Hey there! Did you know King Supers always gives you savings and rewards on top of our lower than low prices? And when you download the King Supers app, you'll enjoy over $500 in savings every week with digital coupons. And don't forget fuel points to help you save up to $1 per gallon at the pump! Want to save even more? With a boost membership, you'll get double fuel points and free delivery! So shop and save big at King Supers today! King Supers, fresh for everyone! Savings may vary by state, restrictions apply, see site for details. Without the ones like you, who work tirelessly to keep things running, everything would suddenly stop. Hospitals, factories, schools, and power plants, they all depend on you. No matter the weather, emergency, or time of day, you're the ones who get it done. At Granger, we're here for you. With professional grade industrial supplies, count on real-time product availability and fast delivery. Call clickgranger.com or just out by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. [Music] [Music] What is up, everybody? Thank you all for joining me on the latest forecast. I hope you'll enjoy this one. I will touch on the Nuggets Lakers thing, but I'll be honest with you. There's not much left to say in the Nuggets are up 3-0 and had a very much more convincing victory in Game 3 as they pulled away in the second half. It really was kind of an indication of where the Nuggets at and where the Lakers are at. I don't think I need to go over this well-worn territory, so I won't be focusing on that. I'm sorry for those of you want that sort of thing. There's Game 4 tonight. I don't know if the Nuggets will win. I don't know if they'll lose. All I know is that we've seen all we need to see in this series, so it's kind of reductive to kind of go in-depth analysis on it unless there's something big that happens. I do want to kind of touch on several different things, and one of them is an article that came out today from Ramona Shelburne, who doesn't normally cover things that don't have to do with the Nuggets, but since the Nuggets are in LA, she drew a comparing and contrasting look at the Denver Nuggets versus the Los Angeles Lakers, and I kind of want to take a different attack on this because I think we get into moralizing. We get into things must be a certain way, and I think this article falls victim to that because of in light of the Lakers and the sons, specifically, their travails. There has been a tendency to look at, well, there's a right way on the wrong way, I think the Miami Heat of the 2012, 2010 to 2014 range proved that isn't necessarily the case, and I think also the Kevin Durant Warriors proved that as necessary a case, but the base of the Warriors proves it, but that's another subject. But I think we as a public become enamored with something has to be right, something has to be a fundamental thing. Now, if you're building a team, you have to have chemistry with a certain player. That is fundamentally true with any other sport, even in baseball, which is a lot more individual, you have to have nowhere people are going to be, you have to have chemistry. You don't necessarily have to go through the long team building that the Denver Nuggets did, nor do you have to do what the Heat of the, you know, early 2010s did. There is no fundamentally right way to build a team other than one thing, one fundamental thing is that you have to have chemistry. You don't, there's different ways to build chemistry, and you don't necessarily have to be on the same team for a long period of time in order to build that sort of thing. Now there's a, there's a truism in the NBA is that you got to get scars, you know, build up your scars. What they said is like, go through disappointment, go through the steps. The biggest example has always been the Chicago Bulls and the Detroit Pistons. The Pistons of the 80s came up against and against the Boston Celtics over and over and over again till they finally broke through. Then there are the balls that were coming up against the Pistons who did the same thing, built up, built up, built up, and you kept coming into disappointment, but then eventually you prevail, and it's that fundamental thing that comes through. That's the kind, that is to me, and I think that is the most biggest truism of the NBA. When we're contrasting teams, this Lakers team has been together for a long time. I think, I think the, I think the article in question from Ramona Shelburn has kind missed the point in sense that the, the Anthony Davis and LeBron James have been together since 2018. And that sort of thing is, five years is enough time to build chemistry. There's other things wrong with the Lakers. The team that won in 2020 was in the bubble, and the Lakers weren't exactly hitting on all cylinders before they got into the bubble that year. They were, I think with the, the top of the Western Conference were sort of like number two or something like that. There was, the Lakers were, you know, still building that chemistry, but they hit a stride. And in the bubble, we're able to take advantage of the circumstances therein, like everyone else had the same circumstances. So, you know, the only asterisk is it was weird for everyone, and we're able to win a title. That team had chemistry. In fact, that team had a lot of different players that they probably should have kept. Now, if we're going to be drawing any sort of radical conclusion about what, a way not to build a team, you have to look at the, the Phoenix Suns, who, I don't think necessarily you can look at them for giving up on McHale Bridges. Bridges, I don't know if he, because that Phoenix Suns run in 2022, was 2021, excuse me, was really unique. It was in the shortened season, and they came up against an injured team in every round except for the finals, which they lost. Remember, they played the Lakers in the first round. They were defending their title, and the Lakers, Anthony Davis got injured in the first, I think the second game of the, of the, of the round. The second round, Naga said, "No Jamal Murray," and no Michael Ford Jr. In the, well, no, they had Mike, they had Mike in that one. In the third round, they played, who did they play? The Los Angeles Clippers, who lost Kawhi Leonard, and it was, it was, you know, each thing was lining up for them to, to get to this very interesting journey into the finals when they lost in six games to the, and lost with losing four straight games to the Milwaukee Bucks. And I think there is a lot of different ways you can go about it. Look at the Bucks, actually, there's a good thing here, look at the Bucks. The Bucks were on the same trajectory as the Denver Nuggets, with building through ket team chemistry for a long time. It got them a title in 2021, but it quickly got sideways, and then it resorted to them getting Damian Loward this last year, who just report came down today that Damian Loward has injured. The Denver Nuggets have done it a certain way. The Nuggets have done it through very slowly through into the, to the very big credit of Tim, Tim Connolly and our Terrace Carnesova's built this Denver Nuggets team that was able to reach the mountaintop last year and hopefully is on their way to another, another title. That doesn't invalidate what the other teams will do. The only thing I could say about the Phoenix Suns is, yes, they went awry really quickly. One of the reasons it was fundamentally going bad for the Phoenix Suns is that Chris Paul was not the same, and he's really his last hurrah was 2021, and he fell off a pretty steep cliff after that, and it got worse and worse and worse, and then he became a player you couldn't, you had to play off the bench, and that was very evident last year when the Nuggets were playing the Phoenix Suns and then he eventually got injured. These are things that have dogged Chris Paul through his career, but it got really bad last year and it ended up where he is now. He was coming off the bench in Golden State, so the reasons they changed up were mounting for a while, and then, of course, they made a colossal mistake in my view by getting Bradley Beale, and then you saw what you've seen this team that has no chemistry. There's one thing that needs to be true is that team chemistry, but there's different ways to achieve it. There's different ways to get there, and it's not static. It changes over time. People's motivations change over time, and I think we overcrowd it. I love what the Nuggets have done, but what the Nuggets have done is very Nicole Yocch based. Let us not forget that you need that guy, and I think the Nuggets have built the team that they have built because they have Nicole Yocch. If they had a different kind of player, like Anthony Edwards or someone else with a new Supreme talent that was a different kind of player, you build differently, and I think that there's just not one way. I don't like these articles that are saying, "Well, maybe this is the correct way." There's more than one way to do it, and that is just my point here. I also want to talk about some other things. In the second half, I'm going to talk about the media deal that's coming down and some news about that and how it really shows ESPN's diminishing power, but first, I kind of talk to you about the Phoenix Suns and the Minnesota Timberwolves, and I kind of want to talk about former Nuggets general manager Tim Connolly and what he has been able to do. I don't necessarily think he has built a team that is destined to beat the Denver Nuggets, but what he has done very quickly in the matter of two years is build a team that reversed its culture, and coming back to our previous conversation about what the way stability team, one thing Tim is very good at is understanding and says this is something he had to learn, and I'm probably going to write about this on Denver steps. He had to learn through mistakes that he made early in his time in Denver that he needed to understand culture, not necessarily chemistry, but culture, and he changed the Nuggets culture after that disastrous 13-14 season into the second season when he tried to bring in Aaron Flalow, and that really did not work, and that was more of a group decision on that one. I'll just put two that way, and the Nuggets ended up going through a disastrous Shaw era, which I mean, like I said, it's not totally his fault. I do have sympathy for Brian Shaw, and it ended up where they needed to change culture completely, and in 2015 is when they really began that. The culture really started changing with Wil Barton and his ability to get along with people and his ability to be a guy that is a glue guy. That was really Wil Barton's primary role. It wasn't necessarily his basketball skill, but his ability is in a locker room and being a functional player who could contribute were invaluable to this team, and a lot of it really began with Wil Barton. People forget, Nicole Yokech showed a little bit his first year, the 15-16 year, but it really was tenuous about what was going to be happening. People think that it was obvious, and it wasn't. It didn't really become obvious until his second season, and his second season is when everything changed. Season number two, and when Nicole Yokech comes in is when they start building the team chemistry part of it, but the team culture part of it is really big. Tim Connolly became very cognizant that culture matters, and all of that has to do with the lessons he learned from 2013 to 2015. That two-year window where the nuggets made mistakes. Not all of his fault, some his fault, some other people's fault in that in that organization, and it ended up where the nuggets had to completely reverse course in 2015 and go through culture building, and one of those is getting Michael Malone in there. What he has done in Minnesota is change the culture of losing, change the sad sack thing they had going, and he really focused on having a culture of people who want to play basketball. The thing about the Phoenix Suns is that I'm not entirely sure anyone there but Devin Booker at this point, including Kevin Durant, want to play basketball. I think that sort of thing is absolutely essential. You've got to have Hoopers. I'm not talking about Real Hoopers. I'm talking about people who really want to just obsessed with the game, and everyone on the Denver nuggets is obsessed with the game. There's no people who are just in it for the money. They all are just they want to play basketball. What Tim Connolly has done by and large in Minnesota is the same thing, it's the exact same thing. In Phoenix, he contracts out with Phoenix because I'm not going to bring the Lakers into this because LeBron wants to play basketball. I think Davis wants to play basketball, but it is just sometimes you just don't have the right mixture, and it's hard when you are the bus family and you aren't exactly the richest family in the NBA to get that what you need and go extra risky and all that stuff, and that that is just part of the equation. There's more than one way to skin a cat, part to use a crude analogy. I think that we need to start crediting what the nuggets have been able to do in a culture sense that Calvin Booth has been able to capitalize on in these last two seasons. That all leads into each other. Unfortunately, the Phoenix Suns don't have a 2012 Kevin Durant. They have a broken down, always injured, and terrible contract, Bradley Beale. Those are two mistakes that they made that everyone would have traded for Durant, but I don't necessarily think he has been the shining example of where you build right now. I really don't, and I think that that is going to haunt the Phoenix Suns for a while. All right, on the other side of the break, I'm going to talk about the news that came out about the NBA and Amazon, and get into what that means for ESPN. But first, I want to talk to you about Blanchard Family Wines, located between 18th and 19th, and Blake and Wansy, and beautiful Lower Downtown, Denver, Colorado, just a couple of blocks away from Coors Field, right in the military block. They're always online at BFWColorado.com. They're on Facebook and Instagram, and they're Blanchard Family Wines. It's very rainy right now. I don't necessarily think anyone's going to be rushing out to downtown or any sort of thing like that, but it is also a great time with spring in the air to come down and just kind of taste what they got to offer down there. It's really, really cool stuff, really tasty stuff. Try their petite pearl. It's very, very good. That's my favorite right now, but there's also got, you know, they have to get Pino, which is one of their best varietals. They've got the Cabernet, which is the thing that got me into Blanchard Family Wines, but they got nothing for them more than that. If you like whites, they got whites. If you like reds, they got reds, they got rosés, they got anything you need in your favorite local wine bar. They got partnerships with Western Slope wineries, and they got multiple locations, one in Fort Collins and one in Golden, and of course, their original location in Sonoma County. Once again, they're located between 18th and 19th, and Blake and Wazi, and be it for lower downtown Denver, Colorado, just a couple blocks away from Coorsfield, right in the military block. They're always online at BFWColorado.com. They're in Facebook and Instagram, and they're Blanchard Family Wines. When you go in, or you talk to them to them, Jeff Morton from CSU Podcast. Send you. Hey there! Did you know King Supers always gives you savings and rewards on top of our lower than low prices? And when you download the King Supers app, you'll enjoy over $500 in savings every week with digital coupons. And don't forget fuel points to help you save up to $1 per gallon at the pump. Want to save even more? With a boost membership, you'll get double fuel points and free delivery. So shop and save big at King Supers today. King Supers, fresh for everyone. Savings may vary by state. Restrictions apply. See site for details. Without the ones like you, who work tirelessly to keep things running, everything would suddenly stop. Hospitals, factories, schools, and power plants, they all depend on you. No matter the weather, emergency, or time of day, you're the ones who get it done. At Granger, we're here for you. With professional grade industrial supplies, count on real-time product availability and fast delivery. Call clickgranger.com or just out by Granger for the ones who get it done. The news came down this week that the NBA is looking to and is finalizing a partnership with Amazon. Now everything's preliminary right now. I don't think anything's official, but it's heading that direction. People have been hearing this stuff for a while. The exclusive negotiating window for ESPN and the NBA ended on the 22nd. So it's been five days. And you're going to see more and more stories about this coming out. I've said this before, and I may have written an article on this, but I may have talked about it on this podcast, is that the NBA made a mistake. And I think they've realized they made a mistake when they they really started getting more and more exclusively into ESPN. Turner has always been a part of it because, you know, Turner, Sparta Warner Brothers, you know, this one thing leads to another. Turner's had a long-term partnership with the NBA going back to the 80s. And it has been a a one of these it's been it's been an evolution in their thought and put to that way. A lot of things are happening at once. The NBA knows and needs to get worse before it gets better. And by that, I mean, it needs to expand. And when you expand, you dilute the talent. And the NBA needs to have two more teams out there and to really capitalize on market. The NBA went all in on small markets in the in the 2000s. And what that did was kind of cut their off their nose despite their face. They did they were trying to nationalize things like the NFL, which is in a lot of small markets. And they realized eventually when I think by this last media deal that they can't go exclusively into small markets like they had been doing, one horse town is what the way it was described to me years ago. And what has done what what has happened is they they we all know Seattle and probably Las Vegas are going to be getting a team here in the next few years or so. So this plays into the media deal. Amazon coming into this picture for whatever extent that they will be getting into is is a big part of the equation of the of the NBA's thinking diversification of media and not boxing themselves into one thing like they did with ESPN and really going into a a more friendly atmosphere to make them more national. And Amazon is interesting because there were rumors for a long time that it was going to be Apple that gets the streaming. Amazon, like I said, excuse me, choking. Amazon, like I said, nothing is official, but they seem to be wanting to be a major player in sports like you've seen with the NFL. And everyone saw the success that Peacock had in airing that playoff game between the Chiefs and I think it was the bank. Where were they playing? Anyway, that playoff game they aired that was exclusively on Peacock. Everyone saw the success with that. So there is going to be a streaming element for this and the NBA is generally a canary in the coal mine. They always are the first to go a certain direction. They were the first to go all in on cable. They were the first to have these new technology deals and stuff like that. And now this time it was the NFL with when they did their Thursday night package on Amazon, which all those games are terrible. But there is a motivation here. And a lot of it has to do with the dwindling influence and power of ESPN. ESPN has had issues for years and it's going to be reflected in this new media package. This media package will, I don't know if ESPN will not be a part of it, but I will say that you will see their influence and exclusivity diminished quite a bit. You don't invest in Amazon like you have apparently rumored to be according to that report. You don't do that if you are intending to keep and ESPN's influence what it was. ESPN's got some problems. They've had financial problems for years and their coverage has suffered because of it because they've devolved further and further and further into hot take territory. And I don't think any league has been particularly happy with that result. So what does it mean with Amazon? Well, like this doesn't include the in-season tournament. I don't know what the enemy is going to be doing with that. They still need to name the thing. Everyone knows my thoughts on the in-season tournament. I don't necessarily think it's that great. I think it's a gimmick, but it's a gimmick in order to make the NBA money. And if there's one thing the NBA wants, it's more money. And this new new media deal is going to boost revenues probably a quite a bit more than people are anticipating because the NBA is going to be diversifying and they wanted things to sell off. My own view is that inevitably Comcast will be getting a portion of this that's been rumored for months and years that Comcast slash NBC Universal has really wanted to get back in the NBA game. And devoting special nights to over the air coverage of the NBA via NBC. That is a potential. There's still some other streamers who could be looking to get into the game with the in-season tournament. The point is even Turner isn't safe. The NBA is looking to the future. And if your company is having severe financial trouble, you may get into left in the dust by the NBA. And this is something that is something we could be looking at in the future here. We could be very much looking at a scenario where either ESPN or Turner have their influence basically reduced to ancillary reduced to on the fringes. The fringes are where you don't want to be in these scenarios. I don't know what they're going to be doing with the ESPN, but it is very telling that as soon as the non-exclusive window opened up on the 22nd, there's immediately a rumor that Amazon is about to close a deal with the NBA. And if I was a someone who was an executive at ESPN, I would be quite frightened of this prospect because that would mean that the NBA is looking to a different horizons and that would limit my own ability to cover the NBA. And I think if we are all going to take a look at this, coupled with the expansion stuff that is inevitably going to be happening, is that the NBA knows that they need to grow in a certain other direction that maybe ESPN can't do. And in my view, this is just me editorializing. In my view, I think it benefits the NBA to not have their eggs in one basket. David Stern made a big mistake in 2002 when he signed that media package basically chaining the NBA to ESPN and for what amounts to be 22 years now. And they didn't look to those horizon. The NBA bet on cable in a way that eventually ended up biting him in the ass. So I think this is a correction. Like I said, they could be still be going with the ESPN here. But as you've seen with the package with Amazon, it's going to be diminished. And also with the NBA has the RSN problems. Look for a solution hopefully coming through this new media deal where there's more of a ability to get the NBA out there. Sorry about the phone ringing there. And getting a better package. And I'm going to be talking about this in the future. So anyway, thank you all for joining me on the latest broadcast. I'm going to be back next week with another episode. Go ahead. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey there. Did you know King Super's always gives you savings and rewards on top of our lower than low prices. And when you download the King Super's app, you'll enjoy over $500 in savings every week with digital coupons. And don't forget fuel points to help you save up to $1 per gallon at the pump. Want to save even more? With a boost membership, you'll get double fuel points and free delivery. So shop and save big at King Super's today. King Super's fresh for everyone. Savings may vary by state. Restrictions apply. See site for details. For the ones who work hard to ensure their crew can always go the extra mile. And the ones who get in early. So everyone can go home on time. There's Granger. Offering professional grade supplies backed by product experts. So you can quickly and easily find what you need. Plus, you can count on access to a committed team ready to go the extra mile for you. Call clickgranger.com or just stop by. Granger. For the ones who get it done. [BLANK_AUDIO]
There is more than one way to build a team in the NBA. Be it through culture, consistency or luck there is no one definitive way. Also Jeff talks about the potential for an NBA media package with Amazon and what that means for the league.
