Mavericks Pull the Plug and Giants Pull the Rug

Thad Levine and Ryan McDonough are joined by Tom Telesco to unpack a wild time in sports — from Nico Harrison’s firing in Dallas to Brian Daboll’s ousting in New York. They debate the risks and rewards of NFL trade deadline deals, break down the MLB gambling scandal shaking the sport, and explain how top Japanese and Korean players make their way to the majors.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to Roster Syrings. Alongside Ryan McDonough, I am fad Levine.
We are really happy to have Tom Telesco join us
this week tremendously busy time of the year for professional sports.
We've got an action packed show. In future segments, we
are going to address the trade deadline in the NFL.
We're going to hit you with some pressing baseball stories.

(00:26):
A bomb show was dropped in Major League Baseball. But
first we've got some breaking news in the NBA that
Dallas Mavericks have relieved Nico Harrison of his job. Ryan,
can you please break down the situation in Dallas.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, tough day for Nico Harrison personally fad in Dallas
and Fort Worth and the Metroplex. Nico Harrison was fired
from his job as general manager of the Dallas Mavericks
on Tuesday morning. This is about nine months after the
much maligned LUKA donstage to the LA Lakers trade that
and I think one of the things we're going to
try to do on this show and we'll continue to

(00:59):
try to do, is give a holistic perspective because Nico Harrison,
prior to that trade, I thought made some really good
moves at the twenty twenty four trade deadline, which is
hard to believe that was less than two years ago.
It seems like a lifetime ago, especially if you're a
Mavericks fan. But he made two moves at the deadline
in twenty four, acquiring Daniel Gafford from Washington in PJ

(01:20):
Washington from Charlotte. Those two guys were integral parts of
the twenty twenty four Western Conference championship team in Dallas,
team that lost to the Boston Celtics in the twenty
twenty four NBA Finals. But unfortunately, you guys know how
this works in pro sports. The three of us in particular,
are familiar with this. Nico will be remembered for the

(01:40):
move that the big move that he made, the shocking
move just before the trade deadline this past February. That
was sending young superstar Luka Doncic, just approaching his prime,
to the LA Lakers, something that the MAVs did inexplicably
without canvassing the entire league for trade offers. And I
think that's one of the things that the three of
usocus on and are probably more focused on than most

(02:02):
fans and media members given the jobs we've done so
you guys know, sometimes the decision it works out or
it doesn't. But I think the three of us are
processed driven and as I look back at the MAUS process,
and this is not hindsight. I said this at the time.
I said, I can't believe they traded a player of
Luka Donsich's caliber without canvassing the entire league. If you're
going to if you're gonna do that, you canvass the

(02:23):
entire league. You try to get teams in a bidding war,
you play them off against each other and get a
package that sets your franchise up well going forward. The
MAUS front office, led by Nico Harrison, did not do that.
They focused in on one team, the LA Lakers, and
specifically one player in Anthony Davis, who I'm not trying
to pick on a d but there's a reason Charles
Barkley calls him street close for his nickname. Anthony Davis

(02:45):
only played in thirty two percent of the games since
he joined the Dallas Mavericks. And the irony of it, guys,
is Nico Harrison. I don't think it says this publicly.
I don't think he can say this publicly, but privately,
what he's told people is part of the reason he
moved Luka Donsich was he he did not want to
give him a giant, five year MAX contract that would
have been the biggest in NBA history because he's worried
about his health. But I think if you look at

(03:07):
it objectively, somebody in the front office and ownership says,
wait a minute, Okay, if you're worried about his health,
I understand that we know more about Luca's medical than
anybody and we'll see if those concerns were justified or
not in time. But the guy we're trading him for,
Anthony Davis, look at his record. Of course, he's not healthy.
We know his track record. He's five years older than
the Luca, He's frequently out of the lineup, and guys,

(03:28):
the shocking number looking at it today is that since
that deal was made in February, now spanning parts of
two NBA seasons, that Anthony Davis has only played in
thirty two percent of his games as a Dallas Maverick.
So on one hand, you have Luka Donsis thriving and
his MVP candidate, if not MVP favorite with the LA Lakers,
and then on the other side, you have Anthony Davis
out of the lineup again, the MAVs three to eight, underachieving,

(03:51):
and so Patrick DeMont, relatively new owner in Dallas, decided
to make the change by firing at GM Nico Harrison.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
You know, and Ryan, we've talked about this before. Our
goal as general managers is to always try to sell
high and buy low. I think when you see deals
like this, you have to believe there was a misguided
notion that there was almost an addition by subtraction. They
were taking the under. They thought that Luca would never
get into shape, and lo and behold, he comes in
this season. He looks like he's lost a lot of weight,

(04:19):
He's playing exceptionally well. He's picking up for where Lebron
is not playing right now, and he's filling a void.
And so I think, unfortunately, when you don't canvas the league,
when you make kind of rash decisions, part of that
is embedded in the fact that you believe that this
asset probably isn't as good as the rest of the
league thinks it is. But that's really not our job.
Our job is to maximize these situations, never try to

(04:41):
sell low. And I think once you start describing a
notion of that you're adding something by subtracting a player,
and the league's not quite aware of that yet. That's
when you really can be compromised in some of these trades.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Hey, so does this fall into the category of because
you know, we've been in front offices, we've had superstars before,
and even though they're superstars, there's no perfect players. So
you have a loss, you have a bad stretch, You
vent about your best player, you know, whatever his negatives
may be. You vent about it. But then eventually you

(05:13):
either come around or you have staff around you that hey,
let's some perspective here, and you kind of work your
way out of it. But this seemed like a knee
jerk reaction to the trade. Was that part of this
at all that there was nobody else there to kind
of sit down and say, hey, look, big picture of
perspective of what we have, what the pros are versus
the cons.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
I think it was Tom, and I think it was
a snowball effect from a very high starting point. I mean,
you think of where the Dallas Mavericks were just in
June of last year of twenty twenty four, they won
the Western Conference and they ran the gauntlet. They played
a very difficult schedule to get out of the Western
Conference and get to the NBA Finals. They lost in
the finals to a loaded Celtics team, and that's where

(05:53):
things started to turn. Luka Donsich, fairly or not, became
the scapegoat because of the defensive struggles, the request about
his conditioning, and frankly, whether he was in shape or not.
Boston was just a better team over the course of
a seven game series. In the NBA playoffs, especially the finals,
the better team usually want wins. We saw it last
year with the Okac Thunder. The year before that, the

(06:14):
Boston Celtics were the superior club. So to pin that
on Luka Donsich or all on Luca, that was the
start of it, Tom and then it snowballed from there
where Luca went and played for Slavenia, his national team,
over the summer and then coming back. Those European off
seasons for the guys who play at the highest levels
of international basketball can be pretty grueling as well. So

(06:35):
you have a very long NBA season followed by a
long international season, very little rest time between the end
of the European season. In the summer and then the
start of training camp. So Luca was kind of working
his way into shape. He was taking some time off,
and then he got injured. And it seems like when
that injury happened, it was a reason for any Luca
critics or skeptics or people who were blaming him. Mighty

(06:58):
carried the team to the finals. He was the only
reason they were there, the main reason they were there
in twenty twenty four, that they were blaming him for
being out of shape, and so I think that's how
it started. And then there were famous, you know, now
infamous disputes about well, he needs to travel with the team,
No he doesn't, he needs to stay in Dallas and
rehab and should it be with his guys because a
lot of the NBA superstars have their own guys they

(07:18):
work with, versus guys who just work for the team,
you know, So all of that snowballed, And you're right.
I think this is where a number of factors that, unfortunately,
if you're a Mavericks fan, worked against the organization. You
had a new owner and Patrick Dumont and a very
inexperienced owner who had never been part of an NBA ownership, group.
But a lot of these guys, as you guys know,
minority owners somewhere else. They kind of get familiar with

(07:40):
the league and then they buy their own team. Dumont
was different than that. He came in He's from a
casino magnet family. That's how he came into ownership. And
then the transition from Mark Cuban as the primary governor
to now in a minority owner role. Mark Cuban huge,
Luca Donsi's proponent, you know, would have reportedly put his
foot down and squashed this deal. He wasn't anymore. And

(08:01):
then a GM and Nico Harrison, who did not draft
Luca Donsie. He had a relationship with Anthony Davis from
his time at Nike. We know this as much as guys,
I guess, Haye to admit it. With certain situations, egos
do become involved sometime. So Nico did not draft Luca again.
He you know, he obviously helped build a team that
led him to the finals. But but for a number
of reason now I'm not going to you know, pile

(08:22):
on Nico Harrison the organization. It was not the right process,
and it turns out it was not the right decision.
That that's clear now after nine months of hindsight. But
the process was really flawed, and you know that I've
never seen anything like this where it was reported a
few days ago that the MAVs kind of refitted their
arena and built like a special staircase for Nico Harrison

(08:43):
to get into and out of his seat because it
got so vitriolic with the fans in Dallas that he
could not go through the stands anymore. And I think
the three of us are uniquely sensitive to that. You know,
fans are passionate. We get that, and we understand the passion,
but there is a line, and it seemed like when
I'm watching the game last night when they lost to
Milwaukee Bucks, It's a close game and the fans are

(09:03):
just chanting repeatedly, Fire Nico, Fire Nico. It became a distraction,
and unfortunately, you know, nobody's bigger in the organization, player
coach or at GM and Patrick Demonts decided, I think
it was best to remove the distraction, to move on
from Nico.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
Now.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
What I didn't see, to be honest, a lot in
his letter to the fans was a lot of self
reflection and apologies for his role in green highlighting the
trade for you know, for Luka donstage to go from
Dallas to la But he's the owner. That's his right.
And as you guys know, as executive, sometimes you just
got to take the high road, keep your mouth shut
and roll with the punches.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Well, the notion that the odors with you when the
loser draws probably sometimes disavowed in some of these moves.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
You know.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
One other thing I just wanted to bring up about
this was, you know, I'm looking at trade rumors this
morning and like everybody, and you see that before the
actual announcement was made, three extremely well regarded members of
the NBA media effectively said by ten am Central time,
this announcement will be made. And it always just sits
not too well with me when you see those things,

(10:03):
because let the executive have the conversation internally with the owner.
Let them take care of that and button it up.
This notion that the media has to break these stories
before the actual employees sometimes gets notified, to me, is
really one of the most distasteful things about sports. Like
there has to be a line of like there is
some humanity in this and Ryan, you just referenced it

(10:24):
whether it's how fans treat these these executives. We deserve criticism,
but we also deserve like safe safety and safeguarding. Similarly,
like you should be able to have this announcement, you know,
I don't know if Nico's family situation, Like you want
to be able to tell your family, your kids, who
maybe in school before it gets announced. It's always rough
to me when you see the media just clambering to

(10:46):
break these stories before they're actually communicated internally.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, that I have a significant problem with how it's handled.
And then I want to go to Tom to get
his takes on you know, Brian Dabole and how the
Giants handled that situation. But in this one started even
before the announcement on Tuesday morning that Nico is going
to be fired over the weekend and earlier this week,
the reports that is not a matter of if Nico
Harrison gets fired, it's when he gets fired, and that stinks.

(11:12):
I think the three of us will we all agree
on that when you're in that position, you never want
to be in that position. I don't think the three
of us would ever want to put somebody in that position.
You know, coaches and general managers get hired and fired
all the time in pro sports. We know what we
sign up for. But you're right that the family impact
and just letting somebody twist in the wind, you know,
the emotional impact to the individual. One other thing I

(11:33):
would say too, that you know we're he'd never admit it.
Nico Harrison's a really nice guy. I know him, not
extremely well, but I know him well enough from his
time at Nike and now with the Mavericks. You know,
he had to hire private security and things like that
to watch his house and his family. So at some
point Nico would never admit this. But I wonder if
this is a relief, you know, because it could not
have been fun going to that aren every night, hearing

(11:55):
the fans chance you know, fire you basically if you're Nico.
The added staircase. I mentioned the security and all the
negativity around it. So I know not many, if any
Dallas fans remember this, but I do hope they remember.
You know, you did help put together that team that
went to the NBA Finals about a year and a
half ago, but you know, you know, and keep that
in mind, you know, with some dignity in class as

(12:16):
he exists, the organization but Tom, let' let's talk about
Brian Dable and the Giants. You know, another another fire,
not a GM in this case, the head coach and
one that you know seemingly was at least maybe thought
about after the season. Last season, they brought the GM
Joe showon and they head coach Brian Dable back with
the New York Giants, and then mid season, Tom, the
Giants decided to move on from their head coach Brian

(12:38):
Dable after two and eight start.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, and full disclosure, Brian's a friend of mine. We
actually went to the same high school. He's just a
couple of years behind me, so, you know, former class
being former teammate at Saint Francis High School in Buffalo,
so I know him extremely well. But yeah, I mean
it's a tough league. The record is what it is.
The close losses this year, and like you said, coming
off last year, there was some you know, some possibility

(13:02):
that they make changes last year. They come into this
year and they have some tight losses and then you know,
the handling of Jackson Dart and his injuries. There were
just some bad optics involved with that. I know Brian
had the best intentions, but it just didn't look great.
You know, when you've got your quarterback goes into the
blue tent to get evaluated for a concussion and the
coach runs over there just to try and speed up

(13:24):
the process. He just that can't happen. And I don't
think he was being up the process. He just wanted information.
But there's a different way to handle that. But it
was just a it was a bad look, unfortunately, and
then you combine that with the record right now. But
I'll tell you what. He identified the right quarterback for
the future of the Giants. He advocated to draft him
and and he is, like he is the future. He

(13:45):
is He's going to be an excellent player in this league.
But as the team as a whole, and I thought
going into the season their defense was going to be
the strength of their team is certainly the front seven,
and they've all they've just unperformed. They've underperformed, they haven't
played well. The offensive line is the same five this
year as it wasn't in twenty twenty four, and that
group struggled in twenty twenty four, so you know that

(14:07):
group hasn't played well and then had injuries with the
lak neighbors and scataboo, so you know at that point
he's just trying to hold the offense together. But you know,
it is what it is in this league, and as
far as how organizations handle these, no one is more
classy than the New York Giants as far as professionalism
and how they handle these situations. So it very it's

(14:28):
not on brand for them to let go of a
coach in season. There's very few positives that doing it.
But I think that probably tells you, like, at least
behind the scenes, where they thought they were and the
fact that they had to do it right now. But
Brian will land on his feet. He'll be an offensive
coordinator next year somewhere if he wants to, and I
think there's a good chance you get the second opportunity
as a head coach down the road. But yeah, it's

(14:52):
the difficult part of the league. And I've been in
this position before. When you're the general manager, you're part
of this too, and it's hard when you're letting the
head coach go and you're still there because you feel like, hey,
like I'm part of the problem. I've made mistakes. This
roster isn't where it needs to be, so it's an
uncomfortable situation, but look, it's the nature of the business,
and he keep rolling.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
You know, Tom, One of the things that jumped out
to me about this firing is exactly what you talked
about with regards to Jackson and Dart, their future star quarterback.
When you have a head coach or a manager in
baseball who's on the hot seat and they're inherently playing
to win every game. They're trying to maximize the roster
to win every game, but you've got a player who's

(15:32):
part of the future, and if those two things are
misaligned sometimes it's not to me, it's not shocking that
he may have put Jackson Dart a little bit in
harm's way, whether it's the running plays that led to
the concussion or as you said, handling that event in
the blue tent. He's trying to win every game because
he understands his next loss could be his last loss.

(15:53):
Whereas if you make that decision where you have these
young players and unfortunately who knows where they'd be today.
Malik Neighbors in Scatibo stayed healthy, maybe they do win
a few more games, but it seems to me like
when they lost four games when they're up by double digits.
When you said that the defense was supposed to be
where they had invested a lot of money at a
lot of draft picks, that really was troublesome. But now

(16:16):
you also have a head coach who's totally misaligned with
a young player group. I think that's where it becomes
a little bit challenging. And I wonder if that's what
inspired them to make this move now, because as you said,
it's really difficult making these mid season moves. It's really
against what they've done in the past. But when you
see that misalignment, and when you see them mishandling the
talent based upon their desire to win night in night out,

(16:37):
I think you probably are forced to make a change
at that point.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah, I think you know two things. You know, you
have a double digit lead with this defensive line which
is built to rush the past or not only on
them edges, but inside. That's the perfect formula you close
the games out with your defensive line. And it didn't happen.
Is that on the head coach? I mean, in the end,
I guess everything is on the head coach, But they
didn't fulfill that and that and you do have to

(17:01):
protect your young, you know, rookie quarterback. And part of
protecting him is you have to develop his style. I mean,
you don't want to take away from what he does great,
which is he does playoff schedule and plays well like
he can scramble. He's a very good athlete. Jackson is fast,
and he's fast. He probably would run probably you know,
mid four sixes for a quarterback. That's very good. And

(17:23):
he's tough, but in the NFL, like he's not built
like Josh Allen is built. You know, Jackson dart Is.
He's a thick quarterback, but he's maybe you know, six
two six one and a half, you know, two twenty
rather than six four sixty five two forty two forty
five where he can take those hits. So he has
to develop a style that you have to know when

(17:43):
to say when, when to slide, when you get out
of bounds, when maybe just to take a sack and
not take a hit, just just eat it or throw
the ball away. So that's part of the development process
and that takes time. I don't think Brian Dable was
putting him in harm's way just to get a win.
I know Brian too well. For that, but it's going
to take some time for the quarterback to figure out,
working with this head coach of how we're going to

(18:05):
play this, and then you take out your playmakers and
the quarterbacks like, look, I'll just take it over. I'll
do this because he is capable of doing that, but
as we've seen, it puts him in harm's way. So
but I do think probably from a ownership and fro
an office level, they're probably uncomfortable with the amount of
hits the quarterback was taking. And actually not a lot

(18:26):
different when Josh Allen was a younger quarterback in Buffalo,
and we've seen it some other with some other teams too,
where you run some design quarterback runs with your quarterbacks.
He's really good at it. It's nice, but there's a
line he can't do it too often because if you
don't have a franchise quarterback, you're going to be out
of a job. You know, everybody be out of a job.
So you have to pick and choose when you want
to use it. Buffalo I think has done a really

(18:47):
good job right now as far as you know, choosing
when they want to run Josh Allen when they don't.
I'm talking about the sign designed runs, and that's we're
going to have to figure out with Jackson Dart. It's
just that Jackson, you know, he doesn't quite have that
same frame to be able to handle the hits. But
they'll figure that out. And that's going to be as
they interview head coaches, one of the first questions, it's
going to be, what's your plan for Jackson Dart as

(19:09):
far as his style of play. Now, the good thing
is they already have the quarterback. I think he's their
franchise quarterback. I think he can they can win a
lot of games with them. But they got to come
up with a plan that best fits that quarterback. And
that's going to be the major question for all these
head coaches when they get interviewed.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Terrific Well, stay with us through the break here and
Rosters Rings, where you're going to tap into every bit
of Tom's expertise as we break down the NFL trade deadline.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Welcome back to Rosters to Rings. Ryan McDonald joined by
Tom Toe LESCo and Thad Levine and Tom. Now we
want to get into the NFL trade deadline, which seems
to be a more active event than it was. I
assume when your career started. I looked at the number
of trades across the NFL and it's kind of a
straight line up into the right where it seems like
there are more deals every year. So one of the

(20:09):
things I think we need to talk about some are
is kind of the notion that the three of us,
I think laugh out to some extent the trade deadline
winners and losers, that as soon as a deal has made,
people rush out and put a letter grade on it,
like they know exactly how it's going to work out.
But the team I want to start with, specifically, Tom,
was the New York Jets. The Jets have one of
the worst records in the league this year. They have

(20:31):
a first time head coach in Aaron Glenn, who's obviously
struggled to win games. There's been quarterback controversy in New
York surrounding justin fields. But they were the surprise to
me Tom as far as how aggressive they were unloading.
I know that this is easy to do in theory
when you're losing, sometimes harder to do in reality when

(20:51):
you're trading some of your best players. But what were
your thoughts on the Jets specifically they traded Sauce Gardner
to the Indianapolis Colts. They also traded Quinn Williams of
the Dallas Cowboys.

Speaker 3 (21:01):
Yeah, those were significant trades and not not your common, uh,
trade deadline type trades. Usually trade deadline in the in
the NFL is you know, typically a half year rental,
usually a player that that's his contracts are going to expire,
and you're talking about the compensation being you know, typically
mid to late round draft picks in return. But this

(21:21):
was completely different with these two players as far as
their age because they're both young, you're younger, their level
of play, and then the compensation that went back and forth,
and you know, you mentioned about the winners and losers,
and yeah, there's no way to pick a winner or
loser until you see what these picks turn into, which
you know we're years away from that. The way he
kind of usually works with the media and the fans

(21:42):
is whoever gets the player and the bigger the name,
the better they win the trade. And you know, it's
going to take years for us to figure out what
those what those picks turn into. But there was what
I saw, I think it was on Monday. So Mike Sando,
who's an NFL writer has been an NFL writer for
a really long time. He's really big into research and
he had a stat in the last ten years, half

(22:03):
the teams that made trade deadline deals didn't even make
the playoffs and seventy percent didn't win a playoff game. So,
you know, this activity at the trade deadline, and I
was part of the media is you know, kind of
talking it up. The activity isn't always equal productivity. For
every Von Miller who the Rams trade of four and
they won the Super Bowl, and Christian McCaffery, there's far

(22:24):
more that, you know, don't make a huge impact. They
may be have a small roll down the stretch and
help you a little bit, but they don't. They're not
the difference of getting into the playoffs or not. But
certainly the Jets trades were unique and they're a little
bit both a little bit different. So you know, Sauce Gardner,
you know, he's twenty five years old, he's a premium

(22:45):
player at a premium position. You know, corners, pass rushers,
left tackles, quarterbacks the hardest positions to find. And he's
under contract for three more years, which is which is
why the compensation was so high. Which is why the
why the colt said give two ones to get him. Now,
the one issue with for the Jets. You know, when
you trade a proven player and you get back two ones,

(23:09):
it sounds great, Hey, it's a haul of picks. We
got two number one picks for this player. It sounds good.
But in the end, you guys have this in your
leagues too. In the NFL, in the first round, the
success rate of that pick, and it's subjective obviously with
the success you know what you want to use for
to measure success. But it's been about fifty fifty four

(23:29):
percent success rate on the first round player. So if
you have two first round picks, odds tell you you'll
hit on one out of two. Okay, Now, the odds
of hitting on a Pro Bowl player a premium position
or even lower. So it's hard trading. It's hard to
get true value when you trade a player like Sauce Gardner.
But let you know, but actually hats off to the

(23:49):
Jets contract negotiator because they just did a long term
contract with him in the summertime and then they traded him. Now,
it's usually very hard to trade a new contract. Usually
it's such a big cap pit they structured it very well,
so it must have been in there thinking at some
point that we need some flexibility with this player. We
may want to trade him earlier than later, So that
must have been part of this. And then with Quentin Williams,

(24:10):
to me, this was a little bit different because this
is a player that it sounds like when I've heard
he didn't want to be there new regime, the Jets
had lost for a long time, and he wasn't fully invested.
I think he went to them asking for a trade.
And I think if you're a new head coach, new gym,
you're starting a culture and building a new culture. If
one of your best players has not invested, it's a

(24:31):
difficult situation to have. And old school gms, you know,
if your best player comes into your offices he wants
to trade, an old school gym would just say, hey,
pound sand, get back down in the locker room. We're
playing new school generation. There's a little bit of you know,
not liking confrontation as much, and hey, look we'll move
him and get what we can get. So you know,

(24:52):
they got a decent return on Quinnin Williams. I mean,
he's twenty eight years old, so he's you know, still
in his prime, but you know, more towards the end
of the prime then the early in the prime. But
he's an interior defensive lineman that he can play the
running the pass at a high level. And those guys
are really hard to find. But certainly the Jets are
just they're selling off their top players. I guess they

(25:12):
felt these both these players were not going to be
part of their long term answer. And now you got
to hit on the draft picks, and it's going to
take patients because it's going to take twenty twenty six,
twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight to get this team
going again. We'll see if ownership hass the patience to
play through this. If they're gathering these picks to get

(25:33):
a quarterback, then this may make sense. This may not
be the year for that. I don't know if there's
going to be a top quarterback in this year's draft.
A little bit earlier right now to tell twenty twenty
seven may be a better bet. But they're going to
have a lot of flexibility moving forward.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
You know, from a big picture standpoint in baseball, I
always felt you wanted to make these types of trades
when you were going to make the playoffs, and then
it would help you when you got to the playoffs.
I think the mistakes I saw made were when you
tried to make deal that you thought could propel you
to the playoffs, but you were on the outside looking
in to be in with. And that kind of references
what you said Tom about how oftentimes these trades don't

(26:09):
lead to playoff appearances. If you're trying to force your
way into the playoffs with the deal, I think usually
you fall short on these cases. The other observation I'd
have specific to the Jets is the last time they
stockpiled picks, it was to get a guy like Sauce Gardner.
Now they're going to try to use sauce Gardener already
to try to stockpile the next grouping of picks. And inherently,
when you make these deals in the NFL, you're helping

(26:31):
the team that you're trading to so that pick becomes
less valuable. Like so not only you reference it's the
fifty to fifty four percent hit rate, but they're now
expecting I assumed that those picks are going to come
the latter half or maybe the end of the first round,
and I assume the success rate of those picks are
even less so than what you referenced earlier.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
Great point, great point. And then you know, with with
Sauce Gardener and Quinn Williams what they it gives those
two teams, the Cowboys Nicoles is some short term game
but then long so you're getting the best of both worlds.
As a GM, they're gonna help right now and they're
gonna help long term. Certainly. Sauce Gardner, he said, brand
new contract, twenty five years old. So it's it's good

(27:10):
investment for those teams. Is it a lot, sure, sure
it is a lot. But from the Jets perspective, you know,
you do have to identify the talent that you have
and decide, you know, who's going to be a part
of this future. Corners are so hard to find, and
the premium ones are even harder. So look, it's great
they got two draft picks back, but the odds of
them hitting on another premium player at that spot they're

(27:32):
just a little bit lower. So but I think right
now they realize they don't have the future quarterback. I
think they knew that when they signed Justin Fields. Justin
Field was there to kind of get make a bridge
to the next player, but it seems like at this
point they're just going to stockpile picks and move forward.
Tell you what they played better last week, So you
got they got a little bump there, because if you're

(27:52):
a player in the locker room and there's two issues. One,
it's hard for those players if to see player there
are good players be traded out and then hey, look
I got to go leave my career in the line
every week to go play for you guys. But there's
also a little bit of a chip on your show, like, hey, look,
we have better players than just those two guys. You
know we're going to show you this week. And they
played reasonably well last week against the Browns, So we'll

(28:13):
see how this works out long term. Brian Burke, who
was an NHL GM who, by the way, you guys
should have on the show's amazing content. He was a
GM for a long time in the NHL want to
Stanley Cup with the Anaheim Ducks. But he used to
always say he measured trades with calendars, not stopwatches, and
these trades it's going to take a couple of years

(28:34):
to see, really who won or who lost these trades.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
One of the things I found so interesting, Tom, were
the two teams that the Jets traded with, the Indianapolis Colts,
in my opinion, the surprise team in the NFL this year,
Daniel Jones resurgence, Jonathan Taylor as an MVP candidate, and
then Dallas. That Dallas is kind of like the team
that Dad was describing earlier, who I don't think any
of us would list as a Super Bowl favorite. Still

(28:58):
making a very aggressive move, you know, Jerry Jones does
some things that are a bit orthodox. But I want
to get into one other thing that I read this week, Tom,
that I thought was really interesting about Micah Parsons. I
think it was Adam Schefter and some of the other
top newsbreakers in the NFL reported that a condition of
the deal the contract that Michaeh Parsons signed. We all

(29:19):
remember he was traded from Dallas to Green Bay in
the off season. One of the conditions, I guess, Tom,
of that contract was kind of a limited no trade
clause where he cannot be traded to the Philadelphia Eagles.
I think it may expand to the rest of the
the NFC East as well, if you could take our
listeners inside. You know what you know about that deal

(29:39):
specifically and generally? How common is that as far as
these you know, no limited no trade clauses or specifying
that a player either can't be traded to a specific
team or a division rival or a conference rival. How
often does that happen in the NFL.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
Well, I'm not going to have a whole lot of
enlightening information this because I haven't heard of a clause
like that before. That was the first for me, And
you know, twelve years of the GM, thirty years of
the NFL, I'm sure it's happened before. I'm just not
aware of it. Not sure I care for it, to
be honest with you, I think if the player trading
tips the scales that much, then just don't trade them
to anyone. Then keep them as as a player. That'd

(30:14):
be number one. But yeah, I mean, I'm always more
concerned about how the trade affects my team, not anyone else's.
And I would always want flexibility because things change quickly
in this league. So to me, if somebody wanted that
as part of the clause in the trade, that probably
be a deal breaker for me. I just you never
know how things are going to change. I don't want
to no trade clause and a player i'm bringing in

(30:37):
I just doesn't like I said, I've not heard of
that before. We've done and I've been a part of
having no trade clauses for your own players that you're signing,
usually a quarterback. It's necessarily it's not necessarily no trade clause.
There's really a trade restriction where the player has to
okay the team that he's being traded to. That is
much more common. But as far as with the Cowboys

(31:00):
and Packers did that to me, I had not heard
of a clause like that before.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
You know, I don't know how much you guys experienced
this in your leagues, but we often would get teams
in our own division to call and say, hey, listen.
For us to deal with in our own division, we
would have to get a premium because we don't want
to see our players go in division and perform. And
I always thought that was short sighted. I always wanted
to trade within division. If if I'm rebuilding, I want
to trade to you now you're already beating me. I'd

(31:25):
rather take some of your future values so I can
beat you more demonstratively in the future. But we also
we felt there was this concern like if I traded
somebody to I was working from the Minnesota Twins, if
I trade them to Pittsburgh Pirates the very next day,
they could trade them to the Detroit Tigers. Like we
just didn't control that. We never tried to control that
to your point, Tom, we were just trying to get

(31:46):
the best deal we could for our team. We didn't
once we traded the player, we didn't have any future
control over them, and we didn't really factor that into
the value of the trade that we were making at
the time.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yeah, and I think there's all different situations. If I
have a really good player of my team who's disgruntled
or where having issues with and I feel like I
have to trade them, but I know he's a good player,
I'm not sending him in the division. Probably more than likely,
I'm sending them somewhere else. If it's a player that
I feel like we need to move on from that
we don't think can help us win, I'll send them anywhere.

(32:17):
I mean, at that point, I would like to send
them in the division. If you can't help us play,
there's probably a reason why so I'll send them to
a division team they can take on the problem and
we'll get something back. So I think each situation is
unique to itself. But the clause with this particular situation,
like I said, I just have not heard of that before.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
I agree with what you guys said too. It's very
shortsighted to put in those kind of clauses. And at
the end of the day, to get to where we
all want to go in pro sports, that's raising the
championship trophy. You need to beat them, all right. It's
not like you just need to win your division. If
you win the NFC East, they don't throw a parade
for that, and then you got to win the conference.
Then you got to win the Super Bowl. So I think, yeah,
putting any kind of restrictions on it doesn't make a

(32:55):
whole lot of sense.

Speaker 4 (32:56):
You know.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Dallas again, just objectively looking at it from the outside
tends to do things a little differently. That's Terry Jones m.
We'll see how the Quinn Williams trade works out for
the Cowboys. We're going to take a quick break right here.
Coming back after this is going to give us an
update on the MLB pitch betting scandal. There's some wild
things that have happened here. We're also going to get
into your questions, listener questions. Stick with us on Rosters

(33:19):
to Rings. We'll be right back after this short break.
Welcome back to Rosters to Rings. Ryan McDonald joined by
Thad Levigne and Tom Telesco. Thad A wild past week

(33:39):
in Major League Baseball. The World Series is over, the
LA Dodgers are the champions. We're already into the GM meetings.
But the story I want to get into with you
because it's really, I think, potentially the tip of the
iceberg for sports betting in Major League Baseball in particular.
We know about the NBA scandal involving Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier,
and dam Jones, but that this Emmanuel class A and

(34:02):
Luis Ortiz scandal in baseball, with being thrown told to
thron throw specific pitches and having those pitches heavily bet on.
It took some wild twists and turns over the past week.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
Well, you know, as much as the NBA hated this
story to start their season, MLB's hating the story as
it's clouding the World Series, which was such a spectacular
world series, but this story just won't go away. So,
as we touched upon in the past, Emmanuel class A
Luis Ortiz were both suspended additionally with pay by the league,
then they were converted to being suspended without pay, and

(34:36):
now they've been indicted. And as we talked about your
breakdown last week, Ryan about the NBA's situation. When the
FBI is involved in federal investigations, usually they're exceptionally thorough.
There's a lot of smoke to this fire at this point.
So what we now know is that they both have
been indicted and they could serve up to sixty five
years in prison. Now I'm not sure if that's a

(34:58):
realistic thing, but right now now with the amount of
fraud and felonies that they've been charged with, the maximum
they could serve as sixty five years in prison. Class
was accused of rigging pitches dating all the way back
to May of twenty twenty three, and in some cases
he was actually accused of funding some of the bettings,
so he was betting on behalf of these outcomes. And

(35:20):
what was happening was he was being convinced to throw
a very specific pitch as a ball and when you
look at some of the video, it's really damning you.
So these pitchers are thrown five feet in front of
the plate, they're thrown in the opposite batter's box. They're
not even competitive pitches. And he was standing to gain
off of that. And then he convinced Louis Ortiz, a

(35:40):
teammate of his, a relief pitcher on the team, a
spot starter, to also participate in this. And it is
rumored that about four hundred thousand dollars was one on
pitches that Classe threw, only about sixty thousand on the
pitches that Louis Ortiz through. And thing that is so
tragic about this is in some cases these guys were
making five thousand dollars per transgression. Just as a point

(36:03):
of reference, Emmanuel Classe in this average season, is making
about one hundred and thirty six thousand per inning he pitched. Ortiz,
who is on a lesser contract, was making nine three
hundred dollars sprintings pitched. And here they are gambling way
their futures on five thousand dollars incremental subsidies that they're getting.
At its worst, it looks like Class A was a

(36:26):
ringleader here may have been betting on these outcomes as well,
which there's very few things in Major League Baseball that
you can't do and still get to play the game baseball.
But once you bet on the game of baseball, it
is a death sentence, and we saw that with Pete Rose.
It's the one thing that we stand up in front
of the every single player at the beginning of every
spring training, they have to listen to a speech with

(36:47):
where this rule is read. They have to sign off
that they heard about it. But there's a lot of
transgressions of guys who have made it to the Hall
of Fame. Gambling on the game of baseball is the
one thing you can't do. These guys have now done that,
in addition to what is now wirefraud and getting caught
up with some illegal gambling rings. I think just this
is the tip of the iceberg. As you said, Ryan,

(37:07):
we're seeing it in the NBA, we're seeing in a
Major League Baseball. Hopefully these are cautionary tales so that
we don't see this anymore, but I'm concerned that we
may hear many more stories about this before this is
ultimately resolved.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
Tell you what tough week in Cleveland. I mean they
lose to that, the Browns lose of the Jets, which
is never a good loss. And now you find out
to your baseball players are not giving their full talent
level and betting on prop bets. I mean, that's unbelievable.
Thank God. In the NFL, it'd be really hard to
influence any prop bets unless you're a quarterback, and I

(37:41):
think the rest of our league it just doesn't lend
usself probably well to that, thank God, because like you said,
we're seeing it in basketball, we're seeing it in baseball. Boy,
it's just not something. I mean, that just kills the
competitive nature of sports.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
So when time's your point, I'm sure these guys were told, hey, listen,
we're just asking you to do one pitch a ball,
a strike to a ball. That's all we're asking for.
No one will ever notice this is happening. But as
we discussed in one of these previous episodes, Tom, there's
such sophistication to these gambling sites now that they're they're
looking for any irregularity, and when they see four hundred

(38:17):
thousand dollars made on a singular pitch, that strikes them
as very anomalous. When they see it happen multiple times
over the course of a two and a half year period.
Then they start investigating, and now indictments came down the line.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
Criminals are supposed to be smart, aren't they. I mean,
four hundred thousand dollars on one pitch. I think that
would raise some eyebrows, wouldn't you think?

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Well, Tom, I'd also think if you had a twenty
million dollar contract getting five grand for one ball and
then seven thousand for another ball thrown, it would not
be worth the twelve thousand dollars in my opinion, if
I had twenty twenty million guaranteed. But apparently Emmanuel class
I didn't agree with that logic.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
Now, you know, I don't know what happened, but you know,
sometimes these guys that they get, you know, if they're
gambling on other sports and they get own some money
and they owe people money, and you know, typically the
people that are behind this are not good people certainly
to owe money to, and you kind of feel like you're,
you know, you're forced to do things like this. Hopefully
that's not what happened, but you know, it's dangerous to

(39:14):
get in bed with these guys, are you know, they're
professional criminals, the guys that do this. So, but they
have the one thing I wanted to ask you about
because I saw this story, but then I saw the
other one about Major League Baseball and how they use
international scouting, and then I had no idea that with
if you're going to bring a player over from from
a foreign team, that you actually have to pay that

(39:34):
team a certain amount of money, which I would worry
that would really skew towards the big market teams that
have a lot more cash to smaller market teams to
have to be able to tap into that talent with
the international team. So, you know, it kind of take
me through that.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yeah, So, Tom, you're talking about players who came over
from some of the professional leagues, the one in Japan
and South Korea in particular. These are players who have
achieved free agent status in their leagues and they then
get post by their team, and so the premise of
this was to subsidize the teams over there that are
losing the players to Major League Baseball. Believe it or not,

(40:08):
there was a time in which there was no limit
as to what you could spend on these players, and
that really favored the big market teams. It was a
blind bid process. Every team would have by a certain
date the ability to submit a posting fee. We were
in Texas when we did this with you, Darvish. We
ended up winning the bid, and we swore to our

(40:29):
owner that we won by two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars on what proved to be an exceptionally large posting fee.
We actually don't know if that's true, but we just
said that to make ourselves look good. We also could
have won by forty million dollars in that case, and
then in that case, you're absolutely right, the big market
teams were the teams that were really playing on those guys.
Keep in mind also that as far as Japanese and

(40:50):
South Korean players go, they tend to want to stay
in the big cities, tend to want to go coastal,
so places like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, see
at all already have a huge advantage, but then you
also factor in the payroll advantage. So to level the
playing field a little bit, they've actually implemented a very
different type of posting fee. And so the way it

(41:10):
works right now is the foreign team gets twenty percent
of the contract's first twenty five million dollars that you
spend on the player, seventeen and a half percent of
the next twenty five million, and fifteen percent of any
money above the fifty million dollar mark. And that is
inclusive of guaranteed money as well as incentives earned. And
so as you as you map out these contracts, that's.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
How it works. Now.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
The goal was to believe it or not, so that
all teams could play on these guys. What we're seeing
is still these teams in these major markets, especially the
coastal ones, are winning most of these bids. And we
just saw it in the World Series on full display.
Between Otani, who was actually came over as a as
an amateur free agent to the Anaheim Angels, signs as
a major league free agent with the Dodgers, but then

(41:57):
also Yamamoto who they got as a posting player they
gave them three hundred million dollars, and then Roki Sasaki,
who was another amateur who they signed, but they only
spend five million dollars of their amateur international signing bonus
pool to secure his rights. So they're winning on all fronts.
It's really still favoring those teams on the coasts because

(42:19):
that's where there's more of a a South Korean and
Japanese community in the United States. They want to be
in those environments. It's also quicker flights home for them
that the Midwestern cities are not winning these buy and
large unless they truly just outbid everybody else.

Speaker 3 (42:34):
So, if you're a professional player in Japan or South Korea,
let's say you had a five year contract, you played
out the five years. Now you're a free agent. You're
really not a free agent to sign anywhere you want,
whether it's in the MLB or anywhere.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
So that's how it used to work is the winning
bid was the only team that could negotiate with you. You
had a thirty day window to negotiate. Now what they've
done to give that player a little bit more freedom
of where they sign is once they get posted by
their team, there's a forty five day period where all
teams can negotiate with them, and then they have to
pay that fee based upon how much they ultimately agree to.

(43:10):
So you're exactly right, tom Previously, the team was really
only allowed to discuss opportunities with the team that bid
the most money for them. My hunches in hindsight, you
Darvish Mayhem not have prioritized Arlington, Texas as his number
one destination, but at that time that was the only
team he could negotiate with. Now these players can negotiate
with all thirty clubs. Whoever wins ultimately then pays a

(43:32):
percentage of what they paid the player to the posting
team in Japan.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
It's a great position to be in for these star
international players negotiating big deals. Kind of like our producer
why I tried to do after his first listener questions
last week. We're going to get to that coming back
after this your listener questions covering Major League Baseball, the NBA,
the NFL, and more, stay with us. I'll be right
back on rosters, Drank.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
Welcome back to rosters.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
To rings back by a flavor of popular demand. We
have questions, listener questions as posed by producer Wyatt.

Speaker 4 (44:18):
Thank you that all right, let's get right into it.
First question is for Tom. This one's from Ryan's friend
Scott in Louisville. As a franchise owner or front office member,
is the absolute best bye week the week after the
trade deadline?

Speaker 3 (44:33):
It's the best by week after the trade deadline. Yep,
don't you know. I was like dark bye week could
be kind of in the middle of the year just
because training camps long, and then the season you'll get
about seven eight weeks and the trade deadline ends up
being right now between weeks nine and ten, which is
right about the midway point. Yeah, it wouldn't be a
bad spot, and if you do make a trade, it
just gives you a little extra time to get that

(44:55):
player that transitioned in so but uh yeah, sure, all right.

Speaker 4 (44:59):
Now, next question is from Devin in Brooklyn. This one's
for Ryan. If you were advising an NBA rookie today,
what's the number one skill or focus area that leads
to long term career success that most young players overlook?

Speaker 2 (45:14):
The most important skill thing to be, in my opinion
is low maintenance, easily coachable. I think that's not specific
just to the NBA, but I think that and talent
at a test and Major League Baseball and the NFL
organizations want guys who they can sleep well at night
knowing they're going to give maximum effort, you know, on
the court, in the weight room, in the locker room.
They're going to be easy to coach and manage. If

(45:36):
you're at the other end of the spectrum, if you're
high maintenance, you better be pretty damn good, because if
you're not that good, team just sharn't going to want
to deal with you. We've seen high profile basketball players
in particular who were kind of anointed in high school
and college and au as the next big thing, and
a lot of those guys never made it, never had
any significant career at all. At the other end of

(45:56):
the spectrum, you have guys like Steph Curry, James Hard
and Jannis you know, guys who were not on any
kind of recruiting radar or scouting radars, and those guys
went on to be all time great player. It's just
with the work and with the skills. So I'd say
from a skill perspective, right now in basketball, it's shooting.
I think that's obvious with the pace and space and
three point revolution, the analytical slant that the game has today.

(46:19):
But more than anything else, so what we're looking for
is guys who are good teammates. I know Brad Stevens
and the Boston Celtics in particular, they want high character,
low maintenance guys, guys who defends I think again, that
transcend sports. As we say in the NBA, you have
to be great in the sum of your problems. And
if you really don't have many problems off the court
and you're a good teammate, I think that gives you
a lot more chances to be successful.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
It's interesting in baseball, we liked guys who are extremely talented.
That was one of the things we liked, and frequently healthy.
Those were two things that also were benefits.

Speaker 4 (46:52):
All right, don't worry. The next one's for you. This
one's from Jared and Raleigh, North Carolina, that if you
were running a small market MLB team right now, would
you prioritize investing in player development, analytics, or better in
clubhouse leadership?

Speaker 1 (47:08):
First, it's a great question. I think the backbone of
everything we're doing in professional sports right now is analytics.
You know, we're grounding all of our decisions in all
this reams of information that is flooding into our sports,
and then ideally we're making those decisions humanly. So I
think I would say that would be the backbone. The
second choice, certainly would be player development, you know is

(47:31):
certainly in a smaller market dynamic, we just have to
be better than the payroll behemoth foes that we're playing against.
We have to draft better, we have to identify talent,
and then we've got to make more out of that
talent than the rest of the league is doing to
be able to still compete with them. And I think
that's what we see places like Tampa, places like Cleveland

(47:51):
and Milwaukee. They're just doing that on a very consistent basis.
Part of what is so daunting in major leagues right
now is that the Dodgers have caught up in I
mean we see that. You know, when you look at
the last fifteen years of drafting, I think they rank
fourth in terms of total war they've produced out of
the draft. That is very concerning to the rest of
the league. It used to be at the top of

(48:11):
every one of those lists, used to be Pittsburgh and
Minnesota and Cleveland. Well, now you're seeing the Dodgers creep
up there. So you have to have all your decisions
grounded and all this information you have to be able
to process it. It's not who has the most information,
it's who implements the most information to meet the best
decisions about players and ultimately strategic decisions to help win games.

(48:34):
But you've got to develop that talent a little bit
better than those teams that have much more financial resources
than you do to be able to compete with them.

Speaker 4 (48:41):
All right. Next question is also from Ryan's friends Scott
in Louisville, and it's for Tom. Tom.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
I think he's got to big NFL fan, this Scott
in Louisville.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
By the way, good Cowboys fan.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
Tom.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Yeah, so he's been itching to get you back on
the show.

Speaker 4 (48:55):
All right, Tom, Bear with me. Here is long winded one.
NFL players get paid in weekly installments over the eighteen
week season. If Trey Hendrickson, for example, gets traded to
a team who already had their bye, does he play
this week, which would mean he would have had a
season with no bye week. Yes, Okay, Scott's got his
answer perfect. All right, I got another one for you, Tom.

(49:19):
In your opinion, does the Cowboys Quinn Williams trade give
them any chance at making the playoffs?

Speaker 3 (49:26):
I thought they still had a chance to make the
playoffs before they made the trades, so obviously making the
trades gonna help them. Their offense is really good and
they can score with anybody. The big problem, as everyone
has seen, is just getting stops on defense. They don't
have a lot of talent on that side of the ball.
Quinnin Williams is a legit, real player. Like interior defensive

(49:47):
linemen who can also rush the passer are really hard
to find. That's why they go high in the draft.
God just doesn't make a whole lot of three hundred
pound men that have speed, explosiveness, flexibility. They're just they're
so hard to find. So is equally good against the
run in the pass. He hasn't rushed the passer as
well this year with the Jets as he has in
the past, but honestly, the whole Jets defense hasn't played

(50:09):
as well as they have in the pass. So I'm
not so much concerned that he's on the way down.
I think he's going to be fine with Dallas, so
he'll help them short term. But in the end, it's football,
you like, you can't add one player unless it's a
quarterback and make a huge jump. You know, their defense.
It may improve a little bit, but even adding Kenny
Clark and adding Quinn Williams, who they're both good players,

(50:30):
you know how much Bump is going to give it them.
You know, real bump is going to give them, you know,
probably this much. But I still think they have a
chance with Dak Prescott in that offense to score some
people if things go right. So you know, to me,
the trade I mean helps them a little bit. It
probably doesn't bump their odds that much higher. It will
help them in the future as well, but we'll see
if they can still get in on a well card

(50:51):
spot going down the stretch.

Speaker 4 (50:52):
All right, Next one, I think all of you guys
could take a few turns answering. This one's from Harrison
and Santa Barbara. We've seen more retired athletes purchasing ownership
stakes in pro teams. Are we now starting to see
current players negotiating clauses that give them future ownership rights
or other team equity benefits.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
Yeah, I'll take this one first. You can't do that,
at least not in the NBA right now.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
You can't.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
You can and not have that be a condition of
the contract. It's not allowed for the Collective Bardner Agreement.
It's something that clearly the players and the Players Association
I think across sports would want the right to do that.
It's something that the owners do not want for obvious reasons.
You know, once one player gets at one star gets it,
then everyone's going to be asking for it. And the
equity in the franchise is extremely valuable, So I'll be

(51:39):
interested to see how it goes. I think what you're
going to see a lot more of it. In fact,
I know what you're going to see a lot more
of going forward. That are players who are recently retired
who have made a ton of money. Because the money
is so significant now across all three of the sports
that we cover, NFL, NBA, in Major League Baseball, they're
going to buy into teams pretty soon after retirement because
they've just made a ton of money in players contracts

(52:00):
and endorsements. But I'm also fairly certain that the leagues,
all the leagues are going to draw a pretty hard
line as far as not granting a player equity in
the franchise because that I think, if you know, Otani
or somebody gets equity in the Dodgers, then the next
free agent's going to want it. The Yankees and on
and on the NBA and NFL, major League Baseball are
really concerned about precedent. I think, as much as they

(52:20):
never say it publicly, that they really don't want to
open kind of that Pandora's box.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
And right, I agree with you.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
It's the same rules in baseball right now. The one
thing I would just add to the conversation is in baseball,
we're seeing a lot of changes in ownership. And it
used to be that individuals own major league teams or
families own major league teams, and now it's much larger
entities coming together to form groups to own major league teams.
And so I think we are going to see more
retired players participate in that at that time, and there'll

(52:48):
be more avenues for them to gain ownership, but it
will be after they retire and no longer playing the game.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
Yeah. I think Ryan answered that perfectly. The same thing
in the NFL, it's it's not allowed, and just about it.
If you had an NFL player with equity and a
team and then he gets traded to another team, that's
not a great look. But the one thing with the
NFL is the value of the teams is so so
high that even an NFL player who makes a lot

(53:16):
of money in his career, it's just hard to buy
in anywhere even one percent of a team. I mean,
the numbers are just astronomical. So you may see some
NFL players get in on some ownership, maybe by name,
but it's just so hard just with the amount of
money you have to put into it, it's just difficult
to achieve.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
And one final point I'll make guys before producer why
it asked his next question is an owner I talked
to in the past made a good point about this
equity in the team. It sounds great, and it is great,
but does that mean, say, going back to the show
Eotani example, the Dodgers say they had a horrible year,
could they then go to a Tani and say, hey,
we need some cash. We need to give you money
back out of your player contracts. So that's one of

(53:55):
the challenges with the owners. Again, they won't say this publicly,
but privately we'll just say it's okay. When when stuff
is wrong, do they want to be part of fixing
that too? They're pouring more cash into it taking less money.
Usually those conversations are pretty one sided. You know, the
players see it one way, the owners see it another way.
So I think that's something that why at a cross
sports the owners are going to continue to draw a
bright line and say we're not going We'll do a

(54:16):
lot up to this line, but we're not going to
go over this line because if we cross this line,
it opens up a whole host of other issues, including
the one Tom just mentioned. What if a player is
not on that team shortly after he buys into the
ownership group.

Speaker 4 (54:27):
Good stuff, all right, Ryan, Next one's for you. We've
got two more. This one's from Mitch and Sacramento. Ryan.
Early thoughts on how NBC Prime Video and ESPN have
handled NBA coverage to start the season.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
Yeah, well, I think the newcomers NBC in particular, Amazon
Prime have done great. You know, I've been critical of
ESPN's coverage in the past. I think when you bring
in new ideas. NBC and Amazon have poured a lot
of money into NBA coverage on their staff. I think
that's reflected in the broadcast, the pictures and studio shows.

(54:59):
They look good, they sound good. I've really enjoyed it. Frankly,
I think it'll make ESPN kind of raise the bar
on its content. ESPN has been doing this a long time,
but anytime you have two new players in the mix
with a lot of money and a lot of new ideas,
which NBC and Amazon have.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
Why.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
One of the things in particular I love are the
interactive sets that they're using technology now, where they can
actually put guys out there on a virtual court and
show exactly what teams are doing. I saw my buddy
Brian SCALABRAINI break down a forty five cut, which is
something pretty technical and specific, but I think interesting. It
led to a game winning shot Nikola Vusovich hit for
the Chicago Bulls the other night in the corner. So

(55:36):
I would personally like to see more of that. I
think Tom and Thad would as well. Insiders really want
to learn something when you're watching the broadcast, and I
think they've NBC and Amazon so far have done a
nice job making it informative educational while also entertaining personally
sign me up for that versus you know, a lot
of the hot takes and flaming players and things like that.
I don't think that's good for the game, and I

(55:58):
worried that ESPN, in particular, you know, drifted too far
in that direction at times.

Speaker 4 (56:03):
Last one is for Tom, but Ryan Thad feel free
to chime in. This one's from Evan in Kansas. Tom,
do you have a memorable trade deadline story, whether it
was a big deal you made or a deal that
fell through.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
Yeah, there was a deal that fell through, and I
can't go in to the specifics of it, but so
on the West Coast, you have to be done by
by one o'clock on Tuesdays, the trade deadline four o'clock Eastern.
We had a deal I felt with the team just orally.
It was about twelve thirty. And then when you're making
a trade, you have to there's paperwork that's involved. There's

(56:40):
there's emails that have to be sent back and forth
with the league office and then teams involved, and then
you have to inform the player you know that he's
being traded. You would hate to be a player that
you see his name go across the screen he's being
traded somewhere. So there's some work that has to be done.
So you can't wait till twelve fifty five and then decide,
you know, hey, we're going to consimate a trade. There's
just not enough time. So we had one that I

(57:01):
thought was going towards the direction of being done. It
was like twelve forty twelve forty five. I call the
team nobody picks up. I wait a couple more minutes.
I call again, they pick up, Hey, we're checking on
a couple of things. And then we just said and
then they decided before I said, we're gonna have to
pull the plug, he said, hey, look we're gonna We're
gonna pull back. We're not going to do it. So
it's it's funny we have, you know, months to get

(57:24):
this done, but whenever there's a deadline, that kind of
spurs action. And this was not a big name player,
but you know, for us, they're all these are all
these are important decisions you make, and dealing with players
is important, so you have to make sure you do
it the right way. But they got to about twelve
fifty five when when when they said they end up
pulling out of the deal. And nature of the business

(57:44):
sometimes there's this and it's very rarely is it one
GM to one GM. You've got ownership sometimes involved on
either side or maybe one side. You've got coaches involved,
you've bet maybe director or player of personnels, you have
contract negotiators. There's a lot of a lot of talking
that kind of goes through, but in the end, you
know that particular one just didn't didn't get done.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Well on behalf of Tom Telesco and Ryan McDonough. I'm
sad Levine. Thank you for tuning in this week. Join
us next week and every week on Rosters to Rings