Transcription
All right, man. Peace. At halftime of Game Three of the NBA Finals, Michelle Beilein interviewed the NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver. Uh, they touched on a series of very interesting topics. So, of course, we're going to cover this interview, and I'm going to chime in here and there. Welcome to the American Express Halftime [Music] Report.
My plan to get rid of the guys has finally come true. Please, you know damn well you did not want to get them. Three big black men. All right, that's your dream to be up in the middle of three big men. Dingos. All right, just knock it off, especially you and Chanty.
Welcome back inside. Quick look-in. I'm Michelle with, of course, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. Welcome, sir.
Adam Silver: Her homegirl. Thank you very much. Waiting for this minute for a long time.
Um, allegedly fourth NBA, as, as commissioner of the Finals so far. First half, or really this whole series, what has been your take?
Adam Silver: It's incredibly beautiful version of the game. It's fast-paced, it's highly skilled. The shooting's out of this world. Um, it's great basketball.
Let me ask you this, because obviously, you know that what all in talking has talked about is the lack of parity. Should this be the finals for the next three, four, five years, as many have predicted? Is that good for the league, bad for the league?
Adam Silver: You know, people always complain about the so-called lack of parity in the NBA. But back in the early to mid-2000s, when you didn't have any dominant teams, people complained about that. You know, the best thing for the league, the league has always been at its best when you've had dominant teams. Nobody really cares about the other, you know, 28 teams. People really only care about the top two teams. You know, it's nice to, to, uh, create the illusion that there are multiple teams that have a chance to win a championship. But for the most part, when you have dominant teams, that's when you have the most interest because dominant teams have tend to have the most charismatic and, uh, the most, the most dominant players, the players that are the most transcendent. And that's normally what carries the league.
My answer is, it's too early to declare dynasties. But you have one team in the Cavs last year who had never won in the history of their franchise, and another team in the Warriors that hadn't won in 40 years. Yeah. So let's see what happens. I, I, for me, this is the ultimate reality programming. I think ultimately, showcasing excellence is great for sport. It's great for basketball.
Now, he called it the ultimate and reality TV programming. So, as we all know, reality TV is not truly reality television. It's just, it's just a group of people that you don't know are actors, but they're asked to play roles by a production company. All right, Adam Silver is essentially calling himself a producer. His job is to produce a great television show filled with drama. Hence, every once in a while, you have to orchestrate certain series to be, you know, to be, uh, I won't say rigged, but to be directed in a certain way, right? You have to build up certain players as, as, uh, top actors. You have to utilize certain referees, right? You know, you think of a referee in a, from a cinematic perspective as an editor, right? A referee's job is to, you know, make, make little nips and tucks here and there, right? A referee's job is to, you know, kind of make a certain actor shine a little more than other actors. That's what editors do when they clean up a script. All right, it's all part of the, it's all part of the program.
And it's left for the other team to step up their game. I mean, it's also somewhat insulting for the other players in the league because it suggests that talent is static. It suggests that ownership doesn't matter, GMs don't matter, coaching doesn't matter. But all those things do. And, and my view is players will redouble their efforts over the summer. Coaches will too. They'll see this style of basketball, which we agree is incredible basketball, and they're going to go back, just like all the great players have, and try to get better.
Every, and, but that, you know, that's part of the problem, um, in the NBA today. Everybody plays the same style, right? Everybody plays the same style. Everybody wants to play the same style. Everybody wants to shoot 30-foot threes, and there's no more posting up. You know, back in the day, the main thing that made previous generations a little better is that different teams utilized their strengths. Everybody didn't try to play like everybody else. And that's the problem with the NBA today. Everybody's trying to play the same. All right, and when you all try to play the same, whichever team has the greatest talent is going to win, right? Whichever team, when I say has the greatest talent, meaning is the most proficient at the skill that everybody else is trying to copy.
Every year, but where are they going to find those guys? Cuz at some point, I mean, obviously there isn't another Kevin Durant out there.
Well, but, but that's my view that talent isn't static. I mean, you have Draymond was the 35th pick in the draft. Klay Thompson was the 11th pick. That's fair. I, I, I mean, Kawhi, your favorite, was the 15th. I've heard of it.
Mmm, no, but no, but I mean, but it, but it does suggest that talent is static. I mean, we have 450 of the greatest players in the world out there. It suggests that they won't get better, and they will, uh, they'll get better. But there's a lot of bad coaching in the NBA. Uh, there's a lot of copycat, a lot of copycatting in the NBA because, once again, the rules have prohibited teams from, uh, evening the playing field through physicality. There was a time when you could even the playing field through physicality. You can't do that anymore, right? I remember being a kid and watching the playoffs, uh, back when the Knicks played the Bulls in the second round in '92, and they were able to extend that series to seven games. Why? Because they would just flagrant foul Jordan, Pippen, right? They couldn't do that today. Today, the Knicks will get swept by the Bulls because you can't put your hands on the guys like that. So it's very, very difficult. It's going to be very difficult for these other teams to catch up because everybody basically has to play the same style. Everybody has to jump shoot, be great jump shooters, and, uh, you know, just hope for the best, basically. Whoever has the best jump shooters is going to win it. It is basically going to win the series.
Durant might have to play with his hand tied behind his side at some point if this continues. Uh, Klay Thompson leading his team with 21 points. That is three of them. Warriors up six. Well, that's pretty much the end of that segment.
But Adam Silver has mentioned that he's not in favor of the one-and-done rule, and I honestly agree with him. All right, I do not believe, as many of the liberal media is trying to promote, that, uh, players should be able to come out of high school and go directly to the NBA. Why is that? Because I'm, I'm a firm believer that they're not ready. You'll hear people try to use the same examples all the time, or what about LeBron James, or what about Kobe, what about Kevin Garnett? Um, if you were, you know, if you were able to watch all those players' first season, other than LeBron, they were not impact players. Uh, I mean, when you look through the history of the league, guys coming straight out of college into the pros, you're talking about Moses Malone, maybe, and LeBron as the only guys who made any type of impact their first year in the league. If there are any other guys that I'm missing, you brothers can correct me on that. But for the most part, these guys who, who came out of high school straight to the pros, they rode the bench their first, first two or three years. You look at a guy like Kobe. Kobe was a non-factor his first year. Second year, he was an All-Star coming off the bench. And third year, he was an All-Star as a starter, and then he started to steadily improve. But he could have used at least two years in college. He would have been a much better player. A lot of the shortcomings that he had as a professional were due to the fact that he was never, he never was forced to conform to a team concept in college like Jordan was when Jordan was in North Carolina, right? Even LeBron, you can see, even though LeBron is a, is a, a mastermind, or as the Nazis would say, a Wunderkind, all right, even, even though he was a, a Wunderkind coming into the NBA, he would have been even better if he would have had a chance to go to a Duke or North Carolina or Michigan State or, you know, whatever Kentucky, and been put through adverse situations in a college tournament, been forced to share the ball. Even though LeBron is viewed as being an unselfish player, like I said, he is a ball-dominant player, all right? He is a stat accumulator. He's just the most proficient stat accumulator probably to ever play, all right? But he doesn't know how to play off the ball. He doesn't know how to play in an equal opportunity offense because his whole life, he's been the center of attention from, from elementary school to high school to the pros, right? And that has affected his game because you watch these big games, and what does he do? He plays himself into exhaustion because he goes 100 miles an hour in the first quarter. In the fourth quarter, he's tired. He doesn't have confidence in his jump shooting because his legs are gone by the fourth quarter, and it leads to him making a lot of passive decisions on the court because he doesn't want to drive to the basket and get fouled because he's dead tired. He's already not a good free-throw shooter, and, and like I said, he has no confidence in his ability to make big jump shots in the fourth quarter because his legs are gone. Why is that? Because he never learned how to pace himself, which is something that you learn in the college game, all right?
When I was growing up as a kid, there was great, the college game was almost as good as the NBA game. When I first, first, first started watching basketball in like 19, 1989, 1990, '91, I mean, you had teams like Georgetown with Alonzo Mourning and, and Dikembe Mutombo. I remember Syracuse had Billy Owens, and we had that great UNLV team with Larry Johnson and Greg Anthony and Anderson Hunt, and Duke with Laettner and Grant Hill and Bobby Hurley. Like, you had great, great, you know, fun teams to watch. But now the college game is a lot like the NBA game. Guys just sit, sit behind the line and jack up threes, right? So I believe that's why Silver does not want, uh, guys coming straight from high school into the pros. And then plus, these guys today in the pros are more physically developed than, than they were even back in the '80s and '90s, right? These guys in high school, they need at least two years in college, man. I would be in favor of them having a rule similar to the, to the, uh, NFL, where you have to be 21, right? I really think that it would be much better for the NBA, for the college game, and for, and for the, uh, the guys coming out to play. This stuff. Oh, well, they should be able to make a living. There are many industries where you cannot make a living. You just can't go into it at 18.
All right, now Adam Silver, he came into the four, and what I believe, you know, he, he made his name as the NBA commissioner, and what I believe was a, a, uh, a contrived and calculated ritual between him and Donald, and, um, Donald Sterling. I believe that Donald Sterling wanted to sell the team. He wanted to maximize the earning potential or the selling point of the team, and I believe that they orchestrated that whole thing with him being exposed as a so-called racist. Uh, these are things that everybody knew all along, but he needed to do that in order to build the marketability of the Clippers. If he would have just outright sold it, they would have sold for about 400 to 500 million. He ended up getting over two billion for the team, right? And he, and they sold at the right time, at a time where the team was at an all-time high, and they used it to market Adam Silver as a super liberal owner and to build a lot of cache with the players, right? Donald Sterling, Adam Silver, Sterling, right? Those are the type of games that, that they play. But I, I truly believe that that whole thing between, uh, Donald Sterling and Adam Silver was orchestrated, right? They're both a couple of Caucasian Jews. They probably had a nice little, you know, cigar in the back room and they said, look, um, I need to build up some, I need to build up a good reputation amongst the players. You want to sell the team? You know, let's do this. You know, let's just act like you said a couple things we can reveal. You're a multibillionaire, you won't get in trouble for anything. You can go off into the sunset with your two billion. You know, I can build up a good, uh, rapport and reputation with these players, and, you know, let it be that. And I believe that Donald Sterling agreed. Adam Silver agreed. And then that's what happened. Just my honest opinion, all right? Allegedly. But, you know, I could be wrong, but it's just too, uh, too much irony involved in that whole situation.
And they used, uh, Magic Johnson, that simpleton, as a counterpoint. Do I believe Magic was in, was quote unquote in on it? No, not necessarily. But Magic Johnson, the only thing that did expose was Magic Johnson's constant affiliation, uh, to, to transsexuals because that chick, uh, Stano, the, uh, Filipino that Donald Sterling was linked with, is a transsexual, allegedly, or transvestite, whichever one. And Magic Johnson, of course, was one of her main buddies, and we know how Magic gets down, allegedly. All right?
But yeah, Adam Silver, he's, uh, he's all over the place. But I do agree with him on this issue with the players. I believe that they should at least have to be in college for two years or three years. I think it's best for the NBA and for college basketball and for the players. I think that they'll come in a little bit more assured of themselves and ready to play. Cuz right now, as it is, if a player wants to stay in college for, for, you know, for three years or four years, people think something's wrong with him, all right? But that's neither here nor there. We're going to see what happens in the offseason because, uh, there is going to be some player movement. Cleveland, Cleveland is allegedly interested in Paul George, and, uh, we know that LeBron is not just going to sit idly back while, uh, his team continues to get their asses whooped, all right? So, peace.