Episode 20: From California to Cobble Hill with Howard Beck

Sports Illustrated's Senior Writer went from covering local government to the Lakers beat with Shaq and Kobe before coming East and settling in Brooklyn during stints with The New York Times, Bleacher Reporter, and SI. He covers the changes in media and the Nets' arrival in Brooklyn in a conversation with Chris.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey, what's going on. It's Chris corn Now, this is
the voice of the Nets. Today we talked with the
esteemed NBA writer for Sports Illustrated, Howard beck Uh. First,
just to acknowledge something great that happened at Barkley Center
the other night. On hand, I'm not I'm not talking
about the nets victory over the Washington Wizards on a
Friday night, although it was there at the time, was

(00:33):
there fourth straight win. It was their sixth straight home victory.
I'm talking about what happened at the four fourteen mark
of the first quarter. That's when t J. Warren walked
over to the scores table and checked into the game
for the first time in seven hundred and three days.

(00:55):
I gotta think that for every one of those seven
hundred and three days to Jay Warren, I thought about
that moment before checking in and walking onto the floor.
You know, recently we had a podcast with Nat Butler,
the the NBA photographer, Steam photographer, and I asked him

(01:16):
that whole Jimmy v thing about what makes him cry,
and he said, seeing some of these athletes achieve something,
knowing the sacrifices, knowing what they have done to get
to that point makes him emotional. And you if you're
casually watching that game, you see t. J. Warren walk

(01:37):
in the game, You're excited about what he can be
for the nets. You're excited about the kind of player
he can he can be coming off the bench, he
can score. But do you realize it was December the
last time he had played in the game. And when
you think about his story, great score and NC State

(01:59):
Dad was there as well. You know, good career in
the NBA, playing in some bad Phoenix teams, but then
goes to Indiana and in that bubble in Orlando, playing
in that vacuum. All of a sudden, he makes this
big splash where he has fifty four one game the
average thirty some ow points during the bubble, and he's

(02:22):
known as Bubble Jordan's And you're thinking he is going
to ascend now as to one of the great scores
in the league. Can't wait to see what happens next
season when they start playing the games again for real.
And what happens four games in to season, stress fracture

(02:43):
in his foot, tries to come back, happens again, aggregates
the injury, doesn't play for seven hundred three days and
here he is coming in at the four four team
Mark gets the ball in the right wing, Bull fake
gets Bouche, moves into a fifteen footer and Jacques Vaughan
said after the game, I was really curious to see

(03:05):
what's gonna happen. I didn't know he was gonna be
his legs were gonna be there, He's gonna come up short,
he was gonna build two hype coat too strong, No,
nothing but Nett T J. Warre. What a great moment.
These are the kind of moment people think sports writers
and people will cover the game. Are looking for controversy,
looking to stir the pot. No, looking for great stories.

(03:28):
He's a great story. And that's a segue into Howard Beck,
sports writer guy who has made his career covering these
kind of stories. And we're gonna talk about covering a
team like the crate late nineties, early two thousands Lakers,
his time with the New York Times, just starting out

(03:50):
with the Nicks there and then onto the Nets when
he first when they first moved to Brooklyn. I don't
I can't even summarize everything we talked to Howard about.
I mean, from Twitter to the lockout back in two
thousand eleven. What that did for NBA, Twitter and NBA writers,
so many great things. We discussed with Howard Beck. So
without further ado, on the Voice of the Nets, it's

(04:11):
a conversation with great Howard Beck. What up Beck? What's
happening with Chris? Good to see you? Good to see you?
Outside of an arena. I know, I know that's a thing,
the what up back, because I would see it on
Twitter all the time, but I don't know the origin.
There is an origin, um and it's a really cool

(04:31):
origin actually. And the funny thing about it is, if
not for Zach Low, who of course popularized this on
his podcast, if not for him bringing it up, I
think the very first time I went on his podcast
back in the grant Land days years ago, I would
not have remembered this myself. So I go on Zack's podcast,
however many years ago it was, and we were gonna

(04:53):
talk a lot of Shack and Kobe in my Laker
years and whatever else. I think I'd probably just written
something that it was rooted in in that previous this
life of mine, and Zach says, you know what I
wanted to mention because I always thought this was really cool,
and he remembered this moment during the NBA lockout in
two thousand eleven. It was toward the end of the lockout.
There was this one big meeting where they brought all

(05:14):
the players together. Normally just a handful of players on
the executive committee and maybe some player reps or whatever.
This was supposed to be the entire membership of the
players union. And they were all gathered at the Sheraton
in Midtown Manhattan. And when the meeting was over, we're
all staked out, as we always are, the media waiting
for these guys to come out so we can talk
to Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher and just see what
the status of things is. And players are now just

(05:36):
kind of filtering through the lobby, and Kobe Bryant walks
out of this conference room that they've all been holed
up in. He sees me, he's got sunglasses on key
key detail. According to Zach, because Zack's memories way better
than mind. Kobe has the sunglasses on, sees me, I
don't know if he actually lowered the shades or not,
like cool movie moment, like you would do. Uh And

(05:59):
says what up? Beck? And so Zach remembered this. I
thought it was the coolest thing because Kobe had, in
the midst of all these people, all this gaggle of
people and players and meeting and all the stuff, seen
me and actually acknowledged me. Um, And so Zach thought
that was really cool. He drops the one up back
And so then every time I've come back on the pod,

(06:19):
it's what up back to start the pod, which then
has just taken off on social media and everything else. So, um,
there you go. There's the origin story of of the phrase.
It's always what up this? What up there? Whoever? And
I feel like that that time that that two thousand
and eleven lockout, um was sort of where NBA Twitter

(06:39):
kinda took off, right, and guys like you when you
mentioned Zach, like the people who were covering the lockout,
it seemed like that was the origin. It created this
sort of Twitter metaverse that's still kind of trying to
struggle to hang on right now. Yeah, yeah, there's a
whole other thread to go or the rabbit hole there

(07:01):
with Twitter. But um, I think you're right, Chris. I mean,
I hadn't really thought about it, but I do think so,
you know, Twitter, I think came about somewhere in like
what two thousand and six seven, somewhere in there. I
got on in two thousand nine. It's actually comical to
look back. I got on Twitter in two thousand nine
because somebody, uh an agency had reached out. I was
working at the New York Times at the time, an

(07:23):
agency that um I remember what their their role was,
but they were working with Shock and other athletes getting
them on Twitter. This is back before anybody had thought
to get onto Twitter. Was just like, oh, it's this
micro blogging service. It's like Facebook, but without all the
photos and you just dred and forty characters are less,
you know. That was how we called it micro blogging.
So they had pitched a story and I was like, yeah,

(07:46):
I'll do a story. So I was gonna get I
think I got Shock on the phone for it maybe,
and then this woman who was working with him on this.
And it's comical to go back in the Times archives
and find this online because it's just it just sounds
so ridiculous trying to explain what Twitter is and what
you would use it for, and it's it's such a
staple of our world now that that that story is

(08:07):
is kind of hilarious looking back. But so yeah, that's
two thousand nine. The lockout is only a couple of
years later. And I do think you're right. I think
that was kind of this coalescing point where it was
the first time that a major event in in the
NBA world was being documented on a minute to minute
hour to our basis by reporters using Twitter to blast
it out to our then hundreds of followers or maybe

(08:30):
a few thousand followers whatever, with me and and ken
Burger and and my my now colleague Mannix and and
a bunch of other folks. But that's also when I
discovered people like Jason Conceptsion Network, one of the funniest
people in on NBA Twitter Network became network during that time.
In fact, I have falsely taken credit I will continue

(08:50):
to falsely take credit to Jason's chagrin. I I discovered him.
Ken Burger and I discovered him. We were retweeting the
hell out of him because he was so freaking hilarious
with the if. He was saying things about David Stern.
He was like fictionalizing conversations and it was just so
uproariously funny, and of course we we needed that. We
need like whether it was Jason CONCEPTI or others, we

(09:12):
needed that. That was our contact with the outside world.
We're stuck in these hotel lobbies and sidewalks in all
these places for hours, waiting for these meetings to end,
on all these steakouts for months. And um yeah, that
was that was the first probably big NBA Twitter moment.
Well and and that's the kind of thing that builds
a platform like Twitter or and and and specifically NBA

(09:35):
Twitter because you're you do you have it. There's an
immediacy to it, so people are constantly waiting for the
next update, their looking you know. At that time, it's like,
all right, what's going on with the meetings? Is they're
gonna be this agreement? Are they gonna walk out? So
people and NBA fans are glued to it, and yet
at the same time there's all this downtime, which then creates,

(09:58):
like you said, some creativity and some and some entertainment
and then a lot of back and forth. And I remember,
you know, who's ordering pizzas and all that kind of stuff.
So yeah, it's it's and I still think that and
we're gonna get into your career and and kind of
the the journalistic changes that have gone on. But when

(10:19):
it comes to Twitter, I know there's a lot going
on right now where they think people think, you know,
Elon Musk took over Twitter, and you know, Twitter might
get killed at some point. And I understand some of
the stuff outside of the sports world that it's problematic
with what Elon Musk is doing with Twitter at times,
but I feel like in the sports bubble, like it

(10:42):
shouldn't affect it, like the things that make Twitter beneficial
to sports fans. I mean, as long as we get
away from the fake accounts, I still think it's it's
the perfect platform for it. Where do you disagree? I
disagree slightly, um And I will say like I have

(11:03):
over the course of the last few weeks set up
out posts in various places that a lot of people
have more not because I'm one of these people who
says I'm out, I'm done with Twitter. Although I know
several friends who have left Twitter. There's accounts are still active,
they're or they're just and suspended animation. They may come
back to it, but as of right now, I I
do have several friends who have decided this is just
not for me right now. Um so I have. I

(11:25):
have created an account on Post, I have created an
account on Mastodon. I am posting in those places far
less than I do on Twitter, because the critical mass
is still on Twitter, right. Twitter is like, you know,
tens of millions of people or whatever. These other outlets,
these other new, newer social media platforms, have far fewer people,
and until everybody migrates or decides where we're all setting up,

(11:46):
it's it's it's it's difficult. I'm there in these other
ones mostly as a backup plan, right And the backup
plan is not because I'm gonna throw out my hands
and say I'm done with Twitter. I don't think I'm
gonna get there. It's more that I'm not convinced Twitter
is gonna survive right now, or in what form it
will survive, because what Elon Musk is doing is alienating
not just users, but advertisers. And you know, he's you know,

(12:08):
he's he's laying off a lot of people to try
to streamline their budget. But if he continues to alienate advertisers,
and people flee the platform because it's no longer considered
to be safe or civil. Because he keeps inviting Nazis
back on it. That's a problem. So in the event
it doesn't survive, I wanted to be somewhere else and
have an established account and established following and have have

(12:29):
some time to build that up just in case. So
that's my strategy. Personally. I don't anticipate that I'm going
to leave Twitter myself, and I don't anticipate that Twitter
will just die. I also think that if if Elon
Musk continue to do things that threaten its viability and
potentially drive it into the ground as a business, there's

(12:49):
probably it's probably a means to an end. It's probably
a way for him to find some other way. He
was trying to get out of it before he had
buyers remorse from the second he signed the damn day.
But somebody, somebody, somebody will have it right. Twitter will exist,
and it may be under some somebody else's ownership, and
I would love for that to happen sooner than later. Um.

(13:11):
But in the meantime, to answer your question, Chris, because
I disagree slightly on this, the reason NBA Twitter and
sports Twitter is impacted is a couple of different things. One,
there's now a lot more bullshit back on the platform.
You now do have to deal with more racism, sexism,
bigotry of all sorts. Um because he has allowed a
lot of band accounts back. That's a problem. So it's

(13:34):
not it's it's it's suddenly a little less welcoming. The
other thing is that because he has just decimated the
departments that were in charge of moderation and in charge
of things like spam and fake accounts. Well, that's the
thing that is you just alluded to a minute ago,
that can degrade our experience, even as sports people on Twitter.
If even if we could somehow you know, wall ourselves

(13:56):
off from all the other stuff, from politics, from hate, speed,
from everything else, our little corner of Twitter is still uh,
you know, warped by and often infiltrated by screwed up
by bots, spam, bad actors of all kinds, and that
degrades the experience. And my last thought on this is

(14:18):
just this Twitter was a lot more fun in those
early years. You we talked about the eleven lockout, those
early years twelve, fifteen, seventeen, whatever, whatever that ends, I'm
not sure when it ends. There was a time there
when sports Twitter, NBA Twitter was a lot more enjoyable,
and the banter was a lot more civil and lighthearted,

(14:38):
and at some point it became a lot more toxic
and a lot more hateful. And these fan bases that
think that it's their job to constantly cape for their
their team in a way where they have to aggressively
go after anybody who's critical of their team, and they
feel like they're the the defenders of their team's honor
and all this this crap, and it's gotten a lot
more vicious. Everything has gotten more vicious, but sports along

(14:59):
with it. Yeah, I wonder though if that's just a
microcosm of the state of the world and not necessarily
the platform. But I guess when it comes to people
in your profession though, um social media and especially Twitter,
it was like a blessing and a curse I guess
at some point as well, because it did get your
stuff out to the masses, and at the same time,

(15:22):
you don't know whether you're you know, I always think
of guys breaking news on Twitter, Well, shouldn't they be
breaking news on the site that they work for, through
the or through the outlet that they work for. You're
doing it on Twitter, You're you're supporting Twitter by doing that.
But at the same time it's weird, right, It's it's
it can help your it can help push your agenda
and what you're doing professionally, but can also it hurts

(15:44):
the people that you work for. I guess sometimes in
a way it's a it's a really mixed bag on
a bunch of different levels. Um. So a couple of
couple of quick thoughts off the top. I started my
career um at a small town paper in Davis, California.
Had gone to school at u C. Davis, and I
graduated and immediately went to work for the local paper,
the Davis Enterprise. The Davis Enterprise had a circulation of

(16:07):
I believe ten to eleven thousand people in a city
of like fifty thousands. That's actually pretty good, pretty good penetration.
And it's a very active, engaged city, very you know,
college town. Everybody's really into the local politics, so and
and local news. UM. I bring it up because I
now have I don't know how many of these people
are are bots, or how many followers or bots or whatever,

(16:28):
but you know, I have a hundred and nineties something
followed hundred nineties thousands something followers on on Twitter. When
I think about the first paper I worked for had
the circulation of tend to eleven thousand, and then I
went to the Ventura County Star, where the circulation was
like a hundred thousand, and then the l A Daily News,
which was I think maybe two hundred thousand, and then
eventually you know, New York Times is you know, over
a million. But by the time I left the l

(16:49):
A Daily News, I think your circulation had probably dipped
to maybe one fifth or something. That I would have
more Twitter followers, again, I don't know how many of
them might be bots, but that I have more followers
on Twitter than I had at the l A Daily
News subscription base is like kind of freaking mind blowing.
And and so that I now I personally can engage

(17:10):
with folks or blast out my stuff to them, or
have conversations with them in in in larger numbers than
I ever had in a newspaper work for is is amazing.
But also it used to be when I first started,
if somebody really hated or loved something that you wrote,
they wrote a letter to the editor and then eventually
maybe they would leave a long wooded voicemail. I would
get these both in Davis and then l A. Whatever

(17:33):
I had this guy. There was a guy in l A.
And I can only just hear his voice because he
loved to do this. If if somebody really wants to
try to get under your skin when your name is Howard,
they'll do a very sarcastic version of Howie. And I
have friends who call me Howie and it's not it's not.
I don't consider it like a dig at all. But
if you go, hey, Howie and in a certain way,

(17:54):
a certain tone, right, I had had this guy who
would call So this is just the midst of the
shack and Kobe wars right. And I never took sides
in this whole thing as far as I'm concerned. I'm
a news reporter I do. I'm not a pundit, and
I'm not taking sides in this whole thing. It's not
my place. But if I wrote anything that seemed to
maybe I I guess sympathetic toward Kobe in any given moment.

(18:17):
This guy with these long witted messages on my voicemail
at the l A Daily News and an office that
I never went to, but I could retrieve my voicemail
remotely hey, Howie, how come? And then after he's done
with that point, it would be he'd start up again,
Hey Howie, and every single thing would be this. But
that was our interaction with our readership and with fans
back in the day was just a one way thing.

(18:39):
A letter to the editor of voicemail. Twitter was the
first time where it was like, somebody can say, hey, um, actually, uh,
David Lee got thirteen rebounds last night, not twelve. Oh great, thanks,
I'll go correct it. Or it might be um, hey,
you're you're you're you're being you know, mean to whatever
fill in the blank player, or I you know, I
vehemently disagree with your point. Good sir, um, and so

(19:03):
we and then I could have a discussion with them.
And early on I actually tried to respond to anybody
who I found in my mentions replying to me, because
I thought that's just what you should do. We should
have this conversation. It became untenable at some point, both
in terms of volume and in terms of people being dicks. Um,
But early on I thought, this is such a great

(19:25):
tool that we can now engage with our readers in
a way that I never could for my first years
in the business or whatever. UM. But you're right, it's
also changed. You know, breaking news breaks on Twitter now
instead of for our outlets, UM. The outlets themselves, the
companies themselves initially tried to regulate that, and I think
the dam broke at some point, you know, in the

(19:47):
mid tens. UM. So it's it's a mixed bag, I
think for media. But I do think the ability to
promote our stuff UM, both on an individual basis and
and and the media company basis is is phenomenal and
has opened up all these new avenues and in different
ways of promoting your stuff. It's allowed us to find
sources UM or just smart people. When I say sources,

(20:09):
I don't even mean like an an anonymous source. It
may just be like, oh, like there's this assistant coaches
on Twitter. Oh, or this is a scout, or oh
there's this analytics guy who's working independently who's got this
great new tool. Or like the number of people I
have met, you know kind of quote marks on met
but met first on Twitter before meting in real life,
who are in the NBA space, whether different voices or

(20:30):
people with just different UM expertise on the sport. It's
it numbers probably in the hundreds. Um. And so it
has opened up our world so much. And so it
is Twitter has, on the whole, I think, been a
positive force, but it has warped a lot of our
job too. Yeah. And and you're also giving away the
stories sometimes. And I think once, you know, you mentioned

(20:52):
that small paper you worked at in the Bay Area,
at least those ten or eleven thousand people were paying
for the newspaper every day. And once I think it
was you know, we could get into a whole podcast
about uh newspapers, and you know how they started giving
it away and then people don't want to pay for
it anymore. So they're they're clicking on and they go,
why do I have to Even though the cost of
a subscription to a newspapers probably I'll hack of a

(21:15):
lot less than when you used to stroll out the
money for the newspaper every day. Um. But maybe we
digress a little bit here. Let's let's get let's get
into some more stuff about you. I want to go
through and then come up to some other stuff because
you and I have had great conversations over the years
and press rooms and in interview rooms. I mean, everything

(21:36):
from basketball to you know, if Adam Dirrets was an
NBA player, who would he be, you know, like that
kind of thing. And by the way, I went through
your old uh full forty eight podcast and I realized
you had Adam Dirrett's on your podcast, and I listened
to it and it was fantastic. And even though you're
doing now the crossover, um, it still does exist in

(21:58):
the in the in the world. It never goes away
those podcasts, so they are on there for anybody to listen,
not all of them. Unfortunately, like the the whole catalog
isn't there. There's there must be some limit, like if
you I don't know if it's because it's no longer
an active podcast or if it's just like any podcast,
they don't keep everything in perpetuity, so like not every
episode is there. I'm glad to hear the Adam Dirrett's episode. Yeah,

(22:22):
that's by the way, it's a lead singer for the
Counting Crows. If anybody doesn't know Howard I are Counting
Crows fans and a big and he's a big Warriors
fan and a spend a friend of Steve Curse. So
you're from the Bay Area, yes, what may you start writing,
how'd you get involved? So I grew up in San Jose,
and you know, I love a good origin story in

(22:44):
my own writing career, right about other people that I'm
writing about. So at some point I I I remember
when on this colest of my mind, but I realized
I do have my own origin story for my career,
and it's it's the catch. And depending on how old
the listener is right now, they're either going like, oh yeah,
or they're going, I have no idea what you're talking about,
Capital T, capital C. The catch. Go to YouTube and

(23:06):
you will find it. Joe Montana hitting Dwight Clark in
NFC Championship game and starting what became the forty Niners
dynasty of the eighties. Um, I was thirteen years old,
don't do the math. I was thirteen years old at
the time that that happened. Um And actually technically in
a way, I might have been twelve actually, But just

(23:29):
the prime spot for guys like us wherever, when you
where you fall in love with sports. And I think
this is a really interesting thing to think about too,
Right for anybody who's a big sports fan, there was
probably a moment a team, a player, a play a game,
a series, something that really like cemented your fandom and

(23:50):
just and and sparked something in your brain and in
your body where you just went, Holy sh it, I
can't believe what i just saw. That was the most
exciting thing I've ever seen in my life. That was
the catch for me. I watched it with a bunch
of friends. I can remember whose living room I was in.
And the Niners up until that point, you know, as
a kid growing up the Bay Area, like the Raiders
were the kind of the dominant NFL team, the Niners

(24:11):
were almost like a minor league team, and they were terrible.
They were an afterthought. Um, but that was it, Like
that was the moment that my fandom really was cemented,
My mind blown, my sports fandom cinched, and from there forward.
That's why that's when I'm definitely consuming the entirety of
like the San Jose Mercury News sports section every morning

(24:33):
my my my father had the newspaper on the on
the table every morning. Anyway, up until that point, I
think I was mostly reading like the comics section or something. Um,
so I'm reading a ton of sports, and I'm reading
not just Niners coverage, but a's Giants whatever, But the
Niners were my team and that moment was my moment.
And the more you just kind of immerse yourself in

(24:57):
reading the newspaper. For me, it it just I don't know,
like it kind of like started some other thought processes
in motion, right, And and this is as I'm going
through junior high and into high school. Well as of course,
as you get deeper into high school and you have
to start thinking about college, and everybody's asking you what
do you want to do with the rest of your life,
and like what do you want to study? And these
are big questions to con of plate at age fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,

(25:18):
and in my simplistic teenage brain, as I'm trying to
think about all these things, and I was like, well,
I'm decent at writing. I got good grades in English whatever.
He was an Hunters English my junior year high school whatever,
and like, and I love sports, I love I love
football whatever, Like, oh yeah, people get paid to go
to these games and then write about them, Like that's ridiculous,

(25:38):
I should do that. It was like it was nothing
more sophisticated, Chris than that that It's it's as as
simple and ridiculous as that, and that was it. And
so I decided, I don't know if it's gonna work
or not, but I'm that's what I'm gonna try. So
when I went to when I applied to U C. Davis,
when I was accepted at u C. Davis, they don't
have a journalism program there. So I majored in English

(25:59):
and just for the writing aspect of that and just
for the you know, it's it's adjacent. Um. And and
I went to go get a job at the Californiagie,
the student newspaper, which was a Monday through Friday paper
printed five days a week for my entire college career. UM.
I went in on the first day of orientation week
and said, Hey, I want to write sports, and they said, okay,

(26:20):
go talk to the sports editor. And I wrote a
story like a week later on the men's cross country team. UM.
And there it was like I I was off, like
it just and I just never stopped. Basically, was there
a person in your life who had a great influence
on your style style? There's there's not a person. There's

(26:41):
probably like a hundred um. Because when I'm we're when
I'm reading the Sounds of Mercury News as a kid.
The guy whose work I love the most was Mark Purty.
Um party was the columnists, one of the columnists, Um,
but I think the main columnist, you could say, for
the sounds of Mercury News at that time. And I
loved pretty stuff. Um he was on the days he

(27:04):
want to be funny, I thought he was really funny.
On the days he wanted to be pointing, he was points.
On the days he want to be moving, he was
moving and he just had this ability to shift gears.
And I just really loved his style. And so he
was like my first sports writing idol. Right, I'm really,
I'm We're growing up in a non internet age, right,
So I don't have access to I don't know about
Jim Murray down at the l A Times. I don't know,

(27:25):
like I know about who some of the San Francisco
Chronicle comms are maybe, but like your guy is the
guy who writes for your paper. Pretty was my guy. Ironically,
the new quarterback with the Sane Cisco forty Niners as
of yesterday is his name Pretty also, Yes, And when
I was on Twitter yesterday and I kept seeing you know,
pretty this pretty that pretty is great whatever. I'm like

(27:47):
laughing in my own head because I really badly wanted
to make a Mark Pretty joke and I couldn't come
up with a decent enough one, so I skipped it. Um.
But and at some point Mark Purtty himself weighed in
on that because somebody asked him, are you related, and
they're um. But that was my first sports writing idol.
I got to tell him that years later, embarrassed the

(28:07):
ship out of him. But it was such a great
moment for me, like when I was finally like old enough,
established enough and met him as peers to be able
to say that. Um, Like just just a fantastic moment
in my life to be able to do that. Um.
And then years later, because we have a lot of
mutual friends, we don't know each other that that well,
but we have a lot of mutual friends. And so

(28:30):
Mark Party retired like three or four years ago, and
I got to go. It coincided with when I was
going to be in the Bay Area anyway, our annual
family trip to go see family, and um, I got
to be at Mark Party's retirement lunch and I got
to give a quick spiel in which I embarrassed him
all over again. So that was fun um. But there's
been a lot of influences. There's the people that I

(28:50):
competed against on the beat in l a Um Sports,
illustrated writers that I grew up on, like Frank to
Ford and you know, and then later Jack McCallum, And
it's I think the key to being a great writer,
and I'm sure you feel the same as a broadcaster,
is that you listen to the people or read the
people whose work resonates most with you. And there could
be a bunch of people who are all really good

(29:10):
at it, but some just hit you a different way
than others. And it's not because they're better or worse.
It's just we all have our own styles and our
own tastes in the way our our our brains are wired.
And so it's a lot of different people because each
of them had something where I thought, oh man, that's
that was really fucking good, Like I wish I could
do that, Maybe I can do that, Maybe I should
try that. And then you attempt things and you experiment,

(29:32):
and you know to the extent that you have a voice,
you don't I don't even know when my my voice
as a writer became me. I had an editor at
Bleacher Report who one day hit me back after I
filed a story. He's and I think it was about
a specific sentence or something, goes, oh, man, this is
such a Howardbecks line or something, and I'm like, I
don't know what that is, but okay, cool, Like I
I guess there's something identifiable that I've established or created

(29:55):
over time. You don't. You're just in it, right, You're
just doing it. You don't. No, It's like, hey, yeah,
at that point you had already written for the l
a Daily news in the New York Times, and now
you're there. So you did. I mean you didn't know it,
you didn't realize it, but you did. I I always
looked at, you know, my broadcasting career. When I was
in college, I worked with Marty Klickman, and Marty's a

(30:16):
legendary broadcaster. But what he did is he gave me
structure and play by play. He said, this is how
you this is here's here's my view of play by play.
I want you to create a picture in the mind
of the listener. I want you to be very detailed
and let them be able to see the game in
their mind. And I remember that was a revelation to

(30:36):
me because I had grown up listening to radio, but
a lot of TV also, and and and guys on
TV don't describe enough as you do on radio. And
I said, all right, I'm going to be the guy
who describes the game better than anybody, and then I'm
gonna be me, you know. So it's I think there's
those those influences kind of give you a little structure,

(30:59):
and then from there you can you can branch out.
How long how long after you left cal before you
end up at the l a daily news covering the Lakers?
How long a period of time was that in between?
Um graduated from UC Davis spent um four years at

(31:20):
the Davis Enterprise, which is much longer than you're supposed
to spend at a small town paper. You're the whole thing.
In newspapers, especially in that are like you gotta keep
getting to the next, bigger one. But I I like
living in Davis. I still had friends who were still
in school, who were who are U C. Davis, who
are a couple of years behind me, So I just
I just kind of chilled for a while. I moved
from sports to news while is at the Enterprise. So

(31:43):
I ended up covering city hall for my last couple
of years there. And when I left the Davis Enterprise
for the Ventura County Star down in southern California, it
was still as a news writer. I was again covering
local government in Ventura County. UM, and I did that
for two years. UM also where I met my now wife, Um,
who was also working at the Ventura paper. And it's

(32:04):
from Ventura, so before tuitous uh move for me. UM.
So I met the Venture County Star for two years.
And towards the end of that two years, I get
this call one day from Mike Annistazi, who had been
the sports editor of the Davis Enterprise who hired me,
who was now the sports editor of the l A
Daily News. And he says, hey, UM, I know you've

(32:27):
been out of sports for a while, but we've got
an opening and I'm wondering if you might be interested.
We just lost our Laker writer, a guy named Mark Stein. Um.
Some of you may have heard of him. Um. Mark's
gone off to the Dallas Morning News to go cover
the Mavericks. So we haven't opening on the Laker beat.
And the crazy part of this story as I retell

(32:49):
it over the years, is I wasn't sure I wanted
to do it, um and listen the job. Wasn't still
wanted to cover cover a budget meetings in Ventura County
planning commissions, you know, uh, you know, tax abatement hearings,
um it. So I had to struggle early in my career,

(33:13):
both at the in college and my first few years
after college, this internal struggle of does any of this
stuff even matter? Right? And yeah, and like it was
a passion of mine and I was a sports fan
of a sort, and but it's I got more into

(33:33):
journalism broadly during those years, during my formative college years,
and I I did the first. I was in sports
for my first two years in college, and then the
rest of my time in college, I was news and
I was eventually editor in chief and I'm running the
whole thing, and I'm I'm running the editorial board and
all this others. And I just really got into journalism broadly, um,

(33:54):
news coverage, editorial writing, everything. And so my my my
interest had moved way beyond sports. Um. And the more
I felt comfortable doing either or or anything under the
roof of a newspaper and to cover everything under the sun.
It I did start to have this struggle of like, well,
does sports really matter? And I wasting my time? Is

(34:14):
this really the way I should be spending my career sports?
You know, it's it's the toy department? Is the is
the cliche in in newspapers? And and I did. I
wrestled with that for years. And so some of the
period that I was out covering news instead was because
I thought, well, this is the stuff that matters. And yes,
you and I could sit here and joke about planning
commission meetings and you know, you know, the zoning laws

(34:36):
and all this, all these things that I covered that
are kind of dry, but especially in Davis where there
was this very energized community, that's stuff really matter to people.
People got like as as as passionate about that as
they get about you know, uh, you know Lebron James,
you know, And and that's the thing, right like it

(35:00):
sports is by definition more fun to write about. Is
it always more gratifying? That's where I had to find
another way. I had to I had to retool over
the years to find my way back to it in
a way that made sense to me, and what I
find that the position I finally came to, or the
piece I finally made with myself was everything matters. Everything

(35:21):
matters because our lives are not any just one thing.
And yes, sports are escaped, but sports are also something
that while they can also divide people and create all
kinds of stupid toxicity on Twitter and in the real world,
sports also bring people together. They bring families together, They
stoke our passions. They they give us the full range
of human emotion and drama. Like it's as important as

(35:43):
music or art or anything else. It is a it
is a part of the fabric of of of our
world and of our lives. And so but it took
a while to get back to a point where I
could say that and feel it and believe it and
not feel like, oh but this is trivial and unimportant
and I and I'm wasting my time doing this. So yeah,
I did pause before I before I agreed to interview
for that job. Um, and I had to interview with

(36:06):
other people because you know, he was knocking my my
my old friend from Davis was not going to just
bring me in. It would would be a little almost nepotistic.
So I interviewed with you know, all the other editors
and the editor of the paper and the managing editor
and all these other people. And once they cleared me,
then it was like I had a decision to make
and I decided obviously to do it. Um. But there's
a sliding doors moment there where you know, I, first

(36:30):
of all, the phone never rings that day. I'm not
talking to you right now, Um, but it was a
very specific, you know, opening, a very specific moment, and
it changed my life. What is the period when you
jump into the Lakers? What's going on there with That's

(36:50):
when it's starting, It's starting a role. Shack and Kobe
have just finished their first year together. Kobe's just finished
his rookie season, Shacks just finished his first year with
the Lakers, which was injury marred and he um and
so is their first full season together with Shack healthy
and Del Harris is the coach. Um, Eddie Jones and
Nick Van Exel are still playing on that team. Eldon

(37:11):
Campbell Um, and that's my first year on the Laker beat. Uh,
Scott Howard Cooper's covering them for the l A Times,
and Brad Turner's covering them. I think at that time,
for was it Riverside or one of the other papers.
But so there's a group of people who are now
like my new peer group who I'm learning from every day.
And I bring that up because you would asked earlier

(37:32):
about writing styles and this and that there's also a
reporting style, and I would I had never been in
these in these scrums. I've been in scrumbs before as
a as a college sportswriter, but like being in in
an NBA arenas being in you know, pregame with the
coach and then going pregame locker room, postgame, locker room
practice days and seeing how it all operates. I was
taking a lot of cues from from the veterans, from

(37:53):
Scott Howard Cooper, from Brad Turner, eventually from Tim Kawakami
and then Tim Brown. Um, and and you're learning to
me it was osmosis, right. I'm just kind of soaking
it all in and then trying to find my way
and trying to find my voice in that way too, Right,
Like how assertive to be in those scrums and and
and and when to be comfortable enough to pull off
with a guy separately. Um, you're just figuring it out

(38:14):
on the fly. There's no rule book for any of this,
and there's no lessons that anybody can give. In a way,
it's funny because I my first two years as the
radio voice of the Nets, they go to the finals
both years. So here's my you know, I'm just really
learning how to do the job, and I'm at the
highest level. And sometimes you ever, I always think like

(38:36):
I would love to go back and be able to
do those two finals over again, and knowing what I
know now, and I gotta be the same thing you're
You're you're just starting a really be an NBA bet
writer for the first time, and it's the Shock and
Kobe Lakers. I mean, that had to be an amazing
experience for you, and that you may never reach that again,

(39:00):
not in the same way. For a couple of reasons. Um. One,
I'm never gonna be a beat writer on a team again,
because it's hell, Um, it's getting harder and harder, and
it's getting harder hard. It's a really hard job. Folks like,
it's a really hard job, um, And people think like, oh,
it's such a fun job. And so we're never supposed
to say the reality. We're never supposed to because nobody was.

(39:21):
I don't want to hear it like this. You haves
all true, all true, and we shouldn't complain. But every
job has its challenges. Every job was hard, and that
one's really really hard. I was a beat writer for
sixteen years seven on the Lakers, and then two thousand
four is when the New York Times hired me, and
I come to New York and I start covering the
Knicks so over and there was, of course, you know,
brief detour to the Brooklyn Nets when they got to Brooklyn.

(39:43):
But over sixteen years seven on the Lakers, eight plus
on the Knicks, and in a few months on the
on the Nets, sixteen years of eighty two game seasons
home and road. Um, a lot of playoffs. Even when
the Knicks weren't in the playoffs, the Times is still
sending me all over the country to cover other teams
in the playo, covering the finals every year. It's fun
at times, but it is it's exhausting too, um and

(40:06):
and it's stressful, and it's deadlines and it's just all
kinds of stuff. Um. So I'm not gonna do that again, right,
I will not replicate the shack and Kobe experience apart,
because I'm not going to be a beat writer again.
And the beauty of being a beat writer as opposed
to being a national writer as I have been for
the last nine years, is that you really get to
know the guys on a much deeper basis. Right, You're
there every day for better or worse, and you know

(40:29):
you'll get on their nerves and they'll get on yours
because you're around all the time. But it's every practice,
every shoot around, every game, and so the relationships there
are stronger. Like I know guys around the league now
who I can say, I'll say hello whatever. Like Fred
VanVleet was in town the other night to play the nets,
and like Fred, you know, you know, chit chat with
him a little bit because we've gotten to know each
other a little bit over a course of a couple

(40:50):
of different interviews. But I don't know anybody as well
as I knew those Lakers or even those Knicks. If
I see Malik Rose, if I see Quentin Richardson, guys
who are covered on the Kicks, Jamal Crawford, you know
David Lee if he pops up somewhere whatever, Like all
these guys who I met over the years, Derek Fisher,
Rick Fox, Robert Ory, you know, like it's a different
kind of relationship, And so I do miss that a

(41:13):
little bit, like getting to know guys at that level. UM.
And to be honest, I didn't when I got on
the beat. I knew who Shock and Kobe were obviously
in ninety se even if I hadn't been in sports
for a while. UM, But nobody could have known at
that moment what was gonna happen. A lot of guys
like Shaq was just starting what was his it would
have been his sixth year, I guess, and Kobe was

(41:34):
starting his second. Nobody knew for sure where this was
going at all, right, and and there were any number
of ways that when she could have gone happened very differently.
I talked all the time about the Conference finals in
two thousand and the Conference finals in two thousand two,
the two book ends to their three peat. Both go
to Game seven, and both of them they're hanging by
a thread, and they could have had one championship instead
of three. And when you're in the midst of it anyway,

(41:56):
you're just trying to make deadline. Every day, you're just
trying to keep your head above water. You're just trying
a lot of times not to be crushed by the
day to day pressures of of this job, to say
nothing of Shack and Kobe, you know, almost trying to
kill each other at times. So you're you're two in
the job and too exhausted by it most of the

(42:17):
time to enjoy it. There are a few moments that
stand out, but overall, it's more Now I can look
back on it and go, man, that was pretty freaking awesome,
and I can see j Addande or I can see
Tim Kawakami, Brad Turner, guys that you know, Bill Plashki,
people that I covered the Lakers at the same time with,
and we can reminisce and it's all wonderful. But in

(42:38):
the moment, it was like survival a lot of the time.
Did they played off each other, like so, would you
would Shack talk to you about Kobe? Kobe talk to
you about Shack that kind of thing. No, because the
way it worked back then, cent of the time was
Shack was talking all the Smack and and saying these
little sideways things, these these little coded things that we

(43:00):
knew who he was talking about. And they were shots
at Kobe. Kobe never did it. Kobe famously finally fired
back after years of this stuff, in the final year
that they were together. Kobe famously fired back via Jim
Gray in an off camera interview. Right, Jim Gray is
an on camera person, but he had an off camera interview.
And so Jim Gray goes on the air one day

(43:20):
to say, I have a statement from Kobe, and here's
what he says. And he proceeds like seven straight paragraphs
of Kobe just kicking the crap out of shock about
him delaying his toe surgery and doing it on company time,
and shock being lazy and not working hard enough in
the off season and all this stuff. And holy moly,
like Kobe had just been like just internalizing, saving this

(43:41):
all up for years, and in one statement given to
Jim Gray, he basically unloaded everything of of years of
pent up frustrations that frankly were I think indicative of
not just Kobe's feelings, but to an extent, the Lakers
as an organization, because there has been a lot of
frustrations with the way shack Handle thinks sometimes um as
great as he was and as much as he did
for them, Yeah, there were frustrations, but Kobe generally speaking,

(44:03):
was not talking about Shock. It was usually Shock talking
about Kobe. There were a couple of times that Kobe
fired back, or that Kobe just He gave an interview
to Rick Buker when Buck was at ESPN the magazine
in the middle of UM the two thousand, two thousand
one season, so the year they eventually win the championship
against the Sixers, Kobe gives an exclusive direc Buker in

(44:23):
which Kobe talks about I'm not gonna turn people want
me to turn my game down. I'm gonna turn my
game up. And that wasn't a shot at Shack, but
it was involving Shock, because Shocks, of course the one
who wants him to, like, you know, play the secondary
role UM. But it was more coded language a lot
of the times, like Shock would say things like, you know,
you know, if I'm done those single covide, you know
you got free of the bone post God's taking ill

(44:44):
ab shots, this kind of stuff, And if he's saying
to guys are taking ill advised shots, chances are he
meant Kobe more than it might have been other guys too,
But mostly Kobe. Yeah, and and you're covering I mean,
the Lakers in l A at that point are in
terms of interest or one two three. I mean, people
like the Dodgers, but I mean the Lakers are the thing.
It's different in New York. You've got you've got the

(45:07):
Yankees and the Mets and the Giants and the Jets,
and and it's different even but even though the Knicks
are huge. Now, I want to just skip ahead to
your You go through Los Angeles Daily News to the
New York Times, right, that was a direct jump, Yes,
and you're on the Knicks beat, and that much like

(45:28):
the Lakers. I mean you talk about the years you
did it, those are like dog gears. I mean there's there,
there is a lot of stress there. Um. But I
want to skip ahead and you can go back and
you can talk about anything maybe that we've glossed over,
but that one year. Now you're you're with the Nets
because the Nets are in Brooklyn. Uh Were you living

(45:49):
in Brooklyn always? When you came to New York. I
had one year I call it the Lost year. One
year in Hoboken, New Jersey. Um, and right across the river.
If anybody doesn't know it's try to us the river
from New York. Shi. Yeah, that was where we landed
when we first moved, so you know it' it's it's
a rushed moving to New York from somewhere, regular wife
from California out there. Um in a three year span,

(46:10):
by the way, two thousand three we got married, two
thousand four, we moved to New York two thousand early
two thousand six, our daughter was born. So like that
was a lot of stuff in a very short period
of time. Um. So we landed in Hoboken because you're
on one of these rushed like three day like you
gotta come out. Well, the Times flew me out and
they gave us, you know, you know some some you
know real estate consultant or whatever it was. And you

(46:33):
go and you you run around and you look at
as many places as you can in a very short
period of time, and you're trying to find something that's
in your price range and it's close enough, but it's
it's New York is it's it's just very challenging place
to move to, as people can imagine, especially from three
thousand miles away. So we land in a Hoboken didn't
take a year later, we moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn.
We're now in Carroll Gardens, but we've been in Brooklyn

(46:54):
for seventeen over seventeen years. Um. So when I got
on the net speed in two thousand twelve, that was
you know, I'm still at the New York Times and
and the editors were saying, listen, it was a big
freaking deal. Brooklyn has its own team for the first
time since the Dodgers left for l A a thousand
years ago. Um, and they knew, like, you know, I've
been on the next speat for eight years at that point.
You know, the Knicks is a pretty exhausting beat, and

(47:17):
you know, a change of pace, plus cover the nets
in my own backyard. Um, yeah, you were going up
to west Chat. Yeah. The driving up to Westchester multiple
times a week for practices and shoot arounds was was
was tough. Um. And yeah the next just after a while,
it's it's kind of the same story year in year out.
So doing something new and different, like oh, cover the

(47:39):
nets and oh they're up the street. I could walk
to games if I want to. Um that that was
like just kind of a refreshing change. And so I, yeah,
I I eagerly agreed to that, and it lasted all
of in in in the actual in the actual season,
right like November December, Jail, I think it was like
three months. And that was the year that the Knicks
did finally get out of their rut. That was a

(48:01):
fifty four win season when they get to the second
round of the playoffs. And so somewhere in the middle
of that season, they said, we need you back on
the Knicks because, you know, the Nets the novelty had
worn off a little bit with that team, and the
Knicks were having a huge season, so they pulled me
back the The one of the payoffs for that though.
It was literally my first game back on the Knicks
beat was the nights Steph Curry went off for like

(48:24):
fifty four whatever. It was like Steph Curry's signature breakout
game when he hits the bazillion threes. I was there
that night because it was my first game back on
the Beat. Wow. And but but I was actually, you know,
the you being living in Brooklyn for a while there
before the Nets get there. And now it's been ten
years now they're celebrating ten years at bark Barkley cent
It was the eleventh season, but it's ten years. Two

(48:46):
thousand twelve was when it all started. At what were
your thoughts when they were moving to Brooklyn And now
that you've seen it now for ten years, as it
has it taken any route it, were curious to hear
your thoughts on it. Yeah, it's interesting because obviously, you know,
I live here. My daughter was like six and a half.

(49:06):
I think, um when the Nets moved, and so I
was trying to think of it through the lens of
you know what, you can't move to Brooklyn and suddenly,
you know, programs talking about convert Knicks fans to Nets fans,
and you know, there's all this this hope and belief
that well, if you're in a borough of two and
a half million people and it says Brooklyn across the chest,

(49:27):
well then naturally you're gonna want to root for the
Brooklyn team. The Knicks have these long standing um generalties, Yeah, generations,
and these roots that go very very deep. You can't
just change that in a day or a season, or
probably even ten seasons, to be honest, But I saw it.
I would I would look at through the lens of
my daughter and her peers in school, because I was looking.

(49:48):
I'd go pick her up from from school and I'd
want to say, I'm looking around, like how many kids
are wearing like the Nets jersey or Nets hat or
Nets shirts or whatever, And especially early on, because you know,
the gear was cool, right, the black and white you
know arrangement was just a cool thing. So I did
see quite a bit of of Nets gear and so
you know, there's there's no great way to gauge this stuff,
but initially it seemed like there was a lot of

(50:08):
enthusiasm for sure. Um. To be honest, you and I
have probably talked about this over the years. I've certainly
written it and said it many times, like those early
NETS teams just weren't that interesting. They were good, but
not great. Darren Williams, Joe Johnson, Brook Lopez were a
sort of big three during a Big three era in
the NBA, but not quite not exactly Lebron Wade Bosh level, right, Um,

(50:31):
not even you know Carmelo m or a Tyson Chandler
level for that matter. And so there was I wondered
always about like what does it take to establish, um,
those passions and those loyalties, right? Is it rooting for
a team through all the ups and downs over years,
where you've had both elation and heartbreak, and you've you've

(50:53):
experienced the full range of emotions and now it's okay,
I'm tied to this team because I've experienced it all
with them, and then you pass it on to your kids.
I don't know when like the full blossoming of Nets fandom,
where there were the marriage of Nets and Brooklyn as
a borough, as a community, as an identity, that is,
it is distinct within the city of New York. I
don't know when that congeals or really, you know, it's cements. Um,

(51:18):
I don't know that we're I don't think we're there yet.
My my, just my, my quick glance observation right coming
to a lot of home games, looking around on a
daily basis to see how many Nets Nets versus Nicks
Jerseys I might see around, you know, my neighborhood. You know,
I don't know that we're there yet. But I also
think like ten years is a there's nothing. You know,
the Knicks have been around for you know, decades, you know,

(51:40):
a lifetime for some people, and I think it's changed
a little bit. You're talking about looking to see if
it's nets or Knicks, but it's really the NBA has
become so where where you know, I know my son's
friends are all either Warrior fans, Bulls fans, heat fans,
thunder fans like there's just it's not so localized anymore.

(52:03):
But I do know this from having been married the
last twenty years to a girl from Brooklyn. When you're
from Brooklyn, it's all Brooklyn. And I do think, going
back to our conversation before about you seeing the catch
when you're twelve years old, what's important is to get
to to catch that twelve year old who's in Brooklyn

(52:24):
and that maybe you know, maybe those overachieving teams back
in the two thousand nineteen, maybe that did it. And
maybe there's some fourteen fifty and sixteen year old kids
that are growing up right now. Maybe it's Kevin Durant now,
Kyrie Irving, those kind of that are catching twelve year
olds right now in Brooklyn who are going to have
that allegiance to Brooklyn even after those guys are long gone.

(52:45):
You just you find your niche and and market to it.
Um you mentioned Durant. Kevin Durant one of your favorite
players ever. To uh to watch to cover. Um, what
are you seeing from Kevin this season? I he's seems
to be incredibly engaged to me, much more vocal and
emotional on the floor, and his numbers are just you know,

(53:09):
thirty points a game. He's off with the charts. Yeah.
The one thing that's been consistent about Kevin Durant, like
when Kevin Durant says I'm a hooper, what Kevin Durant says,
I'm just all about the game. That is not the
universal thing in the NBA. You and I have both
seen enough guys who are really super talented who do
not have the same passion for the game, who play
it because they're good at it, who play it because
they love the lifestyle, the money, whatever else. Kevin Durant

(53:33):
the guy who would do it for free. Genuinely, dude,
just loves the game. He's been incredible. And I also
would just say this, like, given the miles on him
and that he's three years removed from the Achilles, that
he's playing at the level he is is is absolutely incredible. Um.
And I know, you know, sports science has come along way,
medicinees come a long way, everything, But UM, I think

(53:55):
it's absolutely remarkable what he's he's been able to do,
and um, just the production he's put out there every night,
and they've needed it. Obviously. I think you almost take
for granted with Kevin Durant is doing. I remember achilles
injuries used to be career ending. You know, I think
back to Dan Marino or you know, if any test

(54:16):
of Ardie and their football and Kobe Bryant added late
in his career. Um, but you know, they to see
what he does. It's just amazing that he's come back
and has performed at that level. And I want to
touch too on they make a coaching change. You've been
around jacque van a long time as I have, Um,
I didn't think there was any doubt that Jacque Vaughan

(54:38):
would be able to uh do a great job with
the nets. He's just he's got such a great energy
about him. And I think sometimes and it sometimes the
right coat a guy. It doesn't mean a guy wasn't
a good coach, but maybe just wasn't the right guy
for that team. And when I see Jaque Vaughan and

(54:58):
the energy and the purpose that he coaches with, like
he has a philosophy and this is what we're gonna do.
And it's not it's not rigid, but his approach doesn't waiver.
And I've been really impressed with how he has taken
to it. And I think probably having those couple of
years in Orlando, um made him more prepared for this

(55:20):
opportunity right now. Yeah, you know, you just don't know though,
no matter what a guys is an assistant coach, you know,
the whole cliche in the NBA of you know you're
moving the twelve inches to your left and and that
changes everything. Um, maybe he's more ready now. I'm sure he,
like he has said about maybe he said, he has
said that he's just a more uh you, fully developed

(55:40):
coach now than he was his his first opportunity. But
I was struck by exactly what you said, And it
was the it was the writer of phrasing. I think
you said that the positive energy or something along those lines.
Every time I've been in those press conferences with him
since he took over a few weeks ago, I'm blown
away every time. It doesn't matter what the subject is,
and no matter how dicey the subject might be or

(56:01):
how difficult the challenges that night or that week he's smiling,
he's got this, this, this and contagious energy. Like I
walk out of those pregame pressers with Jacque Vaughn and
I want to be like, yeah, let's go. I want
to like go run through a wall like yeah. Like
it's and look, nobody is in front of us the
same person as they are when they're actually like on

(56:22):
the quarter, in practice or in the locker room whatever it's.
It's not it's not necessarily the same thing. But if
Jacque Vaughan has the kind of contagious energy and positive
energy from the podium to us, if that's the same
as what's in the locker room in a practice, obviously
that that's a pretty great thing. And there's so much
of coaching. Yes, there's xs and ohs, and there's you've

(56:43):
got a playbook and you got out of time out
plays and you've got drills that you run at practice
and how long is your practice and what are you
focusing on a practice? And how much film and how
much of the analytics and no, no, all these different things.
There's ego management and a lot of lot of different
stuff that goes into great being an effective head coach.
But you're personality matters, Your communication skills matter, your energy matters.

(57:05):
And you know, everybody loves Steve Nash, but it's an
incredible contrast to Steve who was so monituded on the podium. Again,
just because he is with us doesn't mean he is
in the locker room. But it's a noticeable difference in personality.
And clearly this team needed a different voice. Like some
other things have gone in his way, like gone his way,
like jacqu has done a great job, and so I'm

(57:27):
not diminishing that at all, but um, you know, the
timing matters to right, like, uh, they eventually get Kyrie back.
Ben Simmons suddenly eventually clicks right first Ben, you know,
first some you know, for Simmons's out for a while.
He's playing, but he he doesn't look anything near what
we've are, you know, used to seeing from the Philadelphia Ben.
Some suddenly Philadelphia Ben Simmons is back, and that matters.

(57:47):
Joe Harris got healthy, Seth Curry got healthy. So there's
there's some other things that have have been fortuitous for
Jacque vund along the way, but clearly change in leadership
voice tone, uh, all that has mattered too. And you
know you can't help but be happy for him, because again,
he just seems like such a positive guy. Howard back,

(58:11):
A'm mindful of your time. There are a million things
we could go on for another hour about many things
we haven't touched on a lot of the things I
wanted to get too, but we'll have you on again.
I think you wouldn't mind that, right, I would absolutely
my pleasure to come back anytime, you know. And uh
the rest of those conversations will squeeze in a five
minute of vinette between cress conferences of Barkleys. But I,

(58:32):
but I before I let you go, though I've been
I've been doing this and I'm gonna see if it
if it catches on. But I I I like to
take my subjects as you would be here today and
ask your these these three things. So when Jim Balbano
remember the sp speech they never give up speech always
been very uh important to me. I I find a

(58:55):
connection with that. And he said to live a full life,
you to do three things every day. If you remember this,
he said, you need to laugh, cry, sometimes, moved to
emotions good or bad, and think, spend some time and thought.
So I ask you, Howard Beck. It could be a person,

(59:17):
a thing, wherever it may be. I know we're we're
movie bobs and music. But what makes you laugh? Oh?
What makes me laugh? That seems like a really simple
question that that suddenly feels like it has a difficult
or challenging answer or path to an answer. What makes
me laugh? Um? The first thing that comes to mind

(59:39):
is the is a what it's it's the unexpected because
like we've been watching The White Lotus, you know, my
wife and I you know, we we we've binged Reservation
Dogs recently, and m Mayor of East Town we finally
watched and like some of these shows, like I find
myself when I'm laughing out loud on the couch. It's
not because it's something that is like eight forward comedy, right,

(01:00:00):
it's not a sitcom. It's not watching you know, uh,
you know Chappelle do stand up or something. It's it's
it's like these something awkward or unexpected or a little
a little intonation or something something that we just go like, uh,
it's not even a full laugh. Sometimes it's just kind
of like that was that was That was a really

(01:00:21):
clever little turn there. So it's it's it's like those
little moments that I think I find I I appreciate
more now. Um So, off the top of my head,
that's my answer, but there's probably there's probably a better one.
There's probably a good who if I thought about it
long enough. But uh, I don't want to drag out
it's it's always bad form of a podcast or radio.
Sit here and go like, uh, give me a second
while I think about my answer. So I'm just gonna engineer.

(01:00:43):
Isaac Lee could edit out the dead spots, so if
you wanted to take time, Um, all right, so let
me move on to the cry part. I mean it
could be a and I know, and it's funny because
you you brought up Mayor of Eastown, because I'll give
you one for me. I didn't expect to react to
it the way I did. I don't want to spoil

(01:01:05):
it if anybody's watched it, So I won't do a
spoiler on Mayra east Town, which was a terrific HBO series. Um,
Kate Winslet played a Delco you know, Philadelphia Delaware area
detective and missing girl and all this stuff. But the
end of that and I won't say what happened, but
it maybe because I'm a father. And do you remember

(01:01:28):
how it ended? It? Yes, it got me. I mean
I cheered up at the end of that, and not
the obvious part of the plot, but what goes on
there at the end. And I would recommend it highly. Um,
that got me. And that's one of those moments I'll
cry it car commercials now, you know. And maybe it's
being a father and you're a father. So is there

(01:01:50):
something that you could point out to get a better
insight into Howard Beck? What makes you cry? Um, get
moved to emotions tears? So I agree with everything you
said about Mayor of East Town. And I'll just say
because I've I've I've tried to promote this a few
times recently, but people should check out Reservation Dogs, which
is on Hulu, which is one of the most unique

(01:02:10):
shows I've ever seen, and it and it is the
full gamut of human emotions and experience. Right. You will laugh,
you will potentially cry or at least feel choked up
at times. Um, it's an incre incredibly moving I don't
even want to say too much about what it's about, um,
but it's it's it's an incredible show. And the finale
of season two of Reservation Dogs is so incredibly emotional

(01:02:33):
and and I'm with you two like as a father, right,
like so you know, it's one of these things where
for an old friend of mine when my daughter was
born in two thousand six, use this phrase that has
always stuck with me about having a kid, and she says,
it just grows your heart, which I thought was odd
phrasing as an as a as a writer initially, and
I didn't understand it necessarily, um, but I do now.

(01:02:57):
And one of the things that it does, like you
don't realize this Family Guy that the TV show Family
Guy actually did a whole bit on this at one
point where it's like I would think, all of a sudden,
like the dad is crying at everything, and somewhere in
the you know, between two thousand and six to two
thousand ten, somewhere those early years, I realized, like, goddamn,
but what the hell just happened to me? Like I
was always just like krusty cynical journalists, Like even when

(01:03:18):
I was like twenty, I was already a crusty, cynical
journalist who who might as well be sixty at the
drop of a hat. Yeah, And like what the heck
is going on? And um, so there is that there
is this thing where having having you know, a kid
changes you in that way. UM. But then also look,
I don't want to get to you know, morose here
or or you know, I don't want to put myself

(01:03:40):
in this in this mental space for too long. But
you know, like for a lot of people, the last
few years have been have been really tough. And I've
lost some people, uh, including my father in before the
pandemic hit. Um and then you know a few years
before that, and an aunt of mine and then you know,
it's it's like like a lot of people I've lost
and two friends in the last year, two friends who

(01:04:01):
are in my own age range, by the way, so
like very jarring um losses. So I think, you know, well,
like a lot of people in this age range and
middle age, UM, you do spend more time thinking about
these things than you used to when you're younger, especially
when it hits you repeatedly. UM. And it's not so

(01:04:21):
much the cliche about you know, appreciate every day, although
all that's obviously true. Um, but it's I I find
myself in idle moments, my thoughts drifting to those people
a lot, and so I find myself now more fascinated
with grief and stories about grief. UM, people who have
who have written about the subject, in dealing with grief
and everything else in the process of it. UM. I

(01:04:43):
don't even know where I am in all of that,
or whether i've you know, have I dealt with it
properly or not. I just know that there are moments
where I find myself, you know, the feelings come rushing
back out of the blue for no reason, or something
triggers a memory and it's like, God, crap, I'm back
in this. I think that. I think that's a lot.
What Jimmy V was trying to talk about was that

(01:05:03):
you would you live these experiences and you have these
relationships that eventually those memories and when they're lost, will
move you to tears and you you wouldn't be sorrowful
or grief written if you hadn't had those close relationships. Yeah, yeah,
there's UM. I'm just gonna the last thing I want
to say about death and grief. There's an interview that

(01:05:23):
Stephen Colbert gave with Anderson Cooper UM three years ago,
and I found this. It happened right around the time
that my dad passed, and so it was like good
timing in that regard for me. But they have this conversation.
You can find it on YouTube, and it's just an
incredible conversation. And that conversation just thinking about it and
watching it moves me to tears every time too. But

(01:05:45):
Stephen Colbert has a definition of of this, of of
the grief process and of and of and of loss
and his most his father and siblings in a in
a plane crash. Yeah, And so Anderson Cooper is asking
him about that, and Stephen Colbert is is pretty I
think devoutly Catholic and intereresting. Cooper is is is I think,

(01:06:05):
basically an atheist. And so it's it's it's also this
this um, this difficulty and saying like, well, like if
without religion, like, how do you find a way through
the grief? Right? Um? And so the way we process
that and the way you can I don't know. All
I can say is that the the conversation between those
two and specifically Stephen Colbert, who again I cannot relate

(01:06:26):
to Stephen Colbert religiously. Um, We're from different backgrounds and
I'm not particularly religious. But what he said really really
resonated strongly and it was incredible. Um, and I encourage
everybody to go watch that, especially if you're you know,
like I am, still trying to figure figure out how
to deal with those kinds of emotions. As you walk

(01:06:47):
into Barkley Center, here's the think part. You know, you
have the digital signed the oculus outside the name clause
of the oculus. So anyone walking into the building, the
thousands who passed through those wars, the people who come
up from the subway, you can see that board. So
if you were in charge of that board one day
and you can you wanted to make everyone think about something?

(01:07:11):
Huh what could it be? An image, a phrase, anything
up there? What would you want people to think about? Wow? Um,
I love the oculus. I used to obsess about it.
People got tired of me like praising it on Twitter.
I just think it's really cool, it's very unique. Um,
you're kind of stumping me with this one. This really

(01:07:32):
is the part where Isaac would have to like, yeah,
you know, the real deep thinker here would be like, well,
obviously there there's this quote from Nietzsche that should be
up there, you know, Kirker Guard you know, like you
gotta quote Kirk, I don't. I don't know. UM, you
know what. I would probably just throw up some like
completely impenetrable Michael Stipe lyrics from r EM, because that's

(01:07:56):
my favorite band. I would I would probably put up
like the lyrics I put up to begin, to begin,
and then just let people figure it out. Great song.
That's what Michael Stipe was doing. That is when he
was doing he was like, I'm gonna blurt out all
these words. You're not gonna understand half of them, and
then when you see them on paper, eventually you're gonna
go I still don't know what the hell you're talking about.
But that's fine. Great poetry should not necessarily be that direct.

(01:08:19):
You should have to think about it a little bit.
And that's why RM is my favorite group. Among the
reasons is you do gotta you do, gotta ruminate on
it a bit, and yeah, and that and that makes
you think, get you think absolutely absolutely Begin that begins
a great song, phenomenal song. Would that be your r EM?
Your favorite band? RIM is my favorite band, UM have

(01:08:40):
been for for a long time. You enterchant to make
Michael Stipe, No, I have not met any of them.
I had a brief interaction with Mike Mills on Twitter
one day while I was in an airport. I think
I was at SFO. Like, it's it's weird that I
remember this, but that's because that's meant that much. I'm like, oh, Michael,
Mike Mills just responded to me. Um, Stipe, you know,
spends a lot of time in I think primarily in

(01:09:02):
New York. Um, so there's you know, as unlikely as
it seems that you would run into somebody in New York,
these things do happen here. So I'm always kind of
hoping there's gonna be some little, you know, chance encounter
on the subway in uh soho or somewhere one of
these years. Uh. I don't think they've ever they haven't
played Barkley Center, right. So they broke they broke up

(01:09:25):
a two thousand eleven Yeah, Yeah, they broke up at
two thousand eleven, so before Barkley's uh opened. Um. The
last time I got to see them live was at
the Garden, you know, a couple of years before that. Um.
I think I saw them here twice since, and a
bunch of times out in California before we had moved.
But um, but I you know, I I have, I have.

(01:09:45):
There are several seminal moments there in terms of shows
which I could bore you and your your audience with
or not. But I will say this to go back
to an NBA then the NBA nextus here is this
two thousand eleven during the lockout, which we had talked
about earlier. I in the middle of the lockout. I've
been covering it every single day. My editors one day said,
you know what, we need you to go cover this
Red Sox series for a couple of days because they

(01:10:08):
were on that hillacious uh remember that September where the
Red Sox had been like in first place and they
just did nothing but lose until they just lost their
way right out of the playoffs or whatever. There's this
this terrible downward spiral and my editors and I said, no, no, no,
I gotta cover the lock and I got no, you can.
You can come back and cover the lockout for another
month that's going on for a while. We need you
to go cover baseball. Just just rotated me in for
a couple of days, as the Times does. And I'm

(01:10:31):
kicking and screaming because I don't want to cover baseball,
and I feel like I need to be on the lockout,
and so it is a last minute assignment. There's no
hotels in Boston are terribly expensive anyway, I end up
staying out in like some Holiday and Express in Quincy,
um out of the very last uh T stop on
the the the T they're being there there there subway train,

(01:10:52):
and so I had to to get to the game
that day. There will be a point here in a second.
To get to the game that day, I had to
get the Holiday and Shuttle driver to take me out
to the tea stop, then to catch the T into
Boston to get to Fenway. I'm standing on that uh
platform in the middle of to me, middle of nowhere.
There's nobody else on this platform. It's just it's just

(01:11:13):
this a platform with me and some rats and tracks,
and I'm just waiting for a train and I'm sitting
there flipping through my then BlackBerry, I believe. And there's
a tweet on these Fishal r M account that says R.
E M has called it today, and I thought, what, wait,
it doesn't mean when I think it means that, No, No,

(01:11:34):
it's probably just some like it's a promotion for something,
it's a it's a new single, it's something. I don't
know what it is. But then I clicked the link
and sure enough, that was their announcement that they were
breaking up. Wow, so you always remember where you were.
I know exactly where I was, and I was freaking devastated.
And here we are eleven years later, and I think
I probably still haven't gotten over it. Um, what about uh,

(01:11:55):
your favorite music venue in Brooklyn? I actually do, like
we've we've seen concerts. We go to a lot of
live shows. Um, my wife, Yeah, you know what's funny?
Barclays Center. The Times sent me to go cover the
first of the eight straight jay Z shows or whatever
when they opened the building. Um, only hip hop concert
I've ever been to. Uh, and and but that was

(01:12:17):
also the only concert I've been to at Barclay's up
until a few weeks ago, because none of the artists
that I normally would see had come through here, or
or or I had missed because I was on the
road or whatever. I was literally not seen another concert
approach and there in two thousand thirteen. No, I wish
I had, I don't. I don't remember why we missed
that one. Well, we saw Arcade Fire last month and

(01:12:38):
that was fantastic, and it was the first time I
got to see a concert at Barclay's since Jay Z
in two thousand and twelve. But my favorite venue, uh,
there's a place called Brooklyn Made that just opened up
a year or so ago, I think it opened up one.
And you know, we've seen you know, we've been the
Bowery ball Room, We've been to you know, town Hall,
We've been to like you know, we've been to like

(01:12:59):
almost re concert venue in this city. I feel like
Brooklyn Made just opened and it's instantly one of my
favorites for a couple of reasons. One is the way
they designed it is very shallow, so instead of it
going like you know, whole style going far back, it's
it's like horizontal, so even if you're at the back
of the room, you're still very close to the stage.

(01:13:21):
And also, not for nothing, the first concert we saw
once we could see concerts again as we're coming out
of all the COVID restrictions was Band of Horses at
Brooklyn Made. First time I've been to Brooklyn Made, and
the venue just has this really cool vibe to it.
It's really intimate. Um, it's a it's it's just I
don't know that it either. There's an energy to places

(01:13:42):
that you can't really define the reason for great vibe.
But also band of horses, it just seemed like they
were so thrilled just to be on stage again. We
were thrilled to be able to be at a concert again.
It was just one of my favorite nights in a
in a concert venue in a while. So Brooklyn madees
my answer there, excellent answer. Howard Beck of Sports Illustrated

(01:14:02):
The Crossover Pod with Chris mannix UM, we'll do this again.
Thank you so much. How I really appreciate you taking
the time, buddy. I'll see you soon. There has been
a lot of fun, Chris, thanks for having me my
Thanks so much to Howard Beck agreement Sports Illustrated. Following
on Twitter, Um and the Crossover Pod with Chris Mannox

(01:14:27):
is a great listen, Mike. Thanks to Isaac Lee, our engineer.
Thanks to Tom Doubt, our producer. I'm Chris Corin. I'll
talk to you next time. Here on the Voice of
the Next