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On today’s episode, Henry Abbott and Jarod Hector discuss:
Vincent Goodwill’s article on the NBA commissioner and unintended consequences.
The NBA’s reliance on LeBron James and Stephen Curry to drum up interest. Why don’t large numbers of TV-viewing fans swoon for younger players?
Julius Randle succumbs to injury, like so many Tom Thibodeau players.
The NFL licks its chops readying to eat the NBA’s Christmas dinner. (This is about television.)
And then we get into billionaires.
"We f**king took those c**ksuckers down. F**k them, and we're gonna keep f**king sticking it to 'em forever. F**k those guys, we're number one." That’s a Mat Ishbia voicemail, as reported by Matt Termine, Sam Koppelman and others of Hunterbrook Media, as popularized on Pablo Torre Finds Out. There’s another similar story by our friend Baxter Holmes of ESPN.  It’s a story about two NBA billionaires, Ishbia and his arch-nemesis, Dan Gilbert of the Cavaliers. They have been locked in battle for supremacy of the mortgage market. But, of course, when wooly mammoths fight, they step on a lot of ants.
Michael Jordan did a terrible, terrible, terrible job running the Hornets. He hired friends like Buzz Peterson and Rod Higgins and the team hasn’t won a playoff series in decades. (Here’s an incredible Wright Thompson story from 2013, about Jordan living in Florida, drinking a lot, playing candy crush, and obsessing over whether or not he was better than LeBron.) Henry interviewed Bob Johnson about MJ’s leadership in 2007.
Gabe Plotkin is the guy who was on the wrong end of the GameStop memestop excitement, which came to involve all kinds of NBA billionaires like Mark Cuban, and Chamath Palihapitya. Supposedly Plotkin lost his shirt, but billionaires have a way of landing on their feet.
Thank you for listening!
Billionaires: still screwing up the NBA!