00:00Did you watch the World Baseball Classic last night?
00:02I actually, I did, Mark.
00:04Okay, you did.
00:05Let's just share, you've not been into this.
00:08At all.
00:08And so I was out to dinner with my wife and our three and a half year old,
00:12and I happened to be able to see a TV, and so I was watching it at the restaurant,
00:17and I was watching it and thinking, what happened?
00:21And then they hit a home run, and they hit another home run, it's two to one,
00:25and I'm starting to feel that little bit of sports tingle,
00:28and I was thinking, man, I don't want to watch this because I've been anti-it,
00:33but I don't want to not watch it because this is kind of lightweight awesome.
00:38I was into it.
00:39It was an incredible watch.
00:41And we'll try to wrap our heads around the fact that they're launching the ABS system
00:48into actual Major League Baseball, but they did not put it in the World Baseball Classic,
00:52and that ball was a solid six inches low.
00:56A couple of them.
00:56To end the game with a runner on third, that's tough.
00:59That's tough.
01:00Look, it's a human being back there.
01:02It happens every game, so I'm not going to lose my mind over it,
01:05but when you have something that's that tense and that wonderful and that fun
01:09to have it end that way, it sucks.
01:11Yep.
01:11It sucks.
01:12Even when it goes your way.
01:13Yeah.
01:13Like, I mean, it's, you know,
01:14Wilmer Flores' check swing against the Dodgers in a one-run game.
01:18Like, it just, it sucks.
01:19But the whole thing was a wonderful watch.
01:22Aaron Judge came out after the game and said that this is bigger and better than the World Series.
01:31Now, this really caught my attention because the reason, let's just, let's just call this what it is.
01:38Why is this bigger and better than the World Series?
01:42It's not going to get more attention.
01:46It's not going to get more cachet.
01:50They're not getting paid more.
01:52Correct.
01:52Are they getting paid at all?
01:53I don't even know.
01:54I doubt it.
01:56But the reason he feels like it's bigger and better than the World Series is because the crowd is better.
02:02And that's because the crowd is largely rooting for the Dominican Republic or previously Mexico.
02:12The crowd knows how, shout out to your son, to get down.
02:17Yes.
02:18Nice.
02:18You gots to get down.
02:20You gots to get down.
02:21So, now grab that and then let's run it over to Steve Kerr and Draymond Green, for that matter,
02:29who do not want to let go of this idea of lowering the NBA schedule from 82 games to 72
02:37games.
02:38I hear all of the reasons.
02:40The pace is too much and guys are running miles and miles and miles more than they used to in
02:45all of this stuff.
02:46And so, lower the number to 72, even though they freely admit, they're like, we know it's not going to
02:52happen.
02:52Nobody takes less money.
02:54The owners aren't going to do this.
02:55And I started thinking about, because to me, these two things oddly end up in the same spot.
03:02They end up in sort of the cynicism of the American sports fan.
03:07I can't imagine, from what I know, international soccer, the way I've watched these fans perform, quite frankly,
03:17in the World Baseball Classic, I cannot imagine fans in other countries going, you know what we need?
03:24Less sports.
03:26This is too much.
03:27But I hear it here all the time.
03:30Oh, we're bored.
03:31We're bored with the regular season.
03:33We don't want to do this.
03:35Oh, 162 games.
03:39My gosh.
03:41Is it us?
03:43I think it might be us.
03:45It's not the sport.
03:47It's us.
03:48Why are we so cynical?
03:50Why are we so negative about all of this stuff?
03:53Turn on the TV and look what's happening.
03:56Your favorite American ballplayers are drunk on excitement because fans from another country are actually,
04:03I don't know, wait for it, having fun.
04:07Yeah, and they're into it.
04:08Having fun.
04:08And there are other sports where this is a thing, and you mentioned international soccer,
04:12and you hear some of the bigger clubs talk about how you've got this cup and you've got that cup,
04:18and then you've got the European championships, and you've got your regular domestic league.
04:22So there's a little bit of that, but at the same time, you can, at that level, load manage, so
04:29to speak.
04:29And maybe you don't play all your top guys when you're taking on a smaller club in the Carabao Cup
04:34in England or whatever.
04:35But here in the NBA, you've got the older team, the oldest team, the Warriors, talking about fewer games.
04:42Meanwhile, if you look at, I don't know, OKC, are they talking about playing fewer games?
04:47Probably not because they're all in their mid to late 20s, and they're playing fast, and they're playing well,
04:52and they're having a great time.
04:54So that, to me, is part of the problem with this whole narrative is you've got Steve Kerr, who is
04:59in his 60s,
05:00saying, you know, fewer games, and Draymond Green, who's near the end, fewer games, and all the rest of it.
05:05But the younger teams, I don't think that they're saying that.
05:08I don't think Detroit is saying, you know what, we should only play 72 because, boy, are we worn down.
05:14And maybe they are, and they're just not saying it out loud, but you're absolutely right.
05:18And if you're all going to freely admit, well, this isn't actually going to happen,
05:24then, quite frankly, I'd ask you to stop campaigning for it.
05:28Why don't you work with it in a different way?
05:30Because here's what's funny.
05:32All right, let's say it was a 72-game schedule.
05:34Okay, are the Warriors getting through it healthy now?
05:37No.
05:39Like, is the premise here that Jimmy Butler's ACL wouldn't be torn if they were only playing 72?
05:45Draymond's back would be fine.
05:47Steph's knee would be cool.
05:48Kristaps' mysterious condition would no longer exist.
05:52Moses Moody's wrist would be—none of them made it 72 games.
05:56None of them.
05:58And if what you're arguing is, well, we would be spreading it out more.
06:02You're already doing that.
06:04Y'all are taking every fourth game off.
06:06Why don't you just—like, why don't we work with this in a different way?
06:11Just off the top of my head, here's an idea.
06:13How about extra roster spots?
06:15Why not?
06:16Like, let's play more people.
06:18If you need more rest, why don't we—okay, instead of—if the idea is we got a better chance at the
06:25end, if we manage this differently, then manage it differently.
06:29Play Steph 26 minutes instead of 33.
06:33Right, and they've done that, and these guys are playing fewer games and fewer minutes, but the problem is, even
06:38though you're doing that, Steph is 38.
06:39And so, based on the injuries he's had, it's not really that much of a factor.
06:45I'm just looking at total minutes played this year in—not per game, but total minutes.
06:50Number four in the association, Kevin Durant.
06:53He's 37.
06:54Yep.
06:54And he's behind only Bridges, Maxie, and Amen Thompson in terms of total minutes.
06:59So, you can't tell me that KD's not a high usage, a high volume, a high energy guy, and he's
07:05out there playing as many minutes as everyone but three people.
07:08So, this, to me, feels more like a, woe is us, we have an old roster, and our guys are
07:13getting hurt take.
07:15Hmm.
07:15Because you're not going to reduce games.
07:17No.
07:17And you can look at DeMar DeRozan, he's 13th, he's 36, and he's playing almost more minutes than anyone.
07:23Um, I just think that I see a lot of fans here domestically that have a hard time having a
07:34good time.
07:36Honestly.
07:38Like, I don't—I don't need the baseball season to be shorter.
07:43Why?
07:44Why are you—why are we so turned off by having more?
07:51And, by the way, like, newsflash, it's all you're ever going to get.
07:57And it's the most American thing in the history of ever.
08:00The word is more.
08:01More, yeah.
08:02More.
08:03More.
08:04Have you ever seen what happens now at the concession stand at games?
08:08We used to get a bowl of ice cream.
08:10Now it's eight scoops, right, and we've got a flowing cascade of I don't know what coming down the side.
08:17And it's on social media, and we're competing with each other.
08:20The burgers don't have one patty.
08:23Now there's four patties.
08:25And on and on and on.
08:27The pizza's bigger, bigger, more, more, more, more.
08:31That's who we are.
08:32That's what this is.
08:33But for some reason, for some reason, we'll get to certain tournaments or certain things in sports,
08:39and I will watch fans, whether it's another country, whether it's a different sport that we're not as familiar with,
08:47and they just—the joke I made when—Dominican World Baseball Classic,
08:53if Soto hits a home run, you got babies getting made.
08:58I'm not kidding.
08:59It's a freaking party.
09:01And we're just kind of consistently—not all of us, but a lot of us are like,
09:07World Baseball Classic.
09:09Don't get hurt, Logan.
09:11Yeah?
09:11Get your butt back here safe.
09:13We got 162 other boring games to get to.
09:16I don't know, man.
09:18I just—am I wrong?
09:19But I don't feel this in other places, in other states, in other sports.
09:25In other countries, yeah, because there's a specialness to that.
09:28And, you know, here in America, like you're saying, you've got, you know, the NFL season,
09:31you've got baseball 162, you've got 82 NBA games, and then everybody makes the playoffs, basically.
09:38So there's a certain amount of mundaneness that goes with just the way we go about our sports.
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