January 19, 2022 • 40 mins
Welcome to Sports Illustrated Weekly, where we gather the best sports stories from inside and outside the pages of SI and deliver them to you in audio form every Wednesday.
+ Our premiere tips off with SI Senior Writer Howard Beck who reports on the Golden State Warriors rebooting their dynasty with young players and an elite core still in its prime. Read: “The Warriors’ Quest to Achieve What Other Dynasties Couldn’t”, “The Fire That Burns Inside Klay Thompson”
+ Then, SI Senior Writer Jon Wertheim walks us through a conversation with Tom Brady on the occasion of receiving our Sportsperson of the Year award for the second time. After 22 years in the NFL, is Brady's career worth another look? And could the GOAT actually play until he’s 50? Read: “2021 Sportsperson of the Year: Tom Brady”
+ Finally, NFL legend Joe Thomas describes what it meant for him to be profiled in the pages of Sports Illustrated as a young offensive lineman. Read: “Old School” by Peter King, April 23, 2007
Read SI.com and get in touch with us on Twitter at @podcasts_si.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, I'm John Gonzalez. I'm a senior writer at Sports Illustrated.
Welcome to our new podcast, Sports Illustrated Weekly. On this
show will collect the best sports journalism from inside and
outside the pages of s I and deliver them to
you right here every week. Let's get started. On this
(00:21):
premiere episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly, Executive editor John Wortheim
joins us to discuss Tom Brady still being on top
of his profession at forty four, how much longer he
can stay there, and why he's one of the most
successful and polarizing athletes in sports. Then former Brown's tackle
Joe Thomas tells us about the first time he appeared
(00:43):
in Sports Illustrated and who he was back then before
he became one of the best offensive linemen in NFL history.
But we begin with the Golden State Warriors. Senior writer
Howard Beck tells us how they rebooted their dynasty on
the fly and kept Steph Curry happy in the process.
It's January nineteen. I'm your host, John Gonzalez from Sports
(01:05):
Illustrated and I Heart Radio. This is Sports Illustrated Weekly.
But Toronto Raptors are back in Oakland against the goal
of State Warriors as we welcome you, so they have
a finals Brusa. I thought that night that we saw
(01:26):
the dynasty literally crumble before us. Howard Beck is a
senior writer for Sports Illustrated who covers the NBA. Tomson
running the floor out of foul and Thomson Grants has
left me now writhing at pay. Clay Thompson goes down
(01:46):
with the A C L just a couple of days
after we've seen Kevin Durank go down with the blown Achilles.
Leonard at the line to ice the game and to
win the championship, Free throws up and in the there's
by four Cousins in bounds the ball. Curry heaves it
at the puzzer. It's no good. The Toronto Raptors are
(02:08):
NBA champions. Howard and I were both there Game six
of the NBA Finals, the last Warriors game in Oakland,
and what we thought was the end of their dynasty.
The Raptors won their first championship that night, and the
Warriors were left to deal with the fallout. My strongest
memory of that night, aside from the Raptors celebrating their championship,
(02:30):
was going in the back hallways Bob Myers was spent.
We were we were just out of words, we were
out of emotion. I mean, we just I don't know how.
You don't as a human being, you can only process
so much. He had almost no voice. Remember he'd been
in tears a couple of nights earlier talking about Durant
and how badly he felt about Durant going down. When
(02:52):
they put him back out there, and when I gently
asked about the possibility that this is it, this night
is where it all ends, he didn't just sit out
of hand, and he basically said that there are these
transition moments and you've got to be ready for him,
and it's okay. However it comes, it comes, And so
he was ready for the possibility that the dynasty as
we knew it was over. And as dark as that
(03:15):
night was, Howard and I remember it well as do you,
things got worse. I mean, it didn't all of a
sudden get better immediately for them. Klay Thompson, as you
mentioned here, it's his knee. He comes back, he tears
his achilles as well. Steph misses most of the following
season with a hand injury. The Warriors miss out on
the bubble completely. Not having them for the playoffs, even
in a weird season like that was awfully strange. But
(03:36):
how bleak did it look for them in their darkest hours?
You know, the one thing they could fall back on
John was, Okay, we still have Steph Curry. Granted, you know,
maybe late prime Steph Curry, and we don't know how
much more we can get out of him, but we
still have Steph Curry, and we'll eventually have Klay Thompson
Beck and we still have Draymond Green, you know, the
(03:57):
heart of our defense, the heart of our team in
a lot of ways. But when Clay goes down a
second time a year later with the achilles, and now
he's got back to back two of the toughest injuries, like,
where's the path out of that? In a weird way though,
because they go through all this adversity, and Bob Myers
told you that the dark days actually sort of placed
(04:18):
them on this path to rebuild on the fly, And
maybe they wouldn't have gone this way if you know,
Steph had been healthy, if Clay had been healthy. Was
it planned out? Now? We we didn't plan to have
play go down for two years for steps and its
most of the year two years ago. But it happened,
and it happened in the NBA, so it afforded this opportunity.
(04:40):
And when you draft high, you try to take the
player you believe will be end up being the best player.
They were going to take a step back regardless what's
Kevin Durrett went down. Edward's Kevin Durrett then decided to
leave the Warriors entirely right. He was m v P
of both finals and their last two championships, So you
(05:00):
were already going to have to find a way to
kind of reconstitute yourselves, um in a post Durant world.
So Durant leaves and they fashion a dual sign and
trade where they send Kevin Durant to the Brooklyn Nets,
where he was going to sign out right as a
free agent anyway, and the Nets in turn send D'Angelo
Russell as a sign and trade back to the Warriors.
I don't think they ever thought D'Angelo russells here long term,
(05:21):
but it was a way to get some value out
of Durant leaving. And then they flipped Angelo Russell to
Minnesota for Andrew Wiggins and a lightly protected first round pick.
They were setting themselves up. They were trying to be
creative and clever on the fly, knowing that they had
to move into some other phase, whatever it would be.
(05:41):
They do have this small grouping of promising young players.
Jordan Poole has certainly stepped up this season. Jonathan cominga
James weissman, they end up drafting him pretty high. But
some of those guys, Howard, end up spending time in
the G League, which used to be sort of an
insult to ask guys to work on their game, especially
if they were as highly as James Weisman was. But
(06:02):
Steve Kurt told you, it's not like that anymore. If
not for the G League. This whole thing we're talking
about is like that much harder, right, like your way hard.
And maybe you're force feeding them more minutes here if
you don't have it, yeah, or you know, just trying
to play more pickup stuff here. Um, But the G
League's emergence has really helped in that regard. Not that
(06:23):
long ago, when the NBA first created what was first
called the n B d L D NBA Development League
and then the D League and now the G League,
it was spoken about in ways that were less than charitable,
less less than gracious. And when you talked about a
player being sent down, it's like in baseball, you sent
down to the minor league, like the even the verbiage
we use is really disparaging. To be sent down never
(06:46):
sounds good. And so lottery picks spending time in the
D or G League unheard of and agents would have
thrown a fit, but you have said it. My guy debt,
my guy was a third over, I'll pick. You can't
send them to the to the G League. That's changed now,
and that's a really important and very healthy bit of
(07:07):
progress for the NBA as a whole. That was a
really important part of Jordan Pools development last season and
a big reason why he is now this critical part
of their team. There's a bunch of guys in this
league who are now really good players, who spent a
lot of time in the GE League, and we remind
our players of that too. Um, there's no there's no shame.
(07:28):
It's a it's a legitimate part of development. And so
the Warriors very much see the G League as a
critical critical part to developing young players, which is interesting
for their part because they don't have the room to
develop their young guys in the present because they're still
trying to win a championship with their events. Yeah, so
(07:49):
all of this from an academic perspective, Howard makes sense
to me as a Philadelphia and I obviously spent a
lot of time watching the process sixers, but that's different
than actually secuting the plan, especially when you have a
superstar of somebody, say like Steph Curry's caliber. Steph was
pretty revealing in what he said, which was basically that
(08:10):
I only want to compete for championships. If the goal
is not winning championship, and I don't want to be here.
But if you're like, what are options? What makes sense?
What's realistic? Also a rational person, I understand like best
elite works a certain way. You can't just wave go
on and things are gonna go your way, Like that
(08:31):
can't be the expectation. Steph Curry is there for one
purpose alone, so is Draymond Green and Clay Thompson. Now
that he's back, you know what the agenda is for
this team right now, and so everything has to be
funneled towards that. And so the conversation that I think
that Steph and Draymond and Clay too, probably had to
have with management was well, if you can't get us
immediate help by flipping these picks, now that you've used them,
(08:54):
what is our plan? What is our path? Like we're
asking now and what we have, there's a great oportunity
to develop and maintain this core that we've done. They
just gave it a shot, and then you kind of
ride that wave until the signs say, you know, do
something different. So I'm sorry to have to go who
and do what we can do it make it work.
(09:17):
And I think any concerns that the players had have
probably been calmed by a couple of things. One that
they've been fantastic this season without having needed to cash
out Moody Comingo Wiseman for veterans, Jordan Pool making this leap.
Andrew Wiggins, who, like with Dangel Russell in the first place,
we was just kind of a flyer. The Warriors knew
(09:39):
for sure that what they would get. But they've got
this wonderful, much more polished version, now matured, refined version
of Andrew Wiggins, and he now feels kind of essential
to them. And then behind all of that, and it's
a kind of an important point. I absolutely believe John
more than believe that if the Warriors had had the
opportunity to trade some combination of young players and picks
(09:59):
for in mediate help, especially all star help, they would
have those deals weren't there. And by the way, if
a deal presents itself tomorrow, that might cost them one
of those young guys that they're so high on. And
they're are saying our our future, our post Steph Clay
Draymond future. It could still happen. I don't think it's
going to We could still happen. But despite all of this, Howard,
(10:24):
all these different moving parts that are sort of swirling
around all the things that happened to them and didn't
happen to them by circumstance, they find themselves in this
intersection of what you exactly described, playing well now while
also looking at the future, and the degree of difficulty
on rebuilding on the fly is through the roof. And
we know that because it's never really happened before. As
(10:45):
you mentioned in the piece, the last time that it
was even tried really was during the Lakers aboarded trade
for Chris Paul, which the league overruled. So to put
it in historical context, how unique is what the Warriors
are attempting. If they pull it off, it's the first
of its kind. Right, teams generally crash and burn for
the obvious reasons. Superstar late in teams that win championships
(11:08):
tend to be older. They've got to run in them.
Maybe it's three years, maybe it's five, maybe it's seven.
But the end of it, they're old and they break down,
and you don't usually trade those guys in their prime,
so you don't have high value, high talent prospects to develop.
But the Warriors do now. And that's the part that's
so incredibly unique. Partially by just circumstances and misfortune, they
(11:29):
ended up drafting high because they were bad for a
couple of years because of injuries. But they still have
Steph and Clay and Draymond who are still in some
semblance of their prime. It may not be it's not
their early prime, it's not their mid prime. I think
it's kind of late prime, if I'm just making up
terms on the fly. But those are guys who are
still capable of carrying a team to a championship. So
(11:53):
what the Warriors are doing is still unique. They are
a team that has won three championships, in recent history,
that is only a couple of years removed, almost now
three years removed from their last finals, that still has
their core, and that is developing what we think might
be their next core. I want the Warriors to be
great for the next fifteen years. And I'm not going
to be the coach here for the next fifteen years,
(12:14):
but I want the franchise to do well. I love Bob,
I love Joe, I love the front off. I want
this franchise to be successful for a long time. Um.
And so if that means that we grow the next
core right now over the next two years with this
team and they end up taking over the team and
the team is great for the next ten years, I'd
(12:36):
be awesome. I would love that. In the NBA, those
of us who have covered the league, we talk a
lot about heat culture, right, That's sort of like a
fun cliche that we all bandy about. But what role
do you think Kerr and Warriors culture has played in
being able to pull this off. I think it's a
huge part of it. John. And one of the interesting
(12:56):
things about while I was reporting this story was that
I was acting to find more of like the process
part of what they were going to do to develop Kuminga,
Moody Weiseman, what are the mechanics of that? But it's
as much about warriors culture as it is about teaching them,
you know, post up drills. And when we talk about
Warriors culture, a lot of that I think is the
(13:17):
humanity of Bob Meyers and Steve Kerr and their approach
to this game and this business. I think they've got
a very human touch. These are guys with high emotional
intelligence and the kind of organization that we'll talk about
emotional intelligence. What don't we always hear the Warriors talking
about joy, the joy of playing with stuff, the joy
of watching stuff, the joyfulness of the Warriors, So to
the extent that Steve Kerr and Steph Curry and these
(13:39):
guys exude that, that's the environment that Wiseman and Moody
and Komena are learning in. They're getting to learn how
to win from guys who have done it at the
highest level. And I'm glad you brought up the joy component, Howard,
because this team this year has been full of surprises.
I don't think anybody expected them to be this good
(13:59):
this sea reason. But beyond that, they reminded me that
there was a time before they were inevitable where it
was fun to watch the Warriors. It was fun to
watch Steph Curry. Basketball is entertainment, right, and they have
been some of the best entertainers in the league for
a long time now and now are again. The worst
thing possible is a feeling of inevitability. You don't want
(14:21):
the mystery to go out of it, right, You want
there to be some sense of suspense. And for a
while there we just knew it was gonna be Warriors
versus Lebron every year. Sure, it resulted in some great finals,
and I think the ratings were probably bonkers and everything else,
but was it as much fun. So they're fresh again now, right,
Durant is gone. They're no longer the evil Empire. They've
(14:42):
had to go through some stuff. They've had injuries, they've
been bad, they've been humbled, and so I think they're
they're kind of cuddly again, right. That gets they're they're
almost they are almost underdogs, even with the record that
they've got and the season that they've had there they
almost feel like underdogs where they're they're they're kind of
rising out of the ashes. And I do I think
(15:03):
it's made them more embraceable again, more embraceable, cuddly, more fun.
All these words that you're using bring to mind a
guy that they recently got back, Clay Thompson. Right now,
there is a season out of loss. It a state university,
(15:27):
Leonard col Thomson. Whether or not you're a Warriors fan,
it's hard not to like Clay Thompson, you and I
having interacted with him in our professional capacity, but certainly
he's quirky, he's he definitely marches to his own beat.
(15:47):
And now having him back and folding him not just
into what he can do on the court, but that
culture that we talk about with the Warriors and sort
of making it light and easy, and Clay doesn't really
sweat the small stuff. So having that fine an old
cherry on top of the fun Sunday is is one
more positive for the Warriors this season. As much as
we talked about Steph Curry, this was it was about
(16:07):
the Splash Brothers, right It's about the best shooting backcourt
in the history of the game. As Mark Jackson correctly
proclaimed once upon a time before any of us were
ready to accept that, well, I's hyping his own guys,
it's a little hyperbolic. No, he was absolutely right. Clay
Thompson would probably be the best shooter in NBA history
if it worked. For the fact that he's playing next
to the best shooter in NBA history. Claytompson has never
(16:28):
been below from three in a full season is in
his NBA career, and there is something else about him
that just sheen of cool. Because he is so inflammable,
because he is so copacetic at all times, and because
he's got that beautiful shot, and because he's likely to
erupt for maybe ten threes in a quarter or something,
and because of his defense as important as anything to
(16:51):
the part that we always overlook with the Warriors that
you know, here's this guy who could defend the best
perimeter player on the opponent every night, and so having
him back is what really makes the Warriors whole. I
think the really fascinating part of this season is that
we started at saying, you know, the Warriors might be
contenders again when Clay gets back, and if Clay is Clay,
and it turns out the Warriors were already back before
(17:12):
even Clay came back. But I still think it is
his presence that will convince anybody who might still be
a little skeptical that this team actually can go back
and win another title, maybe two, maybe more. We'll see
the greatest teams, okay, I when you knew their role
and they played into perfection. So we can be that
(17:33):
we could be one of the greatest dynasties. And it's
not over, truly, Bread that that is not over. Yeah,
Howard Back, you are a one man dynasty, unto yourself.
Thank you for doing this. It's pleasure, John. Thanks man.
You can read Howard Beck's articles The Warriors Quest to
Achieve what other Dynasties couldn't and The Fire that Burns
(17:55):
Inside Clay Thompson on SI dot com. We'll link to
the pieces on our show notes when we come back.
Executive editor John Wortheim on The Ageless Tom Brady. Brady
really speaks his mind, including some coarse language, so be advised.
I imagine not playing and I imagine he watching football
(18:18):
on Sunday gone, and these guys suck. I mean I
could do way better than that, and then still knowing
in my heart that I actually could do it. Tom
Brady certainly doesn't lack for confidence. There's a reason why
the Buccaneers quarterback is the goat. He's been doing this
better than his peers for longer than his peers or
anyone else could have imagined. And as his conversation with
(18:40):
John Wortheim reveals, that longevity has not only made him
a seven times Super Bowl champion, it's granted him perspective
on his endless achievements and how he's changed over the
course of his lengthy career. So, John, it sometimes feels
Tom Brady has always been in our lives. He was
(19:02):
recently named s I Sports Person of the Year, and
it's the second time he's won it. The first time
was somehow sixteen years ago, which seems impossible. How much
different is he now from the person he was back
then in two thousand and five. It's funny you say that.
I mean, we're jokingly he's he's been in our lives forever,
it seems. And here's what for a frame majority of
(19:24):
the world's population. That actually is true, the majority of
people on Earth, they are younger than Tom Brady is.
But yeah, I mean, I think some of this is
obviously personal. When he won the award the first time,
he was unmarried, he was in his twenties he was
a New England Patriot. But I also think he really
sort of leans into this personal growth dimension. I think
(19:47):
I'm I'm wise beyond my years. I think I've had
a lot of life experience packed into forty four years.
You know, I feel twenty five when I'm in the
locker room with the guys, which is probably why I
still do it, you know, because I still feel like
a high school kid in the locker room with my buddies.
And then when I leave that, I feel like, all right,
you know, there's other things with more perspective that I
think I can accomplish, and there's things beyond football that
I want to accomplish. He would tell you that philosophically,
(20:11):
he has a much different person than he was sixteen
years ago, and certainly from when he was drafted, when uh,
here's the chubby quarterback from Michigan with the laughable combine
empiricals who has transformed himself into the greatest of all time.
For most people at this point, John it would be
a downslope, but Tom Brady is still performing really well.
(20:32):
He does. He spend much time reflecting on the fact
that he is still doing this at such a high level.
I think initially age was an annoyance to him, and
he would be in his late thirties and they would say, well,
you know you're you're older than Joe Montana was and
Dan Marino and the other great quarterbacks had retired by
this point. And I think at some point he really
started to embrace it, and he realized that there was
(20:53):
this inspirational component commercial pilots who said, well, I was
going to retire, but then I figured I'd pullo Brady.
I think he realized that there was real sort of
I don't overstated, it's real sort of spiritual value. I
think he's really sort of leaned into this and what
had once been Listen, this is an indelicate topic. I
just want to keep going. I think he really takes
(21:14):
a great deal of pride in not Yeah, it's interesting
that you mentioned that, probably because sometimes athletes are sensitive
about their age. And when an athlete wins sports Person
of the Year, there's this awards banquet and Gronk was
tasked with introing Brady's speech, and he really roasts him
for being old. He's actually old enough to be my grandpa.
He's been playing football since this award started in nineteen
(21:35):
fifty four. Truly incredible, and I would almost expect, maybe previously,
for Brady to sort of ignore that or pivot on it,
and instead he really leans into it in this self
deprecating way. It seems like he's almost having more fun
with it now. Back in two thousand and five, when
I first won this award, I was a fresh faced
(21:56):
punk with something to prove. I think how far we've
come back. Then Beyonce was still in Destiny's Child. We
only had two C S I s and only one
N C I S one. I mean, oh cool, Ja
was still just a rapper then. Yeah, as he recognizes
(22:16):
the absurdity that that guys are starting to come into
the league that we're born when he was drafted, and
you just sort of run through the math a dozen
head coaches that are younger than he is and people
I remember watching you when I was in second grade.
You won your first Super Bowl, and I think it
sort of moved from this point of Sin's indelicate to
talk about age two. I may as well just laugh
(22:38):
with everybody else. John, I'm not a Brady evangelist for
reasons of background and geography that we'll get into but
we have an interesting perspective on all of this. Both
you and I are in our forties and Brady is
forty four, and for all the records and accomplishments for
all of his titles, I think his longevity might be
the biggest accomplishment of all. I have to fact check
(22:58):
that and concede as this pains me. I've I've recently
left the forties demographic. It's a sort of topic. But
some of what I think he's looking to do after
football probably ties to anti aging and longer living and
quality of life. So I think there's a transactional strand
to all of this. But I think he recognizes that
we love geniuses, right, We love precocious. We love the
(23:21):
tennis player that just won the US Open is eighteen
years old. She should be in high school, but instead
she was making millions of dollars. We we love sort
of the low end, but we love the Betty White
high end as well. The longevity thing, though, has sort
of a flip side to it. It's kind of like
the Batman line about dying the hero or living long
enough to see yourself become the villain. And I think
(23:42):
for a lot of people. Tom Brady has been, you know,
a chief foil at the Philadelphian enemy certainly has him
on a mental dartboard. Does he think about that ripple
effect of his success? Does he mind playing the foil
or is it's sort of a badge of honor in
some ways? He didn't really bite on the question, but
he kind of did talk him. You feel like you're
talking to another peer and there's no sense of this
(24:03):
is a star athlete who's coming with these prepackaged lines
or these media traits and kind of reading between the lines.
I feel like part of the joy of going to
Tampa is no one hates the Buccaneers the way they
hate the Patriots. And I think the fact that Tom
Brady has enjoyed this bumping popularity is something that he
definitely senses. The peer component is interesting to me because
(24:25):
sometimes athletes of his stature can be fussy interview subjects.
And I got the sense from you that he was
surprisingly the opposite, that he was even responsive when you
reached out to him after a loss. Right, I spoke
to him, I don't you remember the Buccaneers had a
rough game against Washington. It was not Tom Brady's finest game,
as he was quick to admit, and people were joking like, oh,
(24:46):
you've been a reschedule and you're gonna get one word answers.
And I texted him and said, just to be clear here,
this is an award about your achievements in one I
don't I don't give a ship what happened, uh Sundays
And there was like no problem, buddy of color, any
problems getting to the site. Let me know, this is
sort of all the candor and all the warmth and
personality that he may have had to suppress a little
(25:07):
bit of New England is now coming out at age
forty four. That's amazing that he was so responsive so quickly.
Are you guys still in touch? Are you, you know,
planning a sleepover? Maybe you'll build a forward out of
the couch cushions. What's the relationship like? Now he's got
the the inflatable bouncy castle and the no he um.
It's funny. I mean, you know, I had interviewed him
(25:28):
a few times through the years. I think he's at
a point where, first of all, I think things may
have been so constricted and restricted in New England that
now he had had a chance to be a little
bit more out there. Tell me if I'm wrong. It
seems like we're getting more Tom Brady in the last year.
Uh here you were seeing you you seem Yeah, I
(25:48):
feel like I putt yourself out there a little more naturally.
I'd say, I'm very introverted. You know, I'm rediscovering, you know,
my voice, and and I'm having fune with it. And
I think there's more comfortable just that as an older
guy too. You know, there's might give a ship levels
probably a lot less, probably a lot more ten years.
So now I'm kind of like a little Okay, what's
gonna make ten years? So I'm really not going to
(26:09):
give a ship. Then he just doesn't give us sh it.
I mean, I'll talk to who I want to talk to,
and I won't who I won't, and I'll figure out
a way to bend time if I have to bend time.
You get to feel like he's sort of like a
rum Springer, right, He's like he's having this second life
as a public figure. Sometimes we do still see this
sort of old careful Tom Brady. We got a little
(26:30):
bit of that with the Antonio Brown situation, which he
didn't really address how he and the team and had
enabled Brown. As our colleague Gary Grambling wrote, what did
you make of how Brady handled that situation? I think
you pretty much nailed it. I mean, I do get
the feeling that everything is in service of football, right,
Everything is just maximizing. Everything he does is to optimize
(26:52):
his success as a football players, a forty four year
old football player. It's got to be a daily commitment.
You know, I bring water everywhere, So it's just I mean, yeah,
that's a part of a commitment. I love that commitment.
It's not that's no problem, and that part's easy. You know,
it's all pretty easy at this point. It's just effort.
It's not like it's hard. It's just I gotta do it.
(27:14):
If he goes on Howard Stern, if he goes on
Dax Shepherd, what's the worst thing that could happen? If
he's sitting there in an NFL locker room and something
he says can be misconstrued or be a distraction for
the team. I think that's a little different. Did Tom
Brady probably get off pretty easily in terms of accountability
with Antonio Brown? I think you could make that case
but I also think that everything this guy does is
(27:36):
in service of winning football games, and that means taking
Antonio Brown in and having him stay at your house,
and when Antonio Brown betrays that, backing up from it
and really minimizing and diffusing any controversy. Yeah. I think
the way that he's managed the perception of himself has
changed and evolved. He's got all these side hustles that
(27:59):
I wanted to talk to you about. He's got the
TV twelve method in these commercials for Subway in various companies,
and I know he avoids nightshades and I think he's
peaking too avocados or something. Some of it gets used
for comedic fodder John, but it's also a big deal
for him now, isn't it? No need shades? God damn it. Um.
What he has done, I think very savily is he's
(28:19):
kind of leading the retirees life while he's still active.
When he's not playing football, he's on zoom calls, he's
meeting with investors. This is not just some I'm slapping
my name on a product. And I think what he's
realizing too, is that it's not enough anymore just to
be Tom Brady. He has to stand for something. He
has to have some presents. And so you talk to
(28:39):
some of his business partners and they say, you would
not believe the level of detail. And we'll send him
spreadsheets and he'll get back to us. And it's the
middle of the NFL season and he's jumping on a
zoom to uh talk about our Q four strategy. Most
of his income isn't football related these days. He's really
sort of living this career two point oh life while
he's still lining up behind center on Sunday. Does he
(29:03):
have an idea of what comes next? Whether it is
business or broadcasting or owning a team or politics. I mean,
do you have a sense of what he's going to
lean into there? He leaves little down. I don't think
politics are in his future. He seems very upset by
the polarized state of our country. Get a whole kind
of middle aged man riff about social media and why
are people so nasty? And hopefully we can return to
(29:26):
mutual respect, Hopefully we can return to kindness. Hopefully we
can learn to hey, you, I'll respect your opinion. You
gotta respect my opinion too. And right now it's like, no,
I don't want to respect your opinion if you don't
agree with me, which that's a hard way to have relationships.
All of what you would agree with wholeheartedly, but you
wouldn't necessarily expect it from Tom Brady. But I think
he sort of built for these startups. You have a product,
(29:48):
you go find investments, You sort of moved from phase
to phase to phase. But I think something like these
n f T s. I mean it's at one point
I sort of said, listen, time is finite. We got
to stop talking about n f T s and we
gotta get to these questions I I need to ask
to put together the story. But I think these equity
stake in companies that could grow, I think that appeals
to him much more than politics and certainly broadcasting. I
(30:09):
know that he keeps casting down on this. But eventually,
John the Man will have to retire. So how much
longer realistically is he going to play? Um, that's the
great question. Tom Brady is gonna be forty five years
old in August, so one knee gives out on him,
and we may have our answer short of that. I mean,
I think could he play five more years? Statistically? Yeah?
(30:32):
Why not? I mean some of this is dependent on
how much he can handle us mentally, as he has
children of a certain age and a family, and he says,
you know, he's he's at this point where there's not
this win lost symmetry that if you win, it's sort
of a relief, and if you lose, its brutal. That
sounds like something you need to confront or it could
very easily lead to burnout. But could he you know,
the guy's in the m v P conversation at forty four?
(30:54):
Is it crazy to think he'll play a few more years?
I don't think so. If he plays till fifty, that
would be truly remarkable. And I don't want to say
that I'm rooting for Tom Brady to play until he's
fifty because if I said those words, then everybody from
Philadelphia would disown me. But as he continues this, he
softens me a little bit. The longer he goes, the
(31:14):
more I end up liking him against my better judgment.
So when he is done, is he just gonna wear
all of us down? I was gonna say, I think
he's grinding you down. John. Thank god, I'm hearing effect.
I'm hearing grudging affection. You mentioned the number fifty. I
think that is not lost on him. I think he's
someone that finds motivation very easily. But you win seven
(31:36):
super Bowls and I'm not sure if an eighth is
the bright shiny toy. But if you say you could
be a starting NFL quarterback at age fifty, you're gonna
get an a RP card. You're also going to be
an NFL quarter starting NFL quarterback. I can see that
being a source of motivation fair enough. One day. Tom
Brady will eventually have to hang it up. But John Wortheim,
(31:58):
we hope you never do. Thanks for doing this. Thanks John,
that was fun. You can read John Wortheim's excellent piece
on Tom Brady being named sports Person of the Year
at s I dot com. After the break, our final
segment with one of the best offensive linemen in NFL
history and where it all began for Joe Thomas. All Right,
(32:21):
we're thrilled to be joined by legendary Brown's offensive lineman,
now an NFL Network analyst. Joe Thomas, thanks for doing this,
hey man, thanks for having me on. It's exciting to
be here and talking about my most fond memories from
my youth days. Yeah, So along with your NFL Network
teammate Steve Smith Sr. You guys are responsible really for
(32:43):
coming up with this idea. We're having a conversation one night,
and you guys are both thoughtful people, and you were
asking me how the new job was going, and that
led to this conversation that I thought was really interesting.
So I'll sort of teer it up to you the
way that we discussed it that night. Joe Thomas, tell
me about the first time you're in Sports Illustrated. Yes,
Steve and I can get a little creative after a
(33:04):
couple of pops late at night when we're hanging out
with John and Colleen. So I thought this was a
fun idea, right, because Sports Illustrated is just one of
the most iconic franchises in all of media, not just
sports media. And when I was a kid, first thing
it was Sports Illustrated for kids, right, and you got
that magazine every week or every month, I can't remember
how often it came out, but you were so excited
(33:26):
to peel it open, and that was your window into
the sports world back then before sports media and social media.
And then you got a little bit older than you
got the weekly Sports Illustrated. Then you got the swimsuit issue,
and life was good when you're like a fourteen year
old boy, and you know as soon as that that
would show up, you'd peel it open. You'd look for
faces in the crowd and see if maybe there's anybody
(33:47):
from near your hometown or the states you grew up in,
or Joe I never made the cut. Surprisingly, yeah, I
never made the cut either. I know, so you and
I have a lot lot more in common than you think.
But it was so cool and it was such a
part of the fabric of why I loved all sports,
not just the ones that I was playing, but they
made it so real to a kid with all the
photos and every little segment and section of the magazines
(34:11):
was so much fun to dive into that the first
time you're in it, it's such a vivid memory along
with some of the most historic things that happened during
your life, good and bad. Right, It's kind of like
where were you when this happened? You can instantly remember
the sites, the smells, the sounds, the feelings and emotions.
It was the same thing the first time I remember
(34:32):
pulling open a Sports Illustrated and seeing a big article
about myself. Yeah, so what was like, did you know
that you were going to be in the magazine? Did
somebody tell you about it? Did you stumble upon it
organically and say, oh my god, I'm in it? Well
what happened? Yeah? So when I was maybe a freshman
or sophomore in college, I'm sure my name was in there,
(34:53):
like Joe Thomas Badgers, right like penalty seventy two Wisconsin
something like that, maybe in the box score, but of
things significant until my senior year at Wisconsin coming up
on the draft. So I was right about right now
in January, and Peter King was writing stories on draft
prospects and he got ahold of me through my agent,
(35:14):
and then he actually came out to Madison, which was
where I was living, where I was training for the
NFL Combine, and kind of spent a day or day
and a half with me and just followed me around.
And it was just so much fun being able to
spend time with Peter King, because one, he was such
an iconic writer for football in general, but he was
also such an important piece of Sports Illustrated that for
(35:34):
him to be able to spend the day with me
was pretty cool. For me, and then for him to
write an article that had some photos in there and
it kind of uh, he definitely put my life as
a college kid on a pedestal, which was pretty cool
because I was still living in my crappy apartment and
I had a laptop that would overheat if you spent
more than five minutes on it, so I actually had
(35:56):
it propped up on like little pieces of toilet paper,
the old cardboard toilet paper rolls, so it could get
some airflow underneath where it needed to cool off. How innovative. Yeah, yeah, innovative.
We had a couple of old deer amounts that had
like bras hanging from him in the corner. It was
just kind of like your typical animal house college apartment lifestyle,
(36:18):
and Peter King like fell in love with it and
so writing that big article and then for me to
see that and to be able to like show that
to my buddies, like somebody else cares about the slum
that we're living in and thinks it's cool, Like how
cool is that? You're what around that time? Yeah, so
that's a lot for a kid, right, I mean, what
kind of pressure did you feel at the time? Yeah,
(36:40):
I felt like I was in a pretty good situation,
and I think it wasn't even until like the end
of my junior year when scouts were coming to practice
and asking me if I was going to come out
after my junior year, that I even realized I was
maybe good enough to play in the NFL or be
drafted into the NFL. So I think I sort of
had the humble upbringing that helped. Does it help also
in addition to you know, your upbringing, did it help
(37:01):
also the position, because I mean, we've talked a lot
about you being an offensive lineman and what goes into
that when we're having conversations offline, But it's not like
you're one of the top quarterback prospects coming out. You're
a really popular and talented offensive lineman. But with the
exception of Peter King dropping and parachuting into your college situation,
(37:22):
offensive lineman don't get a lot of attention, there's no doubt.
And two fold, I think the position of offensive lineman
just because we never get the attention unless it's bad,
Like naturally, you've shown the attention, right, I don't want
to get highlighted for that holding or that offside penalty
or forgiven up that sack. So I think the position
sortat of naturally breeds a humility and a shunning of
(37:46):
the focus being on me, so that helps. But also
it is an anonymous position, which is really nice and
the benefit of being under the radar. It wasn't until
you know, maybe the second half of my career in Cleveland,
where people would even recognize me when I would go
out in public, and certainly not at Wisconsin. Like if
you were the star running back or the star quarterback,
that's a different ball game. But as an offensive linement,
(38:08):
I was drafted third overall and I can count on
one hand the number of times that in four years
at Wisconsin that I got stopped on campus by somebody
who either wanted a picture or an autograph for me,
because it just didn't happen, like nobody cared. And that
was actually probably really good because that was a good
situation and it made it really easy to just show
up and do your job when nobody really cared, how's
(38:29):
the picture? When somebody stopped you, it was like surprised,
are you sure you know who I am? Like, I'm
not the running back, I'm not a basketball player. I
know I'm pretty tall, but see this belly on me
like I clearly can't go up and down the hardwood
very often. It's a perfect way to finish the soft
Joe Thomas, you've been in the magazine, now you've been
on Sports Illustrated Weekly. Your star keeps shining. Thanks for
(38:50):
doing this, hey man, Thanks for having me on. John,
Thank you so much for listening to the first episode
of Sports Stradio Weekly. We'll be back with a new
episode next Wednesday and every Wednesday, so make sure you
subscribe or followed to get new episodes delivered to your
podcast feed each week. And if you're listening in an app,
please do go ahead and leave us a rating and
(39:12):
a review that helps other people find the show. Sports
Illustrated Weekly is a production of Sports Illustrated and I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. And for more of Sports Illustrated It's
best stories and podcasts, visit SI dot com. This episode
(39:34):
of Sports Illustrated Weekly was produced by Alex Kappelman and
Isaac Lee, who was also our sound engineer. Our senior
producer is Dan Bloom Our executive producers are Scott Brody
and me John Gonzalez. Our theme song is by Nolan Schneider.
Our incredible artwork was created by SIS Creative Director Steven
Scalaki and SIS Art Director Stephen Goji. Special thanks to
(39:58):
SIS editors in chief Ryan Hunt and Stephen Cannela, and
everyone at Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio who helped
to get the show off the ground. And if you've
stuck around this long, we leave you with this. A
lot of my friends are here tonight, UM and obviously
my personal trainer, DJ Khalid's here who's Tonight's co host,
and he's always pushing me to do more reps. Another one,
(40:21):
another one,
Hey, I'm John Gonzalez. I'm a senior writer at Sports Illustrated.
Welcome to our new podcast, Sports Illustrated Weekly. On this
show will collect the best sports journalism from inside and
outside the pages of s I and deliver them to
you right here every week. Let's get started. On this
(00:21):
premiere episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly, Executive editor John Wortheim
joins us to discuss Tom Brady still being on top
of his profession at forty four, how much longer he
can stay there, and why he's one of the most
successful and polarizing athletes in sports. Then former Brown's tackle
Joe Thomas tells us about the first time he appeared
(00:43):
in Sports Illustrated and who he was back then before
he became one of the best offensive linemen in NFL history.
But we begin with the Golden State Warriors. Senior writer
Howard Beck tells us how they rebooted their dynasty on
the fly and kept Steph Curry happy in the process.
It's January nineteen. I'm your host, John Gonzalez from Sports
(01:05):
Illustrated and I Heart Radio. This is Sports Illustrated Weekly.
But Toronto Raptors are back in Oakland against the goal
of State Warriors as we welcome you, so they have
a finals Brusa. I thought that night that we saw
(01:26):
the dynasty literally crumble before us. Howard Beck is a
senior writer for Sports Illustrated who covers the NBA. Tomson
running the floor out of foul and Thomson Grants has
left me now writhing at pay. Clay Thompson goes down
(01:46):
with the A C L just a couple of days
after we've seen Kevin Durank go down with the blown Achilles.
Leonard at the line to ice the game and to
win the championship, Free throws up and in the there's
by four Cousins in bounds the ball. Curry heaves it
at the puzzer. It's no good. The Toronto Raptors are
(02:08):
NBA champions. Howard and I were both there Game six
of the NBA Finals, the last Warriors game in Oakland,
and what we thought was the end of their dynasty.
The Raptors won their first championship that night, and the
Warriors were left to deal with the fallout. My strongest
memory of that night, aside from the Raptors celebrating their championship,
(02:30):
was going in the back hallways Bob Myers was spent.
We were we were just out of words, we were
out of emotion. I mean, we just I don't know how.
You don't as a human being, you can only process
so much. He had almost no voice. Remember he'd been
in tears a couple of nights earlier talking about Durant
and how badly he felt about Durant going down. When
(02:52):
they put him back out there, and when I gently
asked about the possibility that this is it, this night
is where it all ends, he didn't just sit out
of hand, and he basically said that there are these
transition moments and you've got to be ready for him,
and it's okay. However it comes, it comes, And so
he was ready for the possibility that the dynasty as
we knew it was over. And as dark as that
(03:15):
night was, Howard and I remember it well as do you,
things got worse. I mean, it didn't all of a
sudden get better immediately for them. Klay Thompson, as you
mentioned here, it's his knee. He comes back, he tears
his achilles as well. Steph misses most of the following
season with a hand injury. The Warriors miss out on
the bubble completely. Not having them for the playoffs, even
in a weird season like that was awfully strange. But
(03:36):
how bleak did it look for them in their darkest hours?
You know, the one thing they could fall back on
John was, Okay, we still have Steph Curry. Granted, you know,
maybe late prime Steph Curry, and we don't know how
much more we can get out of him, but we
still have Steph Curry, and we'll eventually have Klay Thompson
Beck and we still have Draymond Green, you know, the
(03:57):
heart of our defense, the heart of our team in
a lot of ways. But when Clay goes down a
second time a year later with the achilles, and now
he's got back to back two of the toughest injuries, like,
where's the path out of that? In a weird way though,
because they go through all this adversity, and Bob Myers
told you that the dark days actually sort of placed
(04:18):
them on this path to rebuild on the fly, And
maybe they wouldn't have gone this way if you know,
Steph had been healthy, if Clay had been healthy. Was
it planned out? Now? We we didn't plan to have
play go down for two years for steps and its
most of the year two years ago. But it happened,
and it happened in the NBA, so it afforded this opportunity.
(04:40):
And when you draft high, you try to take the
player you believe will be end up being the best player.
They were going to take a step back regardless what's
Kevin Durrett went down. Edward's Kevin Durrett then decided to
leave the Warriors entirely right. He was m v P
of both finals and their last two championships, So you
(05:00):
were already going to have to find a way to
kind of reconstitute yourselves, um in a post Durant world.
So Durant leaves and they fashion a dual sign and
trade where they send Kevin Durant to the Brooklyn Nets,
where he was going to sign out right as a
free agent anyway, and the Nets in turn send D'Angelo
Russell as a sign and trade back to the Warriors.
I don't think they ever thought D'Angelo russells here long term,
(05:21):
but it was a way to get some value out
of Durant leaving. And then they flipped Angelo Russell to
Minnesota for Andrew Wiggins and a lightly protected first round pick.
They were setting themselves up. They were trying to be
creative and clever on the fly, knowing that they had
to move into some other phase, whatever it would be.
(05:41):
They do have this small grouping of promising young players.
Jordan Poole has certainly stepped up this season. Jonathan cominga
James weissman, they end up drafting him pretty high. But
some of those guys, Howard, end up spending time in
the G League, which used to be sort of an
insult to ask guys to work on their game, especially
if they were as highly as James Weisman was. But
(06:02):
Steve Kurt told you, it's not like that anymore. If
not for the G League. This whole thing we're talking
about is like that much harder, right, like your way hard.
And maybe you're force feeding them more minutes here if
you don't have it, yeah, or you know, just trying
to play more pickup stuff here. Um, But the G
League's emergence has really helped in that regard. Not that
(06:23):
long ago, when the NBA first created what was first
called the n B d L D NBA Development League
and then the D League and now the G League,
it was spoken about in ways that were less than charitable,
less less than gracious. And when you talked about a
player being sent down, it's like in baseball, you sent
down to the minor league, like the even the verbiage
we use is really disparaging. To be sent down never
(06:46):
sounds good. And so lottery picks spending time in the
D or G League unheard of and agents would have
thrown a fit, but you have said it. My guy debt,
my guy was a third over, I'll pick. You can't
send them to the to the G League. That's changed now,
and that's a really important and very healthy bit of
(07:07):
progress for the NBA as a whole. That was a
really important part of Jordan Pools development last season and
a big reason why he is now this critical part
of their team. There's a bunch of guys in this
league who are now really good players, who spent a
lot of time in the GE League, and we remind
our players of that too. Um, there's no there's no shame.
(07:28):
It's a it's a legitimate part of development. And so
the Warriors very much see the G League as a
critical critical part to developing young players, which is interesting
for their part because they don't have the room to
develop their young guys in the present because they're still
trying to win a championship with their events. Yeah, so
(07:49):
all of this from an academic perspective, Howard makes sense
to me as a Philadelphia and I obviously spent a
lot of time watching the process sixers, but that's different
than actually secuting the plan, especially when you have a
superstar of somebody, say like Steph Curry's caliber. Steph was
pretty revealing in what he said, which was basically that
(08:10):
I only want to compete for championships. If the goal
is not winning championship, and I don't want to be here.
But if you're like, what are options? What makes sense?
What's realistic? Also a rational person, I understand like best
elite works a certain way. You can't just wave go
on and things are gonna go your way, Like that
(08:31):
can't be the expectation. Steph Curry is there for one
purpose alone, so is Draymond Green and Clay Thompson. Now
that he's back, you know what the agenda is for
this team right now, and so everything has to be
funneled towards that. And so the conversation that I think
that Steph and Draymond and Clay too, probably had to
have with management was well, if you can't get us
immediate help by flipping these picks, now that you've used them,
(08:54):
what is our plan? What is our path? Like we're
asking now and what we have, there's a great oportunity
to develop and maintain this core that we've done. They
just gave it a shot, and then you kind of
ride that wave until the signs say, you know, do
something different. So I'm sorry to have to go who
and do what we can do it make it work.
(09:17):
And I think any concerns that the players had have
probably been calmed by a couple of things. One that
they've been fantastic this season without having needed to cash
out Moody Comingo Wiseman for veterans, Jordan Pool making this leap.
Andrew Wiggins, who, like with Dangel Russell in the first place,
we was just kind of a flyer. The Warriors knew
(09:39):
for sure that what they would get. But they've got
this wonderful, much more polished version, now matured, refined version
of Andrew Wiggins, and he now feels kind of essential
to them. And then behind all of that, and it's
a kind of an important point. I absolutely believe John
more than believe that if the Warriors had had the
opportunity to trade some combination of young players and picks
(09:59):
for in mediate help, especially all star help, they would
have those deals weren't there. And by the way, if
a deal presents itself tomorrow, that might cost them one
of those young guys that they're so high on. And
they're are saying our our future, our post Steph Clay
Draymond future. It could still happen. I don't think it's
going to We could still happen. But despite all of this, Howard,
(10:24):
all these different moving parts that are sort of swirling
around all the things that happened to them and didn't
happen to them by circumstance, they find themselves in this
intersection of what you exactly described, playing well now while
also looking at the future, and the degree of difficulty
on rebuilding on the fly is through the roof. And
we know that because it's never really happened before. As
(10:45):
you mentioned in the piece, the last time that it
was even tried really was during the Lakers aboarded trade
for Chris Paul, which the league overruled. So to put
it in historical context, how unique is what the Warriors
are attempting. If they pull it off, it's the first
of its kind. Right, teams generally crash and burn for
the obvious reasons. Superstar late in teams that win championships
(11:08):
tend to be older. They've got to run in them.
Maybe it's three years, maybe it's five, maybe it's seven.
But the end of it, they're old and they break down,
and you don't usually trade those guys in their prime,
so you don't have high value, high talent prospects to develop.
But the Warriors do now. And that's the part that's
so incredibly unique. Partially by just circumstances and misfortune, they
(11:29):
ended up drafting high because they were bad for a
couple of years because of injuries. But they still have
Steph and Clay and Draymond who are still in some
semblance of their prime. It may not be it's not
their early prime, it's not their mid prime. I think
it's kind of late prime, if I'm just making up
terms on the fly. But those are guys who are
still capable of carrying a team to a championship. So
(11:53):
what the Warriors are doing is still unique. They are
a team that has won three championships, in recent history,
that is only a couple of years removed, almost now
three years removed from their last finals, that still has
their core, and that is developing what we think might
be their next core. I want the Warriors to be
great for the next fifteen years. And I'm not going
to be the coach here for the next fifteen years,
(12:14):
but I want the franchise to do well. I love Bob,
I love Joe, I love the front off. I want
this franchise to be successful for a long time. Um.
And so if that means that we grow the next
core right now over the next two years with this
team and they end up taking over the team and
the team is great for the next ten years, I'd
(12:36):
be awesome. I would love that. In the NBA, those
of us who have covered the league, we talk a
lot about heat culture, right, That's sort of like a
fun cliche that we all bandy about. But what role
do you think Kerr and Warriors culture has played in
being able to pull this off. I think it's a
huge part of it. John. And one of the interesting
(12:56):
things about while I was reporting this story was that
I was acting to find more of like the process
part of what they were going to do to develop Kuminga,
Moody Weiseman, what are the mechanics of that? But it's
as much about warriors culture as it is about teaching them,
you know, post up drills. And when we talk about
Warriors culture, a lot of that I think is the
(13:17):
humanity of Bob Meyers and Steve Kerr and their approach
to this game and this business. I think they've got
a very human touch. These are guys with high emotional
intelligence and the kind of organization that we'll talk about
emotional intelligence. What don't we always hear the Warriors talking
about joy, the joy of playing with stuff, the joy
of watching stuff, the joyfulness of the Warriors, So to
the extent that Steve Kerr and Steph Curry and these
(13:39):
guys exude that, that's the environment that Wiseman and Moody
and Komena are learning in. They're getting to learn how
to win from guys who have done it at the
highest level. And I'm glad you brought up the joy component, Howard,
because this team this year has been full of surprises.
I don't think anybody expected them to be this good
(13:59):
this sea reason. But beyond that, they reminded me that
there was a time before they were inevitable where it
was fun to watch the Warriors. It was fun to
watch Steph Curry. Basketball is entertainment, right, and they have
been some of the best entertainers in the league for
a long time now and now are again. The worst
thing possible is a feeling of inevitability. You don't want
(14:21):
the mystery to go out of it, right, You want
there to be some sense of suspense. And for a
while there we just knew it was gonna be Warriors
versus Lebron every year. Sure, it resulted in some great finals,
and I think the ratings were probably bonkers and everything else,
but was it as much fun. So they're fresh again now, right,
Durant is gone. They're no longer the evil Empire. They've
(14:42):
had to go through some stuff. They've had injuries, they've
been bad, they've been humbled, and so I think they're
they're kind of cuddly again, right. That gets they're they're
almost they are almost underdogs, even with the record that
they've got and the season that they've had there they
almost feel like underdogs where they're they're they're kind of
rising out of the ashes. And I do I think
(15:03):
it's made them more embraceable again, more embraceable, cuddly, more fun.
All these words that you're using bring to mind a
guy that they recently got back, Clay Thompson. Right now,
there is a season out of loss. It a state university,
(15:27):
Leonard col Thomson. Whether or not you're a Warriors fan,
it's hard not to like Clay Thompson, you and I
having interacted with him in our professional capacity, but certainly
he's quirky, he's he definitely marches to his own beat.
(15:47):
And now having him back and folding him not just
into what he can do on the court, but that
culture that we talk about with the Warriors and sort
of making it light and easy, and Clay doesn't really
sweat the small stuff. So having that fine an old
cherry on top of the fun Sunday is is one
more positive for the Warriors this season. As much as
we talked about Steph Curry, this was it was about
(16:07):
the Splash Brothers, right It's about the best shooting backcourt
in the history of the game. As Mark Jackson correctly
proclaimed once upon a time before any of us were
ready to accept that, well, I's hyping his own guys,
it's a little hyperbolic. No, he was absolutely right. Clay
Thompson would probably be the best shooter in NBA history
if it worked. For the fact that he's playing next
to the best shooter in NBA history. Claytompson has never
(16:28):
been below from three in a full season is in
his NBA career, and there is something else about him
that just sheen of cool. Because he is so inflammable,
because he is so copacetic at all times, and because
he's got that beautiful shot, and because he's likely to
erupt for maybe ten threes in a quarter or something,
and because of his defense as important as anything to
(16:51):
the part that we always overlook with the Warriors that
you know, here's this guy who could defend the best
perimeter player on the opponent every night, and so having
him back is what really makes the Warriors whole. I
think the really fascinating part of this season is that
we started at saying, you know, the Warriors might be
contenders again when Clay gets back, and if Clay is Clay,
and it turns out the Warriors were already back before
(17:12):
even Clay came back. But I still think it is
his presence that will convince anybody who might still be
a little skeptical that this team actually can go back
and win another title, maybe two, maybe more. We'll see
the greatest teams, okay, I when you knew their role
and they played into perfection. So we can be that
(17:33):
we could be one of the greatest dynasties. And it's
not over, truly, Bread that that is not over. Yeah,
Howard Back, you are a one man dynasty, unto yourself.
Thank you for doing this. It's pleasure, John. Thanks man.
You can read Howard Beck's articles The Warriors Quest to
Achieve what other Dynasties couldn't and The Fire that Burns
(17:55):
Inside Clay Thompson on SI dot com. We'll link to
the pieces on our show notes when we come back.
Executive editor John Wortheim on The Ageless Tom Brady. Brady
really speaks his mind, including some coarse language, so be advised.
I imagine not playing and I imagine he watching football
(18:18):
on Sunday gone, and these guys suck. I mean I
could do way better than that, and then still knowing
in my heart that I actually could do it. Tom
Brady certainly doesn't lack for confidence. There's a reason why
the Buccaneers quarterback is the goat. He's been doing this
better than his peers for longer than his peers or
anyone else could have imagined. And as his conversation with
(18:40):
John Wortheim reveals, that longevity has not only made him
a seven times Super Bowl champion, it's granted him perspective
on his endless achievements and how he's changed over the
course of his lengthy career. So, John, it sometimes feels
Tom Brady has always been in our lives. He was
(19:02):
recently named s I Sports Person of the Year, and
it's the second time he's won it. The first time
was somehow sixteen years ago, which seems impossible. How much
different is he now from the person he was back
then in two thousand and five. It's funny you say that.
I mean, we're jokingly he's he's been in our lives forever,
it seems. And here's what for a frame majority of
(19:24):
the world's population. That actually is true, the majority of
people on Earth, they are younger than Tom Brady is.
But yeah, I mean, I think some of this is
obviously personal. When he won the award the first time,
he was unmarried, he was in his twenties he was
a New England Patriot. But I also think he really
sort of leans into this personal growth dimension. I think
(19:47):
I'm I'm wise beyond my years. I think I've had
a lot of life experience packed into forty four years.
You know, I feel twenty five when I'm in the
locker room with the guys, which is probably why I
still do it, you know, because I still feel like
a high school kid in the locker room with my buddies.
And then when I leave that, I feel like, all right,
you know, there's other things with more perspective that I
think I can accomplish, and there's things beyond football that
I want to accomplish. He would tell you that philosophically,
(20:11):
he has a much different person than he was sixteen
years ago, and certainly from when he was drafted, when uh,
here's the chubby quarterback from Michigan with the laughable combine
empiricals who has transformed himself into the greatest of all time.
For most people at this point, John it would be
a downslope, but Tom Brady is still performing really well.
(20:32):
He does. He spend much time reflecting on the fact
that he is still doing this at such a high level.
I think initially age was an annoyance to him, and
he would be in his late thirties and they would say, well,
you know you're you're older than Joe Montana was and
Dan Marino and the other great quarterbacks had retired by
this point. And I think at some point he really
started to embrace it, and he realized that there was
(20:53):
this inspirational component commercial pilots who said, well, I was
going to retire, but then I figured I'd pullo Brady.
I think he realized that there was real sort of
I don't overstated, it's real sort of spiritual value. I
think he's really sort of leaned into this and what
had once been Listen, this is an indelicate topic. I
just want to keep going. I think he really takes
(21:14):
a great deal of pride in not Yeah, it's interesting
that you mentioned that, probably because sometimes athletes are sensitive
about their age. And when an athlete wins sports Person
of the Year, there's this awards banquet and Gronk was
tasked with introing Brady's speech, and he really roasts him
for being old. He's actually old enough to be my grandpa.
He's been playing football since this award started in nineteen
(21:35):
fifty four. Truly incredible, and I would almost expect, maybe previously,
for Brady to sort of ignore that or pivot on it,
and instead he really leans into it in this self
deprecating way. It seems like he's almost having more fun
with it now. Back in two thousand and five, when
I first won this award, I was a fresh faced
(21:56):
punk with something to prove. I think how far we've
come back. Then Beyonce was still in Destiny's Child. We
only had two C S I s and only one
N C I S one. I mean, oh cool, Ja
was still just a rapper then. Yeah, as he recognizes
(22:16):
the absurdity that that guys are starting to come into
the league that we're born when he was drafted, and
you just sort of run through the math a dozen
head coaches that are younger than he is and people
I remember watching you when I was in second grade.
You won your first Super Bowl, and I think it
sort of moved from this point of Sin's indelicate to
talk about age two. I may as well just laugh
(22:38):
with everybody else. John, I'm not a Brady evangelist for
reasons of background and geography that we'll get into but
we have an interesting perspective on all of this. Both
you and I are in our forties and Brady is
forty four, and for all the records and accomplishments for
all of his titles, I think his longevity might be
the biggest accomplishment of all. I have to fact check
(22:58):
that and concede as this pains me. I've I've recently
left the forties demographic. It's a sort of topic. But
some of what I think he's looking to do after
football probably ties to anti aging and longer living and
quality of life. So I think there's a transactional strand
to all of this. But I think he recognizes that
we love geniuses, right, We love precocious. We love the
(23:21):
tennis player that just won the US Open is eighteen
years old. She should be in high school, but instead
she was making millions of dollars. We we love sort
of the low end, but we love the Betty White
high end as well. The longevity thing, though, has sort
of a flip side to it. It's kind of like
the Batman line about dying the hero or living long
enough to see yourself become the villain. And I think
(23:42):
for a lot of people. Tom Brady has been, you know,
a chief foil at the Philadelphian enemy certainly has him
on a mental dartboard. Does he think about that ripple
effect of his success? Does he mind playing the foil
or is it's sort of a badge of honor in
some ways? He didn't really bite on the question, but
he kind of did talk him. You feel like you're
talking to another peer and there's no sense of this
(24:03):
is a star athlete who's coming with these prepackaged lines
or these media traits and kind of reading between the lines.
I feel like part of the joy of going to
Tampa is no one hates the Buccaneers the way they
hate the Patriots. And I think the fact that Tom
Brady has enjoyed this bumping popularity is something that he
definitely senses. The peer component is interesting to me because
(24:25):
sometimes athletes of his stature can be fussy interview subjects.
And I got the sense from you that he was
surprisingly the opposite, that he was even responsive when you
reached out to him after a loss. Right, I spoke
to him, I don't you remember the Buccaneers had a
rough game against Washington. It was not Tom Brady's finest game,
as he was quick to admit, and people were joking like, oh,
(24:46):
you've been a reschedule and you're gonna get one word answers.
And I texted him and said, just to be clear here,
this is an award about your achievements in one I
don't I don't give a ship what happened, uh Sundays
And there was like no problem, buddy of color, any
problems getting to the site. Let me know, this is
sort of all the candor and all the warmth and
personality that he may have had to suppress a little
(25:07):
bit of New England is now coming out at age
forty four. That's amazing that he was so responsive so quickly.
Are you guys still in touch? Are you, you know,
planning a sleepover? Maybe you'll build a forward out of
the couch cushions. What's the relationship like? Now he's got
the the inflatable bouncy castle and the no he um.
It's funny. I mean, you know, I had interviewed him
(25:28):
a few times through the years. I think he's at
a point where, first of all, I think things may
have been so constricted and restricted in New England that
now he had had a chance to be a little
bit more out there. Tell me if I'm wrong. It
seems like we're getting more Tom Brady in the last year.
Uh here you were seeing you you seem Yeah, I
(25:48):
feel like I putt yourself out there a little more naturally.
I'd say, I'm very introverted. You know, I'm rediscovering, you know,
my voice, and and I'm having fune with it. And
I think there's more comfortable just that as an older
guy too. You know, there's might give a ship levels
probably a lot less, probably a lot more ten years.
So now I'm kind of like a little Okay, what's
gonna make ten years? So I'm really not going to
(26:09):
give a ship. Then he just doesn't give us sh it.
I mean, I'll talk to who I want to talk to,
and I won't who I won't, and I'll figure out
a way to bend time if I have to bend time.
You get to feel like he's sort of like a
rum Springer, right, He's like he's having this second life
as a public figure. Sometimes we do still see this
sort of old careful Tom Brady. We got a little
(26:30):
bit of that with the Antonio Brown situation, which he
didn't really address how he and the team and had
enabled Brown. As our colleague Gary Grambling wrote, what did
you make of how Brady handled that situation? I think
you pretty much nailed it. I mean, I do get
the feeling that everything is in service of football, right,
Everything is just maximizing. Everything he does is to optimize
(26:52):
his success as a football players, a forty four year
old football player. It's got to be a daily commitment.
You know, I bring water everywhere, So it's just I mean, yeah,
that's a part of a commitment. I love that commitment.
It's not that's no problem, and that part's easy. You know,
it's all pretty easy at this point. It's just effort.
It's not like it's hard. It's just I gotta do it.
(27:14):
If he goes on Howard Stern, if he goes on
Dax Shepherd, what's the worst thing that could happen? If
he's sitting there in an NFL locker room and something
he says can be misconstrued or be a distraction for
the team. I think that's a little different. Did Tom
Brady probably get off pretty easily in terms of accountability
with Antonio Brown? I think you could make that case
but I also think that everything this guy does is
(27:36):
in service of winning football games, and that means taking
Antonio Brown in and having him stay at your house,
and when Antonio Brown betrays that, backing up from it
and really minimizing and diffusing any controversy. Yeah. I think
the way that he's managed the perception of himself has
changed and evolved. He's got all these side hustles that
(27:59):
I wanted to talk to you about. He's got the
TV twelve method in these commercials for Subway in various companies,
and I know he avoids nightshades and I think he's
peaking too avocados or something. Some of it gets used
for comedic fodder John, but it's also a big deal
for him now, isn't it? No need shades? God damn it. Um.
What he has done, I think very savily is he's
(28:19):
kind of leading the retirees life while he's still active.
When he's not playing football, he's on zoom calls, he's
meeting with investors. This is not just some I'm slapping
my name on a product. And I think what he's
realizing too, is that it's not enough anymore just to
be Tom Brady. He has to stand for something. He
has to have some presents. And so you talk to
(28:39):
some of his business partners and they say, you would
not believe the level of detail. And we'll send him
spreadsheets and he'll get back to us. And it's the
middle of the NFL season and he's jumping on a
zoom to uh talk about our Q four strategy. Most
of his income isn't football related these days. He's really
sort of living this career two point oh life while
he's still lining up behind center on Sunday. Does he
(29:03):
have an idea of what comes next? Whether it is
business or broadcasting or owning a team or politics. I mean,
do you have a sense of what he's going to
lean into there? He leaves little down. I don't think
politics are in his future. He seems very upset by
the polarized state of our country. Get a whole kind
of middle aged man riff about social media and why
are people so nasty? And hopefully we can return to
(29:26):
mutual respect, Hopefully we can return to kindness. Hopefully we
can learn to hey, you, I'll respect your opinion. You
gotta respect my opinion too. And right now it's like, no,
I don't want to respect your opinion if you don't
agree with me, which that's a hard way to have relationships.
All of what you would agree with wholeheartedly, but you
wouldn't necessarily expect it from Tom Brady. But I think
he sort of built for these startups. You have a product,
(29:48):
you go find investments, You sort of moved from phase
to phase to phase. But I think something like these
n f T s. I mean it's at one point
I sort of said, listen, time is finite. We got
to stop talking about n f T s and we
gotta get to these questions I I need to ask
to put together the story. But I think these equity
stake in companies that could grow, I think that appeals
to him much more than politics and certainly broadcasting. I
(30:09):
know that he keeps casting down on this. But eventually,
John the Man will have to retire. So how much
longer realistically is he going to play? Um, that's the
great question. Tom Brady is gonna be forty five years
old in August, so one knee gives out on him,
and we may have our answer short of that. I mean,
I think could he play five more years? Statistically? Yeah?
(30:32):
Why not? I mean some of this is dependent on
how much he can handle us mentally, as he has
children of a certain age and a family, and he says,
you know, he's he's at this point where there's not
this win lost symmetry that if you win, it's sort
of a relief, and if you lose, its brutal. That
sounds like something you need to confront or it could
very easily lead to burnout. But could he you know,
the guy's in the m v P conversation at forty four?
(30:54):
Is it crazy to think he'll play a few more years?
I don't think so. If he plays till fifty, that
would be truly remarkable. And I don't want to say
that I'm rooting for Tom Brady to play until he's
fifty because if I said those words, then everybody from
Philadelphia would disown me. But as he continues this, he
softens me a little bit. The longer he goes, the
(31:14):
more I end up liking him against my better judgment.
So when he is done, is he just gonna wear
all of us down? I was gonna say, I think
he's grinding you down. John. Thank god, I'm hearing effect.
I'm hearing grudging affection. You mentioned the number fifty. I
think that is not lost on him. I think he's
someone that finds motivation very easily. But you win seven
(31:36):
super Bowls and I'm not sure if an eighth is
the bright shiny toy. But if you say you could
be a starting NFL quarterback at age fifty, you're gonna
get an a RP card. You're also going to be
an NFL quarter starting NFL quarterback. I can see that
being a source of motivation fair enough. One day. Tom
Brady will eventually have to hang it up. But John Wortheim,
(31:58):
we hope you never do. Thanks for doing this. Thanks John,
that was fun. You can read John Wortheim's excellent piece
on Tom Brady being named sports Person of the Year
at s I dot com. After the break, our final
segment with one of the best offensive linemen in NFL
history and where it all began for Joe Thomas. All Right,
(32:21):
we're thrilled to be joined by legendary Brown's offensive lineman,
now an NFL Network analyst. Joe Thomas, thanks for doing this,
hey man, thanks for having me on. It's exciting to
be here and talking about my most fond memories from
my youth days. Yeah, So along with your NFL Network
teammate Steve Smith Sr. You guys are responsible really for
(32:43):
coming up with this idea. We're having a conversation one night,
and you guys are both thoughtful people, and you were
asking me how the new job was going, and that
led to this conversation that I thought was really interesting.
So I'll sort of teer it up to you the
way that we discussed it that night. Joe Thomas, tell
me about the first time you're in Sports Illustrated. Yes,
Steve and I can get a little creative after a
(33:04):
couple of pops late at night when we're hanging out
with John and Colleen. So I thought this was a
fun idea, right, because Sports Illustrated is just one of
the most iconic franchises in all of media, not just
sports media. And when I was a kid, first thing
it was Sports Illustrated for kids, right, and you got
that magazine every week or every month, I can't remember
how often it came out, but you were so excited
(33:26):
to peel it open, and that was your window into
the sports world back then before sports media and social media.
And then you got a little bit older than you
got the weekly Sports Illustrated. Then you got the swimsuit issue,
and life was good when you're like a fourteen year
old boy, and you know as soon as that that
would show up, you'd peel it open. You'd look for
faces in the crowd and see if maybe there's anybody
(33:47):
from near your hometown or the states you grew up in,
or Joe I never made the cut. Surprisingly, yeah, I
never made the cut either. I know, so you and
I have a lot lot more in common than you think.
But it was so cool and it was such a
part of the fabric of why I loved all sports,
not just the ones that I was playing, but they
made it so real to a kid with all the
photos and every little segment and section of the magazines
(34:11):
was so much fun to dive into that the first
time you're in it, it's such a vivid memory along
with some of the most historic things that happened during
your life, good and bad. Right, It's kind of like
where were you when this happened? You can instantly remember
the sites, the smells, the sounds, the feelings and emotions.
It was the same thing the first time I remember
(34:32):
pulling open a Sports Illustrated and seeing a big article
about myself. Yeah, so what was like, did you know
that you were going to be in the magazine? Did
somebody tell you about it? Did you stumble upon it
organically and say, oh my god, I'm in it? Well
what happened? Yeah? So when I was maybe a freshman
or sophomore in college, I'm sure my name was in there,
(34:53):
like Joe Thomas Badgers, right like penalty seventy two Wisconsin
something like that, maybe in the box score, but of
things significant until my senior year at Wisconsin coming up
on the draft. So I was right about right now
in January, and Peter King was writing stories on draft
prospects and he got ahold of me through my agent,
(35:14):
and then he actually came out to Madison, which was
where I was living, where I was training for the
NFL Combine, and kind of spent a day or day
and a half with me and just followed me around.
And it was just so much fun being able to
spend time with Peter King, because one, he was such
an iconic writer for football in general, but he was
also such an important piece of Sports Illustrated that for
(35:34):
him to be able to spend the day with me
was pretty cool. For me, and then for him to
write an article that had some photos in there and
it kind of uh, he definitely put my life as
a college kid on a pedestal, which was pretty cool
because I was still living in my crappy apartment and
I had a laptop that would overheat if you spent
more than five minutes on it, so I actually had
(35:56):
it propped up on like little pieces of toilet paper,
the old cardboard toilet paper rolls, so it could get
some airflow underneath where it needed to cool off. How innovative. Yeah, yeah, innovative.
We had a couple of old deer amounts that had
like bras hanging from him in the corner. It was
just kind of like your typical animal house college apartment lifestyle,
(36:18):
and Peter King like fell in love with it and
so writing that big article and then for me to
see that and to be able to like show that
to my buddies, like somebody else cares about the slum
that we're living in and thinks it's cool, Like how
cool is that? You're what around that time? Yeah, so
that's a lot for a kid, right, I mean, what
kind of pressure did you feel at the time? Yeah,
(36:40):
I felt like I was in a pretty good situation,
and I think it wasn't even until like the end
of my junior year when scouts were coming to practice
and asking me if I was going to come out
after my junior year, that I even realized I was
maybe good enough to play in the NFL or be
drafted into the NFL. So I think I sort of
had the humble upbringing that helped. Does it help also
in addition to you know, your upbringing, did it help
(37:01):
also the position, because I mean, we've talked a lot
about you being an offensive lineman and what goes into
that when we're having conversations offline, But it's not like
you're one of the top quarterback prospects coming out. You're
a really popular and talented offensive lineman. But with the
exception of Peter King dropping and parachuting into your college situation,
(37:22):
offensive lineman don't get a lot of attention, there's no doubt.
And two fold, I think the position of offensive lineman
just because we never get the attention unless it's bad,
Like naturally, you've shown the attention, right, I don't want
to get highlighted for that holding or that offside penalty
or forgiven up that sack. So I think the position
sortat of naturally breeds a humility and a shunning of
(37:46):
the focus being on me, so that helps. But also
it is an anonymous position, which is really nice and
the benefit of being under the radar. It wasn't until
you know, maybe the second half of my career in Cleveland,
where people would even recognize me when I would go
out in public, and certainly not at Wisconsin. Like if
you were the star running back or the star quarterback,
that's a different ball game. But as an offensive linement,
(38:08):
I was drafted third overall and I can count on
one hand the number of times that in four years
at Wisconsin that I got stopped on campus by somebody
who either wanted a picture or an autograph for me,
because it just didn't happen, like nobody cared. And that
was actually probably really good because that was a good
situation and it made it really easy to just show
up and do your job when nobody really cared, how's
(38:29):
the picture? When somebody stopped you, it was like surprised,
are you sure you know who I am? Like, I'm
not the running back, I'm not a basketball player. I
know I'm pretty tall, but see this belly on me
like I clearly can't go up and down the hardwood
very often. It's a perfect way to finish the soft
Joe Thomas, you've been in the magazine, now you've been
on Sports Illustrated Weekly. Your star keeps shining. Thanks for
(38:50):
doing this, hey man, Thanks for having me on. John,
Thank you so much for listening to the first episode
of Sports Stradio Weekly. We'll be back with a new
episode next Wednesday and every Wednesday, so make sure you
subscribe or followed to get new episodes delivered to your
podcast feed each week. And if you're listening in an app,
please do go ahead and leave us a rating and
(39:12):
a review that helps other people find the show. Sports
Illustrated Weekly is a production of Sports Illustrated and I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. And for more of Sports Illustrated It's
best stories and podcasts, visit SI dot com. This episode
(39:34):
of Sports Illustrated Weekly was produced by Alex Kappelman and
Isaac Lee, who was also our sound engineer. Our senior
producer is Dan Bloom Our executive producers are Scott Brody
and me John Gonzalez. Our theme song is by Nolan Schneider.
Our incredible artwork was created by SIS Creative Director Steven
Scalaki and SIS Art Director Stephen Goji. Special thanks to
(39:58):
SIS editors in chief Ryan Hunt and Stephen Cannela, and
everyone at Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio who helped
to get the show off the ground. And if you've
stuck around this long, we leave you with this. A
lot of my friends are here tonight, UM and obviously
my personal trainer, DJ Khalid's here who's Tonight's co host,
and he's always pushing me to do more reps. Another one,
(40:21):
another one,
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