Baxter Holmes and Chris Vernon
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast, where the biggest story in the NBA is not about anything happening on the court. It is, of course, the story of the Phoenix Suns and Robert Sarver, who 10 months after our Baxter Holmes wrote an extensive story outlining a climate of alleged sexual harassment, sexual innuendo, use of the N-word, and all kinds of things.

all sorts of other things. After a 10-month investigation the NBA initiated via a law firm after that story, the investigation has concluded. The league, as a result of the investigation and under the recommendations of the investigation, has suspended Robert Sarver from the governorship of the Phoenix Suns for one year. And from my understanding and Baxter Holmes' understanding, the

suspension is a real thing. He's not allowed to be involved in any way in basketball or business decisions. This is not the kind of thing where he can create a burner email account and talk to James Jones. If James Jones would even take the emails or the calls about Cam Johnson's extension, he's just out for a year period and find the maximum $10 million. I think from the moment Baxter's story came out,

There was a sense that this was not going to be Donald Sterling 2.0, that this might go away quietly, that Robert Sarver, after taking kind of a hiatus from being a real public figure with the Suns, he wasn't sitting courtside for a while, that it might very well just be something that

blows over so to speak and certainly the Suns themselves I think internally made a decision hey we're trying to win the championship we're just coming off an NBA finals appearance we addressed it we talked about it we are playing for ourselves and our own ambitions to win we're not going to talk about it anymore we we as Monty Williams said you know that conduct described in that report is not acceptable to me if I had seen any of it I wouldn't be sitting here coaching the Phoenix Suns

And obviously it goes without saying that no one, no players on that team would condone anything like that. But they huddled up and they played. And then the investigation was done. And you kind of still for about five minutes felt maybe it will blow over one year. One year goes by fast. One year goes by fast. Ten million. Ten million is a lot of money. The Suns are worth, I don't know, a minimum two billion. And Robert Sarver owns about a third of them.

And then some interesting things began to happen. Adam Silver addressed the Sarver issue at a Board of Governors press conference. And to say that it did not go over well, I think, is an understatement. Silver's defense of the

fine and suspension, his rather open and frankly honest statement that you can't just take away somebody's team, which by the way, I think is being misinterpreted into some corners and we'll talk about that. And that there may be different standards for people who own things than people who work for companies. A statement which the NBA later tried to clarify in some way that I didn't totally understand. It didn't go over great.

And then LeBron James tweeted that there was no place for this kind of conduct in the league, echoing what he said in the wake of Donald Sterling's incident now eight years ago. And then Chris Paul, the longtime but now former president of the Players Association, the all-time great Hall of Fame bound point guard,

And a veteran star of the Phoenix Suns tweeted that the report disturbed him basically and that the penalties did not seem to him to be enough. That was a huge deal. Those two tweets were a huge deal around the league, around the Suns, around people around the Suns. There was all of a sudden a sense that, oh boy, this

This story isn't over. And then just before coming on this podcast with me and Baxter Holmes, and I promise you I'm about to introduce Baxter Holmes, John Najafi, a minority owner with the Suns and one of the minority owners who did not sign a letter in the wake of Baxter's initial story, the letter defending Robert Sarver, did not sign it, came out with a statement just now that read in part, and it literally just came out about five minutes ago, that reads in part,

Similar conduct by any CEO, executive director, president, teacher, coach, or any person of leadership would warrant immediate termination. The fact that Robert Sauber, quote, owns the team does not give him a license to treat others differently than any other leader. And then it goes on to say, therefore, in accordance with my commitment to helping eradicate racism,

Any form of racism, sexism, bias is vice chairman of the Phoenix Suns. I, and again, this is Jamna Jaffe, minority owner of the Suns. I am calling for the resignation of Robert Sarver.

We have reached the point where the outcome of this story is now, I think, uncertain and can go in a lot of different directions. We have reached the point, clearly, where key members of the Suns have decided this is just not something we can address at Media Day and then have go away. Chris Paul, I think, what I'm going to say is,

What are we, 12 days when he tweeted before Suns Media Day already addressed it on Twitter. And we have reached the point where a growing number of people around the league and associated directly or indirectly with the team have decided, concluded, he just can't walk back in here in a year like nothing happened and start running the team again. Baxter Holmes...

This has been your life for more than a year. What have the last 48 hours been like for you? And are you at all surprised that the story seems to have accelerated after the initial announcement of the sanctions? Well, hi. Glad to be on with you. The last...

48 hours, kind of just a whirlwind in terms of reactions from people reading the report. And then, you know, as you mentioned, the last 24 hours of seeing, you know, LeBron James's tweet, Chris Paul's tweet, and, you know, you rightly described them as monumental. And then here we are a few seconds before and not long before we hopped on, I saw a statement from different city officials and

in Phoenix and in Arizona commenting about the report. And then now this, which I gotta be honest, I'm still digesting reading this statement. You know, John put out a statement

of his own. He didn't co-sign the statement that you referenced in November, but put out a statement of his own last year, I think on the day that our initial investigation came out. It was strongly opposed to the kinds of conduct that was mentioned therein and so forth. And so now we have this calling for the resignation. I'm frankly just wondering where this goes from here. I'm wondering what the impact is

We'll be with, I think the Sun's Out Media Day on September 26th. So that's 11 days from today. I'm wondering what the trip, you know, I'm wondering what happens next. So yeah, it's a whirlwind. I feel like I'm just trying to keep up with all the reaction. But it was interesting when I was reading the report initially, and look, I'm obviously very close to this as having spent considerable time reporting it. I was very much wondering, like, you know, what did they find?

in comparison to what I found, you know, the lawyers from Wachtell Lipton. They obviously had more or less what would appear to be kind of unfettered access to current and former employees and documents. And there's more of them than there are of me. And they had the green light from the NBA. So I was very interested to read what they found. And it was, you know,

I'm so close to it. It's hard to take myself back. But reading the report or it's hard to take myself out of it. But reading the report and be like, oh, you know, I know that and that thing they're talking about. I remember when I was reporting on that or whatever. So, yeah, I don't know. The whole thing feels a little it's it's pretty surreal in some ways. What have you heard? If you can take us through some of the reactions there.

from people either inside the Suns or sort of recently departed from the Suns reacting to one or both of the sanctions and then Adam Silver's press conference yesterday explaining the sanctions. Yeah. So right off the top,

people reading the report, there was a sense of relief, like finally, this report is out. People have been waiting, wondering, where is the report? I said all these things to the attorneys. Where did it all go? Is this ever going to come out? Maybe they'd given up faith or hope or whatever the case may be. Then it comes out. They're reading it. And I think for some, it was jarring to see other allegations that

Being like, oh, wow, I didn't know about that or I can't believe this thing happened or to see the breadth of time or the amount of work that went into it. But then so there was that, like, you know, people digesting the findings. But then there was people digesting the NBA's punishment, $10 million.

a year suspension, having to complete some basically like conduct, you know, sensitivity training. That's not the perfect word, but that is where people became furious. And that continued when Adam Silver gave his press conference yesterday after the Board of Governors meeting wrapped up and people were watching. And some of the things that you described where, well, there were two key points that people talked about. One, him saying,

that a lot of these things happened a while ago, which there is some truth to that. There are things that certainly happened a while ago, but some took it to mean that that is discounting recent events to make it seem as if, you know, everything is better now or that there haven't been recent events that are continuation of events that happened long ago in the past. That was a big touchstone. Also, the point that you made about like, you know, it's different. I'm not

this isn't the exact sentence, but Adam said, you know, it is different when someone owns a team versus an employee of a team. And a longtime staffer who left couldn't emphasize enough how their, their outrage at that saying that if anything, owners should be held accountable.

to the highest standards. They, you know, and these teams are community assets. They're not just a normal business. These are, you know, and there's only 30 of them to be amongst this elite group. You should, there should be the highest standards for anybody at the top of the organization. But yeah, people, and they would say things like,

you know the mba was progressive i had i had faith in them throughout this process i you know gave all this information the attorneys even fearing retaliation along the way

And this is what comes up. This is what came of it or and we're feeling that, you know, there were other allegations I provided in these different other arenas and those weren't in the report. What happened? Like, I feel that those were severe. Other people feel that those are severe. They're not mentioned anywhere. So definitely frustration.

There has been, you know, a couple of people have said like, you know, the fact that they even did a report after wanting one for so long. Like, I guess I feel I feel good about that. But it's hard to feel good in general about where this heads because it's a year suspension. He can come back, you know, questions about what happens in the interim and this. Yeah. So not the overwhelming tone has been incredibly negative from those who I've talked to.

Current staffers, former staffers, it's been all on the same page. Before we get to the nitty gritty of the legal-esque issues in Adam Silver's press conference yesterday, you and I have both received some communications from sources in or close to the Suns

We reported today that kind of an interim interim governor has been appointed in Robert Sarver's stead as the kind of lead decision maker. And that person is Sam Garvin, who is another minority owner with the Suns. Now, he still needs final, final approval to assume like something akin to a permanent interim governor, I guess. But yeah.

What's noteworthy there is that it's not Jam Najafi. It's not the minority owner who was critical of Robert Sarver immediately. It was, in fact, or it is for now, in fact, one of the minority owners who backed Robert Sarver.

Robert Sarver initially against these allegations. And you also learn some things about the team's potential concern about losing sponsors, which was an issue with the Clippers. And one of the reasons I think that there was an interest in some corners of the league for the Clippers to move on from Donald Sterling as quickly as possible.

What can you tell us about that? Yes. Right after leading up both to the investigation, the findings being reported and in the days since, and especially in the last 24 hours, and I'm now going to be very interested in what happens in the next 24 hours, next 48 hours. I know that there was concern internally about how the NBA's investigation and their findings would impact the team's sponsors, their business partners. I know that that has ramped up

in the wake of LeBron James and Chris Paul's tweets. And I have to imagine that, you know, as we're recording this, as opposed in the wake of Jamna Jaffe's just released statement, and even in the, you know, not too long before we hopped on in the statement from city officials in Arizona, that that may well

you know, the temperature on that may kick up a lot more. I mean, you rightly pointed out, I think in the Clipper situation, how the financial aspect, how that moved the needle. And that's, you know, that's frankly just how it works in business. Like it's not, you know, you've been doing this for a long time. You know, this is how the world works. Like when money is impacted, that's when you tend to see change. But to be clear, in a lot of ways, not always. Yeah. But to be clear, there's,

clear anxiety within the Suns now about these sponsors X, Y, and Z may need some massaging and care

to stick with us in the wake of this. Absolutely. Yeah. There's anxiety, concern. This is a key priority right now inside the organization. Let's transition to the press conference and the reaction to that and the report itself. There are two distinct issues that we have to separate. Number one, the one that

seems to be the flashpoint is the gulf between the penalty for Robert Sarver and the penalty for Donald Sterling and the idea that Sarver was not banned or made to sell the basketball team.

And the idea that he was not either of those things because people who own companies, assets, whatever, have certain rights to continue owning those assets or sell them on their terms. Let's leave that aside for now, because I think that's an issue that has been misconstrued in some corners and that we need to talk about in a little depth. What struck me, and I know what struck others impacted by this, about Adam Silver's remarks yesterday were a few things that I think

Those people found disconcerting. And frankly, I found a little bit disconcerting. And I'll just list them and you can react to them any way you wish. At some points, it seemed as if the league was trying to position itself as the passive recipient of a law firm's report. That the law firm recommended this and that, well, what are we supposed to do? The law firm recommended this. They did the investigation. That I thought was suboptimal.

Related to that, Adam Silver went on at least two times during the press conference about how there was all this other material that he had access to that is not in the report that we don't have access to because of confidentiality agreements that were justifiably made to make people comfortable speaking to the investigators. But the way that he talked about it was essentially like,

Trust me, we've been transparent with you, but there's all this other stuff. I've seen it. You just got to take my word for it. That I thought was just my personal opinion was problematic. He then mentioned about how

A lot was made about how he talked about how Robert Sarver has evolved over 18 years. And a lot of these incidents were long ago. And we can go through the report with a fine-tooth comb. Is that the phrase? A fine-tooth whatever you go through, whatever you comb something with. Yeah, that's it.

And debate how many of these incidents were in the 2010s, the aughts, the 2020s. We can have that game. But he had a line in there about how we should judge anybody by the totality of their – totality of the 18 years, totality of their life, totality of their period and not any one or two severe incidents. And I thought to myself –

Boy, if we if if the league had judged Donald Sterling by the totality of his 20, 30, whatever years, both in the league and the housing discrimination lawsuits and all that, if you're judging by the totality, they might have wanted to make a move a little sooner than than they did. Well, to your point on that, I was messaging with a high level person who who brought to my attention, they said,

You know, essentially, could you imagine if the NBA did this kind of report on Donald Sterling, you know, interviewed 300 plus people, had access to 80,000 texts and however many human resources records and everything else like that? You know, could you imagine what would have been in there when ultimately it was just it was a hoarding?

that did it. But I bring that up to say that, yeah, looking at the totality, you know, with respect to Sterling. Yeah, that would have been an interesting report, I'm sure.

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Commissioner Silver started talking about all the good that the league had done over the years to advance sports and society and somehow Swin Cash at the Hall of Fame was brought up for some reason. And I thought, well, that's all good and true. I don't understand what relevance it has to the point in hand. But that's all sort of.

optics and not the meat of it. The meat of it is the golf and the penalties. What Adam Silver was essentially saying, I think it's important to note a distinction that has not been made clearly enough in some places. There's a difference between banning Robert Sarver and forcing Robert Sarver to sell the Phoenix Suns and exit the NBA business altogether.

And I think when some people say, well, why was he not banned like Donald Sterling? Those two things are conflated when they are really different things. A ban of Robert Sarver.

was to some degree on the table and quite clearly within the purview of Adam Silver. A ban is basically just an indefinite suspension of Robert Sarver from being the public-facing and decision-making governor of the Phoenix Suns. A ban is what's happening for one year happens indefinitely and forever, and under the NBA Constitution,

That clearly is within Adam Silver's purview, the commissioner's office's purview. That is not selling the team. You can be banned, quote, banned and still own the asset of the basketball team, which then you can sell for a gazillion dollars whenever you want.

Then there's the sale of the team, the forced sale of the team. Those two, a ban and a forced sale are different things. And when Adam Silver was saying, you can't just take someone's team away. You can't just take an asset away. He was talking about the complications of a forced sale. Donald Sterling was forced to sell the Clippers in part, and I'm going to simplify a bizarre, complex, uh,

unprecedented situation in part because his wife was able to get him declared legally mentally not capable of stewarding the franchise and got the got the right through litigation to sell the team aside from Donald Sterling without him being able to do anything which of course the league was surely happy about because it resulted in Steve Ballmer buying the Clippers and now here we are um

That step with Shelly Sterling allowed the sale of the Clippers to happen without Donald Sterling's permission. And in fact, with his objection, he ended up suing the league. I don't believe the lawsuit got anywhere. Without...

the normal course of action, not that this is normal, of putting the ejection of an owner to a three quarters vote of the board of governors. Without that legal wrinkle of Shelly Sterling essentially taking control of the team away from her husband, the way that the NBA constitution outlines, this is how you force the sale of a team, is a three quarters vote of all the owners, all the governors of the team,

They did not have to take that step with the Clippers. They would surely prefer not to take that step because it forces all other 29 governors to either vote for the ejection of another owner, knowing now that they're setting a precedent of doing that, or vote.

Vote for that owner to not be objected from the league and go down in history of one of X voters. Cause no matter how secret they try to keep it, they will not be able to keep it secret who voted to not eject owner X from the league.

Without that legal wrinkle of Shelly Sterling, that's what would have had to happen here. And that's what would have to happen for Robert Sarver to be forced to sell the team. Now we appear to be entering a universe in which there's going to be immense public pressure for something up to including the sale of the team to happen. But that's...

Without something like that, that's his choice. And I just think – and maybe you can clarify this a little bit. I think ban and forced sale have been conflated incorrectly. A ban – Adam Silver could have banned Robert Sarver for two years, five years, ten years indefinitely, and he would have retained –

the right to sell, the right to own 35% of the suns. And now here we are, I guess, right? Is this your understanding too? Yeah, that's my understanding. And I will say, you know, to your comments earlier about like, if it went to a vote, this is the position that owners would be in. Like if they vote for him, it looks like this, but if they vote against him, it looks like this. I've heard the same sentiment. And I would agree with your point. It is conflated the concept of a lifetime ban with

versus a forced sale. Two very different things. Yeah, there's a lot of ways to unpack this. But no, you bring up some great points. The other interesting thing that you've heard over and over again is one of the things, many things that distinguishes the Sterling case from the Sarver case was the existence of a quote unquote smoking gun. And the smoking gun, of course, was an audio tape

of Donald Sterling saying horrible, racist things, degrading things, things that evinced an animus toward a specific group of people, black people.

And obviously an audio tape that all of us could hear at the same time in our homes, on our laptops is a more visceral thing than a 45 page bullet point report. It's visceral. It hits you in the gut in a way that a written word or written report can't quite do. It has a reach publicly that is just broader and wide. It's on TMZ, right? Let's put it that simply.

But I read the report and I read the full son's report. And the stuff about, you know, there's there's instances of five instances of Robert Sarver using the N-word in which he's saying every time I'm just repeating the

I'm he's purporting to repeat what other people say starting in 2004 and then and then coming up recently and as I said on tv This is 18 years ago, man, like it happened 18 years ago and it kept happening like like obviously that's not okay And it's not okay period and it's not okay when someone has told you 18 years ago Not oh you you need to stop doing that. It makes it's it's not permissible. I read the the gender and sex

alleged discrimination parts of the report. And I thought to myself, if this isn't a smoking gun, it's kind of close. And let's review, Baxter, some of the things related to this subject that are in there. The first one that struck me was

He told a pregnant employee that she probably couldn't run an event that she had been organizing because she was pregnant and kids need their mothers, not their fathers. And when I read that, I thought, well, I'm not a lawyer. I'm far too dumb to be a lawyer.

That sounds like maybe not okay legally to me. And I thought of like the cliche bad boss interviewing a woman for a job and asking her, hey, do you plan to have kids someday? Because that's not going to help your prospects. I'm like, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to do that. And then you read all these accounts of Robert Sarver saying –

Why do the women here cry all the time? Why are all the female employees crying and making repeated? I think there are, you can correct me if I'm wrong, references to at least a half dozen incidents of him making inappropriate comments about the bodies of female employees. Is that, or is even more than that? I can't remember exactly how many it was, but there certainly were instances. I am looking at

This is from the thing. I'm reading from the report here. Sarver commented and made jokes frequently to employees in large and small settings about sex and sex-related anatomy, including by making crude or otherwise inappropriate comments about the physical appearances and bodies of female employees and other women. On four occasions, Sarver engaged in workplace inappropriate physical conduct towards male employees. I read all that.

and the comments about the employees' bodies, about the size of his own penis in front of other employees. And I thought to myself, again, I'm not a lawyer, but that seems like sexual harassment to me. And I was pretty sure sexual harassment is illegal or runs afoul of civil liability in some way. And it certainly sounds like a hostile work environment to me. And I thought that was not okay too. But again, I'm not a lawyer.

So I spent the last couple of days and you spent part of today talking to people who are lawyers. And I talked to three high powered. I'm not ready. I don't.

I just talked for background, uh, who have been on all sides of these kinds of issues and they had all read the report. I asked him, could you please read the report and help me? And you talked to one at, we'll just say a big law firm, uh, a big, big law firm who, who has specialized in the same issues and, and, and said, can you enlighten me here? Am I reading what I think I'm reading? And while the, the, uh,

the four people we talked to were largely in some agreement despite the complexity of the issues, were they not? Yeah. I mean, when we spoke earlier today and I was running you through what the attorney who I spoke with said and you were running me, the comments were very similar. I think the questions that we asked about, did you read the report? What did you think when you read the report? Did you think that there were...

things in the report that were, you know, in the allegations that were described? Do you think there are things that are legally actionable? If they were, what were they? What were the themes of them being legally actionable? Like what are the you know, what discrimination or retaliation or harassment or, you know, a lot of the things that you just mentioned? But yeah, I mean, I'll let you take the lead here on what you heard. But from the three that you spoke with, but

I know that the comments that I heard were very much the same. All three that I spoke with said some variation of a plaintiff's attorney with this evidence could have made

at minimum, a decent case against Robert Sarver and the Sons, whether in the case of the pregnant employee for discrimination that has an adverse economic impact potentially on her employment or a broader hostile work environment claim based on the sexual harassment and all of that stuff, except for...

statute of limitation issues may make some of those claims impossible to make now. To make a long story short, what these lawyers told me was if you want to file a discrimination claim under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, I'm going back to my American lawyer days. I love it, man. Let's do it. You have to, within a certain amount of time, either 180 days or 300 days, depending on if you're going state or federal level,

file a charge with the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or the state equivalent of that within X amount of days of the alleged incident happening. There are ways to potentially get around that, but obviously in a lot of these cases are way beyond 180 or 300 days. But they said that all three lawyers said if they were within the statute of limitations,

A good plaintiff's attorney could make any number of cases. Take the hostile work environment one. The standard for that, what I was told by all these attorneys, is that the harassment, discrimination, or conduct creating a hostile work environment has to be, quote, severe or severe.

pervasive to rise to the threshold. The or is important because one particular incident could be severe enough on its own to meet that standard. And these lawyers were like, several of the things in here might have been severe enough on their own. Pervasive, they said, well, the report describes pervasiveness. I mean, it's all in there.

And then you have the potential adverse impact on the one complainant or potential complainant's job for being pregnant. Now, she was able to put on the event in question, but lawyers still told me, you know, just uttering those words could expose you to a claim. And I thought that was interesting because what they're essentially saying is these people could have sued Robert Sarver reasonably and maybe won.

So to I first of all, I heard the same that the attorney who I spoke with made the same exact points that you're making to backtrack. So if we go if we go back to my November 2020 or 2021 story. Yeah. Sorry. It's been a day. The you know, we reported that during the period that the story covered, I think it was like 17 years at that point.

There were instances where members of the HR department told staff your best course of action, you know, privately away from the organization on a walk outside or wherever. Like your best course of action for this, for what you have experienced, this specific incident is to sue the organization.

There were a number, but if you look, there were a number of employees who didn't. And they felt, I know, that I am one employee going up against an organization that's worth however many millions. The people who I'd be potentially reporting against, if it's the owner, Robert Sarver, has a net worth of this, I cannot afford this.

to engage in a prolonged legal battle of this. I can't afford it. I'm afraid. I have no course of action. So what was the path forward for some of them? It's just, I quit. I get out of here. I know there were some incidents that were brought forward to HR where people...

Ultimately, their end at the organization was signing a severance and a nondisclosure agreement. And that was it. But things, you know, in terms of like actually going the legal route and whatnot, didn't didn't happen. But there was that question that loomed over it. And certainly I know lingered for some people who left feeling that I feel like I had a case filed.

I talked to a friend of mine who's an attorney and I explained what happened and they'd say, oh, that sounds like discrimination or that sounds like retaliation or whatever the case may be. But they didn't do it. I know some individuals regret not doing it, but there was also this kind of waiting. Once the NBA launched their investigation, I think some individuals who at one point had thought about filing legal action against

whether it's team or robert sarver or both or whatever the case may be wondered i wonder how this investigation is going to turn out like what's going to be in this report is there anything in there that will make me you know would be good for a case or something like that now that it's out i you know that's a question that still lingers but i had the same questions reading the report that you did certainly like from a legal perspective and look i you know

I lean on your expertise in this area far more than I have. You were an American lawyer for how long? Not very long. You know yourself. About two years. Okay. And I don't know myself. Downplaying it. However, I did learn about a Supreme Court case from 1986 today called Meritor Savings Bank versus Vinson.

Not the most, doesn't really leap off the page in the name of the case, but I learned about it. Sounds like thrilling reading, yeah. I learned about it because all three of these attorneys pointed me to it. And it's a case in which the Supreme Court in kind of layman's terms ruled that sexual harassment is,

is a form of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. So even if the harassment is of the sort of comments nature that is outlined in the report,

and doesn't have any sort of obvious economic adverse consequence to the people in question, that alone is grounds under that case as discrimination. So just want to make that clear. Why I thought all of this stuff was interesting and worth talking to and exploring with these lawyers is, and all the lawyers because of this were baffled

the investigation's use of the word animus. It's repeated conclusion that Robert Sarver did not do any of these things out of racial or gender-based animus. And they were baffled because animus is not the legal standard, according to them, that applies in any of these cases. One of them told me it doesn't matter

what he acted out of whether it was animus or a disrespect for a particular group of people so deep that he conceives of themselves as beneath him or just simple utter sophomoric cluelessness to them this animus standard was not relevant because what matters is how the conduct and words

affect the people on the receiving end and or around those words. They were baffled that the animus, the alleged lack of animus mattered at all because when they looked through the statute, when they pretended the statute of limitations stuff, the statute of limitations, limitations did not exist. And they were just sort of asking the thought exercise of could I build a case? Could I build a case?

the animus stuff didn't matter, doesn't matter. They said, yes, we can build a case. And why they thought that was curious and why I thought that was curious was it really seemed like the investigation and thus the league leaned on the no animus conclusion

in explaining why the penalty to Robert Sarver was so much less severe than it could have been. Forget Sterling, just so much less severe than it could have been.

And I guess what I'm saying and what they were saying and what I was thinking was, who cares about the animus if what this report is actually saying is many of these people have legitimate legal claims against Robert Sarver that they may well have won. Pretend that one of them actually did.

File a legal claim against Robert Sarver and won. Would that have changed things? They were just baffled that animus had become the standard and wondered why that would be. And one of them told me my frank thought was it was a way for them to distinguish between Sarver and Sterling. And who knows if that's true, but they were mystified by that because what they saw were

at minimum, pretty interesting legal cases. And if you can mount a legal case against somebody, that seems more relevant to them, at least, than some amorphous concept of animus. And knowing, as Adam Silver said at the press conference, what's in someone's heart and mind. We can't really know what's in Robert Sarver's heart and mind. And I thought...

That's by definition unprovable in a legal sense. What's in someone's brain and heart at the time that some word is uttered is like, of course you can't know that. That's literally impossible. The dichotomy between animus and motive and potential now retrospective, I guess, legal results puzzled the attorneys and puzzled me. The attorney who I spoke to

said exactly the same thing and said when when judging the actions in the same way that with the attorneys that you spoke with, found that, you know, there are instances of potential strong legal claims and was likewise puzzled, like of why animus, you know, mattered at all and didn't.

Didn't make sense. And I think reference something to the point of like, you know, I don't, which you referenced, this doesn't necessarily have a legal standing. Yeah, I don't, I know that like on our airwaves and people are talking about this, you brought up some amazing points on this on NBA Today. I want to say yesterday or the day before it's all kind of running together. But yeah, the question of like, what's in someone's heart? Who are they really? And this thread that we're talking about

ran through the course of certainly the NBA's investigation and what they released. It ran through the statements that the team put out, that Robert Sarver put out from now dating back to the supporting comment statement. It was with other members of the ownership to the initial, you know, responses to the team. I am not this way. I am, you know, all of that,

And throughout there has been certainly amongst staffers who I've talked to and I've certainly gotten this feedback around the league. And I think Adam was asked about this, like, you know, forget forget animus and what's in someone's heart. Like if you if you committed some of the same things that are described in this report, what happens?

I think the question that our friend Howard Beck said, something like, would you still be commissioner of the NBA? But then we also obviously, look, we run into things, and you mentioned it at the top, Adam saying you can't just take someone's team away. There's a difference for someone who's an owner. I'm paraphrasing compared to other people. Yeah.

There's a lot of complications. He's not wrong to say that. I guess what I'm saying is this, as clear as I can, and these are complex topics and, you know, my head's spinning a little bit. If you are disappointed, if you think the penalty was not harsh enough, to me at least, and I said that on TV that I didn't think it was harsh. I said on TV, Robert Sarver got off easy. That was my own words. I'm going to quote myself. If you think that, at least in my case,

It is because I read the report and thought that seems legally problematic. And if it is, that might not be a quote smoking gun on the visceral, no brainer audio level of a tape recording. But it's something damn near approximating a smoking gun. And you can think that he got off easy for that reason, as I do.

and still have to understand a harsher penalty up to even a ban is not the same thing as, as Adam Silver put it, taking his team away. It's taking his stewardship of the team away, not his ownership of the team away. The latter requires a cumbersome, complicated, uncomfortable for the league and the other 29 owners process to

That could also result in, by the way, Robert Sarver filing litigation against the league, which could have all sorts of adverse effects on the league. Discovery would would God only knows what would come out in discovery. You can say, well, yeah, start to process. That's what should happen. That's fine. That's fair of you to say.

I just think those two things are different. But I damn sure read the report and I said it on TV. He got off easy because this may not be a smoking gun, but all this stuff seems problematic to me. Let me call some attorneys who actually know if it's problematic. And what came back to me and what came back to you is, yes, this would have been problematic. Again, statute of limitations work against it becoming problematic now in a legal sense anyway.

Yeah. And I don't know where it goes from here necessarily on the front that you and I just talked about. Again, I know that for some current former staffers, this has been a kind of a background question, the legal aspect of it. I know as they were reading the report that this was

front of mind. I leave it to better legal experts than I to be able to describe, like, based on these things, what kind of case. But in the, you know, the one I talked to this morning, same kind of things that you heard. So, but yeah, I don't know where it goes from here. Again, you know, as we're recording this, the statements that have come out today, certainly from John Najafi, just before we hopped on, quite strong. You know, we're less than, we're about 24 hours removed from

Chris Paul and LeBron James' tweets. And I'm very eager for media day to see what happens, both not only in Phoenix, but elsewhere with other teams. And I don't, you know, I've already gotten the questions, which I'm sure you've probably gotten as well about, is there, you know, could the league revisit this? Could the league, or is this it? And that's all. And I don't, I don't know, I don't have answers to that, but I found it interesting that

Those questions have come up almost immediately. Well, and again, Chris Paul, let me read the first sentence of his tweet last night. I am of the view that the sanctions fell short in truly addressing what we can all agree was atrocious behavior. This is the point guard of the team saying a one-year penalty and $10,000 fine is not enough. And whatever happens going forward, I think –

This story is going to be longer lasting and less predictable than most people thought it would be even 48 hours ago. And again, I have no idea what's going to happen. I know Robert Sarver could up and sell the team whenever he wants, sell his stake of the team anyway, whenever he wants and make a huge amount of money off of it. Just as Shelly Sterling sold the Clippers and made a huge amount of money off it. I don't know what's going to happen, but.

um this is not going to go away quietly i don't think and as a result

you're going to be asked to come on this podcast again at some point, Baxter. So I apologize for intruding on your time because God knows you have better things to do with it. But if there's any closing remarks you got, I'd love to hear them. But otherwise, thank you for your time. Thank you for your reporting. And this is we're going to keep reading your reporting now. Hey, never, never a bother. Never a chore to be on with you. Always appreciate the time. And yeah, look forward to the next one whenever it is. Thanks, Baxter.

Let's talk about basketball. It's a basketball podcast. And you know, I've been guilty of something low these many weeks, low these many months as we've been

Talking about how the dust settled after a wild July free agency and the Kevin Durant soap opera and the rest of it previewing team after team. And let's see what the Warriors did. And let's see what the Clippers did. And the Nuggets are back. And are the Suns, is the window still open? What happened with DeAndre Ayton? And I keep talking about the landscape in the Western Conference. Where do the Mavs fit in? What about the new look Wolves? And I keep talking about how, you know, that top four in the West is

It's tough to crack. You got the Clippers. They're back. The Warriors just won the title. The Nuggets are back. You know, the Suns, they're still going to be a regular season wins machine. And I just sort of shove over to the side. Oh, yeah. But by the way, the Grizzlies, second seed in the West last year, they should have something to say about that. So I am here to get my comeuppance. I am here to discuss the Memphis Grizzlies in more depth and detail. I am here to be told why I have disrespected them.

the Ducks at the Peabody Hotel, the legacy of Marc Gasol, the legacy of Zach Randolph, the building legacy of John Morant and the injured Jared Jackson Jr., the burly screen setting of Steven Adams, the rising role player stardom of Desmond Bain, the bravado and foot-on-the-line twos of Dylan Brooks, and everything else. Chris Vernon of The Ringer and The Chris Vernon Show,

Tell me you just, I just opened up. I just, I will open it up to you. I've disrespected the Grizzlies. Put me in my place. My friend, Zach, I'm here to disappoint you because yesterday ESPN put out power rankings and they had the Grizzlies fourth. And I was absolutely crestfallen.

This franchise has worked upon being the underdog, the discounted, the not talked about on the low post. That's what they need. I need you having them lowly ranked, not talking about them, not interviewing their players. You can't have a chip on your shoulder if ESPN puts you fourth in the power rankings.

And I need them to have a chip on their... It made me so mad to see them... They put out this power rankings. They got them like ahead of the Suns. And I'm like, no! I don't want anybody on the Suns being able to say that...

Oh, they thought the Grizzlies are going to be better than us. I want everybody having the Grizzlies out of their top four. You know, right now, if you were to walk in the Grizzlies locker room, there's a Draymond Green quote there.

in the locker room, written on the board. It's something like, what was this quote? They're going to get there. They're going to have a shock to their system or something to that effect, right? They're going to come back to earth or something to that effect that he said. And that is how they have thrived and survived. But now they've gotten all these national games. You know, there's going to be

of national television games for them. This is now, you're going to see a young team dealing with the weight of expectation because I actually do think they do have expectation. And while you may feel like you haven't talked them up enough, they're starting to get a lot of credit. And honestly, it makes me wildly uneasy. I don't like it. I like it better when...

everybody discounts them or overlooks them. Now, let me be clear. Let's set the record straight here. I talked them up all of last season. And in fact, after they lost to Utah in the playoffs two seasons ago, I wrote a big column inside the Grizzlies, why they've got something special building there. John Morant, I've said it over and over again, whatever it is. And it's not, it is not being a,

through the television superstar. I'm talking about it being the kind of superstar that lifts up his teammates, that teammates want to play with and for. He's got that. They've got a bunch of trade assets. They've got a bunch of rising young players. They have a great young coach in Taylor Jenkins. They play hard. They play tough. They give you nothing. They give no quarter. They're going to outperform expectations every season. I talked about it all last year.

So, and I had Jaron Jackson Jr. on this podcast. It's his birthday today, by the way. Happy birthday, Jaron Jackson Jr. He turns 23. There are dudes, maybe there might be a dude who just got drafted that's older than Jaron Jackson Jr. That's how young Jaron Jackson Jr. still is. I voted Desmond Bain most improved player last year. So I...

I have been blamed, blamed by many people, including you, you, for Marc Gasol winning defensive player of the year in 2013 over LeBron James. That happened. Blamed or credited, depending on your point of view. That happened, and you were the leader of groupthink.

Back in the day, it's a different day and age now, but they just needed somebody to lead the charge, somebody to say, hey, this guy is deserving of this. And then everybody else in the media was like, all right, I don't really care who wins it anyway. We'll just do what Zach does. This guy used to be fat.

And Pudgy is pretty damn good now. Well, I mean, they had a great record and they were the best defensive team in the league and he was a great player. And so stands to reason, right? But no, they are. You have certainly been effusive in your praise in what they have done. And I do think that there's a very good reason why they haven't gotten as much conversation throughout the summer. And that is they didn't do anything.

They didn't do anything in their summer. And what's sexy is going and trading for Rudy Gobert, getting Kawhi Leonard or Jamal Murray or Zion Williamson or somebody else back in their lineup. And so you don't really know what to do with the team that is banking on

and individual improvement year after year and that continuity. There's no number we can put on minutes played together and that will be, I suppose, the new frontier. But I think if we look just at these past two finals teams, there's a lesson there. Steve Kerr talked about it at length in one of his finals press conferences about look at how many minutes our guys have played together together.

At this point. Look at how many minutes the Celtics guys have played together at this point. That these are both homegrown teams. We just saw it with Milwaukee. I mean, there's a lot of...

Coming up, getting the scars together, as we say, playing the minutes. And so what is continuity in this age of wanting to switch teams in the age of free agency and everything else? Is continuity the new thing that can create the greatest advantage? And I think it's pretty clear it's something that they're banking on and has served them well, at least thus far, with a very young team. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And it's not just continuity that they have. They seem to have a group of players that actually likes each other. A group of players around John Morant who he enjoys helping them score. And they enjoy when he goes crazy scoring and accept the fact that, yeah, we were, what were they, 20-3 without him in the regular season. That's great. That's encouraging. Their defense was way better when he was off the floor. Guess what?

In the playoffs, they could not score without John Morant, including in the three games that he missed. Their offense was really good in the playoffs when he was on the floor and really terrible when he was on the bench. We need that guy because he's the only guy we got that could really just break down defenses at will. And if he can start making more threes, he's 34% career. Guys are ducking under screens for him still. Verno, I got to tell you.

I think it's coming. I think it's coming at least to the point where he's going to get good enough and he's already confident enough. He took five and a half threes a game in the playoffs. Stroke looks pretty good. I think he's at least going to get to the point, maybe as early as this year, that going under is a risk.

that some teams will decline to take. And once that happens, the world is his oyster. He's going to get in the lane. You can't stop him from getting in the lane. Malik Beasley, poor guy, is still recovering from what happened to him in the playoffs, the dunk of the century. They've got...

It's not just continuity. When they trash talk the Lakers, they trash talk LeBron. That was a flashbulb moment of last season because it was everybody. It was everybody on the team laughing, chuckling, pointing. They all share that same attitude. And yet, I actually think I would probably put them, I can't believe I'm saying this, fifth or sixth in the West next year. Just in terms, let me finish.

This is what they need. I can go lower if you want. Just go. Keep going down. Just in terms of regular season wins, because two teams that were functionally absent last year are back in the Clippers and the Nuggets. Suns, Warriors, maybe the Warriors take their foot off the gas. Maybe Chris Paul takes his foot off the gas. And so Memphis gets into the top three again. Wouldn't surprise me. I just think those four teams are awesome. The Grizzlies,

Who? Warriors, Clippers, Nuggets, Suns. And I think the Grizzlies, look, Slo-Mo and Melton,

in the playoffs for much of the playoffs. Melton fell to the fringes of the rotation for some of the playoffs. They left in a free agency. They were really valuable. Or they left in one free agency, one trade, Melton to the six. They're really valuable regular season players. And I think a lot of my... I don't even think it's pessimism. My realism, we don't know when Jaron Jackson Jr. comes back. And if there's a big difference in their regular season win total, maybe not big, but something, that's...

Jaron Jackson Jr. missing at

I'm just making this up eight games versus 26 games or something like that that really matters in part because he's awesome he's there starting four he can space the floor although the three-point shooting is kind of more TBD than you would hope he was maybe the defensive player of the year last year I didn't vote for him but he certainly had a case he was on my ballot in the top three and beyond that who's replacing him in the starting five I don't know the answer to that it it's

It could be any number of guys who are relatively unproven. Once you promote one of those guys, you've got to fill more bench minutes. So it just doesn't feel like it's set up to just we step right in and take off where we left off. Is any of that fair? Am I just being too pessimistic? Totally fair. And I have had all the same concerns. I would just tell you this is what I think that they're banking on. I think they're banking on –

The individual improvement as they have continued to do and that guys take a step up and guys continue to take leaps year after year, right? So Desmond Bain is a much better version of what he was even last year, which could be a spectacular player. Zaire Williams takes a leap up because he got so many minutes last year and that you have like there's always.

Say what you want about net rating for the end of the season, but I do put some stock into the fact that there's what I watch and what I think is happening versus what actually is happening. And what you find is at the end of the year in terms of net rating, did they win, did they lose with these players on the court per 100 possessions?

They return eight of their top nine players in net rating. The only one they lost is D'Anthony Melton, and he was seventh on that list. That is not true of any other Western Conference team. And I did not look through the entire East, but I would venture to say it's not true of anybody in the East either, where you brought back guys that actually played—

These are guys that all were like in rotation actually played and you brought them all back. The other thing I would say is a lot of people have talked about last year and maybe they're not going to be as good as they were last year. And they might be without Jaron Jackson for finite amount of time. Hopefully, um,

Last year, they have a starting lineup of John Morant, Desmond Bain, Dylan Brooks, Jaron Jackson, and Steven Adams. That would be your starting lineup. Great lineup. Love it. Great lineup. And it absolutely destroyed people, both during the regular season and during the playoffs when it got on the floor.

Zach, I would tell you that at a game that they won 56 games last year, that lineup played 109 minutes total all year. 109 minutes. Dylan Brooks was hurt. Dylan Brooks was hurt for a lot of the year. That's a big driver of that. That's a fair point. So NBA's stats database was not working today. I tried –

The NBA is like, they just try to fix things and it makes it worse every time. And so their on-off net rating page was just like no data available to return. Oh, thanks. That's freaking helpful. Thanks for the update. Who was number one on the net rating list? Because I bet it was Jaron Jackson Jr. It was actually Brooks. It was Brooks. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

It was actually Brooks, but I mean, he didn't play as much, right? And so you can, you know, you can parse through all of that data. But the truth is, nine of those guys, and so, you know, they bank on guys like John Conchar, you know, that now John Conchar will be in the mix. And John Conchar is a better shooter than DeAnthony Melton. He's a better passer than DeAnthony Melton. He's a better rebounder. He's not the athlete. He's not the defender necessarily. But it's a guy that they think...

We can plug this guy into the rotation, and he's going to be a net positive for us. And specifically, he does a lot of the stuff that made Melton really productive off the bench for the Grizzlies. And he's absolutely getting... Well, then they got to figure you got to hit on this other stuff, right? So, David Roddy or Jake LaRavia or one of these guys that they added. They added another guy in the second round, Vince Williams. But more importantly, LaRavia and Roddy that...

As the season goes on, they get them in the mix. They turn these guys into guys that are really getting minutes because this is all a bet on what's going to happen for playoff basketball. And the truth is, when you're on a team with John Morant, they need and still need more shooting. That is not what Melton brought to the table. It's not what Kyle brought to the table. And while those guys are very good basketball players in their own right,

We've seen this to be true. If you've got this transcendent player, throw a bunch of shooters around him. Guys that have to be honored and knock down shots and then you'll get the absolute best out of them. I think it's a bank on and if one of those guys pops...

and can knock down those shots and can bring some of the defense and tenacity, whatever, that they filled in those spots. But it's still a question mark for sure. Those are good veteran players. Let's go through the rotations. The starting five is what you just mentioned. Jaron Jackson Jr. isn't there right now. I frankly don't know who's going to start at the four for them to start the season. I don't think they know. Probably Clark, I'd imagine, or Small. I was about to say Clark. And Clark sneakily up for an extension.

I think just given – They might actually start Zaire Williams at four. I could see that too. I could see them starting a rookie who shows out at training camp, whether it's LaRavia or Roddy. Because the vision, you look at the guys they drafted. I think, first of all, Clark Jackson has been their best two-man front court basically since those two guys have been on the team.

I would bet with very little intel because it's so early, I would just bet based on my gut and the little intel that I have that Clark extends before the season because they see how well that pairing works. And if you look at Laravia and Roddy and Zaire Williams, these guys are long, in some cases, tweener forwards, 3.5 kind of players, and

And the versions of them that they hope the Grizzlies get, and in terms of LaRavia already have, can shoot. And I think they liked the idea of the size of the slow-mo Jackson-Clark-Rodgers

trio, the guys that are like, are they all fours? Is Clark functionally a center, but as a size of a four, does it even matter? Except slow-mo couldn't shoot, so screwed up the spacing. Let's try to replicate that with shooting. I don't know who's going to be the starting four. It could be any number of guys. Off the bench, you have Tyus Jones, maybe the best backup point guard in the NBA. We signed on a good two-year declining deal.

Conchar is going to play. They extended Conchar on a deal that is going to be a crime in five years when the cap is $160 million and he's making $6 million. It's going to be like a minimum deal. Zaire Williams if he doesn't start and Clark if he doesn't start and then kind of fill in the blank with more of those guys. Roddy's going to play. Then fill in Roddy.

He's playing. It's a solid team. It's just in the West, I just am interested to see how they fill the Jackson minutes. And just how, like you said, I think internally there's hope that Bain has another leap to make. And if that's the case, that changes your life as a team. It's a really solid team. I just feel like it's a little more uncertain without Jackson than the top four.

I think that's fair. As long as you're saying because it's Jared Jackson's injury. That's the stipulation? Steven Adams is on an expiring contract, by the way. Dylan Brooks is up for an extension. Because of the limits to what they can offer him, I would bet against that one. You're shaking your head. Do you agree or no? You think they sign him? Bro, if they extended Dylan Brooks...

I mean, I would absolutely lose my mind. Out of happiness. I've never. Oh, my God. I've never been more mad at a player in my life. Yeah, we've talked about that. But what if they extend them? But all they can do is 120%, which is like a starting salary. No. You're just out. No. 14 million is like the mid-level exception in a few years. Look, you and I have been friends for 15 years.

I always tell people this. Now I'm the old guy that gets to say, there's nothing new under the sun. I've seen it all. This is Rudy Gay with my old Grizzlies. It is. It is. Throw the damn ball to Zach Randolph. Stop. Stop. Shut up.

Shooting. Stop. I do. Stop shooting. We had Rudy Gay with Mike Conley and Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol, and they extracted him, and they put in Tayshaun Prince, and they went to the Western Conference Finals. You know, there is a pecking order that goes on with teams. You're the guy. You're the second guy. You're the third guy. You're the fourth guy. Everybody seems to understand these things.

That game four, they could have beaten the Warriors. I know everybody in the world will go back and say, that's ridiculous. They didn't have Steven Adams the first two games of that series. If you go back to game four, they've got the Warriors. They've got them. They've done it. And he shot them clean out of that thing. And he threw the ball away 700 times. It was...

I've never seen anything like it, and I'll never forget it for the rest of my life. Well, look, if Zaire Williams, who's very young, and I liked what Zaire Williams did in the playoffs last year. He sort of got his feet under him in the postseason, got more confidence. I liked what I saw. I have nice expectations for him this season. I don't think he's going to be like sixth man of the year or anything, but I think he's going to be a nice bench player this season with an upside to be the kind of starter that they've coveted on the wing for a while.

Um, so if, if he pops, then yeah, maybe you don't need Dylan Brooks. You don't extend them. I don't know that Dylan Brooks takes the maximum extension they can offer him because it's going to be the middle level exception in a couple of years. You don't buy into the idea though, that yeah, the foot on the line twos. Yeah, dude. Why did you shoot 21 times when you're the fourth best and maybe fifth best offensive player in our starting five? You don't buy just a little bit. The idea that

Why do you foul everybody all the time? You don't buy just a little bit the fact that he is kind of scary to have guard you. Super physical. Of course I buy it. You don't buy that. He's kind of setting the tone for we don't back down from anybody. I don't care if you're a LeBron. So you buy it a little bit. I do buy that. I totally buy that. That's all I ask.

I also buy that they played the majority of that season without him last year, and they were awesome.

That's that's they played. They played 25 games without Morant and they were awesome. Like their dad is all over the place. So it's not what I'm saying is it's not indispensable. And so I'm looking for fits with Morant. What are the best kind of fits without Morant? And I think the best kind of fits with with Morant are guys that could truly space the floor. Yes. Defend the position. Yeah.

And I don't think you have to necessarily be somebody that's overly excited defender. He is a good defender. He's not Tony Allen. Oh, well, come on now. He's not Tony Allen. You know what I'm saying? He's not a – he's not – First team all defense. Shut the water – he's not shut the water off guy. First team all defense. You know what I mean? Yeah, he's not first team.

He's not that. Well, okay. The Grizzlies last year were fourth on offense, which I thought was remarkable considering I think they shot the second fewest threes in the entire NBA. They got to the rim a ton. And of course, as you well know, they are team floater and will be team floater as long as Brandon Clark is there. And fifth on defense. And if you look at their defensive numbers...

They forced a lot of turnovers. And the Grizzlies were kind of like the Raptors in that they won the possession game. They killed you on the glass on both ends of the floor. They forced a lot of turnovers and didn't commit many. So at the end of the day, they're just getting like seven more possessions than you in a game. And they're bending that math to their will. Even if the shot selection math, they look like a team that shouldn't be that good. They were fifth on defense. They were second in lowest field goal percentage at the rim.

If you take Jaron Jackson Jr. off the floor, they go to below average rim defense. And so that's one of the reasons why I'm like, can they sustain that level of defense if he's out on the longer end of the timetable? And I should be clear, I have no idea whether it was a pretty broad timetable. I think four to six months, they said. I don't know if it's going to be four. I don't know if it's going to be six. That is a big material difference to their season. I'd say...

My guess is it's sooner, and I understand the paranoia regarding it because he didn't come back. We thought he was coming back like Christmas two years ago, and he ended up being out until there was like 10 games left in the season. They're ultra careful with injuries. That being said, from the day this one happened—

It was like, wait, he got surgery? What happened? Because it happened when he was just playing during the summer. From the day it happened, they told me it was minor. Everybody I asked about it was like, not a big deal. Not a big deal. Not a big deal. Not a big deal. So that being said, I think they put out that huge timeline. I...

Just given what I, when it first happened, talking to people, and I know the other day, he's not in a boot anymore now. So it's September 15th. Uh,

Is he back for like opening night against the Knicks? No. But is it a lot closer to Thanksgiving or before than it is Christmas? That would be my bet. That would be my bet. Speaking of the Knicks, they just did not trade for Donovan Mitchell. But the Grizzlies, who have only one future first-round pick from another team now, though a lot of the chips have been spent, but they still have a Warriors pick that, you know, it's 2024, top four protected, top one the next year.

It's going to take a big collapse quickly for that pick to be, I think, as good as they hoped it would be when they got it. But they do have that. They have all their own picks, all their own swaps, a bunch of these young talented players we've talked about. And they just watched the team they beat in the first round of the playoffs trade everything for a second center to put next to their first center.

They just watched a team that did not make the actual playoffs last season trade everything for Donovan Mitchell. They just watched a team that did very briefly make the actual playoffs and got just elbowed out of it by a very mean Miami Heat team in the first round trade not quite everything but a lot of it for DeJounte Murray. A guard, a guard, and a center.

Grizzlies have already a superstar guard, a most improved player guard, and a big man in Jaron Jackson Jr. who is going to clearly toggle between both positions in the front court. They stood by and watched. Said, you guys fling all your stuff over there. You fling all your stuff over there. We were the number two seed. We still got all our stuff. We want to see how our stuff develops next.

And that will inform how big of a move we need to make when we're ready to make it. And maybe Jaron Jackson Jr. is so good and so positionally flexible, we're going to watch these bigger teams like the Wolves. Because maybe the move for us down the line, everyone's fixated on wings, right? We were briefly...

made a phone call or left a voicemail or sent a carrier pigeon about Kevin Durant. And then immediately Kevin Durant, the news that he was going back to Brooklyn broke, you know, they've definitely been fixated on like if Jalen Brown ever became available, the wings, the wings, I think they're going to be watching and looking and saying, man, Hey, how many chips do we actually have to cash in when we're ready to do it? And B how,

Does it have to be a wing? Maybe we can find another. Maybe we can do kind of what the Wolves did or see how they do. Like, what if DeAndre Ayton became available at some point via trade? What if on a much lower scale, Miles Turner? I just think they're going to look around and say, who's the guy for us that

If and when we have to do it, do you what did you what did the city think is everybody as all these other teams flung these things around in the grids were like, no, we're cool. We got all our stuff. We're going to do something. Eventually, we just don't know what it is. Everybody always loves their own guys. Everybody always loves their own guys, especially when you feel like you've, you know, you're kind of growing up with them. And so there's a special attachment to that.

some of those players. You know, I think it's a culture of the NBA to always want like, oh, wow, could they trade for Kevin Durant or could they go trade for this guy or could they trade for this guy? And even last year, Zach, I mean, it's a year ago. He could have done the podcast and the general sentiment, not only in Memphis, but around everywhere was they went into the offseason and they actively got worse.

This is the third straight year of... They got rid of Jonas Valanciunas, who was the second leading scorer on the team, and they brought back Steven Adams. How did you get better? How could you have possibly gotten better? By the way, Steven Adams had done nothing for the Pelicans the year before. I thought he was end of line, even though he was less than 30 years old, for God's sake. And he was great. He was great.

Great. Absolutely great last year, right? And so there's part of me that has just decided, all right, look, I'm a fan, but I'm going to sit back. Y'all seem to know what you're doing here. You know, I don't always get it, but you seem to know what you're doing. And I do think that people don't, you know, it has not worked out well. The teams that have stocked up the young guys and then sold out to get what they wanted,

Those have been horror stories more often than not. And it hasn't worked out all that well. And I do think that, you know, there's something special, especially in this day and age in sports. There's something special about buying a John Morant jersey and knowing he's going to be on the team for a long time or buying a Desmond Bain jersey. And he's going to be on the team for a long time or buying a Jared Jackson jersey. Now, look,

I think that they will use their assets. They've got young players. They've got all their own picks and they've got that golden state pick. And then they've got, you know, a lot of good young players. I think they'll use those assets to try to get something bigger, you know, bring in something better than what they put out. And that can include picks, pick swaps and whatever else. But I do not think that you will ever see a trade where,

From the Grizzlies, that includes John Morant, Desmond Bain, or Jaron Jackson. I would agree. I think those guys have been rendered the core. Now, you don't get Kevin Durant without Desmond Bain, probably. But we just saw, I mean...

If you throw four picks and three swaps on the table, you're in the conversation for anybody. And my only point is, yes, obviously at some point if a big wing becomes available that vaults them another level up in the NBA, they will take a look at that and have the assets to get that person. I just don't know who the guy is that actually fits their timetable. You know what I loved? You want to know what I loved? Yes.

I loved that Ananobi talk. He's on my list. Right here in pink highlighter is O-G-A. It's perfect. Of course it's perfect. Of course it's perfect because the cost – it's probably not going to be a Donovan Mitchell level cost, but –

I think Toronto is going to be really good this year. I know there have been rumblings that he's unhappy with his role in the offense. I frankly don't know if those rumblings are even true. I just don't... Why is Toronto trading that dude for picks and whatever? But yes, he would be the perfect guy. Something...

will go wrong somewhere that we don't see coming. Like, you know, I'm just, I'm not even going to throw out random names. You could throw out random names all day long. Something will go wrong somewhere, but he, he would be on my list. Absolutely. You know who is another one that his name just fell off the map, but it's one that I brought up a couple of weeks ago. And it was saying like, look, you want, you want the Jaron Jackson insurance right now?

Go out there and get your John Collins. He's on my list, too. Because that's my point of... Jared can play next to John Collins. Collins is like a super Brandon. He's on my list, too. You know what I mean? Because I think...

the fixation on Memphis needs the wing, right? Look, they're drafting Zaire Williams. They need a wing. Look at Jalen Brown. I think Jaron Jackson Jr. and Morant are good enough and versatile enough that they can be a little more creative in how they think about that. John Collins is on my list for that reason. I mean, you can get really wild. If I were a guy that I would be watching, I just want to see him play, first of all, and I want to see him stay healthy. And he is Jonathan Isaac. Now, he hasn't played in two years. You're not going to trade for him now.

It's just unclear to me if he's going to be in Orlando's plans for a long time. But that's the – like I mentioned – Hey, we're in the Bible Belt. Okay.

I mentioned Aiton because I do think teams are going to be watching that Minnesota team and saying to ourselves, look, we're Memphis, right? Or we're small market team X. We don't have our pick of the perfect guy. We maybe don't have the wherewithal to go get a guy with one year left on his contract before he goes to unrestricted free agency. We got to make do with who fits and who's available. And I just think they have to have a wider lens. But to your point,

I think they were absolutely right to sit back and do basically nothing and keep the powder dry, to use a cliche. Because I didn't see... I mean, Mitchell, you could make an argument that Mitchell fits there. Whatever. John Morant's going to be the engine of that offense. I don't think they need Donovan Mitchell. DeJounte Murray, whatever. Like, he's a really good player. I just...

I'm not breaking the bank for those guys because I don't have to. My team's already really good. I can be patient. And frankly, it seems like the players, and particularly Morant, who's under contract for a long time now, they're cool with, like, there doesn't seem to be any, like, we got to go do something. They like what they have. And I think the slow play is exactly right. The other thing is that they are legitimately friends.

You know the way this works, right? Sometimes you're friends, sometimes you're just coworkers. They're legitimately friends. And I would tell you that the majority of that team has been together and in town for virtually the entire summer. And I have never seen that before in 20 years, ever. I have never seen that. Everybody lives in Memphis during the season, and then they go. And then we see them back at training camp.

And I, they all stayed, they all stayed and they're 22, 23 years old. It's crazy. And I think the Clark piece is important because of how well he fits with Jaron Jackson and a, and a four out around him grouping that has been super successful with them. And I, I would again, bet on them bringing him back. Look to wrap it up.

Like, just because I would pencil them in – and by the way, Vegas agrees. Their over-under is 48.5 wins, which is fifth in the West behind the four teams I mentioned. So it's not like insane. Just because I would pencil them in right now fifth or sixth or whatever in the West – and by the way, once you're down there, you're in playing territory. It gets dicey in the West. That's life in the West. Just because that's where I have them –

Does not mean I've tempered my long-term excitement for what this team has. One iota. Does not mean I've tempered my excitement for what John Morant is and stands for as a superstar in the NBA. The it factor that he has. I'm still all in going forward. I just think short-term, and again, this is year three in a row of people being worried about the Grizzlies taking a step back. So take it with a freaking pile of salt. I just think short-term,

Next season is going to be interesting, A, if I'm right and they're fifth or sixth. B, if being down there after being second impacts how the team and players feel internally at all and how the fan base feels internally, I bet it won't because their long-term trajectory is so good. But I defer to you. Would it matter if all of a sudden they're fighting to get out of the play-in in the last two weeks of the season? If they're healthy and reasonably healthy and all that.

Get out of the play-in? To avoid slipping below sixth. Oh, yeah. We'd have a problem. I mean, like, I don't think that's crazy, though. No. I mean, but that's what happens when you get second. I don't know. That's what happens when you get second place. I just... Long term, I love what they've got going on this season. I'm just... I'm interested in where they fall. And...

That's really all. Be real bold, Zach. Put them at 41 wins. 41 wins? Take it easy, buddy. I know you want me to put them that low in the power. I know. I need somebody bagging them down. They're 48 and a half in Vegas. And I think those other four teams are somewhere between 51 and a half and 53 and a half. So it's not big. But Minnesota and Dallas are also at 48 and a half.

So, you know, take that for what it's worth. This one they won me over. I walked out of a stadium one night. They played against the Atlanta Hawks. They got absolutely throttled. I think they were 9-10.

through 20 games, 9 and 10 last year, okay? They got absolutely throttled by the Atlanta Hawks. And John Morant, what I thought was totally blew out his ACL. Yep. I have never felt worse walking out of an arena in my life. The whole season was done. And even if...

It's not as bad as I think. He's going to be out for 25, 30 games. And it made you worry probably about, well, is this guy's style of play? Just make him susceptible to this? And they're not going to be able to win anything. They'll be lucky to win five games. And then they won 20 out of 22 or whatever it was without Morant. And that's when I was like, all right.

This is bigger than just the names that are on that sheet. And by the way, one of those, there's something special about this that we can't put our finger on because when they pulled that off and they resurrected the season, the next thing you, you win 56, they won 56 in a year and they started the season nine and 10. That's, that's a quarter of the season. They sucked. And how about this? We're last defensively.

Dan went to first defensively. I don't understand it, but it happened.

I think now you got – I think I'm going to be wrong now because one of those top four is going to have some sort of thing go wrong for them and there's going to be an opening up there. And Memphis is, again, already outperformed expectations. But something's working there. Something in the water in that culture, whatever it is, is working there. And I just – and I can't wait to see what Roddy, LaRavia, Chandler, Lofton Jr., whoever ends up getting minutes out of the guys they just drafted. I can't wait to see Zaire. Lofton Jr. Yeah.

Yeah, well, they got to cut somebody too. They got 16 dudes. I don't even know who they're going to cut. But I can't wait to see Zyre Williams year two. Like, I can't wait to see how they do it. So long term, I'm all in on the Grizz and –

I'm fine with them keeping their powder dry. I thought it was smart. And look, man, maybe I'll be back in Memphis this year. You can find me a new... Last year I came to Memphis and I told you a good spot to eat. Now you got to tell me a good spot to eat. Oh, it'd be great. Hey, and before I get out of here, I do just want to mention this, that...

I listened to the pod you did with Herring, and I thought the tribute and taking the time out to talk about Charks was beautiful. That was special. I talked to Bill and the guys last night at the Ringer, and I listened to theirs with Chris Ryan and J. Kyle Mann and Kevin, and I said, you know, I don't know why I got so emotional about this, but it struck me as so special that

There's going to come a day where his son's going to go back and he's going to hear all these things that everybody said about his father. And there are people that I've lost in life that I wish that existed. And you as a parent and me as a parent, you think about how special that can be. And,

Charks thought the world of you. I emailed you this. He did. I went back. I finally had the bravery to go back and watch a show. He came in and recorded a whole show with me in Memphis where we talked about his whole life and his...

And he talked about bothering you at the point forward. And he said, I would send this guy stuff all the time, all the time. He said, I just send him 10, 12, 15 articles. Sometimes I never get a response. He's like, I didn't care. I didn't care. And he's like, and finally, he's like, between him and he's like, and there was Kelly Dwyer and there was Henrik.

henry abbott and zach did this thing on the point forward i can't remember what it was called it was something court vision court vision yeah and he was like and i just kept sending it and kept sending it and uh and he's like and he uh he didn't have to but he went out of his way to you know talk me up to the ringer guys when it was time for me to get hired and everything and uh

He mentioned you by name. I went back and watched it just the other day, and he mentioned you by name, and so I thought that was awesome. You know what I mean? Like, you're at ESPN. You know what I mean? And you guys didn't work together at Grantland, and you certainly didn't have to go out of your way to be talking about that. I thought it was special that you did, and I talked to you personally. I told you, you know, this guy really thought the world of you, and you really helped him.

When you didn't even really know him at the time, because we didn't, you know. And I think it hit all of us hard, right, Zach? Because we all kind of came up together. You're at the point forward. I'm on an AM dinky old radio station at the time, and we're all kind of peers. We all kind of, you know, had this trajectory together, and you kind of know all the same people, and so...

But I thought that was super sweet. And he thought the world of you, man, for sure. Well, I thought the world of him, too, and the least I can do. And honestly, it makes me think, you know, I guess I'm going to have to start another blog of my own to do this. But, you know...

And it's not an original thought. You see it on Twitter every time something tragic happens to somebody and all the tributes flow out. You see people tweet like, I wish we could do this for them while they were alive to see it. You know, Larry did one of the Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes this past season had a funeral for a living person, you know, so.

And I have always thought like I just wish that I could write a column that like is basically – I would call it this person is awesome. And I would just write like here's why this person is great at their job. It could just be like random like here's this actor that I really like and this thing that he did that's amazing. I think – I got to start that column. But I don't think there's a place for it at ESPN.com just like – Maybe not. Zach's this random person is awesome column. But I do think –

I don't know. That's a long story. But, Verno, you're the best, and I will see you in Memphis this year. It's a short trip, man. I love coming down there. I always have a great time, and we'll have some beverages, eat some food, and watch the Grizzlies kick the shit out of somebody probably. I can't wait to see you down here. Thanks, guys.