lot of kind of nuance. There's a lot of subtlety. There's a lot of subjectivity. You know, I use the example that David Thompson is not in the book. David Thompson is my hero growing up. You have to, but we had to weigh David Thompson's NBA career, which was good. When we were wrong, it was good compared to when he first came into the NBA and was, you know, healthy and young and all those things. Whereas artists Gilmore, who was really good in the NBA, came to the NBA and was really good in the NBA is in the book. Now, you could, if someone is an NBA fan and says David Thompson's a better player than an artist Gilmore, I would say. Yeah, he was. But we're focusing on the NBA portion of their career and artists was really, really good for San Antonio in Chicago when he was in the NBA. I was telling somebody the other day, Pete Marovitch, I think is 81 on our list. If this was the college 100, Pete Marovitch would be like seven or five because his college numbers are insane. You know what I mean? Yeah, but he has 44 game with no three point line. You know, like, so, but we're weighing his NBA career. So, you know, it's all, it's all subjective Jeff. I don't expect anyone to agree with this list. I expect everyone to disagree with it because we all come to this differently. We're all blind men filling the elephant and we're filling different parts of it. Wait, so you wrote number 62 on the list is Wes Unsout. It's interesting because Wes Unsout is a coach when you were covering the Washington bullets. And you wrote of Unsout, you started by saying, as it turned out, Wes Unsout senior was into pots and pans as much as pick and rolls. He loved to cook his son Wes Unsout junior said he could crush it on the grill. When he coached, that was kind of like his alley. He come home after shoot around and he would watch Julia Child. He popped in the video and he had all this equipment and he started making stuff. It was awesome. Love it. Love the entire section about Wes Unsout. Here's my question because I love this. Wes Unsout was a six foot seven, 245 pound center, who averaged 10 points a game and 14 rebounds over the course of his career. If you took Wes Unsout out of 1974, literally, and transported him to 2024, is he an NBA player? Well, it's a good question and it's a fair question. This is part of the subtlety, I guess, Jeff. I felt very strongly that guys like Wes Unsout and Willis Reed and Nate Thurman had to be in this book. I believe that because I believe that the big men are the guys that saved this league and kept it from going under in the 60s and the 70s. When interests kind of waxed and waned, people watched Russell versus Chamberlain and the Celtics and the Lakers and the Celtics and the Warriors, but they weren't watching every week. They weren't watching Cincinnati, you know, a whole lot nationally. So the people that kept the league going were the big men in the battles and the paint. And so a guy like Wes, who maybe today, I can't say for certain because Wes was smart and intuitive and might have understood, "Hey, I need to shoot three pointers to make it in today's NBA." And this comes back to what I was saying. You are transporting Wes Unsout from 1978 to now, which is a completely different day. You know, it's a completely different sport. So how do you judge that? All I would say is when Wes played, and I think that's how you have to judge this, Jeff, is what did these guys do when they played, when they actually played against the best players in their era? Well, Wes Unsout was one of two players in NBA history to when working at the year and MVP in the same year. The other was Wilt, you know, and he led the bullets to four NBA finals in 10 years. You know, if they had won three instead of one, we'd be talking about Wes is one of the greatest players ever, but they only won one of the four. And so he's kind of forgotten because everybody goes, "Well, they're like the Bills. They didn't win. They didn't win as much as they could have." And they don't get that recognition. So that's why, you know, you have to kind of weigh that. But if I'm answering your question, like Wes with his skillset from 1978 would not, would probably not be Wes Unsout today, right? Like he would be a role player who rebounds, you know, that sets good picks, but he wouldn't be starting because the things that were valued when he played aren't valued today in the NBA game. You know, you know, they talk about screen assists, but guys that are really good at them don't get recognition. I just did a piece on the Cavaliers, Jared Allen's top 10 in screen assists in the league. Does anybody think Jared Allen's one of the best players in the league? Like nobody thinks Jared Allen's one of the best players in the league because that skillset while we have a stat for isn't really valued as much as we think as we want to believe it is. And what Wes did outlet passes is, you know, now guards get the ball or wings get the ball off the glass and they take it up themselves. They don't need a center to turn and throw an outlet pass to the guard. So that skillset has been devalued. So it's just, it's a completely different game, but all I can do and all we try to do was judge them in the era in which they played because that's the only way you can fairly judge how good they were. You, you guys have Draymond Green is a hundredth best player. And it's just fun. Again, this is all fun. It doesn't rate a none of it. Yeah, yeah. Of course. Yeah. Ask away. Yeah. I think of guys, you're going to be like, you're just wrong, which is totally. I think of guys like Mark McGuire, like Adrian Dantley, like Kiki Vandaway, like Jeff Malone, like Terry Porter. I feel like it can name a thousand better, better basketball players than Draymond Green. But am I undervaluing something about Draymond Green? Am I just missing the bow on Draymond Green? I think Draymond Green for Draymond is an elite defensive player, like, you know, one of the best ever defensive players in terms of being able to identify sets and blowing up what teams want to do offensively and taking them out of what they want to do offensively, making them go to their second, third, fourth option with the shot clock now in their back. That leads to runouts. That leads to turnovers. That leads to transition threes for Steph Curry. So I would argue that while Steph Curry is certainly the most important player, right, on the Warriors dynasty, there's no doubting that. He changed. He actually changed the game. There's very few people that actually changed the game of basketball. Steph Curry is one of them. But they don't win the championships without Draymond Green. They just don't, because the way they wanted to play, which was small and fast, they couldn't do it unless Draymond Green could actually play center against the best centers in the league and not be dominated. You know, like, it doesn't work. It doesn't work otherwise. You know, like, so he's in the integral part of that dynasty. So if he's an integral part of that dynasty, you have to ask, well, then, is he one of the top players in NBA history because he's a, he is a vital part of a team that dominated for multiple years, and really through multiple iterations. But he and Steph and Clay Thompson were the constants throughout nine years of, of contending four championships and five finals appearances. I would make a similar agreement for Sam Jones. Nobody remembers Sam Jones now. But if you go back and look and look at the tape of all, no, I shouldn't say all that's too much. When you go back and look at a lot of the Celtics wins in the playoffs. During that Russell dynasty and Russell's the most important player, right? I get it. Who's taking the shots at the end of those playoff games? Sam Jones, right? It's, it's half the check. You know, those guys had to take and make big shots and playoff games to win championships. That Jones got 10 championships. Like, you can't tell he's not great player. You know, just because he didn't cross guys over and he didn't dunk on people and he shot it off the backboard. It still went in. You know what I mean? So, like, so look at his playoff numbers. Don't take it. Don't take my word for it. Look at Sam Jones playoff numbers. And tell me, that's not a great player. You know, so guys like that, guys like dream on green. That's why I was, I'm glad that people disagree because it gives me a chance to put my case out there. And nobody has to agree with my case yet. Nobody. But I have a case for dream on green. Kenan argument. All right. You guys go Jordan 1 LeBron 2 Kareem 3. Yep. Is there a legit argument anymore for Kareem being the best player of all time? Sure. There is. Sure. Of course there is. Yes. He's got a case. Like I said, I say this about LeBron. I think Jordan's the greatest player of all time. I don't think it's close. But LeBron's got a case. You know what I mean? LeBron has a case. You can't say he doesn't have a case. Kareem's got a case. He was the leading scorer in NBA history for 30 years after he retired. Nobody got close to it except Kobe. And then finally LeBron broke it. It was 30 years. He's been retired for almost 40 years. What am I saying? You know, so. And this is what I always tell people. I was in this conversation with Isaiah Thomas actually. And he said at the end of it, you know, that's a good point. Kareem scored 38,000 points. He had one move. He had one thing. He had one shot. That's funny. He scored 38,000 points, essentially with one shot. You know, now he had a counter and he had dumps. I'm not. I get it. But he had a sky hook. That was his thing. That was his move. He didn't, again, he didn't shoot. He made one three pointer in his career. One. He didn't splash threes. He wasn't crossing guys over. They weren't running eyesos for him or pin downs for him. They got him to ball to block. He turned around over his left shoulder and he threw in a sky hook. And he did it and he scored 38,000 points with that shot with one move. And the record stood for almost 40 years. So, and he's got six MVPs. And he's got six NBA championships. Yes. He has a case. He has a legitimate case. Absolutely. I just want to say all my years of playing pickup and I still play on weekends. I too only have one move. And I can imagine if you could score 38,000 points with your one move. That is true. You're wearing an American university sweatshirt. You're an American undergrad. You've had this long, fantastic career in journalism. There are a couple of points I'm fascinated by. Yeah. Number one, you covered one of my favorite teams of all time, looking back. The 1992, '93 Washington Bullets. There you go. 22 and 60. They were bad. West Unsled was a coach. You had a rookie Tom Gugliata. You had Purvis Ellison. You had Rex Chapman. You have this Motley crew. Everyone always asks about what it is to cover great teams. I'm always more fascinated what it is to cover really shitty teams. Yeah. What do you remember about covering the really shitty West Unsled coats bullets? I was, first of all, Jeff, I was the kiss of death as a beat writer. I was a beat writer for nine years. I covered Georgetown the one time they didn't have a great center. Like I was right in between viewing Matumbo morning. My center was Ben Gallery. That was my year. So, the day was terrible. I covered the Bulls for five years. They were terrible. I covered the Washington football team for three years. They were terrible. You see me showing up. Go the other way if you're a team, because I'm going to stink if I cover you. That's just the way it is. But I learned so much more about people covering a bad team and covering bad teams than I ever did. I think I ever would covering really good teams. Because covering really good teams is easy. Everybody's in a good mood. They're winning all the time. They're in the playoffs. They make deep runs. The fans are excited. It's easy to write. It's easy to cover. They won again. It's hard to cover a team that loses nine, ten games in a row and is out of it by Thanksgiving. You know, essentially. That's harder. But what you learn is who the real people are. And so I will always remember. You mentioned Jeff Malone, Darrell Walker, Charles Jones. There were guys on those teams that never ducked, never ducked me. After every loss, they were available. They would tell you the truth. We're not good enough. We're not playing hard enough. They wouldn't sugarcoat it. West wouldn't sugarcoat it. He was always available. West never lied to me in the 30 years. I knew him before he passed away. He's the most righteous guy I ever covered in sports. I revere him because he was. I was a kid. I was a nobody. And he treated me like I was Bob Ryan. You know, like so. So covering bad teams. And when I went to the football team, Brian Mitchell and Ray Brown and Tim Johnson, guys that showed up every week, win or lose. And would be honest with you, you know, and I really will respect guys like that way more than front runners. Because it's easy to be. It's easy to do the interview when you won by 30. It's harder to do it when you lost by 24. And those guys always did the interviews. And so I learned about people and the people that you can really rely on to tell you the truth. You know, about the team that you're covering. And that made me a better reporter because I had to work harder to find things that were interesting on a really bad team. Like it's hard to find things because people go, why are you writing about that? They're terrible. And I go, I know they're terrible. But, you know, like, what am I supposed to do? I mean, am I supposed to just say they suck every game? Like, I have to write about something other than them sucking or I'll go crazy. So you try to find different things. And it, but again, it makes you a better reporter because you have to work a little harder. So I loved covering bad teams, not because it was enjoyable going in the locker room after the ninth straight loss. But because I had to, like, do my job. I had to ask hard questions. I had to ask, are you getting fired? Like, well, or do you think you should be traded or why are you shooting 31% the last seven games? You know, those are real questions and sometimes guys don't want to answer them. But that's what reporters do. We ask questions when you're great and we ask questions when you stink. It's the same. I come from the same place. I don't, I have no, I have nothing invested in this other than getting the answer to the question. I'm not, I'm not trying to puff you up when you're good and then I'm trying to tear you down when you're bad. But that's the job, right? That's what reporters do. That's what we do for a living. So that, Jeff, I think I'm a much better reporter and writer because I covered bad teams. This is going to sound weird. But like looking over that roster, which I have in front of me, you know, I had a good career, Harvey Grant, good career, Rex Chapman, Michael Adams, like, it's not without talent. And I wonder, like, haven't covered the NBA this long. What is the actual difference between a really shitty, like, all these guys can play basketball. It's all these guys played a very high level of basketball. What is actually the difference between a really good team and a really bad team? It's, you know what, Jeff, I said this, I've said this a lot because people have asked me that question before. And really, most games, now there's, you know, every, every season, there's five, there's like five or ten games where your team just doesn't have it that night and they're going to, no matter who they're playing, they're losing by 30. They just don't have it. Like, they just can't make a shot. And then there's five to ten games where they play great. And depending on the team they're playing, they have a really good chance of winning that game. But the other 60 games or so, it's the same game. The game's pretty close till there's about six minutes left to go on the fourth quarter. And then the best player on the floor says, all right, let me go win this game. It's time for me to win the game. And they do. You know, the problem the bullets had is that they never had the best player on the floor. They had good players. All those guys who were good players. But they never had the best player on the floor on, you know, 75 out of the 82 games that they would play. So when they forget Jordan, that's obvious. But when they would play Detroit, they're down four, was six minutes ago. I say it's time to win a game. And he does stuff that they have. They can't guard because they don't have anybody good enough. And he wins the game. They play Sacramento, Mitch Ritzam says, time to win a game. And he goes and wins the game. So the best players do that. That's the NBA. It's about what the best players do when it requires them to be the best players on the floor. And the problem, the bullets and now the wizards, it's the same problem, is that they never have the best player on the floor. There's been very few times when Chris Weber was there and when Gilbert Arenas was there, those were the two at times. And those errors didn't last very long when the bullets probably had the best player on the floor in a given game. But other than that, and, you know, peak John Wall. So maybe for one year or two years when John before John got hurt. So that's the difference. That's it, Jeff. It's what happens those last six minutes, the great players play great and the game ends and they lost by nine. You know, then you go in a locker room again and ask them the same question. I'm going to ask you the nerdiest question you've gotten. I would argue in your history as a journalist. At least it's a question you're not getting anymore. In 1989, the number one pick in the NBA draft was Purvis Ellison, the center out of Louisville. And I remember thinking like, Oh, man, Purvis Ellison, this guy's going to be great. So you had him. He was a bullet recovering the bullets. Is there a planet where Purvis Ellison is Patrick Ewing is? I would say, I would say this, Jeff, if Purvis played today, he'd probably have a better career because there's not nearly as much physicality in the game as there was then. He was 220, maybe playing center. And in those days that he got broken in half like he tried. But you know, even, I'm not going to say mediocre, not Hall of Fame centers. Rick Rick Smith's was a good center. Was he a Hall of Fame center? I don't think so, but Rick Smith's 280. So they threw the ball into Rick Smith. He's got 70 pounds on Purvis Ellison. He does whatever he wants with him, right? But today, he would be Clint Coppella, who is probably 230, but it's the same physical, same type of player. And Purvis would be a rim runner and a shot blocker. And he'd have a role in this in today's NBA. He'd be pretty good, actually. It was tough for him back in the day because he just was so skinny. Even though he knew what to do and he knew how to play, he physically would just get taken under the basket sometimes and there was nothing he could do about it. Right. You covered, you mentioned Wesson said, or we talked about it. You also covered John Thompson when you were the Georgia writer. Thompson always from afar. I love Georgetown as a kid. I love John Thompson as a kid. He seemed like he was an intimidating presence to cover for a young reporter. You were a young reporter covering Georgetown. What was it like covering John Thompson? Oh, you're completely intimidated, of course. Everybody is. You know, because John, not just because John was 610 and 270. I mean, that was part of it, but that wasn't all of it. It was that John wanted to, he wanted to poke you, like he wanted to test you to see if you would fight back. If you were tough, if you would, you know, he wanted that. Like, he, he, and it was okay. Like, I understood what it was because, you know, when you, you know, I grew up in there, people test you. Like, I didn't grow up, I'm not saying I grew up in a tough neighborhood, but I'm just saying, when you're a kid, you know, sometimes you got to fight somebody, right? You don't want to, but they poke your poke and you got to fight him. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose, right? And, and John verbally would test you, would see if you knew what you were talking about, see if you were asking good questions. You know, but I never was like, I think it's different because I grew up here. And so I had a sense of John's history, like I knew a lot about him when I started covering him, that maybe someone that, that didn't know that history might cover him differently and have a not as good result. But I knew what, I knew kind of what made him tick a little bit, I think, and that made it a little easier to cover, but still, John, John would call you back. Like, he wouldn't call you back right away. He would call you back at two in the morning. Because that's when John watched film. He would watch tape at two in the morning of whoever he was playing next. And while he was watching tape, he would return calls. So he would call you two in the morning and you knew he was calling. You know, he knew I was him. And he would just, you know, and I wrote about this after he passed away. Like, when you picked up the phone and he would, he would say, what the fuck do you want? That's how he would say hello. You know, and that's like, okay, I better have a good answer to that question, right? Like, because he's, because he's busy. But again, it made me a better reporter because I had to have a good question to ask him and he was usually fine and would answer the questions perfectly fine and honestly and well. And I, you know, I wish I had covered them longer than just the year I covered them because I really did enjoy covering them. They weren't as good as they had been and would be again, but they were fun to cover, made the tournament, got to the second round. And, and, and again, you're exactly right. I covered John Thompson. I didn't cover the Georgetown basketball team. I covered John Thompson. That was my beat. I had the Thompson beat for you. You know, and, and it was a worthy beat to cover because he made you work for it. He didn't give it to you. He made you work for it. Do you feel like as a basketball guy, so the modern, the modern landscape, the coaches have very little power anymore because of the transfer rules because of NIO because of guys going straight to the league? I wonder how you feel that has affected the quality of basketball. Do you look at the MA and think this is better than ever? Do you look at it and see a lot of uncooked embryo entering the league? Like, how do you view it? I mean, I think the talent level, there's more guys that can do more things than ever before, right? Like everybody should say everybody. Most guys that come into the league right now can handle it. But many more guys can shoot it than before, not everybody, but many got many more people can shoot it effectively out to the three point line than ever before. They can get to the basket. They're very crafty and smart and strong. I think a lot of kids really do watch a lot of tape now and the best players you can kind of tell they do because they do things that are nuanced. The problem Jeff is, and I think it's more on college basketball, and I cover the pros, but I watch college basketball and it's made the game, I think, much more disjointed at the college level. I just don't see anything, I don't see flow in the college game. I love about basketball when it's planted. It's best is that the ball flows. It goes from one person to another. It does not matter who shoots it. It's the person who has the best chance to make a basket on a given possession. That's the kind of game I like to watch. That's the game I like to see teams play at a highlight light. I thought Boston did that last year. It didn't matter if Tatum shot it or Brown shot it or Drew Holliday shot it or Forzinga shot it or Al Horford shot it didn't matter. I didn't care who shot it. It was who's got the most open shot on this possession and that's who's going to shoot it this time, and that's how the game should be played. I don't see that in the college game. I see a lot of one on one. I see one screen guy goes to the rim. I don't see the ball going strong side to weak side, but I think part of that was exactly what you're talking about. It's hard to have continuity on a team when one guy's making $800,000 and everybody else is making 10. That's hard. It's hard to have continuity when a guy transfers three times in four years to three different schools. It just makes it really difficult. I just don't think it's sustainable because you just can't keep paying guys more money to go to your school. It's just not sustainable. The NBA has a salary cap. They do have limits to what you can spend on players and colleges right now don't have any limits. I don't know how you can continue to put a product out that people want to see. I know I'm old now and I don't want to be the guy just reminiscing about the past, but there was something to be said when you knew that whether it was a Duke or Carolina or UCLA or Georgetown or whoever. They would have four seniors on their team. They would have five juniors on their team. You can see upperclassmen playing at a high level. That doesn't happen anymore. It happens rarely. It's one of the reasons why my beloved Eagles have a chance this year is because we have five seniors on our team. I bet you, we won't have five seniors on our team anytime in the next 10 years. That's why this is one year. I really hope we do well because the chance that you're going to get your best players, all of your best players to their senior year, non-existent in college basketball. It doesn't matter what level. It doesn't matter. It happens in the Patriot League and it happens in the ACC. It does not matter. You're not getting them to your senior. You have to re-recruit every year. I was telling someone recently, I went to the University of Delaware and I covered the team that made the first-ever NCAA tournament in school history. If that happened nowadays, the freshman point guard who was really good would transfer to Texas A&M after two years. The seven-foot center is going to wake fire. It would have never happened. It literally would not have happened because it would have been stripped mine for parts and that would have been it. Absolutely. Yeah, and that's the problem. It's a team like Delaware that you hope, hey, if our guys can grow together, so by year three or four of this recruiting class, we have a chance to be pretty good, right? No chance. It doesn't happen anymore. So it's literally, you know, hopefully one of our kids has just a breakout season. We'll just ride that as far as we can. I mean, it's nothing wrong with that, but it's not the same as getting to know kids over four years and getting to know their families and really enjoying the experience of watching their kids grow together and play better together and win together. That's what I think is great about college athletics when it's done it right and it just doesn't happen very much anymore. November 14, 1993, the Washington Post, headline, too many receivers, byline, David Aldridge. Tim McGee is something to say. He will not volunteer this because it is not his way. If you ask him who talk about things, but this is sensitive stuff, how he feels about playing wide receiver for the Washington Redskins these days is not a cut and dry subject. These are nuances. There are nuances. For example, he and Desmond Howard went to Howard University's Homecoming a couple of weeks ago and had a good time. But we've asked him whether it's hard to accept playing less because there are now four wide receivers playing in three spots. He would say yes, but it's part of the game. He said, I want to say a couple of things. No one. I think you're very underrated as a writer. I really do. I think you're an underrated writer. And I think guys should do a lot of TV one up being underrated as writers because we forget how good they are as writers. I just want to say thank you. Number two. Did you enjoy covering the NFL and what are the betters worse of covering the NFL as opposed to the NBA? I actually didn't mind covering the NFL. I thought it was, you know, it was fine. Strong words from David Aldridge on covering the NFL. It was, it was fine. I don't mean that in a, in a, like a pejorative way. Like it wasn't, I wasn't, it wasn't like the experience of my life, but it was fine. In terms of, you know, you do, it's more of a work day, right? You come in in the morning, you watch practice, you talk to the coaches, you talk to the players, you go home. Whereas with covering, you know, covering basketball or football or baseball, you have to work nights. So you work really bad hours. You eat terrible. You don't get enough sleep. And you're traveling a lot. You don't travel nearly as much covering football. Like you go eight, eight days, eight times a year, and it's a two day trip most of the time. Like even if you're going to the West Coast, I live in DC. So if I'm going to LA, I leave on Saturday. I'm back Monday. It's a two day trip. You know, but if you're covering, again, baseball, basketball, hockey, you're going for a week. You got to pack for a week because you're doing four or five, six games in a row. So I didn't mind it. You know, it's the, the issue I have with football is it's just the military kind of subculture that is part of football that I don't particularly care for. Not because it's not because it's the military, but I think the NFL hides behind the military to avoid answering hard questions about the teams and the league and the things that they do. And they just say they just roll out an American flag and say, you must support us or you're an American. And I just find that a little distasteful. But, but the game itself, I really respect football players, Jeff, because they die sooner playing their sport. Because they play their sport, they die sooner. So you got to really believe in what you're doing to go out there in a football field and be involved in 50 to 60 car crashes every play every week, because that's what it is. It's a car crash. It's what happens to you when you're in a car crash. They do that 50 or 60 times every game. And it's, and it kills them, you know, they dive five, six, seven years earlier. So I really, you know, I respect like lineman especially I love talking to offensive lineman and defensive lineman, because the physical things that they have to do to play every week. None of us could do none of us could do like these are special people in terms of their ability to handle pain and their, you know, their ability to perform even when they're not physically 100%. So I really do respect that. And, and, you know, the seasons are not hard to cover. I mean, it's seventh on 17 games. It's less than 162, you know, it's less than 82. So, so it's not that bad. It really isn't that bad. You, you talked about covering bad teams. You covered the four and 12 1993 Redskins. I did. All right, things I would have never guessed if you gave me a thousand years. Richie Pettibon was the head coach. Their backup quarterback was Rich Ganon, Delaware. And they're seeing Russia was Reggie Brooks, who I, who ran for a thousand yards, who I literally do do not recall existing on the planet earth. Yes. What are the challenges or are there of covering a shitty NFL team as opposed to a shitty NBA team? Well, it's different. You know, the NFL, you know, it's funny. Bob Myers is working with the commanders now. And he obviously was the architect with Golden State with the Warriors building those championship teams. And he pointed this was after the Hail Mary game when they beat the Bears a couple weeks ago. And he said, you know what you know what I realized is that one of these games is worth five NBA games. And that's pretty much accurate. Like, you know, there's 16, 17 NFL games, there's 82 or 83, depending on the cup thing, NBA games. So if one game, one NFL games worth five NBA games at it every time. So when a team loses, when a team's bad early, it's, it's, it's tough because they know. We got nothing to play for for the next 12 weeks. Like there were one in six. We're out. We're done. Like, you know, and that's really hard. That's a real challenge. It's really difficult to cover a team that is going nowhere fast. And we all knew Richie wasn't going to make it. You know, he was going to get fired. We knew they went to our North Turner. It was not a secret. So it's just watching somebody get ready to get fired. That wasn't any fun. And Richie was a good guy. You know, it was pretty stoic. He didn't say a whole lot. But, you know, he had waited a long time to become a head coach. He was Joe Gibbs's defensive guy for 10 years. And then Joe quit and Richie got the one shot one year. And they were terrible. And he got fired. And it's unfortunate. But that's what happens to most guys in the end of most coaches in sports. Don't get a chance to coach a good team. They usually are coaching a pretty crappy team when they get first get a chance. So, but yeah, it wasn't that was not a fun year. The only thing that was funny was that you knew they were going to get a high draft pick. And they were probably going to get to take a quarter back. And they wanted to take in his Schullers. That didn't work out either. So, but he said he was a nice guy. He actually became a congressman from Tennessee. So from North Carolina, I'm sorry. And, you know, things happen. Guys, it's not for everybody. Most guys don't make it in a quarter back in the NFL. Actually, I'm set to loser. I can tell you, they also drafted Gus Farat. So it wasn't all that same draft or not from Tulsa. You are a guy whose career arc and resume. It seems like suggest you are a guy who could have had five, six, seven books written by now if you wanted to go that route. You know, and I'm sure you've had the opportunity through the years to write books. Oh, you should do this or you should do that. Why haven't you just? I mean, besides wanting to save your sanity. Right. Well, I mean, there's, there's a couple of reasons. One is, you know, my, my jobs kind of required me to kind of focus exclusively on doing those jobs and there's a lot of travel involved and fatigue and all of those things. And you cut, you fight through it as best you can. But I just, and then when you're home, you just want to sleep. You know, I just want to do anything else. So I just, you know, yes, I mean, the short answer is very few people actually asked me to write a book. You know, there's a couple of people I would love to have written books about or with. They went in another direction. But yes, I would, I always wanted to write books. I am hoping that with the time I have left, I can write three or four books because there are some subjects that I'm interested in. Some are sports. Some are not sports at all that I would like to delve into a little bit. So hopefully I can. Hopefully this, this last productive stage of, of my career, I can do some of these things. We, I feel like in this business, most of us, and I'm not, I'm not a damning you by saying this. We're kind of nerds. We're like writing nerds. You know, like we're not, we're not the cool kids. We're like the writers, you know, that's right. And I feel like when you go on TV, you become kind of cool, like, hey, D.A. on a cooler, definitely. And I want to like, through the course of your career, when you have this, these high profile moments, you know, I'm sitting at home. I'm watching there's David Audrey, do you still think of yourself always first and foremost as kind of the nerd? I'm not saying you thought of yourself as nerdy, but like the nerdy writer or do you evolve in your thinking as you go along? No, I always thought I was a writer who was on television. That's, that's always what I thought of as my, when I was on television. I always thought I write for a living, but this job requires me to be on television. And I never stopped writing. Even when I was on television, I wrote a column, wrote for NBA.com, wrote the morning tip for 12 years, you know, wrote column when, when ESPN was, you know, just getting into ESPN.com, I wrote for them every week. So I still kept writing. But yeah, I know what you're saying. You get to, you get to appreciate the immediacy and the power of television when you're on it. It's a powerful medium. People have visceral reactions to what they watch on television. You know, it's just different than when they read a story. They can read it. They can like it. But it doesn't impact them the way something on TV gets to them. And it's just different. The reaction is just much stronger and it's more powerful. And that's why television is a very, it can be used for good or for ill. You know, because it's incredibly powerful. People believe what they see on television. So whatever it is that you're saying, if you say it often enough for loudly enough, they'll start to believe it. And that goes be way beyond sports. You know, so I came to respect the power of the medium. But I always, I rarely look at things, interviews that I did on TV. Because I always think I could have done better because I had to play to the medium rather than do what I probably would have done if I was just sitting with the guy or the woman in a restaurant doing an interview. That's really interesting because I worked with Tom Verducci for a long time. And Tom Verducci is one of the best interviewers I've ever seen. And then you see him on TV with Freddie Freeman saying, so Freddie, what were you thinking in that moment? Right. It just did a different muscle. Like, what is it? It's, well, it's the medium. Look, it requires short questions and short answers because nobody is going to sit there and listen to somebody talk for 27 seconds or 48 seconds. They're going to change to another channel. It's pretty consistent. It does not matter what you're talking about. It doesn't matter if you're an expert or not. People's attention spans are very, very short. So you have to ask, and the walkoff interview that Tom does that Kenny Rosenthal does that I did that Andrew Kramer did that all the best people that I think do this did this job. The walkoff interview is 45 seconds because they have to get to the next game, or they have to get to the studio. So you can't talk for five minutes with the player of the game. You have to ask them one question, maybe two, that they can give you a short answer in because you have got to get out of there. So I just, you can't have the kind of detail of conversations that you want to have. And so when people say, I don't learn anything from sideline reporters, I'm like, no shit Sherlock. Because there's 45 seconds. And what do you get out of any conversation with another human being in 45 seconds? You know, so that's, but that's what we do. You do the best you can with the time you have. Yeah, it's funny. I had a conversation with Bob Lee once, formerly of ESPN. And he talked about the number of colleagues who he saw succumb through the years to what he called red light fever, which is airport recognition. Oh, I saw you on TV. My good friend with John Worth time at 60 minutes. And he, I was talking with him about this, how like people come up to you and they're like, I saw you on TV. And you're saying to me, it's weird because it's not actually a compliment. It's just acknowledging that I saw your face on the top. You've always had a very good reputation as a nice guy in this medium. Is it, do you see it easy to succumb to the? Oh, sure. Yeah. Sure. If you, if you, if being famous is important to you and being recognized is important to you, then sure, of course, it's very intoxicating. It's the least important thing in my life is being famous. I don't like being famous. I just want to go to the store and get my can of beans and go home. I don't, I don't want to take, I mean, I'll, I want to say I don't want to take a picture. I don't mean I hate people. That's not what I'm saying. Like, but I just want to, I don't want what you're talking about a celebrity. It's not, I know David Aldrich and I like his writing and I love the questions he asks on TV. It's, I saw you on television. Therefore, you must have value. Therefore, I have to, I want an autograph or a picture from you. You know nothing about me. Nothing. Other than you saw me on television. And so, it's kind of weird if that's not important to you. Like, you know what I mean? And I'm not, I'm not begrudging the people to whom it is important. It's just not important to me. Now, if I were 23 when I went to ESPN, I might be thinking differently, but I was 31. And I worked at the Washington Post for 10 years and I really liked working at the Washington Post. And it was, you know, I got to write. I got to travel. I got to cover sports. So ESPN didn't hold. I wasn't like under the sway of my God. I must be. I must work at ESPN or I'm a failure. It was something I just thought I should try just because it's different. It's a different medium. I should try it. See if I'm any good at it. But yeah, no, it's celebrity and celebrity is, I don't know. I'm not a big fan of it, but I know some people. I know that others are. And, you know, if that helps them get through the day, fine. God bless them. How do you feel when you're at the store getting beans? I don't know. Someone's like, whatever. How do you feel about Julius Randall on the wolves? Like, yeah, I mean, you do the best you can, depending on what you're thinking about when they ask you that question. You know, if it's not anything particularly important, you try to answer it as best you can. But if you're worried about your kids or your, you know, or your parents are going into the nursing home, you don't really want to answer that question right now. You know, so. But you, again, you try to do it with some grace and you try to do it in a way where you don't come off as a jerk. And sometimes you just have to say, you know what, I would love to answer this question, but I do have to go. But what could I take a picture with you or would you like an autograph? I try to give them options. That will allow them to get something out of the encounter and allow me to go on about my day. I'm going to go, I'm going to search online and find the post of David Aldridge was a dick to me because he thought buying Goya beans was more important than talking about jail in Bronson. Exactly. Let me ask you a final question. I'm required to ask this on this podcast. What is the best confrontation you've had in your career with a player, a coach or something? What's your best confrontation story from your career? I mean, I'll give you the easy answer because it's the one that everybody loves is, you know, talking to Popovich, you know, in between the third and fourth quarter interview that every, every silent reporter dreaded. And it's on YouTube and I've watched it a couple of times. This is actually kind of fun. So what I asked him, whatever I asked him, I don't remember what I asked him. And he's not the question was so stupid. He just stared at me. Like, he just, like, he literally put his arms up and stared at me. And I stared right back at him. This one for about nine or 10 seconds, which in television was a long time. And I said, finally, I said, you do realize we're on live television, right? And he actually laughed and he said, okay, all right, I'll do it. So, so that was kind of funny. I got, we both got a kick out of it. You know, the actual confrontations with with athletes. There've been, there's been a few. I mean, Bernard King didn't like something I wrote a few years ago. You know, there's, there's been, there's been some here there, you know. Lambert was always kind of a jerk, no matter what you asked him, you know, so it happens. It doesn't. Oh, Bobby Valentine. I had to ask Bobby Valentine about Barry Bonds and steroids. He loved talking about that. Let me tell you, like, you know, and he, you know, that was a short interview. So, yeah, I mean, it's, there's been times where it hasn't been pleasant, but you do what you can. You ask the question as best you can, you let them vent and you say thank you for your time and you move on. It's funny. I remember being young and being terrified of confrontations and then you get older and you're like, this is literally zero percent scary. It's definitely. Yeah, exactly. You're not going to punch me, you know, you know what I mean? Like, no matter you can curse me out. That's fine. I don't care. Like, it's fine. It comes with the territory. You know, we've both been doing this a long time. Obviously, people think we don't know anything about the sport we're covering and they'll tell you that coaches will tell you that all the time. You know, fine. Go ahead. Tell me. I don't think about the game. Fine. You know, like, yes, as you get older, your give a shit is way lower than it was when you were younger. Like, like, whatever, dude. I'm just trying to get out of here to go home. So, so, so do your vent tells long as you want. I'm still getting paid. You know, it's like this 2K thing I'm doing now where they have this function. You can skip me in the game if you just want to get back to the game. They go to silent report. And so people think that's a flex to go on Twitter and say, you know, this is why I skip you in 2K. And I go, you know, buddy, I still get paid. I don't know what you're like. My 2 kids are going to college because of 2K. So skip it. I don't give a shit. Like, you know, so do whatever you want to do. Like, there's very little that you can do that could actually hurt me. So, you know, buy a gun deals. That's actually funny. That show winning time was based on my book. And yeah, people would be like, you got canceled after two seasons. I'm like, it's literally paying for my kids college education. Exactly. I'm good. By the way, I would just say this real quick. I don't know what you thought. I thought the show was pretty good, actually. I thought they got it played Magic and Korean were fantastic. They were exactly those guys. I don't know how they did it. And we had Jeannie busts under my podcast. I thought she was going to just infective and awful. She loved it. She thought it was fantastic. I know. Very surprising. Very surprising. I was, I was, she said, you know what she said, Jeff, that really made me feel good. And I'm sure what make you feel good. She said, that show reminded me why I love my dad so much. Yeah. And I was like, that is really cool. That's good for you, then, Jeannie. That's what you got from it. God bless you. So you should feel good about that, man. It was, you know, it wound up helping people. You know, it was pretty, that's pretty cool. So I appreciate that. I appreciate that. And David, I appreciate you doing this a whole lot. I don't know if we've ever had a conversation face-to-face, obviously known for years. Yeah. No, we did the clause, but it was an email thing that wasn't face-to-face. Yeah, it was just fun. This is, I was happy when they said you were interested in doing this. I always liked talking to you. Thank you. Congratulations on the book, and I'm not going to skip over you on 2K when I put it on. You can skip me. It's really okay. It's really okay. Awesome. All right. Thank you so much. I want to thank today's guest, David Aldridge, for joining me on 2W, either singing Yang. You can follow David on Threads at David Aldridge, D.C. and read his work at The Athletic. Oh, and by the basketball 100, wherever books are sold. If you have a chance to enjoy 2 riders singing Yang, please go to the vehicle for your choice and leave a nice review. I'd really appreciate it. Music is by the great MC Whiteout. Thanks again for joining me, and remember, keep riding. ♪ My kid's been fired, you gon' work for your retire ♪
On writing and deciding upon "The Basketball 100." On covering John Thompson's Hoyas and the crappy Washington Redskins. On his love of roundball and why journalism celebrity is nonsense.