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00:00This just came across my feed. I want to make sure that I mention this because Steph Curry and his
00:06lovely wife Aisha, they celebrated Valentine's Day together. Of course. By going out and stopping by
00:15East Oakland Pride along with NBA Cares and so they're starting NBA All-Star Weekend by going
00:21out to an event with a bunch of kids, a charity event, and stopping by and high-fiving and taking
00:29pictures and doing all the things that Steph Curry always does. So it's not like Steph is
00:35taking the day and just being like, I'm asleep. I'm tired. I'm asleep. I don't want to be involved
00:41in this. So Steph is still being Steph. They're being themselves. That's wonderful. I'm not mad.
00:47I still can't believe it. I cannot believe that the NBA All-Star Game is here and that we are
00:53not getting anything on television in terms of basketball from Steph Curry other than the game
00:59itself. Which by the way, we don't even know what that looks like. The game itself? There is no
01:06the game itself. Right. It's the games themselves. Right. It's multiple games. For those of you who
01:11don't know, you've got four teams. One of them is going to be the winner of the Rising Stars
01:16Challenge. And then outside of that, you have these teams that were drafted by
01:20Shaq and Chuck and Kenny. I happen to believe that they were told who to draft,
01:26because I think you can see by looking at the rosters who's going to play each other in the
01:30finals. And it's going to be Shaq's team versus Chuck's team, partially because it's Shaq and
01:35Chuck. And that way you'll get trash talk between the two big fellas. And you're going to get the
01:39old guys versus some of the younger guys. Wemby is on one team. Che Gilgis is on one team. Durant,
01:45Steph and LeBron are on the other team. So I don't know that it's going to play out that way.
01:51That'd be my guess. But the two winners of the first two rounds will play each other.
01:56First to 40 wins. That's it. They're not asking you to score 200 points like they did before.
02:02Right. 40 points off the court you go. And this is with a full roster where there will be like
02:08plenty of subs and all of these things. It's eight on eight, I think. Right. So how much
02:13Steph are we going to get at NBA All-Star Weekend in San Francisco? It feels like we're tracking
02:21toward very little. Yeah. Not enough. Not enough. And I just. Yeah. Like it's a bummer. It's a
02:28bummer. It's a bummer. And it made me think about a bigger issue and, you know, weigh in 888-957-9570
02:35if you want. But I was thinking about it earlier today as we were doing our text thread about the
02:41idea of if you don't care, why should we? And the idea of that in sports like the NFL regular season,
02:49they care because it literally can be life or death. And, you know, the Niners blew three
02:54games this year. And if they wouldn't have blown those three, they might have been a playoff team
02:58and who knows. And so the NFL doesn't have this problem. The Pro Bowl, if you don't care, why
03:03should we? They did away with it. The NBA, the regular season in general, if you don't care
03:10a lot, why do we care? And that's why I think ratings are down from where they once were. And
03:16I'm thinking about my beloved PGA Tour and all the problems they're having this year with slow play
03:22and reduced fields and, you know, players who are maybe not that motivated to play every event.
03:28And when you do play and you're T41, you're tied for 41st and you make $618,000. It's like,
03:36cool. And fans aren't really watching because outside the majors, the golfers don't care. So
03:41I'm thinking about sports in general, Mark, like the more that we have so many options as a
03:48consumer. So if you tell me that you don't really care about it, why would you expect us to care
03:53about it? And I think that this weekend is a little bit like that, where LeBron's not doing
03:58the dunk. He never has. Steph's not doing the three. He's done it seven times. So I'm not going
04:03to hold his feet to the fire, although it's a game in your backyard. Just surprised. I mean,
04:09I'm so surprised. Even the NBA All-Star Game itself. If you go back to Rick Barry and there's
04:14a good article in The Athletic Today from Dan Brown, it's a great article about when Rick Barry
04:18won the All-Star Game MVP in a game that was at the Cow Palace. And Dan had a great quote in the
04:25piece. And he said, who guards that day? And Rick said, didn't matter because Rick went for, I think,
04:3138 and he was the MVP. But it was a game where both teams were actually playing basketball.
04:36If you asked an NBA All-Star today, who guarded you? The answer is the same every year.
04:40Right. Nobody. Right. No one. Jim Harbaugh. Nobody. So that's kind of where I'm landing
04:46this weekend, Mark, is the idea of if you don't care, then why should I? And I love it and I'll
04:54watch everything and I'll watch the All-Star Game and stuff because it's here. But as a general
04:59sports fan, more and more it feels to me like sports are telling you that less and less of
05:05their things, of their product is that important to you. Yeah. No, I mean, we talked about this
05:10yesterday and I like I think it's a byproduct sometimes of something that there's really
05:15nothing anybody can do about. I mean, I guess somebody could do something about like an 8.45
05:21p.m. tip in Dallas followed by another game the next night in Houston. That's what Steve Kerr was
05:26upset about. And Steve has every right to talk about that and say, boy, this is disadvantageous
05:32and I wish it wasn't that way. And he can have a point and then so can we. And the point is,
05:37is that I just think that the NBA fan right now is overwhelmed by that message that you're saying
05:43right now. The message being we don't want to play. We don't want to play. We don't we don't
05:49want to. We don't want to do the extra stuff. We don't want to dunk. We don't want to shoot.
05:53We largely don't want to play. I mean, you go into last night last night where every single team
06:01who played was on a back to back. Do you? And boy, the Warriors deserve a real high five for this.
06:08Did you look up and down the lineups last night? Do you know that Kyrie with his 42? Do you know
06:15what he did last night for an encore? What, 38? No, a collared shirt. He watched. Do you know
06:24that clay didn't play last night? Wow. Andrew Wiggins didn't play last night and that's after
06:30getting five days off because he was traded. Bam out of bio didn't play last night, man.
06:36You watch what the Rockets did like the Rockets. We didn't even bring this up.
06:41How was Shingun in the second half last night? Oh, how was Jalen Green in the second half last night?
06:50Oh, look, they didn't play and they're all like 23 years old. It's the oddest thing. I just I don't
06:59there's no great answer. It's been talked out. We're not throwing anything brand new at you,
07:04but it's hitting a little bit different because the flipping all star game is down the street
07:09and like if you had asked me three months ago, will Steph Curry be in the three point contest
07:16at Chase? I'd have been like, of course he will be. What are we doing here? Why did this even
07:23come here? If you're like, there's there's only two guys who still and I know if you're an NBA
07:30head, you're like, no, Mark Giannis and like Wendy. Sure. There's two dudes who still drive
07:37the league. They are the names. They are the ratings drivers. They are the dudes. And it's
07:43actually a concern because one of them's 40 and the other one's about to be 37 years old.
07:47And it's very, very reminiscent of what is happening on the PGA Tour where they're still
07:53jamming Tiger Woods down your throat. We literally has no ability to win a tournament,
07:58potentially no ability to even be at a tournament. Right. And they're still like Tiger Woods.
08:03It's like, but even beyond that, like Scottie Scheffler last year had one of the best years
08:06in the history of the tour. And this year he's just now making his first appearance and nobody
08:12cares until you get to Augusta. Right. Even golf heads like you and me. No doubt. No doubt. But
08:18I just like I look at it and it's so surprising to me when you've got ratings drivers like that
08:25and an NBA who is coming to your arena. And it's not even like LeBron. Like for me,
08:33Steph is one of one in this conversation because LeBron has worn three or four different jerseys,
08:39depending on how you look at it. But this is Steph's house. This is his home. This is his
08:45franchise. This is the jersey that he made famous. This is all of those things. If I were Adam
08:52Silver, I had straight to Atherton six months ago and I sit down and I go, what do you need?
08:59Yeah. And I don't care what the answer is. You got it. Do you need a billion dollars?
09:06Fine. Wow. Like what do you need to make sure that we don't have the embarrassment of coming
09:14off of a gross all-star game the year before heading to Chase Center and not having you there?
09:20Steph said that he went to the NBA offices over the summer, not to talk to Adam Silver about
09:25all-star, but they ended up doing it and they ran down options. And they ultimately agreed that
09:30this, this new format for the all-star game specifically is something worth trying. Okay.
09:34No, and I don't know exactly what the rest of the conversation entailed. That's a little
09:38different than the three point contest or whatever. And I hear you on that. And I heard
09:42Adam Silver throw this out and I'm intrigued by it because a lot of people will go, what's the
09:46fix? I don't know what the hell is going to fix this. Do you think that the American players
09:53versus the world would get them to play hard even just a little bit? Yes. Giannis, Jokic, Wemby,
10:00LeBron, Steph, KD, or whatever. Like obviously there's a bunch of them, you know, like would
10:08that get it going? And if it would, let's do it. More so. Let's go. Let's do this. You know what
10:16I mean? I do think that this format this year is more likely to make them play harder because it's
10:21a game to 40. So you only have to play hard for, I mean, a game to 40, even if you play defense,
10:29it's probably 15 minutes of actual basketball time, right? Because a normal NBA quarter would
10:36be 34 to 30, let's just say in a first quarter. So it's going to be a little bit more than one
10:42quarter of basketball. So I do think you cut to the chase faster and yeah, I think that this
10:48format is going to be a little bit better as far as competition goes. But even to your point,
10:54let's say that Steph and his team, they come out and they come out cold and they get knocked out
10:59and they lose 40 to 26. That's it, Steph. Steph plays 12 minutes of all-star basketball and you're
11:07gone and LeBron's gone and KD's gone and that's it. Night-night. That would be, by the way,
11:12if that happens, that would be bad for business. They're putting that team up against the rising
11:16stars winner. So if that happened, that would be shocking. I don't even believe they would let that
11:23happen, but if the rising stars beat Steph, Kevin Durant and LeBron James, then yeah, we got a real
11:33problem. You may have no answer for Dink Pate. That's possible. And you have to be ready for
11:37that. Did you guys see what Chris Haynes reported earlier this morning? No, what'd he say? He
11:42reported that the league and players union are going to meet on Sunday with the players themselves
11:47of the all-star game prior to the game to quote, highly stress the importance of competing for
11:53fans and for the business. Okay. All right. I mean, yeah. So like, it's going to look different
11:59because they got embarrassed last year. So I get that. It's going to look different. How much
12:03different? I don't know. And actually, even as we sit here and throw out our idea, you know,
12:09us against the world. Yeah. I don't know if there's enough world players yet to do this.
12:14You know, I mentioned Wemby and Giannis and Jokic and you can start running around and you can find
12:19others. You can find a, uh, see Akam and, uh, Larry marketing and all that. But like, those are not
12:25even guys who right now, now you're extending a completely different all-star team for guys who
12:31didn't make the all-star team. Like you've got all-star, like you make the all-star there's
12:36contractual aspect to this. There's pride. There's all of that. And 90% of it is American
12:42players. So I don't know. I don't know if that's a perfect answer either, but man, I don't know.
12:50This for me is not even actually though about the game is about competing and about this new
12:55format. Like, of course, we'll check it out and maybe it'll look better this year. It certainly
13:00can't look any worse. But if Adam Silver did sit down with Steph Curry to talk about all-star
13:06weekend, and the only subject was the format of the game itself. And at no point did Adam say,
13:14Hey, what on earth can we do? What yacht can we have show up at your house in order to get you
13:24to the three-point contest on Saturday night? Then that's a complete mess. I, I, I am still
13:31blown away that he's not in that, in that event. I don't, I don't understand at all.
13:38That's just, yeah, it's wild to me. I agree. Not mad at him disappointed, but I just,
13:43I'm just shocked more than anything else. Just two things on that. One, he has participated
13:49in the second most three-point shootouts in the history of the contest. Second only to
13:55Craig Hodges. Yeah. Craig Hodges has done eight. Steph has done seven. So if I'm Steph,
14:01I'm thinking at it, like I've done my bit. I've done it for you. I mean, I I've been there year
14:06in and year out and yes, it's at home for him. And it makes sense that he would do it. And it
14:11makes sense that he would try to get, you know, a fourth title and all that I'm totally with you.
14:17But if I'm Steph and I'm looking at it in terms of LeBron never has done the dunk and I've done
14:22seven of these and you can't get LBJ to do one dunk contest. So I don't think Steph owes the
14:29league. I do agree with you about the idea that it's his game. It's his shot. Like he made the
14:36three-pointer what it is and the game is in his backyard. So yeah, that makes sense. And the other
14:42piece of it is you talked about the U.S. versus the internationals and I'm just looking at the
14:47rosters. We forget about Gilgis Alexander, Canada, Pascal Siakam, Cameroon, Shen Goon is an all-star.
14:57He's not from here. Carl Anthony Towns is if he feels Canadian. No, he's from Piscataway, New
15:05Jersey, which might as well be another country. But I do think that we're closer to what you're
15:11talking about. An international team. You could put together a clean like six or seven. Jimmy
15:18Butler's from Amsterdam. We're filling that out this week. So that's exciting. Not an all-star,
15:23but yeah. And Kyrie Irving is from outer space if you believe what he says about the Euro. That's
15:30true. So yeah, I do think we're closer. I just was thinking about like the all-star game this
15:35year and how many all-stars you could actually put together for an international team.
15:39Um, you're probably still a little bit short, but then again, you know, you, yeah,
15:46you figure something out. You got to figure something out. Um, and maybe this will be it.
15:50Maybe this will look better. Yeah. I, I, again, this, this to me is a little bit more about Steph
15:54Curry and I, and I'm, I'm, I'm just, I don't know, man, I woke up today and I'm like, I,
15:59I can't believe that it, it, it went this way. Even, you know, Stiney and Goo on Wednesday were
16:04out there and they're like, ah, there might still be something with Steph. And then by the time we
16:07woke up yesterday, it's like, no, it's not committing with Steph. And I know a lot of people
16:11are like, Ooh, he's going to surprise everybody and come out there. Well, if the NBA does that,
16:15that's just, that's dumb. That's, that's, that is not the way you promote something
16:20because you know what you run the risk of nobody's here to see your surprise.
16:25Like you need to promote something. And, and I wonder right now if they're a little short
16:31on, and I'm just talking about the TV product. I think that the parties are all going to be great.
16:35I think that the, I mean, if you've been over to thrive city and seen all this, like it's all set
16:40up and fancy and ready to go. But if I'm just going to be at home for the weekend and I want
16:45to watch this on TV, what's the thing where you're like, set your clock, make sure you're there for
16:51blank. I mean, it would be Steph Curry shooting the basketball. Yeah. That'd be the thing tomorrow.
16:58And so if he surprises everybody, nobody's going to be there to see it because they don't think
17:02it's coming. I'm Dray in Oakland on now, whether it's hydrate, thanks for calling.
17:08What's going on fellows. I appreciate you taking my call. When I heard you guys talking about this,
17:13it's there's something as a sports fan, there's a passion that comes out, you know, in this topic,
17:21because I think, you know, me being part of the problem, I'm going to watch basketball regardless,
17:28but you know, ratings are dropping and the general fan is saying, no, I'm tuning out.
17:33And the, and the read, the emotion behind it is basically, you know, there should be a third seat
17:39at that table of these talks and negotiations. And there's only two, there's the players and then
17:44there's the owners. And it's like, it's like a chef talking about what should we cook without
17:50asking the person who's going to eat, you know, what they like. And, you know, there's that raw
17:55emotion. That's like the fan feels left out. How many times have you heard players tell fans? They
18:01don't know what they're talking about. You don't know basketball. We don't listen to you. I mean,
18:05the fans are being outright disrespected and it really burns me up. And you know, I should tune
18:13out. Right. But, but I love basketball too much. And no, if Steph, even I'd argue this, he says,
18:19Steph doesn't know. Yes, he does. Just like every other player. And I love Steph Curry.
18:23They all owe it to the fans. So we've asked them too much, what they think we've asked them
18:29or how many have you been in? You know, are you tired? Nobody cares. I mean, and I'm saying this,
18:36you know, with the love for the game, the fan has been left out of the table. There's a third seat
18:41that's empty. So I don't care what they come up with, with two people talking, ask the fan what
18:47they want. And that was put together with like the fan vote of the all-star game. You're not
18:51asking the fan they're being outright disrespected. And it's been like that for years and it felt
18:58like that for years. Yeah. And Dre, thank you for the call. And that's one of those where I
19:02don't believe anybody can be wrong. If that's how you have been made to feel as a fan, as a customer,
19:09then what do we learn? What's the first thing we learn in retail? The customer is always right.
19:15There you go. Andre, you're right. If that's how you feel, then to me, that's worth. So I don't
19:20think that all the players should be asking the fans opinion necessarily, but bottom line is,
19:28is if you're disenfranchising your customers, then you lose. Right. And if it happens long
19:34enough, then and ratings fall far enough and revenue dips, then they'll make changes.