Explaining the NBA in Tech Terms!

It's bonus episode time! In this one, Marques and Alex try to explain the NBA in tech terms to Andrew and David who know nothing about it. If you've ever wondered which Apple Executive is Jalen Brunson then this one is for you! If you've never cared about basketball then this could be a fun way to see what all the hype is about. Follow us on socials: Marques: https://twitter.com/MKBHD Andrew: https://www.instagram.com/andrew_manganelli/ David: https://www.instagram.com/davidimel/ Adam: https://www.instagram.com/parmesanpapi17/ Ellis: https://twitter.com/EllisRovin Rufus: https://www.instagram.com/rmullhaupt/ Alex: https://bsky.app/profile/alexwolfe.bsky.social Waveform: Twitter: https://twitter.com/WVFRM Threads: https://www.threads.net/@waveformpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waveformpodcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@waveformpodcast Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/mkbhd Intro/Outro music by 20syl: https://bit.ly/2S53xlC Waveform is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Andrew Manganelli?

  This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, host Lizanne Saunders, Schwab's Chief Investment Strategist, and Colin Martin, Head of Fixed Income Research and Strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research, bring your fresh insights on what's happening in the markets and why, and what the implications might be for your portfolio. Join Colin and Lizanne as they explore questions like, how do you evaluate corporate bonds that look interesting? And what sectors are on the move right now? Download the latest episodes and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Support for the show comes from Jira by Atlassian. AI is only as useful as the context it has to work from. But when that context is scattered across tools, threads, and DMs, that means your team and your AI agents end up flying blind. That's the problem that Jira solves. What's the goal tied to your project? What got decided last week in Slack? Atlassian's teamwork graph pulls all these pieces together, from Jira, Confluence, Slack, GitHub, and more. So, nothing falls through the cracks. With Jira, you can actually share that context with the AI agents you already use, like Claude, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot, assign them work directly, or connect your agents through MCP. Spend less time digging through endless links and DMs, less time chasing down what got decided and by who, and more time actually shipping. Learn more at jira.com.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  That's J-I-R-A dot com.

• 1:20David Imel?

  Is it pump fake where you pretend to shoot and then you don't?

• 1:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23David Imel?

  Yeah. Yeah, Steph Curry does that a lot.

• 1:24Speaker 03

  Yes, he's very good at it.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  It's like when you're about to ship a product and then you don't, like air power.

• 1:28Andrew Manganelli?

  It's like the

• 1:31Andrew Manganelli?

  head fake.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's up, people of the internet? Welcome back to another episode of the Waveform Podcast. We are all of your hosts. I'm Marques.

• 1:43Speaker 03

  I'm Alex.

• 1:44Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm Andrew.

• 1:44David Imel?

  And I'm David.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  And in this bonus episode, we're going to be covering a whole bunch of things, but mostly sports. And the way that we're going to do it is we have our fellow non-ball knower.

• 1:57David Imel?

  Hey, hey, hey.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Andrew and David over here, guests slash hosts, who we want to explain the massive amount of overlap between sports and tech. And we have a lot of Analogies and similes and ways of explaining that and Alex and I, ball knowers of the podcast. And maybe we'll get some Rufus and Adam over there chiming in as well.

• 2:20David Imel?

  I don't know anything.

• 2:21Andrew Manganelli?

  We split the producer table also. I don't know any ball.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Rufus is on our side.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Okay, even better, even better. Okay, so then we're gonna use all of this to hopefully get you guys caught up to speed on the incredible world of what's happened in basketball for the last couple of weeks slash months by using tech.

• 2:37David Imel?

  I know the last couple of weeks. I just do not know the last couple.

• 2:39Speaker 03

  David is, David has quietly become a ball knower.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  I mean, if you.

• 2:43Speaker 03

  Actually loudly, loudly.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  You were pretty dialed, but there's still plenty to learn. Obviously, there's lots of lore and things to.

• 2:52Speaker 03

  Can I add the first beat for this episode? Can you **** my beat?

• 2:57Speaker 01

  It's a classic. There's a couple of things you kind of just start chanting when you become a sports fan. That's one of them.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  It's a classic chant now.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  And Knicks in five, if you just live in the area, you just walk outside and say that and people like high five you.

• 3:10Andrew Manganelli?

  We don't say good morning anymore.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:12David Imel?

  Knicks in five.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  Knicks in five.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially in New York. You make sure whenever you order breakfast for the next six months, you just order a Brunson egg and cheese. You don't have to explain it. They'll just know what it is.

• 3:22David Imel?

  Is it special? Is it different than a regular egg and cheese?

• 3:25Speaker 03

  No, it's not. It's a bacon egg and cheese. It's just a Brunson egg and cheese.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  It's just named in his honor.

• 3:28Andrew Manganelli?

  No, it has Sriracha mayo.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Does it?

• 3:30Speaker 03

  Does it?

• 3:31David Imel?

  Are you guys kidding me?

• 3:32Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 3:33Andrew Manganelli?

  It all stemmed from like this, this kid asked him, what's your bodega order? And he said, well, I don't actually live in the city, so I don't have a normal bodega order, but if it was going to be that, it would be this.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  I thought you guys were gonna teach us.

• 3:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, who knows the ball are here, damn, man.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Turntables.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  Goodness.

• 3:48Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, it has Sriracha mayo on it.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  That sounds better. Incredible. Well, we're gonna go through all of this, starting from the rules of modern NBA and then the teams and the history. And then maybe a little bit of like, I think I want to end this by talking about the fan overlap, because there's so much overlap between fans of tech companies and the tribalism in the sports world that I feel like we need to just bandwagon on to some team before the end of this.

• 4:14David Imel?

  Okay. Apple in five?

• 4:16Speaker 03

  Five, bro.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Just like that.

• 4:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Five one.

• 4:18Speaker 03

  Yo, shut up. Google in five, bro. Google in five.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 4:21David Imel?

  OnePlus is out of the finals.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. The NBA altogether.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  OnePlus got knocked out in the first round. Let's be real.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Alright, so I think we'll start with the rules, just like what is the NBA? The NBA, uh, obviously a basketball league here in the US and we, how many teams are in the NBA? Thirty, twenty-four?

• 4:38Speaker 03

  Thirty.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Is it National Basketball Association? Yes, it is. Very good.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  Good job, David.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Ball know.

• 4:44Speaker 03

  Actually, wait, there is going to be thirty-two teams soon.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:47Speaker 03

  They're expanding two years, yeah.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Expansion, Seattle?

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Huh?

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Seattle and...

• 4:52Speaker 03

  Presumably Seattle and Vegas are about to get teams. And then one team is going to move to the Eastern Conference.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Which is a good opportunity maybe to talk about teams in general because obviously there's lots of tech companies who you can kind of think of as teams. And I'm trying to think of what, what would a expansion team be? It would be kind of like a startup, right? You need to like build the whole thing from the ground up very quickly and then just join the league.

• 5:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  It would be kind of like a startup, so we're gonna have some startups soon, which is interesting to root for. They don't have any history. But you have some teams that have been around for a very long time, who have a history of winning in the past, ups and downs. They've had rosters, AKA employees, who have done amazing things, sometimes terrible things, uh, that have caused the companies to rise and fall. And so whenever you watch those tech companies, you're kind of like watching the players for the team affect their outcomes.

• 5:42Andrew Manganelli?

  Can I? Almost every question I'm gonna ask is going to preface with saying, "This is what happens in hockey, does this happen in basketball?"

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:51Andrew Manganelli?

  And if I'm correct, Seattle had a team at some point, right? So bringing it back potentially has like an old fanbase coming back to it. This happened with the Winnipeg.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  If I may, Seattle got really kind of hosed by their ownership group, who decided, for whatever reason, I think they, I think they changed ownership in the late 2000s and then the owner, for whatever reason, really wanted to move them to Oklahoma City and just take them out of Seattle. But the Seattle fanbase was really passionate, but it was like an arena issue where the, the city didn't want to pay for a new arena or something. And so then they moved them to Oklahoma City and Seattle has been starved for basketball since then. They now have a, they have a WNBA team and...

• 6:31Andrew Manganelli?

  Are they gonna play in the Kraken Arena? There's a new NHL arena.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  I think so, yeah.

• 6:35Andrew Manganelli?

  It's the most recent NHL.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  I think they'll play in the new arena, I mean, it's, it's not fine. But presumably that is where they will.

• 6:41David Imel?

  Climate change arena?

• 6:42Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, it's it's one of the only arenas.

• 6:45David Imel?

  Climate.

• 6:46Andrew Manganelli?

  Climate.

• 6:47Speaker 03

  Climate change arena is crazy.

• 6:49Andrew Manganelli?

  It's like one of the only arenas that's down. So if you look from the the ice up, you can see this big window and that's actually the sidewalk of the street.

• 6:59David Imel?

  It's like my apartment. Nice.

• 7:00Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 7:01David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Okay, so for David.

• 7:03David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Nokia Nokia Nokia used to be a whole thing, great company, thriving, and then kind of just stopped.

• 7:11David Imel?

  They do telecom stuff now.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  But they had to bring it back.

• 7:14David Imel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  And they bring it back and they've licensed that name and they started making phones and doing things with that name again. That's that's Seattle getting an NBA team again.

• 7:21David Imel?

  Okay, so they're licensing the name?

• 7:23Speaker 01

  It won't be quite exactly the same team, but it will be fun to root for because we know that name.

• 7:28Andrew Manganelli?

  Because when that team moved, all the players moved like so a lot of Seattle fans probably became Oklahoma City fans or were so mad about it.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  That they they stopped.

• 7:37Andrew Manganelli?

  Followed their players. Yeah, but now they're getting a team.

• 7:39Speaker 03

  It's actually interesting to not to get too into the weeds, but there's been multiple times in the NBA where teams have moved and then come back or whatever. And it's created this weird history uh gap for certain teams like so, for example, the Charlotte Hornets back in the day moved to New Orleans, it became the New Orleans Hornets. But then they eventually added another team to Charlotte called the Charlotte Bobcats. And so then they were like, well, do we get the Hornets history? And it was like, no, you're a new team. You don't get history. But then New Orleans was like, well, we don't like the name Hornets. We're going to change our name to the Pelicans.

• 8:14Andrew Manganelli?

  I like that name.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  So there's the New Orleans Pelicans now. And then Charlotte with the Bobcats was like, wait, Hornets is on the table again. So let's become the Hornets.

• 8:21David Imel?

  That's weird.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  And now people are like, wait, so do the New Orleans Pelicans own the Charlotte Hornets history? Or do the Charlotte Hornets own the Charlotte Hornets history?

• 8:29Andrew Manganelli?

  Wait, so I don't understand that. What's a tech?

• 8:30David Imel?

  Yeah, I was gonna.

• 8:31Speaker 03

  I don't know a tech version of that one. It's not a perfect one to one, but.

• 8:35David Imel?

  There's not a perfect one to one of everything. Maybe there's like it's like Carl Pei, right? It's like he kinda ran one plus and then he started nothing, but then.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  David is right in this.

• 8:44Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, but then but how Carl Pei then bought Essential, but just the name.

• 8:48David Imel?

  Right.

• 8:49Andrew Manganelli?

  And now nothing has Essential in it.

• 8:51David Imel?

  Right. So do they get the nothing history because they have just the name?

• 8:54Andrew Manganelli?

  Do they get the Essential history? You don't want the Andy Rubin history?

• 8:57David Imel?

  Yeah. So if they if they made a new company called Essential, like, would they get the Essential history or would it just be the nothing?

• 9:03Speaker 03

  Essentially.

• 9:04David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 9:06David Imel?

  Hey, if they made that gem phone, I'm all in on the ball, you know what I'm saying? All right. So anyway, basketball, the rules are pretty simple. I don't know if you need to take analogy, but obviously the teams are just trying to score the most points. You have four 12-minute quarters. You can pass the ball, dribble. You can't foul or travel. Pretty basic sports.

• 9:23Andrew Manganelli?

  Does Wemby know that?

• 9:24Speaker 03

  It actually, yeah. Well, Wemby's core tenet to basketball is fouling people.

• 9:28David Imel?

  Can I, yeah, can I ask a question based on what I saw last week?

• 9:32Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 9:32David Imel?

  When I was a child and I watched the Sacramento Kings play with Mike Bibby.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 9:37David Imel?

  They, like, you couldn't, you had to dribble when you were walking, when you were moving down the court. When I was watching last week, a lot of people were not doing that.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  Okay, so this brings us to the core tenets of basketball. So why don't we talk about the core tenets?

• 9:51David Imel?

  Give me the rules.

• 9:52Speaker 03

  The three core tenets of basketball. If you go up to any, any court in America and you just want to try to play basketball.

• 9:57David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  Three core tenets: dribble, pass, shoot. Those are your three things.

• 10:00David Imel?

  Okay.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  Right?

• 10:01David Imel?

  No defense.

• 10:02Speaker 03

  So.

• 10:02David Imel?

  It's called travel.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  No defense.

• 10:04David Imel?

  Is it called traveling if you walk with the ball but you don't dribble?

• 10:06Speaker 03

  So.

• 10:06David Imel?

  I thought so.

• 10:07Speaker 03

  Dribbling is, if you're, if you have the ball and you're moving in basketball, you get three steps without dribbling at some point.

• 10:17David Imel?

  Three?

• 10:18Speaker 03

  Yes, but if you pick up your dribble and you're like going to finish a layup, you get.

• 10:22David Imel?

  What's a layup?

• 10:23Speaker 03

  We'll get there.

• 10:24David Imel?

  Okay.

• 10:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Everyone was like, David knows ball.

• 10:28David Imel?

  No, I'm asking, no, I'm asking for the audience.

• 10:32David Imel?

  Because many of our audience members do not know.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  David is playing a character. He's bad at acting.

• 10:36David Imel?

  That's right.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Good save.

• 10:37David Imel?

  That's right.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Um, but so dribbling is when you're, you're dribbling down the court. That's how you set up. Bouncing the ball. Yeah, dribbling is bouncing the ball up and down into your hand. So that is like software dev. So that is like your core, uh, principle to basketball.

• 10:52David Imel?

  It's like step one.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  Step one. You gotta have your software.

• 10:55David Imel?

  So your IDE, basically?

• 10:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:56David Imel?

  Okay.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:57David Imel?

  It's your IDE.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  Passing is how you get the ball from one player to another. So there's five players on each side.

• 11:02David Imel?

  You throw it.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  And you throw it to your teammates so that you can try to. Break the defense and get inside. So passing, that's your testing. That's like your alpha testing, beta testing. Trying to get to the, get to the end. Cause, cause the idea is to get a basket, right? So shooting, that's your deliverable.

• 11:18David Imel?

  When you throw it up.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  You throw it up and you deliver and you make a basket.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Shipping your product.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  Shipping your product.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  They use a lot of the same words, deliverables.

• 11:26David Imel?

  Is that what they call it in basketball too?

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Uh, no. When you deliver a product, when you ship a product.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  Can you imagine a basketball coach is in the, in the huddle and they're like, guys, guys, we gotta really hit on our deliverables right now.

• 11:38Speaker 03

  We gotta get, get the passes and get our deliverable product.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  We gotta ship, we gotta really get a ship.

• 11:42David Imel?

  Market fit between the basketball and the hoop is really high.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 11:46David Imel?

  Yeah, okay.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so the entire time, these teams are trying to get as good as possible at shipping as many products as possible. More than all the other teams. I'm dead serious, they're, if you ship more products than the other team, you win. But you only have four 12 minute quarters, you know, the fiscal years, I mean, divided up into quarters. So Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4. Yeah, okay. The more products you ship, the better. If you ship more than the others, you win.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  And in a single game, you might ship like 70 products.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the thing is, you are competing directly against the other team who is trying to stop you from shipping products. Right? They're gonna try to interrupt your testing.

• 12:25David Imel?

  Right.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  Your development.

• 12:26David Imel?

  Right.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Your shipping process, all of that.

• 12:28David Imel?

  Okay.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  But there are rules. Right? So every team has players that have different roles and different styles. And occasionally, a member of the other team will try to mess with your team. We don't like those players very much. Some, some call them like dirty players.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  You're supposed to play within the rules, obviously, some people kinda try to bend the rules.

• 12:51David Imel?

  Like Wemby.

• 12:52Speaker 03

  What do we say about Wemby?

• 12:54Speaker 01

  But we always, we always know, we always know that there are, you know, these pieces fit together like, like puzzles. These, these players on these teams, these leaders, and these, these teammates are all trying to ship products as quickly as possible. But if they do their role really well, then they can pass it to the, to the next role and the next role. You get through the software development phase really quickly and then you ship it and you, you market and you do the whole thing really, really fast, then you're successful. So everyone has to know their role.

• 13:24Andrew Manganelli?

  Nick's team as Apple executives go?

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Great, okay. That's a great place to start. Nick's team as Apple executives. The captain.

• 13:32David Imel?

  Just players.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  You'd probably start with the captain, right?

• 13:34David Imel?

  Yeah, tell me about the roles.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, great. So, players have different sized roles and players have

• 13:40David Imel?

  Different sizes also?

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Appreciation, yeah. And different appreciation, just based on what they're good at. In sports, it might be just because you're taller or shorter, or you have a certain skillset that lets you do the thing.

• 13:50David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  That's kind of like in, uh, in tech, you might be a really good supply chain person, or you might have a business mind, or you're a ruthless leader who's like galvanizing the troops and gets people behind him. So, sports team with a captain like the Knicks, that's Jalen Brunson.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  That's the captain, that's the MVP of the team, the best player, finals MVP. He's the guy that everybody recognizes when you look at that company. So, at Apple,

• 14:16David Imel?

  Tim Cook.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  I think today, that's Tim Cook.

• 14:18David Imel?

  Okay.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  It's also, Brunson is also very well-liked.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:22Speaker 03

  And so, Tim Cook seemed very well-liked.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd say so.

• 14:25Speaker 03

  I would say Steve Jobs for being a visionary, but it seemed like a lot of people were not the biggest Steve Jobs fan.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, if we gotta use modern-

• 14:31Speaker 03

  He got results, but you know what I'm saying?

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, modern Apple, we'll go with Tim Cook just because he's the guy who's getting the results, and he is ruthlessly consistent, and maybe even a little underrated despite his success. So, that's Jalen Brunson, Tim Cook.

• 14:44David Imel?

  Okay.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  All right. Who's the second player on the Knicks we should go with?

• 14:48Speaker 03

  Uh, Karl-Anthony Towns.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  Karl-Anthony Towns.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  All right. Karl-Anthony Towns is, I mean, there's a starting five on the team, so I feel like we should go through the five, but he's arguably one of the most important players on the Knicks.

• 14:59David Imel?

  So, he's like benched until he's not? Is that the situation?

• 15:02Speaker 01

  No, so he plays, he's a starter.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Mm, five players played.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  Five players start

• 15:06David Imel?

  Okay.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  On the Knicks. Karl-Anthony Towns, who happens to be a seven-foot center who can shoot and pass and basically do everything a center should do.

• 15:14David Imel?

  Seven foot?

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, seven feet tall.

• 15:16Speaker 03

  He's a big boy.

• 15:17David Imel?

  You know what's crazy about basketball? Everyone looks normal-sized.

• 15:19Andrew Manganelli?

  No, that's, Jalen Brunson's

• 15:21Speaker 03

  Six foot two and he looks tiny.

• 15:23Andrew Manganelli?

  He looks like he's five six.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Mostly his head, but yes, he looks

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, so Karl-Anthony Towns is seven feet tall.

• 15:30David Imel?

  Okay.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  And he's, he's very well-rounded, so I feel like I would put him in a like executive position as well. I, I'm tempted to give him like-

• 15:40David Imel?

  Marketing manager?

• 15:40Speaker 03

  So, in the, in the postseason, I was gonna say, in the postseason, he actually was, uh, he became a big passer. So, if we're saying that passing is testing, he would maybe be like- Chief of Software.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  That could be. That's Craig Federighi.

• 15:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, Craig Federighi.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  So Craig Federighi, one of the most recognizable faces at Apple. Pretty versatile, but everyone knows his chops, his soft. He leads the software team.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  And yeah, that's, you know, Caron Towns has his specialty, but he's able to move around in his role and do stuff like ship and test. So yeah, Caron Towns, Craig Federighi.

• 16:15David Imel?

  I like that.

• 16:16Speaker 03

  Uh, or Josh Hart.

• 16:19David Imel?

  It's Jaws.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Josh Hart?

• 16:20Speaker 03

  All right, we'll do Josh.

• 16:21David Imel?

  Josh Hart is Jaws.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Is that because he's the longest tenured?

• 16:24Speaker 04

  No, that's Mitchell Robinson. I think Josh Hart would be Jaws because he's the marketing guy. And Josh Hart is the heart of the team. It's like the slogan. He's all over social media. He's like the, the face. Basically next to Brunson.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Okay. Yeah. Josh Hart, his role on the court is maybe not as large in terms of contributing to winning and shipping products. But you still need a Josh Hart on your team. You need someone who's going to do the dirty work, doesn't get a ton of credit, doesn't have the best counting stats, but.

• 16:57Speaker 03

  He might only, he might only ship one product for the whole game, but he's still going to be a winning party.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  He's going to ship the product that nobody else.

• 17:03David Imel?

  What makes him good?

• 17:05Speaker 01

  Uh, just a simple drive to do the dirty work that nobody else would have done. In a basketball sense, that is jumping and getting a rebound that looked like no one was going to get, or diving on the floor for a loose ball that either team could have gotten.

• 17:18David Imel?

  There's a lot more diving this season than I remember when I was a child.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:22David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:23David Imel?

  People diving a lot.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  In Apple world, you know, Jaws is interesting because marketing tends to get, I feel like they get a lot of credit maybe for shipping, even though they don't actually ship anything. Right? Like marketing, but I do like Jaws because yeah, it's a, it's a face that you recognize when you think about the company and you need one.

• 17:42David Imel?

  Got it. How many players are there again?

• 17:44Speaker 03

  We're just doing the starting five, so we're through three out of five now.

• 17:47David Imel?

  Okay, but how many players are there on each team?

• 17:49Speaker 03

  Fifteen.

• 17:50David Imel?

  What?

• 17:50Speaker 03

  Well, actually eighteen, including two-way players.

• 17:53David Imel?

  Why do they have that many?

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Because it's a long season.

• 17:57David Imel?

  Wow.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, everybody, you can't, you can't be shipping products by yourself. You need help.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  All the time. You need help.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  You gotta take breaks.

• 18:03David Imel?

  The starting five are the ones that always start and then they rotate out?

• 18:07Speaker 03

  For the most part. I mean, sometimes the starters change, which is like executive turnover. Sometimes the executive isn't performing the way you want him to and you, uh, maybe you, maybe you demote them, uh, give them a little, a little step down, or maybe you just fully cut ties and...

• 18:22David Imel?

  Oh, like the Siri AI guy?

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Cut them.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, switching to John Turnus as a CEO is kinda like benching, that'd be like benching, uh... We're not gonna do this.

• 18:32David Imel?

  Jalen Brunson?

• 18:33Speaker 01

  It would be like benching Jalen Brunson for a new point guard.

• 18:36Speaker 03

  It, it, you know, it could be, you know what the real thing is, is it's gonna be like in ten years, when Jalen Brunson is getting ready to retire, the Knicks will have a new point guard, ready to go.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:47Speaker 03

  And then they'll say, you know what, Jalen? And he'll make his own choice.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  This is the LeBron Luca, I think.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, like, we're gonna see this soon with LeBron and Luka Doncic, where LeBron is gonna finally hang it up, say, you know what, I've had a great career.

• 19:01David Imel?

  Is he still playing?

• 19:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:03David Imel?

  Wow.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Just like Tim Cook?

• 19:04David Imel?

  Why didn't he win?

• 19:06Speaker 03

  Because he wasn't, his team wasn't good enough this year. Also, Luka, the guy who's replacing him, didn't play for most of the postseason.

• 19:12David Imel?

  Oh.

• 19:13Speaker 03

  So...

• 19:14David Imel?

  Okay, let's, let's go through the rest of the guys.

• 19:16Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 19:16Andrew Manganelli?

  So we got typical AI overview, starting five wrong. By the way, even when you click the images, every single photo is the five people you're talking about, but AI overview does not have Josh Hart.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  Who did it add instead of Josh? What numbers are you wearing?

• 19:30Andrew Manganelli?

  Five precious...

• 19:31Speaker 03

  Precious? Precious wasn't even on the team this year.

• 19:34Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, wait, really? I thought I pronounced his name wrong and I was like, that's definitely, okay.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  Precious Akua, man. Oh my God. He wasn't even on the team this year.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  All right, last two starters.

• 19:43Speaker 03

  Uh, OG Ananobe.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  OG Ananobe.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  Jack of all trades.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Definitely Jack of all trades and...

• 19:48David Imel?

  He's the guy that did the tip.

• 19:50Speaker 03

  He did the tip.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. And was incredibly versatile and useful for them for the entire playoff run. Uh, helped them ship a lot of products. Also helped the other teams, helped stop the other teams from shipping a lot of products too.

• 20:02David Imel?

  He's a defense guy?

• 20:03Speaker 01

  He's a two-way guy. He's doing a lot of the good, positive shipping and a lot of the stopping the other team from shipping.

• 20:09David Imel?

  Okay. Um, in Apple executive land.

• 20:14Speaker 04

  I gotta reach one here.

• 20:15David Imel?

  Okay, hit me.

• 20:16Speaker 04

  Johnny Shrewdy?

• 20:17Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, I was gonna say.

• 20:18David Imel?

  I was thinking, yeah.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 20:19David Imel?

  Saruji?

• 20:20Speaker 04

  Saruji.

• 20:21David Imel?

  Saruji is the guy that makes the silicon.

• 20:23Speaker 04

  And he's the like, engine behind the reason.

• 20:26David Imel?

  I like that.

• 20:26Andrew Manganelli?

  I was gonna say, turnus for like, launching Apple silicon.

• 20:30David Imel?

  Turnus might be better.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  I think Saruji is good because not only is Apple silicon so good that other companies have to like, chase that, but it's like, it's the reason that Apple is, it's not the head, it's not the iPhone like Jalen Brunson, but it is also a massively important thing for them.

• 20:45David Imel?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 20:46David Imel?

  I also like that I've recently found out in recent weeks, I watched a couple of interviews and he's like a really quiet guy.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Saruji?

• 20:53David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no.

• 20:54Andrew Manganelli?

  OG.

• 20:55David Imel?

  OG.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  OG Ananobi?

• 20:56David Imel?

  Oh, you've seen that, yeah. He went on like, on a late night show a couple of days ago.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  It's amazing.

• 21:00David Imel?

  And he was, every question, he'd just be like, yeah.

• 21:02Andrew Manganelli?

  It's because he probably hasn't slept in four days.

• 21:04David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 21:05Speaker 03

  He's also extremely quiet.

• 21:06David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  He's so funny.

• 21:07David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  All right, who's the last guy?

• 21:09Speaker 03

  Last guy is Mikael Bridges. I have a pitch for him.

• 21:11David Imel?

  I've never seen him in Iron Man?

• 21:13Speaker 03

  He's, he's six foot.

• 21:15Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  Five.

• 21:17David Imel?

  Oh, then I was six seven?

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, Mikael Bridges is like, six five or six six. He's a wing. He has a very, very long wingspan, which is your, how far your arms go.

• 21:25David Imel?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  Um, he's great, also great at defense, very similar to OG Ananobi, but I'm gonna say, I think maybe he would be, I had to look this up, I'm not gonna lie, Sabi Khan, Chief Operating Officer. I knew the position I wanted to give him, I didn't know who it was at Apple, but I think Mikael Bridges is a Chief Operating Officer because he is extremely well-liked. He's a good vibes guy. He doesn't necessarily always make the biggest impact on the game, but he's keeping everybody in line.

• 21:53David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 03

  He's keeping operations going. And I, and we learned that after they won the championship, all the Knicks players talk so highly of him.

• 22:00David Imel?

  Really?

• 22:00Speaker 03

  And his impact on the locker room and everything.

• 22:01David Imel?

  What did he do?

• 22:03Andrew Manganelli?

  He bought them Rolex's, oh.

• 22:05David Imel?

  What did he do in the games that was like, a big deal?

• 22:07Speaker 03

  In the finals or in other games?

• 22:09David Imel?

  In the finals.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  Uh, in the finals, he played really good defense. He had a couple of, actually technically the, the game where Brunson scored almost 50, the final game, he was the second-leading scorer with a whole 14 points.

• 22:18David Imel?

  Oh my god.

• 22:20Speaker 03

  So.

• 22:21David Imel?

  Okay.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Ships of products.

• 22:23Speaker 03

  So he was the second leading scorer.

• 22:26David Imel?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  He does similar things to OG Ananobe, plays really good defense. And he actually, he does handle the ball a decent amount, so he did a decent amount of passing. So testing, you know, whatever our analogy is.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  It's like the executive that like gets into testing and actually does some coding once in a while.

• 22:44Speaker 03

  Yes, he can do a little bit of everything.

• 22:46Andrew Manganelli?

  But isn't really on stage.

• 22:47Speaker 03

  He also never missed a game. He has not missed a game his entire NBA career.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  What?

• 22:51Andrew Manganelli?

  What a jinx that one.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  No, I mean, he.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  It's out there. It's been a thing.

• 22:55Speaker 03

  It's out there. There's no jinx to it at this point.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  That's wild. Okay. Yeah, so there is obviously some puzzle piece nature to it. You gotta have pieces that fit together. Not everyone can have overlapping roles. If you have a bunch of Jalen Brunsons, it sounds great, but you're gonna be missing some parts of the game. So you have these complementing pieces, kinda like different parts of an executive team on a tech company. And they all combine together to do the thing, ship lots of products, stop other companies from shipping products, take competitive wins, give other teams losses. That's it.

• 23:28David Imel?

  Can we talk about the positions?

• 23:31Speaker 03

  Like. Yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess.

• 23:32David Imel?

  The positions?

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, we kinda tried to, I mean, so chief operating officer being like the small forward who's kinda just in the middle of a whole bunch of things.

• 23:40David Imel?

  Called forward.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  The captain is often point guard doing most of the visible. Yeah, so the point guard in basketball.

• 23:48Andrew Manganelli?

  These are fair questions.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is.

• 23:50Andrew Manganelli?

  I've never understood these except for center.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  Should I just list these real quick?

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:53Speaker 03

  Okay, I'll list them and I'll just give the basketball explanation first, then we can start relating.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:57Speaker 03

  You have five positions.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  And these positions become more and more fluid over time. Like, I feel like the, these used to be more hard and fast, you know, like each position did a specific role.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  Now you're having, people have to be way more multifaceted in how they play.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, but in general, it's a one through five.

• 24:17Speaker 03

  And the Golden State Warriors, who a lot of tech people maybe are familiar with because of their Silicon Valley roots.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 24:23Andrew Manganelli?

  Let's compare them to Dota.

• 24:25David Imel?

  Yeah, Dota also has five different roles.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  It actually probably is pretty similar.

• 24:29Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm gonna try and help and we're gonna get these as mobile lanes.

• 24:32Speaker 03

  Okay, so.

• 24:33Andrew Manganelli?

  You're not gonna understand.

• 24:33David Imel?

  We're just gonna explain a niche thing in terms of even more niche thing.

• 24:36Andrew Manganelli?

  For our audience, they know mobile lanes more than.

• 24:39Speaker 03

  But so the five positions, point guard traditionally is the smallest player on the team.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  They're guarding the points from the other team.

• 24:48Speaker 03

  No, they're running the point. They're running point, right? That's a common term. So that they're running point, which is to say that they are the one bringing the ball down the floor and starting what your team does. So they have the ball in their hands the most.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 25:01Speaker 03

  They're setting everybody up.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Orchestrator.

• 25:03Speaker 03

  Orchestrating.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  I'm kind of surprised that they even like have a guy that's supposed to do that every time instead of just everybody.

• 25:08Speaker 03

  Teams that don't have that struggle mightily.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  It's like an IGL.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  Not having a good point guard. The Knicks for a long time did not have a good point guard, which is why we all love Jalen Brunson so much.

• 25:20Speaker 03

  So the point guard is the guy who brings the ball down the floor, sets everything up for everyone.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  The shooting guard is the second position. There are two guards. So the shooting guard also generally a little on the smaller end for a basketball player.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Slightly bigger.

• 25:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, which is to say six foot five.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  I'm five nine, baby.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Point guard.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  That player typically high level athlete, good shooter, scores the basketball a lot, delivers lots of products, right? Small forward, so there are two forwards.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Is the three now?

• 25:51Andrew Manganelli?

  One of them is called the small forward.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  The first one is the one, point guard. The second one is the two, the shooting guard. Now we're on the three, even bigger.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  The small forward, which is typically.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Are they always shorter?

• 26:02Speaker 03

  No, I mean, you know, Kevin Durant is considered a small forward, but he's like seven feet tall.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  We're roughly going in order of size.

• 26:09Andrew Manganelli?

  Six eleven, Alex.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  The one is the shooting guard is a little bigger. The small forward is a little bigger.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, everybody keeps getting a little taller traditionally.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  The further you go down the the numbers, right? So the three is a guy who's maybe six foot seven, six, seven.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Six, seven.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  You know?

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:26Speaker 03

  And will be a versatile player, defensive minded usually, plays good defense, can shoot well, that sort of thing. And then you have your power forward.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Four.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  Big, powerful.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  Now we're getting to the biggest guys.

• 26:38Speaker 03

  Right.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Tank.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  OG Ananobe on the Knicks is the four, big, strong man, big, broad shoulders.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  You know, typically like six, ten, six, eleven, six, nine, maybe something like that. And then you have the center, which is the biggest player, the five, and otherwise known as the pivot. Cause they pivot in the post and they score down low.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Oh, that's.

• 26:58Speaker 03

  They bang elbows and they get rebounds.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  That's not Jalen Brunson?

• 27:01Speaker 03

  No.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  No, I feel like he does that.

• 27:02Andrew Manganelli?

  Do they generally score the least amount of times?

• 27:05Speaker 03

  Depending on the center, some of the, some of the most prolific scorers in NBA history have been centers. Like Wilt Chamberlain, who we'll talk about later. Wilt Chamberlain. We'll talk about him later. But in the modern game, yes, I would say centers generally score the least.

• 27:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay.

• 27:18Speaker 03

  The players on the team, for the most part.

• 27:20David Imel?

  It feels like, it feels like Jalen Brunson kinda, because he's shorter, he's kind of like shoving people, getting in there, really shoving his way in and then doing the twos.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  That's because Jalen Brunson is a dog.

• 27:31David Imel?

  Okay.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  That's another basketball term.

• 27:33David Imel?

  With a W, right?

• 27:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and that's why you sing Who Let the Dogs Out? Like, like the Knicks head coach does.

• 27:40Andrew Manganelli?

  Didn't he say, "Stop that"? At the...

• 27:43David Imel?

  He did.

• 27:44Andrew Manganelli?

  At the speech, he was like, "I asked you to stop doing that."

• 27:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think Brunson did that, or, yeah, it's hilarious.

• 27:50Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay, wait, I have, so my terms are from League of Legends, but I think it should be pretty close to Dota.

• 27:56David Imel?

  What are the five League of Legends positions?

• 27:57Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay, so I have point guard is mid, mid carry usually.

• 28:01Speaker 03

  Don't call Brunson mid.

• 28:02Andrew Manganelli?

  No, no, no. Mid is like, mid is like the most important lane. They're the ones who can make it to both lanes, they're usually have the most kills in a game, like they are.

• 28:12David Imel?

  Okay.

• 28:12Andrew Manganelli?

  They're solo dominant.

• 28:15David Imel?

  It seems mid is the same in Dota and League.

• 28:17Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, and they can like win a game. If you are a really good mid laner, you can win a game.

• 28:21David Imel?

  That's true, yes.

• 28:22Andrew Manganelli?

  Um, I have shooting guard. We call them ADC, or like the...

• 28:26David Imel?

  I don't know what that means.

• 28:26Andrew Manganelli?

  Um, AD is...

• 28:28David Imel?

  Are they the ones that...

• 28:29Andrew Manganelli?

  We have it as like a bot lane carry that generally brings the support with them, they're farming a lot. In League, it's generally attack damage versus attack... Yeah, so...

• 28:37David Imel?

  It's just called carry in Dota.

• 28:38Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay, so carry, so that's like bot carry. Also can have a lot of kills, but has a little more support with them in the, and like, kind of, it's like a damage, whereas the

• 28:46David Imel?

  Right.

• 28:46Andrew Manganelli?

  point guard's scoring all the points. So maybe ADC bot carry is getting like assist. Attack damage carry.

• 28:53David Imel?

  Oh, okay.

• 28:55Andrew Manganelli?

  Small forward, I have as jungle.

• 28:58David Imel?

  We don't have a jungle lane in Dota.

• 28:59Andrew Manganelli?

  There's no jungle in Dota?

• 29:00David Imel?

  Well, there is jungle, but they kind of push it out of meta.

• 29:04Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh.

• 29:05David Imel?

  It's not...

• 29:05Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay. I can feel it from like 15 years.

• 29:07Speaker 03

  I could feel my eyes glazing over, is this what people feel like when I explain sports to them?

• 29:10Andrew Manganelli?

  Have you seen us the last 20 minutes?

• 29:14David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 29:15Andrew Manganelli?

  I get it now.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  Oh my god, I understand so much about myself and others now.

• 29:19Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay, imagine old jungle then.

• 29:21David Imel?

  Well, there was never a dedicated jungle lane.

• 29:24Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay.

• 29:24David Imel?

  It's just like-

• 29:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, it's not a lane, but it's a position.

• 29:26David Imel?

  In Dota mid, carry, you have a tank, which is called offlane.

• 29:32Speaker 03

  I know that one. I know that one. This is like when you know one basketball thing. I know tank. I know tank.

• 29:37David Imel?

  Yeah, but they don't call it tank in Dota. It's called offlane.

• 29:39Speaker 03

  Whatever.

• 29:40Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 29:40David Imel?

  And then there's two supports. There's hard support, which is like the weakest support that supports the hard carry.

• 29:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay.

• 29:45David Imel?

  And then there's a soft support, which supports the tank slash offlane.

• 29:48Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't want to say this out loud because I'm gonna get destroyed by the Dota fans that have made it this far into the Basketball Con.

• 29:54David Imel?

  That's right.

• 29:54Andrew Manganelli?

  I have a feeling jungle and soft carry, or soft support are probably pretty similar. Like jungle in League is, they're just farming the middle and not taking farm from everyone else, and then they're supporting all of the other lanes by jumping into them and getting-

• 30:08David Imel?

  Yeah, sort of like soft support.

• 30:10Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay.

• 30:10Speaker 03

  Farming.

• 30:11Andrew Manganelli?

  Sorry, what is farm?

• 30:11Speaker 03

  Is this Farmville?

• 30:12Andrew Manganelli?

  Farm is-

• 30:13David Imel?

  Farming.

• 30:13Andrew Manganelli?

  In, in these games, in order to get money to get more items, there's also non-playable creeps. And if you hit them last, you get money. So you are fighting each other and fighting to get money at the same time.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  What did the creeps do to get categorized as creeps? Were they-

• 30:27Andrew Manganelli?

  Not for this podcast. They work for the wrong people.

• 30:30David Imel?

  They are kinda creepy, to be honest. They're creepy looking.

• 30:33Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay, so then I have power forward as top, which for you-

• 30:35David Imel?

  Power forward?

• 30:36Andrew Manganelli?

  Power forward is the basketball term.

• 30:40David Imel?

  I've never heard that in Dota before.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 30:42Andrew Manganelli?

  I have it as top lane, which for you is-

• 30:44David Imel?

  Is offlane.

• 30:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Or offlane.

• 30:45David Imel?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:46Andrew Manganelli?

  Which, it sounds like they're very similar. And then just main, did you call it main support?

• 30:50David Imel?

  Soft support.

• 30:51Andrew Manganelli?

  Hard support.

• 30:52David Imel?

  Hard support.

• 30:52Andrew Manganelli?

  Hard support, bot lane, support is center.

• 30:55David Imel?

  Center. What is the center one in basketball?

• 30:58Speaker 03

  Big boy.

• 30:59David Imel?

  He's the guy in the middle.

• 30:59Speaker 03

  Big boy in the middle.

• 31:00David Imel?

  Big dude in the middle. He's gobbling up rebounds and kicking it back out.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  Playing defense at the rim.

• 31:06David Imel?

  I feel like that would be offlane.

• 31:08Speaker 03

  Who's the last line of defense in?

• 31:10Andrew Manganelli?

  Does power forwards score more than center?

• 31:14Speaker 03

  Traditionally.

• 31:15Andrew Manganelli?

  Traditionally, that's always, I'd say a top lane generally.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  The offlane is usually the initiator. So I feel like the initiator has gotta be the point guard.

• 31:23Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay, maybe the, no, no, no. Point guard should definitely be midlane. They're the carry. They're getting all the kills. They're scoring all the points.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 31:31Speaker 03

  That can be variable in basketball. Could be the point guard.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Could be very good in Dota as well.

• 31:35Speaker 03

  Whoever your best player is.

• 31:36Andrew Manganelli?

  Jalen Brunson's a midlaner.

• 31:37Speaker 03

  He definitely.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  First of all, here's the thing. Here's the thing. And this might be true about Dota 2. You know, there's, there's the roles and the playstyle from the one through the five, but different teams have a different member of that team being the best player.

• 31:49Andrew Manganelli?

  That's super true.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  So if your best player is your one, then you build your team around that. If your best player is your three, then you build your team around that. If your best player is a five, you build your team around that.

• 31:58Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't think how much you compared them perfect. Like, that makes this argument even stronger. Like, yeah, a top lane can carry as an unkillable tank, like, sometimes.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  And all sports are the same.

• 32:10Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  That's what we're saying.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  Even esports.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Even esports. Even esports. Can you guys, so I play CS and Valorant. Can you explain? Oh, my God.

• 32:18Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't think.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  How about Candy Crush?

• 32:22Speaker 03

  Wait, so really, the basketball players are like the different Angry Birds.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 32:28Andrew Manganelli?

  I mean, you're not wrong.

• 32:30Speaker 03

  Honestly, I could do that. I'm a big Angry Birds guy, so I could do that.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Let's, let's continue with the basketball tech stuff, because we are a tech podcast. So allegedly.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Allegedly, this is so far off the rails.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  What's next on your, on your?

• 32:41Speaker 03

  Should we talk about types of shots?

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, sure.

• 32:45Speaker 03

  David did ask what a layup is, so.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, so the basket, you know what the basket looks like and you know what it means to score a basket. The ball goes through the basket, right? Yeah, yeah. So further away from the basket, harder a shot. Yeah, right. Right next to the basket, if you're just laying it off the glass and in, that's called a layup. You just literally go layup right next to the basket. If you actually jump up and slam it through the basket, that's a slam dunk.

• 33:08David Imel?

  Slam dunk.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  You've heard of that term before.

• 33:09David Imel?

  I've heard dunk, yeah.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  You've heard of a slam dunk product?

• 33:12David Imel?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  If something has a slam dunk, it's like the easiest bam guarantee it's gonna be a winner.

• 33:16David Imel?

  For sure, like that's-

• 33:17Speaker 01

  If Apple made a fitness band.

• 33:18David Imel?

  Slam dunk.

• 33:19Andrew Manganelli?

  Apple added USB-C to AirPods Max?

• 33:21Speaker 01

  Slam dunk, slam dunk, exactly.

• 33:23David Imel?

  I don't know about that.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  As you get further away-

• 33:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Josh Hart missed dunk.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  All of these, all of these shots, by the way, are worth two points.

• 33:28David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  And-

• 33:30David Imel?

  Unless you're far enough away.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  If you get far enough away, there's a, there's a line, an arc around the basket. Uh, it's a three-point line.

• 33:35David Imel?

  Three-point line.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  If you shoot from behind the three-point line and score, it's worth three points.

• 33:39David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Uh, you can imagine the distribution being like, the easiest shots are right next to the basket. They're worth two points.

• 33:46David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  In-

• 33:47David Imel?

  Unless you're Steph Curry.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  We'll, we'll get to him.

• 33:49Speaker 03

  He makes it look really easy.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  He makes it look really easy, okay. Analytically, the next easiest shot is slightly further away, and slightly further away. But you get to a point where, if you're at the longest possible two-pointer-

• 34:02David Imel?

  Okay.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  You might as well step back and make it a three-pointer because it's not much harder, but it's worth 50% more points.

• 34:08David Imel?

  Okay.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  A lot of teams study this, and they realize, wow, if we want to ship a lot of products, it would be more efficient for us to ship a lot of three-pointers.

• 34:15David Imel?

  Right.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Even though they're a little bit harder-

• 34:17David Imel?

  Like Apple.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  They're worth a lot more points.

• 34:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Every EV startup ever who's like, we'd rather ship the really expensive ones right now.

• 34:24David Imel?

  Oh.

• 34:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Before the cheap ones.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  The ones that feel like they're slightly harder to ship, but that you know you will ship way more of.

• 34:30David Imel?

  Right.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  That's the stuff that they're optimizing for.

• 34:32David Imel?

  Which is like Apple's strategy, right? Like Samsung ships like a bazillion SKUs of their phones. And so does Vivo and Oppo. But Apple's just like, we only make five products, but every single one of them is gonna sell a bazillion.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  That's a really good, yeah. So certain companies like Samsung, who ship a ton of stuff, they're like, I'm trying to think of a team that just shoots whatever. The Hornets.

• 34:50Speaker 03

  The Brooklyn Nets a few years ago.

• 34:52Andrew Manganelli?

  I was weird that they're gonna say the Hornets.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:53Speaker 03

  The Hornets, yeah.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Shoot their shot chart, which is like the graph on the court of where they shoot from-

• 34:58David Imel?

  Okay.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  Is all over the place.

• 35:00David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  And it's fine, because they're equally good at everything, and it's like-

• 35:03Speaker 03

  And they score a lot of points.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  And they score a lot of points.

• 35:04Speaker 03

  They, they, they take a lot of weird shots, but they hit a lot of them, so.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  But you might have heard of the Golden State Warriors.

• 35:10David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Who are maybe closer to Apple, conveniently because they're a California team. But they have a slightly more selective shot chart, meaning they're really good at three-pointers-

• 35:19David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  And layups and dunks.

• 35:21David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  And why bother with the mid-range stuff? Like, Apple could add stuff to their plate and ship more products, but iPhones, Macs, that's all they really have to ship.

• 35:31David Imel?

  Unless you're Steph Curry and you shoot from half-court, and that's like if the Vision Pro was successful.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, you've probably heard, yeah, there's terms like a Hail Mary, or like a, like a deep buzzer beater.

• 35:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  That would be like a Vision Pro.

• 35:44Speaker 03

  Deep three, yeah.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:46David Imel?

  Okay.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  So, yeah, three-pointers, Steph Curry is really good at three-pointers. That's like Apple being really good at iPhones.

• 35:53David Imel?

  Right.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  They ship a ton of them, and there's not many who can stop it.

• 35:57David Imel?

  Right.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  And why do anything else at this point?

• 36:01David Imel?

  Right.

• 36:02Speaker 03

  Adam and I actually related that when we were cooking up this episode to like, a software feature that initially you didn't think you needed, but that then you get it, and then you never want to live without it again.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 36:15Speaker 03

  It's like, it was, the three-point shot was disregarded for a long time as just sort of a luxury.

• 36:20David Imel?

  A wireless charging.

• 36:21Speaker 03

  Right, and then it became-

• 36:23Andrew Manganelli?

  I love three-pointers.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then, and then, and then suddenly teams came around on it, and they said, "Wait, three is greater than two, why don't we shoot more of these?"

• 36:33Andrew Manganelli?

  It took them that long to figure that out? No wire is better than wire, I don't get how people can't figure that out.

• 36:38Speaker 03

  Right, and then, and then teams just became, now it's like you can't live without it. It's, it's the feature you can't live without.

• 36:44David Imel?

  NFC wireless charging.

• 36:45Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 36:46Andrew Manganelli?

  I've, oh, are you still gonna talk about points? Cause I have two questions about points.

• 36:51Speaker 03

  I could do, I could, do you want me to give the nerdy math that has defined the NBA for the last 10 years?

• 36:55David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  I want to make your guys' eyes glaze over real quick.

• 36:57David Imel?

  I'm ready.

• 36:58Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, okay.

• 36:58Speaker 03

  All right, so-

• 36:59Andrew Manganelli?

  Accomplished, glaze.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  All right, so the three-point shot used to be a luxury in the NBA, in the NBA. It was introduced in the 1979 to 80's season, where before that, any shot on the court was worth only two points.

• 37:12David Imel?

  What? Yeah, they used to not-

• 37:14Speaker 03

  There was no extra line.

• 37:15David Imel?

  That's crazy.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:17David Imel?

  Wow.

• 37:18Andrew Manganelli?

  The 80's, so we're 40 years away.

• 37:19Speaker 03

  This has already gone off the rails, this is not gonna be a cuddle.

• 37:23David Imel?

  I'm blown away by that.

• 37:24Speaker 03

  Sorry, start over, start over.

• 37:25David Imel?

  When I was watching the NBA in the 90s.

• 37:27Speaker 03

  There was a three point.

• 37:27David Imel?

  There was already a three point.

• 37:28Speaker 03

  Did you hear when I said that they introduced it 79, 80 season?

• 37:31David Imel?

  Yeah, that's crazy. That's so wild.

• 37:33Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 37:34David Imel?

  Okay.

• 37:34Speaker 03

  So, I'll start from the top.

• 37:36David Imel?

  No, no.

• 37:37Speaker 03

  All right, all right.

• 37:38David Imel?

  Come on.

• 37:38Speaker 03

  So the three point shot is longer than a two point shot. There's a line that defines where you do it and it's worth, as the name implies, three points instead of two points, right? So teams for decades still ran most of their offense inside the three point line because that was previously what was considered like real basketball or whatever, and that's just what teams were used to.

• 37:59David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  But around 2014, 15, Steph Curry's rise with the Warriors and they're getting Steve Kerr as head coach. Teams finally did some math and realized that three is greater than two. So I'll explain how this works percentages wise, right? So the nerdy math that has basically defined the NBA for the last decade is this. Every possession in the NBA is dictated by the amount of points you can get per possession, right? So.

• 38:25David Imel?

  What is a possession?

• 38:26Speaker 03

  So a possession is each, each time you hold the ball and bring it down the floor and try to score, right? A good point per possession number is generally anything over one. If you're scoring 50% of the time on a two point shot, that's one point per possession, right? So shooting 60% on two point shots has generally been kind of the line considered good for shooting a two point shot. If you shoot 60% of the time you make it.

• 38:53David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 38:53Speaker 03

  That's considered good. That's 1.2 points per possession.

• 38:56David Imel?

  Okay.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  However, teams finally figured out, wait, if we shoot 40% from three.

• 39:03David Imel?

  Right.

• 39:03Speaker 03

  That's the same as shooting 60% from two.

• 39:06David Imel?

  Right.

• 39:07Speaker 03

  It's all 1.2 points per possession.

• 39:09David Imel?

  Right, true.

• 39:09Speaker 03

  And therefore, teams put a huge emphasis on shooting threes about 10 years ago.

• 39:15David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 39:16Speaker 03

  And it has completely changed the entire game of basketball.

• 39:19David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 39:19Speaker 03

  And made it more focused on shooting threes instead of twos.

• 39:22David Imel?

  Would you say that threes are also harder to guard?

• 39:26Speaker 03

  To, to an extent, it's also changed how defense is.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the idea is it's easier to get above forty percent from three than it is to get above sixty percent from two.

• 39:38Andrew Manganelli?

  Right.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  So people are, if you can get a layup or an easy two, that's great, but those mid-range shots that are like a jump shot and someone's guarding you, you might as well step back behind the three-point line and make forty percent of those instead of taking a long two and trying to make sixty percent of those.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  Do you need an explanation of what a jump shot is, by the way?

• 39:57Speaker 01

  You jump and then you shoot it?

• 39:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay. It's pretty self-explanatory, but I want to make sure.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Why do they even have a name for that? Thank you.

• 40:03Speaker 03

  Because you could take a set-

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Cause a layup, you don't have to jump.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  You can also take a set shot. You can take a shot without jumping.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Right next to the basket.

• 40:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  You, you just, you just sort of lay it up.

• 40:12Andrew Manganelli?

  That's what a layup is, where you like-

• 40:13Speaker 03

  So early, also, the, the jumping is part of strategy.

• 40:18Speaker 03

  Early on, you used to have your feet set when you shot, but then, but then people discovered that if you jump and then shoot, you can get your shot even higher up so nobody can block it.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  How long did it take for them to realize that?

• 40:30Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, basketball seems like they're just discovering the simplest thing.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  This wasn't a discovery, it's not new.

• 40:35Andrew Manganelli?

  It's a basket.

• 40:36Speaker 03

  I think the-

• 40:37Speaker 01

  This is all in the sixties, like at the beginning.

• 40:39Speaker 03

  I think the jump shot came about in like the fifties.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  When did basketball start?

• 40:43Speaker 03

  Nineteen thirty-something.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:45Speaker 03

  With a peach, a peach basket.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  What is that?

• 40:48Speaker 03

  James Nason, a basket that you'd go on peaches.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Oh, that's cool.

• 40:52Andrew Manganelli?

  Eighteen ninety-one.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Throw a ball into it.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  Oh, eighteen ninety-one. Man, I thought it was-

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Eighteen ninety-one?

• 40:58Andrew Manganelli?

  The first game was in eighteen ninety-one.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  And it took them till the fifties to figure out if you jump, it goes higher?

• 41:02Speaker 03

  I'm approximating.

• 41:03Andrew Manganelli?

  Three is more than two.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  At first, I couldn't even dribble. It's not that it took them that long to figure it out, but it's like you, the whole point of like scoring points is you want to be consistent and make it easy. And if you're jumping, that introduces a variable of like, well, if I jump a different height, I gotta compensate for that and it's difficult. And so a lot of training and a lot of people doing it, eventually they figured out how to jump consistently and make shots. It's the same as the three-point line. Like that existed for many, many years. It's not like nobody realized it was worth three. But teams finally got good enough at making that very long twenty-five foot shot that it finally became worth it. We can finally shoot forty percent from three.

• 41:38Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  So the evolution of the game has pushed slowly, slowly, slowly, incrementally better and better. Kind of like the chip getting slightly faster on the iPhone. It's not like we didn't know the faster chip could eventually play this game. But we've been working towards this slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, generation after generation until it's gotten to where it is today.

• 41:55Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay. Okay, two questions about points.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Points.

• 41:58David Imel?

  Points.

• 41:58Andrew Manganelli?

  Do you want the short one or the long one first?

• 42:00Speaker 03

  Either.

• 42:01Andrew Manganelli?

  I guess both.

• 42:01Speaker 03

  Both at the same time.

• 42:02Andrew Manganelli?

  One, basketball players, why do they miss free throws?

• 42:08David Imel?

  Why do they miss?

• 42:09Andrew Manganelli?

  They get so much money.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Why?

• 42:12Andrew Manganelli?

  And there's, it's literally the same thing every time. It's called free.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 42:17Andrew Manganelli?

  You should make it.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  It should always work.

• 42:18Andrew Manganelli?

  It should be a free point.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Fantastic question. I mean, do you hit three throws? So, here's the real answer. Here's the real answer. If you watch an NBA player in an empty gym, they basically make every shot they take.

• 42:31Andrew Manganelli?

  I've never seen Terry Clark miss.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  It's kind of terrifying. Like, they make basically every shot, right? When you introduce the variable of the real world, stuff gets a little weird sometimes. There's a crowd behind the basket, they're cheering, there's pressure, there's a score, there's people who are like hoping, you know, there's a whole bunch more to it. This is like shipping software with bugs.

• 42:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was literally about to say bugs, dude.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  In theory, in theory, it should work 100% of the time. I'm just pressing the button and the software's supposed to do the thing. Of course it should work every single time. It should be a free, it should be a layup for these companies. It should work every time.

• 43:06Andrew Manganelli?

  That's a really good analogy.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  But for some reason, you put it in the real world, and then people get their hands on it, and it's doing stuff that you didn't expect, and it's odd. And it's not so much, yeah, obviously some of it is a skill issue, but it is just the fact that the real world variables sometimes throws you off. It throws some off more than it throws others off.

• 43:24David Imel?

  It's like, why did the screenshot tool in iOS 27 just not crop things anymore? Like, they couldn't have changed the code where they're like, we're changing the way screenshots work completely. They didn't do that. It's the same as before, but now it just doesn't work.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  What happened?

• 43:38David Imel?

  You know?

• 43:38Speaker 03

  And that's like changing, that's like changing your shooting form. Sometimes players, they go, I don't, I don't think the way I'm shooting is proper. And then they change how they shoot, and then it ruins it.

• 43:49Andrew Manganelli?

  They drag their liquid glass slider.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:52Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay, I really like the bug analogy. My second question, when do I cheer for a point? Cause there are so many of them.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:59Andrew Manganelli?

  I, listen, if you have to cheer 50 times a game, you're not cheering as loud as you should.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  No, that's a good, that's a valid.

• 44:04Andrew Manganelli?

  No, I think this is a super valid question.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Andrew comes from a sport where they score once or twice. So you can't.

• 44:08Andrew Manganelli?

  A little more than that. This ain't soccer.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  The, the general rule of basketball is you wait, the most important times of the game are the final two minutes of each half.

• 44:17Andrew Manganelli?

  So why wouldn't you only show up for the final two minutes?

• 44:19Speaker 03

  Cause you're a real fan, so you show up for the whole game.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  There's a storyline. Okay, so.

• 44:24Speaker 03

  It all adds up.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  There are some more important baskets than others. So obviously if you're shipping 100 products in four quarters, not every product is gonna get a standing ovation.

• 44:34Andrew Manganelli?

  Sure.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  But.

• 44:35Speaker 03

  We could do an Apple analogy for this.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:37Speaker 03

  The, the bucket that they make in the middle of the third quarter is the polishing cloth.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  Doesn't really.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Nobody needs to cheer.

• 44:45Speaker 03

  There might be a dunk. It might, it might be a dunk.

• 44:47Andrew Manganelli?

  Really good cloth.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  There are gonna be, there's gonna be some fans that are gonna cheer for that, for sure. That's fine.

• 44:52Andrew Manganelli?

  Worth the trying.

• 44:53Speaker 03

  The, the buzzer beater at the end of the fourth quarter that wins you the game is the iPhone.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  You know, it's.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  They're gonna ship this iPhone and it's going to push them over the edge and the fans will go, ah, now we're the best. They, they cheer a lot of them.

• 45:06Speaker 04

  I have another analogy here.

• 45:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:08Speaker 04

  So staying for all of the points is kind of like going to see these developer conferences at I O. So you can see what's coming down. Like if you're there in the middle of a game and your team makes a bucket that is like, they haven't scored in so long, but then they finally make a bucket. You can feel the momentum shift and you can be like, oh, okay, this team is now gonna from this point forward do well. And that's kind of like these developer conferences. You go to the developer conference and you can see where the company's vision is going. And you're like, okay, wait, they're on to something here. And those are the like points in the middle that don't really matter, quote unquote, is like.

• 45:42Andrew Manganelli?

  That's like the filler episodes in anime. Sure.

• 45:45David Imel?

  Sure.

• 45:46Andrew Manganelli?

  It like, it means something to the story.

• 45:49Speaker 03

  I love that.

• 45:49Andrew Manganelli?

  But you can probably just watch the important ones.

• 45:51David Imel?

  It's like the bonus episodes on the waveform podcast.

• 45:56Speaker 03

  Oh my god, this is like inception now. We're on a bonus episode.

• 46:01David Imel?

  I just felt the momentum shift, I think.

• 46:04David Imel?

  You know how on the waveform podcast, when they do the bonus episodes, they're not really that important to the story, but but the fans stay and they cheer.

• 46:12Speaker 03

  This is a filler.

• 46:13Andrew Manganelli?

  And you know where we're going as a filler episode.

• 46:15Speaker 03

  This is the most anime filler episode of all waveform episodes.

• 46:18David Imel?

  This is our crossover, dude. This is our crossover.

• 46:20Speaker 03

  This is the baseball episode of Dragon Ball Super right now.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  I like the draft, because this is a really interesting one. That's, it's unique to sports. The draft, yes. It's unique to sports. There is no equivalent for this in the tech world. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a what if.

• 46:32David Imel?

  Okay.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  That might keep it interesting. Because we have, we have these tech companies operating, competing against each other. And, you know, capitalism's supposed to say that the best products and the best ones win. In sports, if we leave it like that for too long, you're gonna get teams that are just so far ahead of other teams that the other, especially newer franchises, will never get any chance to catch up.

• 46:52David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  So here's what we do. After every year, every season, we have a draft. And the team that was the worst this past year gets the first pick in the draft, roughly. This isn't exact science, but they get the highest picks in the draft. And the teams that were really, really, really good, okay, you don't need a bunch more talent. So they'll get the, the last picks in the draft.

• 47:12David Imel?

  Okay, so how?

• 47:13Speaker 01

  And the draft is drafting among this brand new upcoming talent from college, similar to tech companies.

• 47:18David Imel?

  Okay.

• 47:19Andrew Manganelli?

  When they hit eighteen, right?

• 47:20Speaker 01

  Basically. So here's a what if for you. Imagine if

• 47:23David Imel?

  Okay.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  the least successful tech companies the last year got the most, uh, the highest picks of all the best college talent going to them. And the most successful teams, the best tech companies in the world, didn't get any of that talent.

• 47:39David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  They have to pick the scraps from who's left.

• 47:41Speaker 03

  Just pretend for a minute that money doesn't exist.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:45Andrew Manganelli?

  The exact opposite of what tech does. Because when you graduate college at like top of your class, you're probably going to be poached by the biggest and you're going to want to pick the biggest company because you'll make the most money and go to the thing that's already doing really well.

• 47:58David Imel?

  Right.

• 47:58Andrew Manganelli?

  So it's the opposite. I guess if college players didn't have a draft, they would leave college and be like, oh, the team that just won the championship wants me? I'm going to want to play for the team that won the championship.

• 48:09Speaker 03

  Maybe this is how we bust up big tech. We institute a draft.

• 48:15Speaker 03

  And then lesser companies will become better.

• 48:17David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  It makes, it's more easy to see in sports because the teams are smaller and one high talent can have a big impact on winning.

• 48:24David Imel?

  Right.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  But if you imagine essentially the, the draft from college upcoming talent in that way in tech, it would be like if the best companies who are the most successful, made the most money, do not have access to the best talent. They have to do it again next year.

• 48:37David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 48:38Speaker 03

  With their same talent.

• 48:39Andrew Manganelli?

  Like best guy out of Stanford's like, I have to go work for humane.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  But sometimes what happens is all of that talent goes to humane and then humane has a great.

• 48:50Speaker 03

  And then humane figures it out.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  And then HP makes a printer that can work. And you're like, wow.

• 48:54David Imel?

  It's crazy.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  See, we have all this competition. It's an even playing field again.

• 48:58David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  So people like that in the sports world are really like that. It keeps it even and interesting. The worst teams get way better.

• 49:04David Imel?

  Yeah. I mean, it would be cool if like, you know, instead of Apple having 40% of the RAM supply every single year, if suddenly that went to like an up and coming company.

• 49:12Speaker 03

  Oh man, yeah, maybe that's why we do the draft. We, we make it RAM supply.

• 49:15Andrew Manganelli?

  That almost feels like Formula One in terms of like wind tunnel time where like the worst teams get more tunnel time.

• 49:21David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 49:21Andrew Manganelli?

  To like develop their cars.

• 49:22David Imel?

  I mean, it's sports still, but yeah.

• 49:23Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 49:24David Imel?

  Exactly. Okay. I like, um, what do they call that in Dota? That's a balance patch, basically.

• 49:28Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, balance?

• 49:29David Imel?

  Balance patch.

• 49:30Andrew Manganelli?

  Man, if tech had balance patches.

• 49:32David Imel?

  You know, the, you know, the physics, I don't know how real this is, but you know, the like video game slingshot physics where if you're in last place in Mario Kart, you get all the better power ups?

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:40Andrew Manganelli?

  Socialism?

• 49:40David Imel?

  It's like that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Socialism?

• 49:43David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  So if, if the team, if you're in last place, here's a, here's a weird thing. Okay. And this is, this is kind of a problem in the NBA and in sports. Sometimes someone will intentionally go to last place in Mario Kart to get the better power ups because they know that that's going to get them back to.

• 49:58Speaker 03

  Wow, that's a.

• 49:59Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't know why right there.

• 50:00Speaker 03

  You're a pros pro dude.

• 50:02Andrew Manganelli?

  Explaining it to like your child.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Do they do this in basketball? Yeah, they do this in basketball. They will intentionally.

• 50:08Speaker 03

  They'll do what's called tanking.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:10Speaker 03

  You tank your.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Shouldn't that be against the rules?

• 50:12Speaker 03

  It should and they're, and they just instituted new rules to stop it.

• 50:16Andrew Manganelli?

  Wait, what is it? The PWHL has an awesome rule for this actually.

• 50:19Speaker 03

  So, uh, okay, without getting too into the weeds on it, basically what the, so the NBA has a lottery at the end of the season. Um, typically if you're worse, you get a higher chance of getting the number one overall pick. What they're now doing is they're flattening those odds. So they're making it so that the worst teams actually only get like, instead of it used to be like a 25% chance to gain the number one pick.

• 50:40Andrew Manganelli?

  The NHL did that.

• 50:41Speaker 03

  Now you have only like a 10% chance. And then the teams in the middle get a slightly better amount. And then the teams actually that barely missed the playoffs now get like an 8% chance of getting the number one pick.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  So what's that power up in Mario Kart where you just get like the black thing? Bullet bill. The bullet thing?

• 50:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  And you just soar across everything? That's like the number one pick in the draft. It's not a guarantee, but the number one pick in the draft is going to be immensely talented and push you.

• 51:04Andrew Manganelli?

  From the, no, to like the middle.

• 51:06Speaker 03

  For the middle of the pack.

• 51:07Andrew Manganelli?

  To the middle, at least to like 30.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  So there will be a team slash Mario Kart player. Yeah. With more than enough talent and skill to come in second or third place, but they see that they're not going to win. So they just hit the brakes and go all the way to last place. They pick up the bullet and then they go all the way back to second or first. And you're like, he's, like, that's just so.

• 51:26Speaker 03

  Your, your reaction is the general public's reaction to tanking in the NBA.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  That's so.

• 51:30Speaker 03

  So.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:31Speaker 03

  You nailed it.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  It took them this many years to make that against the rules?

• 51:35Speaker 03

  They tried to.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  It's actually hard to, to force. So initially it was literally like, if you are the last place team, you are the first pick in the draft. Right. Then it was like, okay, I will literally lose all of my games because I want to be the first pick of the draft. They're like, okay, okay, okay, okay. If you are in the bottom five, then we'll have this little lottery system. And you'll get more of a chance of last, of first pick, but you're not going to guarantee first pick. Yeah. And it's still a pretty good chance of first pick if you're in last place. So the teams are still trying to get last place. So they're like, all right. Has there ever been a circumstance where multiple teams were trying to tank at the same

• 52:09Speaker 03

  Literally this year.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  And like nobody could win?

• 52:11David Imel?

  Because everyone was trying to lose.

• 52:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Is that what the Sixers did? Or are they?

• 52:15Speaker 03

  They did last year. Yeah, the Sixers tanked last year.

• 52:17David Imel?

  And Ellis is a fan of these?

• 52:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, well.

• 52:20David Imel?

  He's watching.

• 52:20Speaker 03

  You know.

• 52:21Andrew Manganelli?

  Is on his plane back from vacation, listening to this.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  It's kind of funny because kind of like in tech. And in a lot of other things, the worst thing to do is be like in purgatory in the mid.

• 52:33David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  You want to be winning franchise, top of your game, in your prime, like unbeatable.

• 52:40David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 52:40Speaker 01

  Or just bankrupt, wipe it, start it over, right? Because if you're in purgatory, like teetering and you can't really do anything about it.

• 52:48David Imel?

  Like one plus.

• 52:49Speaker 03

  The draft is like a government bailout.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Like you don't want to be a mid team forever. So a good draft pick could finally change that for you. So a mid team will tank to try to get a good draft pick.

• 53:02David Imel?

  They penalize you if you, if they catch you tanking?

• 53:05Speaker 03

  Allegedly, allegedly. But it's, yeah, it's like, hey billionaire owner, that wasn't great. It was a $50,000 fine. It's like, oh, okay, whatever.

• 53:15Andrew Manganelli?

  This might be, we're going further from tech, but I just want to explain to you guys what the women's hockey league is doing. They do something called the gold plan. Well, once you are mathematically eliminated, then your wins start accumulating points towards a draft pick. And then, so every time a team gets eliminated, every win they get after that gets them closer.

• 53:35David Imel?

  That's so smart.

• 53:36Speaker 03

  That's awesome.

• 53:37Andrew Manganelli?

  So it like incentivizes you to win.

• 53:39David Imel?

  Why don't they do that in basketball?

• 53:40Speaker 03

  Wow, take no Adam Silver. Come on, man.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  Specifically good because a lot of late season games.

• 53:45David Imel?

  Are boring.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Are, are mathematically irrelevant.

• 53:48David Imel?

  Right.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  It'll be like, oh, we've scheduled this out from the beginning of the season, but it turns out this Charlotte Hornets versus Chicago Bulls game is two teams that are already mathematically eliminated and have no reason to win. And so they sit all of their best players and people will go to the game and pay and show up and get to watch horrible basketball.

• 54:06Andrew Manganelli?

  Not show up at all and the arena is empty.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's just a, it's a pain. So that would make those games interesting to watch because those, those are.

• 54:13David Imel?

  Yeah, because then they might get a draft pick. None of the statisticians.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  That's a really good idea. Shout out to that league. That's awesome.

• 54:18David Imel?

  Yeah, cool.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  Cool. Okay, should we take a break? We've gone way.

• 54:21David Imel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:22Andrew Manganelli?

  I feel, I assumed you were putting a break in there somewhere.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  One of her segments. Here is a natural spot for a break.

• 54:27David Imel?

  Okay.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  We'll be right back.

• 54:37Speaker 01

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• 55:22Speaker 01

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• 56:06Speaker 01

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• 56:48Speaker 01

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• 57:52David Imel?

  Welcome back. I have a question. What does the coach do?

• 57:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:58David Imel?

  Okay, so like, you know, Mike Brown, you know, he's the Knicks coach. He coached the Sacramento Kings before this.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:03David Imel?

  Got booted off the Sacramento Kings.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 58:07David Imel?

  Ball. Ball knowledge.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  Just saying.

• 58:09Speaker 03

  You know how many teams he's been fired from? Like, half a dozen. It's crazy.

• 58:13Speaker 01

  And it's because it was too good. There has to be. I think there's a tech analogy for that, too. The top teams, like, trade talent.

• 58:20Andrew Manganelli?

  That's just every employee of a major tech company. Look at their LinkedIn. They look like a coach in the NBA.

• 58:25Speaker 03

  That goes somewhere else. Yeah.

• 58:26Andrew Manganelli?

  Tesla, Apple, Google.

• 58:28David Imel?

  Because my question about the coach is like, you know, they like call timeouts and then they talk to the players. But like, what are they talking to them about? Like, how does this work?

• 58:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the coach knows the range of talents of the players really well. And before every game, they do the hard work of looking at what the other team is really good at and how their team compares and what they should do to beat the other team. So the players, they come to the table with their skills and they're like, yeah. I'm a dunk it and they're like, all right, you're good at dunking it. I'm going to put you in positions where you get a lot of dunks.

• 58:58Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  But if you're playing against a team that's really good at defending dunks, they're like, all right, you're going to get rebounds and pass it out to the shooter because they're bad at defending shooters. So they're the brains orchestrating what the players are doing in theory.

• 59:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, if we're talking about like, uh, like a technology. If we go, if we go to the hardware side, they're like the logic board or whatever.

• 59:18Speaker 04

  It is you with a bunch of agents. I mean, the orchestrator.

• 59:22Andrew Manganelli?

  All the players think they're building this incredible thing, but they need the person from outside to wrangle them back in, right? Like Snapchat could have used a coach to tell them those glasses are ridiculous.

• 59:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Like, okay, so the Snapchat CEO in this analogy, who clearly is the one that thought those were a good idea.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know about that.

• 59:41Speaker 03

  I think.

• 59:42Andrew Manganelli?

  He had to wear them.

• 59:43Speaker 03

  It seems like it. I don't know. But so whoever the, the person was that was pushing for the Snapchat spectacles the most.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:51Speaker 04

  Specs.

• 59:51Speaker 03

  The specs.

• 59:54Speaker 03

  That person is like a basketball player that needs to be wrangled in. And needs to be told, you're shooting too much and you're not making your shots.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:02Speaker 03

  So we're going to bench you.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  So that's the purpose of a coach.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  So that's like the board?

• 1:00:08Speaker 03

  Sure, maybe.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Cause the board can like switch out.

• 1:00:11Speaker 03

  Can kibosh it.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  Can switch out the CEO if they're not doing a good job.

• 1:00:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, kind of.

• 1:00:16Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:16Speaker 03

  This is not a pure one to one because there's also some way to say that like the coach could be, the coach and the assistant coaches could be like a CEO, COO, CMO, that sort of thing.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  There's an assistant coach too.

• 1:00:28Speaker 03

  There's like multiple assistants.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  A bunch.

• 1:00:29Speaker 03

  So Mike Brown famously this year was very collaborative. That was part of why they hired him.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:00:35Speaker 03

  He was very open to listening to his assistant coaches.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  That's what we do in the Sacramento Valley.

• 1:00:39Speaker 03

  That focus on different, you know, areas of the game. So in pure basketball terms, the Knicks had like an assistant that was more focused on the offense. They had an assistant that was more focused on the defense.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:00:50Speaker 03

  They had another guy that would sit on the second row that literally his whole job was, should we review this play or not? Because you get to challenge plays. If you think that the referees got the call wrong.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:02Speaker 03

  And the Knicks had a. Super high conversionary on successful challenges of bad calls.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:01:09Speaker 03

  That's like their legal team.

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  Should we appeal this lawsuit?

• 1:01:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Speaker 03

  It's like, is the lawsuit worth pursuing? Yes or no? That's basically, they have an assistant that's like that. That's like their legal counsel.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:01:19Speaker 03

  Um, but yeah, the, the coach makes decisions that it leads to the overall success. And, and cycles people in and out. So a board is probably a good thing, you know? Brings in turnover, has some churn, you know, to make sure that things stay fresh. Manages egos.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  Players doing pretty well, but kind of getting tired. Hey, I know you're good, but you're getting tired. Let me put the bench player on and get some rest.

• 1:01:42Speaker 03

  They also set the roadmap in a way because, so for example, the Knicks this year played a style of defense under their old coach where you would try to force people to the perimeter to try to get them away from the inside of the.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  So that they could get more two pointers? Cause Jalen Brunson's good at two pointers?

• 1:01:58Speaker 03

  Well, so this, I'm talking about what they would do on defense. So the Knicks would try to make the other team not get to the inside for easy shots, right?

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:06Speaker 03

  And then the Knicks during their worst stretch this year tried something new and said, what if we defended the perimeter a lot, the three point shot and let teams get to the inside? And then teams were just getting layups left and right and it was not pretty. So then they switched their scheme back.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  Okay. They didn't have like a, like a Wemby.

• 1:02:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:23Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah. Alex just broke a little bit.

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  The Spurs.

• 1:02:28Speaker 03

  They didn't have anyone to flagrant foul their, the other team.

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, Spurs, you might know, have a player who's seven foot six with really long arms called Victor Wembanyama. And so they're in defensive player of the year. And so their entire defensive strategy, if you were smart, the coaches would go, hey, really close out on anyone trying to shoot a three pointer. Make them stop pump fake and try to dribble and drive for a two because we've got an alien in there who will just block everything.

• 1:02:53David Imel?

  Is it pump fake where you pretend to shoot and then you don't?

• 1:02:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:55David Imel?

  Yeah, Steph Curry does that a lot.

• 1:02:56Speaker 03

  Yes, he's very good at it.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  It's like when you're about to ship a product and then you don't, like air power.

• 1:03:01Andrew Manganelli?

  It's like the.

• 1:03:03David Imel?

  Head fake.

• 1:03:05Andrew Manganelli?

  It's like the Streetlight Manifesto album. We're releasing.

• 1:03:07Speaker 03

  Just kidding. You got pump faked, bro.

• 1:03:11David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:14Speaker 03

  David just broke inside.

• 1:03:16David Imel?

  Okay, okay, speaking of GTA, GTA.

• 1:03:21Speaker 03

  Rockstar, they are the best at pump faking.

• 1:03:23David Imel?

  That's true.

• 1:03:25Speaker 03

  Look at this trailer, look at this trailer.

• 1:03:26David Imel?

  You mentioned, you mentioned the, uh, the ref.

• 1:03:28Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:03:29David Imel?

  So I went to a basketball game with you.

• 1:03:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:32David Imel?

  Um, well, no, we watched it.

• 1:03:33Speaker 03

  We watched it on TV, but yeah.

• 1:03:34David Imel?

  On TV.

• 1:03:35Speaker 03

  I yelled at the refs a lot. I lost my voice.

• 1:03:37David Imel?

  So there were multiple points during the game where the ref would come out and he would talk about the type of foul. So can you explain the types of fouls that exist?

• 1:03:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. Wow. It's so good. That's literally the next thing on the document.

• 1:03:49David Imel?

  Oh, nice.

• 1:03:49Speaker 03

  Are you sure you didn't read this?

• 1:03:50David Imel?

  I'm not on the.

• 1:03:51Speaker 03

  That's crazy.

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  There's two types of fouls.

• 1:03:53Speaker 03

  All right. So there's, there's different types of fouls and violations. Yeah. So we'll start with just a foul.

• 1:04:00David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:04:01Speaker 03

  So a foul is when a player prevents another player from taking and or making a shot.

• 1:04:06David Imel?

  Isn't that what you're supposed to do?

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  Well, we should start with the fact that basketball, basketball is a quote, non-contact sport.

• 1:04:11Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:04:12David Imel?

  Oh.

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  So in the basic sense, you can guard, but you can't make too much contact and that would be a foul.

• 1:04:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Unless you're Victor Wembie-ama.

• 1:04:20Speaker 03

  Yes, pretty much.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  If you make too much contact, it's a foul.

• 1:04:22Andrew Manganelli?

  Unless you're Victor.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  The referees are the ones who decide how much contact is too much contact.

• 1:04:27Speaker 03

  And the thing is, especially with shooting, you're allowed to affect them however you can without touching their body while they're shooting.

• 1:04:35Andrew Manganelli?

  Unless you're Victor Wembie-ama.

• 1:04:37Speaker 03

  Unless you're. Yeah. So unless you're Victor Wembie-ama. Uh, anyway.

• 1:04:41David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:04:41Speaker 03

  But so the basic rule of fouling is if someone is trying to shoot, you can do whatever you can without touching their arms.

• 1:04:48David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  Uh, you can also touch the ball. That's legal. If you just touch the ball, that's called all ball. You hit the ball, that's a block.

• 1:04:55David Imel?

  All block.

• 1:04:55Speaker 03

  Yes. Nice block.

• 1:04:57David Imel?

  A block.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  Right. But if you hit their arm, then you're affecting their ability to shoot and that's a foul.

• 1:05:02David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:05:02Speaker 03

  Right?

• 1:05:03Andrew Manganelli?

  I feel like it's gotta be more than just your arms. Cause if I just punch someone in the gut.

• 1:05:06Speaker 03

  Well, no, that, that also, I'm trying to make it as simple as I can, but yes, if you do anything, that's a Wemby foul.

• 1:05:12David Imel?

  It's any level of contact.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Attack with the player.

• 1:05:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:15David Imel?

  Yeah, like breaking their ACL.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  While they're shooting, while they're dribbling, anything. It's obviously more important to not foul when they're shooting because if you foul someone while they're shooting, then they go to the free throw line to make up for it.

• 1:05:27David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  So if I go to take a shot and you don't foul and I make it, great. If I miss, oh, well. But if I go to take a shot and you foul me, now I can go take those two free throws because I probably would have made it if you didn't foul me.

• 1:05:41Andrew Manganelli?

  So if you think someone's got a lot of bugs, foul them because they suck it for you.

• 1:05:44Speaker 03

  You could also think of this a bit like, like a data breach where a company goes, whoopsie, we accidentally gave your credit card information away. You can join a class action suit and get $5 from us now and that's your free throw.

• 1:05:56David Imel?

  That's only one point.

• 1:05:58Speaker 03

  So.

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Yeah, that's one point. Yeah.

• 1:06:00David Imel?

  One point. Okay, yeah, $5, one point.

• 1:06:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, $5, one point. Each, each point in the NBA is worth $5.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  Now, the thing, the thing that you're talking about, which is the referee going to the table and figuring out what type of foul it is.

• 1:06:11David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  Is if you foul someone so hard and so egregiously, you break the rules so hard, it is more than a normal foul.

• 1:06:20David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  Then they'll penalize you even more than just free throws.

• 1:06:23David Imel?

  Hmm.

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  So if someone goes to shoot or whatever and I punch you in the chest or whatever Andrew said.

• 1:06:29David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:30Speaker 03

  If you do what Wemmy would do on average play.

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  That would be called not just a common foul, but that's a flagrant foul.

• 1:06:34David Imel?

  Flagrant.

• 1:06:35Speaker 01

  And there's actually flagrant foul level one or level two.

• 1:06:38David Imel?

  There's two levels of flagrant foul?

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  The penalty is worse. A flagrant foul level one is free throws and you get the ball again.

• 1:06:45David Imel?

  Oh, you get to start with the ball after.

• 1:06:47Speaker 03

  And a flagrant foul level two is free throws and the ball again and the player that committed it gets immediately tossed from the game.

• 1:06:55David Imel?

  For the rest of the game?

• 1:06:56Speaker 03

  For the rest of the game.

• 1:06:57David Imel?

  It's a red card, baby.

• 1:06:58Speaker 03

  It's a red card.

• 1:06:59Andrew Manganelli?

  But you're allowed to have a player sub in for them, right?

• 1:07:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:07:01Andrew Manganelli?

  On the court.

• 1:07:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:02Andrew Manganelli?

  Red cards, you lose.

• 1:07:03Speaker 03

  Red card, you lose the player's spot.

• 1:07:05Andrew Manganelli?

  Wait, Adam, have you ever watched soccer before? That's weird.

• 1:07:07David Imel?

  It's called football, actually.

• 1:07:09Speaker 03

  Booty.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  Wait, so if you lose, how, how, what do you have to do to get a red card? That would be the flagrant level two.

• 1:07:15Speaker 03

  Flagrant level two.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  So sometimes.

• 1:07:17David Imel?

  Does that have one less player the whole game?

• 1:07:18Speaker 03

  No, no, no, not in basketball. That's only for soccer.

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:07:20Speaker 03

  Soccer, you do lose a player for the whole rest of the game.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Right. So, so sometimes there's some super heavy level of contact and the player falls over. It looks like he's hurt and they called it a regular foul, but they're like, well, actually, maybe that was a lot. So they'll go and review it, look at the replay and decide we're going to upgrade that or not to a flagrant.

• 1:07:37Speaker 03

  A large part of flagrant fouling too, is that they determine that it was not a basketball play, that it was just with the intent of hurting someone, basically.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  So the tech equivalent would be like, see, it's a little different in tech again, but there are rules.

• 1:07:53David Imel?

  There are laws.

• 1:07:54Speaker 01

  There are laws.

• 1:07:55Andrew Manganelli?

  There are laws.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  There you go. And these companies are supposed to follow these laws, but sometimes they will do things that are against the rules and they should be penalized for it. And that will come in the form of like, you broke the law.

• 1:08:10David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Now we're going to sue you. You'll get sued.

• 1:08:13David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:08:13David Imel?

  BMW cheating on gas emissions.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  For example.

• 1:08:16David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  That might even be considered a flagrant foul. Sometimes the, the, the things that they do are so obviously cheating and so obviously against the rules that they get penalized above and beyond, almost to make an example of them.

• 1:08:29David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  This happens all the time in tech with companies. That would be like a flagrant foul.

• 1:08:33David Imel?

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  It should really affect you.

• 1:08:35David Imel?

  So physically, what's the difference between flagrant foul level one and level two?

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  Often it's just intent or follow through. They'll say things like wind up, impact and follow through, or excessive.

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  It actually, it actually carries sort of a similar thing to like manslaughter versus murder.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:52Speaker 03

  It's like, were you just reckless or were you, did you have malice aforethought about what you were gonna do?

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  Okay. Did you put a, did you, was there a bug in the software or did you put a tracker in the software?

• 1:09:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:03Andrew Manganelli?

  When Motorola had the.

• 1:09:05David Imel?

  Yeah, right. Was that a whoopsie or was that a, we're trying to make a lot of money.

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:09:10David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:09:11Speaker 01

  And so that, that is the tech equivalent.

• 1:09:13David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  So you, in theory, the team's played by the rules the whole time, but it's competition. Like they're going to be pushing the rules. They're going to be pushing the limits all the time. Fouls are expected to happen.

• 1:09:22David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  We would hope that the referees. Accurately set the line in the same place every time so that the players know exactly how aggressive

• 1:09:30David Imel?

  Right.

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  Sometimes they don't and then refs you suck is one of the chants that sports fans will say.

• 1:09:35David Imel?

  Oh.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  Because they don't get it right every time.

• 1:09:38David Imel?

  And I mean, am I correct that if you get three flagrant fouls in a season, you get kicked off for the rest of the season?

• 1:09:44Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

  There's a couple of rules around fouls. Uh, if one player fouls six times in one game.

• 1:09:51David Imel?

  Regular foul.

• 1:09:51Speaker 03

  Regular foul.

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  Six regular fouls in one game, they're out for the rest of the game.

• 1:09:55David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  Yet that's the limit for regular fouls.

• 1:09:57David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  Uh, if one player has two flagrant penalty ones.

• 1:10:03David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  They're ejected.

• 1:10:05David Imel?

  For the rest of the game.

• 1:10:06Speaker 03

  For the rest of the game.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  If a player has a single flagrant penalty two, they're ejected for the rest of the game.

• 1:10:10Speaker 03

  But the other thing that I was explaining, I know that, I know why you're asking this because I explained this to you the other day.

• 1:10:14David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:15Speaker 03

  But basically, in the postseason especially, there's, you get a certain number of points.

• 1:10:21David Imel?

  What's the postseason?

• 1:10:23Speaker 03

  The postseason is the playoffs.

• 1:10:24David Imel?

  That's like September, October.

• 1:10:26Speaker 03

  After the regular season is done, then you play for the championship. That's called the postseason.

• 1:10:30David Imel?

  Yeah, you're gonna have to explain those things.

• 1:10:31Andrew Manganelli?

  That's busy season.

• 1:10:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's busy season.

• 1:10:33Andrew Manganelli?

  When we have our iPhone events, our Pixel.

• 1:10:35David Imel?

  That's our playoffs.

• 1:10:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, our playoffs, which is our analogy from Yiddle. Watch Yiddle. Um, um, but yeah, so basically in the postseason during the most important games during the playoffs.

• 1:10:48David Imel?

  So the postseason is the playoffs?

• 1:10:49Speaker 03

  Is the playoffs. It's, those are, yeah.

• 1:10:51David Imel?

  And the playoffs are when the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference compete?

• 1:10:54Speaker 03

  Against each other and then the winner of each conference faces each other in the finals. Which is why the Knicks just face the Spurs.

• 1:11:00Andrew Manganelli?

  And all the points you get in the regular season, only some teams make it to the playoffs.

• 1:11:04Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:11:04Andrew Manganelli?

  So in the regular season, you're trying to make it to the playoffs, then matching happens and then you're slowly working.

• 1:11:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then you all play each other and then figure out who the true best team is.

• 1:11:13David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:11:18Speaker 03

  So as it relates to fouls in the postseason, the playoffs, synonyms. If you get a certain number of flagrant fouls in the postseason, then you get suspended for an additional game. So Wemby should have been suspended for an additional game against the Knicks.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:11:37Speaker 03

  Because he committed numerous flagrant fouls.

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  That they did.

• 1:11:40Speaker 03

  But we'll call him like OpenAI. They get to steal your data, train their models on stuff illegally. And yet somehow there's just a government blind eye to it and they never really get penalized.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  Get over the number of flagrant fouls. Well, he should have.

• 1:11:52Speaker 03

  He should have had a number of more flagrant fouls.

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:55Andrew Manganelli?

  It was like, OpenAI, did you flagrant foul steal all those videos?

• 1:11:58Speaker 03

  So are you?

• 1:11:58Andrew Manganelli?

  And they're like, what?

• 1:11:59Speaker 03

  So the, so the play where he shoved Brunton into the ground was a, was a basketball play is what you're telling me?

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  This was a referee issue that you have.

• 1:12:06Speaker 03

  Yes, it's a referee issue. It's a regulatory issue.

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  If you are, this is, and we'll get into fandoms in a second.

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  If you are a fan of one of these tech companies slash teams, then you may interpret. Sitting you guys next to each other was a bad idea.

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  You may interpret the lawsuits that hit them a little bit differently than if you are not. Oh, I see.

• 1:12:25Andrew Manganelli?

  That's.

• 1:12:26Speaker 03

  All I'm saying is your dad and I are fans of the same tech company in this analogy. So speak carefully, pal.

• 1:12:32Speaker 01

  I'm just saying, if there are, there are a lot of people who are, especially like, I, I try to consider myself neutral. I don't have a horse in the race. I've seen lots of fouls that I would think are flagrants that don't get called from both teams, but that's up to the refs. So the referees are humans instead of machines. And so they almost act like a, like a hand on the scale a little bit sometimes where it can feel like. They're being paid off. Certain referees are, are almost like only judging one way. They're only enforcing the rules for one company and not the other. Yeah, like this whole series. Yeah, it feels kind of weird. There's famously a couple-

• 1:13:08Andrew Manganelli?

  David has been Knicks pilled so much.

• 1:13:10Speaker 03

  Dude, David is more- David's a bigger Knicks fan than me at this point, and it's crazy.

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  There's famously a referee, I'm trying to remember the stat, but Chris Paul is like 0 for 12 against Scott Foster or something, like every time this one referee has refereed this one player in a playoffs game, he has lost. Similar to every time this one judge judges this one company in a lawsuit, they lose every time. And it's like, okay, they're a judge, they're supposed to be impartial-

• 1:13:38David Imel?

  But they're not.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  And every case should be unique, but damn, 0 and 12 against this judge? This seems kind of like a vendetta at this point.

• 1:13:45David Imel?

  Have they ever charged any of the refs for like-

• 1:13:47Speaker 03

  They're, oh famously, a ref in the 2000s was busted for betting on games and fixing games.

• 1:13:53David Imel?

  This is, that's probably happened more now, right?

• 1:13:55Speaker 03

  It's gonna- Probably-

• 1:13:56Andrew Manganelli?

  It's gonna start happening way more, actually, in coffee zillas, not refs, but-

• 1:14:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:00Andrew Manganelli?

  Players are like doing stuff like this.

• 1:14:02David Imel?

  Weren't there were players that were like talking about betting websites?

• 1:14:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:06Andrew Manganelli?

  There was promoting- There's some who are like, I'm gonna go out in the first quarter with like a foot injury, so bet that I'm gonna score the under.

• 1:14:12Speaker 03

  There was an NBA player within the last couple of years that got banned for life for doing that. He was a very low level player and he would, he would, he had, he had a discord group of all things-

• 1:14:21Andrew Manganelli?

  So funny.

• 1:14:22Speaker 03

  And would put, he would be like, guys, bet the under on my rebounds today. He's like, I'm gonna, he's like, I'm gonna check in for 30 seconds and then say my tummy hurts and tell myself about it.

• 1:14:31David Imel?

  That's insane.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  He'd put that in writing?

• 1:14:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:34Andrew Manganelli?

  Those are good coffee zillas.

• 1:14:35Speaker 03

  In a discord, dude.

• 1:14:36David Imel?

  Stupid.

• 1:14:37Speaker 03

  It's crazy.

• 1:14:38David Imel?

  That is wild, but so stupid.

• 1:14:38Speaker 01

  So anyway, yeah, we, we hope for the refs to be just like judges, impartial, but-

• 1:14:43David Imel?

  They're not.

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  That is interpreted very much based on where you are, if you're maybe working for companies.

• 1:14:49Speaker 03

  I do feel like we should, this is going so long already, I feel like we should start moving, but I have one other violation I want to highlight because I'm so proud of my analogy.

• 1:14:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:14:57Speaker 03

  Okay, so there's a thing called a shot clock violation.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:15:00Speaker 03

  Have you noticed when you're watching basketball, David, since you're a huge basketball fan now?

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  My, my-

• 1:15:04Speaker 03

  That every, every time the team gets the ball, there's 24 seconds that starts counting down.

• 1:15:09David Imel?

  I didn't know it was 24, but I've seen the clock go down.

• 1:15:11Speaker 03

  So there's, when you get the ball, when you're on offense, when you're trying to score the ball, you have 24 seconds to take a shot. That at minimum hits the rim, right? That's the, that's what resets the shot clock each time.

• 1:15:22David Imel?

  It's a 24?

• 1:15:23Speaker 03

  To 24.

• 1:15:24David Imel?

  Oh.

• 1:15:24Speaker 03

  Or if you get your rebound and resets it to 14.

• 1:15:26David Imel?

  So you have 24 seconds every time you have the ball?

• 1:15:28Andrew Manganelli?

  Every time you try to hit.

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  For simplicity, yes.

• 1:15:30Speaker 03

  For simplicity, yes.

• 1:15:31Andrew Manganelli?

  And it's four if you're ahead, so you don't just keep playing keep away?

• 1:15:34David Imel?

  Four seconds?

• 1:15:35Andrew Manganelli?

  No, no, no, like if you're the team that is winning, then you can't just play keep away.

• 1:15:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, you can't just hold the ball forever.

• 1:15:41David Imel?

  And if you don't do it, they just give it to the other team?

• 1:15:43Speaker 03

  Yes, so that you nailed it. That's what I was about to explain. So if you, if you go 24 seconds and you don't shoot, then you give the ball to the other team.

• 1:15:51David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:15:51Speaker 03

  You, you've turned the ball over. That's called a turnover.

• 1:15:53David Imel?

  Oh.

• 1:15:54Speaker 03

  Right? So my analogy for this that I'm, I think, looking through, this is my favorite one. Apple has committed a 24 second violation with Apple Intelligence. They said they were going to release it and they took way too long to release it. And now they have been forced to hand the ball over to Google Gemini.

• 1:16:13David Imel?

  Wow. That's good. Wow. That is good.

• 1:16:17Speaker 03

  Shot clock violation on Apple.

• 1:16:19David Imel?

  Because it, yeah.

• 1:16:20Andrew Manganelli?

  Streetlight needs a shot clock violation.

• 1:16:23David Imel?

  Rockstar.

• 1:16:24Andrew Manganelli?

  Rocks.

• 1:16:25Speaker 03

  Rockstar is.

• 1:16:26David Imel?

  They've committed numerous 24 second violations.

• 1:16:28Andrew Manganelli?

  I could do the Rockstar one and our audience would love it.

• 1:16:31Speaker 03

  But Streetlight hurts David more.

• 1:16:33David Imel?

  There have been at least two comments about my Streetlight manifesto.

• 1:16:35Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, those two people, if they made it this far, are very upset.

• 1:16:38Speaker 03

  Streetlight manifesto hurts David more.

• 1:16:41Speaker 04

  What's the shot clock violation on the Roadster?

• 1:16:45David Imel?

  Yeah, Tesla has committed a shot clock violation.

• 1:16:46Speaker 03

  I think they've committed about, I think they've committed about five in a row.

• 1:16:50David Imel?

  Yeah. Okay, I have one question.

• 1:16:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:16:53David Imel?

  At least. So you know, I, there were a couple of instances during this series where the ball was like over the hoop and then a guy knocked it over and he got in trouble for knocking it off.

• 1:17:06Andrew Manganelli?

  I know.

• 1:17:06David Imel?

  Why do you get in trouble for that?

• 1:17:07Andrew Manganelli?

  I know the term.

• 1:17:08Speaker 03

  Explain.

• 1:17:09Andrew Manganelli?

  Goal tending.

• 1:17:09Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 1:17:10David Imel?

  Yes.

• 1:17:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:17:10David Imel?

  Goal tending?

• 1:17:11Andrew Manganelli?

  Is it once the ball is on the trajectory down, you are then not allowed to stop the ball?

• 1:17:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:17:15David Imel?

  Why?

• 1:17:16Andrew Manganelli?

  So, because players could just reach over the net every time.

• 1:17:19David Imel?

  Cause they're so tall, they could just jump up and knock it away.

• 1:17:21Andrew Manganelli?

  So you could just?

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  Okay, is that considered like a foul type thing?

• 1:17:26Speaker 03

  It counts as a made shot.

• 1:17:27Speaker 01

  Breaking the rule. Oh, it counts as a made shot?

• 1:17:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, so if a player goes to shoot it and it goes up and starts coming down towards the basket and you reach up and hit it when it's supposed to give it a chance to go in, that is a breaking the rules violation. They will count that as a made shot. They'll count that as a shipped product. They give them the point?

• 1:17:46Speaker 03

  You get the full two points or three points.

• 1:17:48Speaker 01

  So you really don't want to commit that violation because you just give them a shipped product. So but if you hit it out of the way while it's heading towards the apex of the parabola,

• 1:17:56Speaker 03

  then that's fine. That's a block.

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 1:17:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  Similarly, if the ball, this is NBA specific, bounces off the rim and is still over the rim, like in the cylinder of the rim, you're not allowed to touch it. Okay. Until it leaves the cylinder.

• 1:18:11Speaker 03

  And actually, in international basketball, you are allowed to. Which is interesting.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  That's a weird...

• 1:18:16Speaker 03

  It's such a weird discrepancy of how basketball is played around the world. Yeah, that's the EU. Oh, my God. This is, that's USBC on iPhones.

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  Is being able to hit it off.

• 1:18:26Speaker 03

  But then sometimes the rules from international come back to the NBA. They have not, they have not adjusted it.

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  I think it's more like in the EU, there's different power plugs. So like every power plug here in the US, we kind of know is basically the two-prong or the three-prong. And then you go to Europe and it's like, oh, that's kind of still a two-prong, but it's a little different. Like they have a slightly different rule set.

• 1:18:46Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  But it's mostly the same.

• 1:18:48Speaker 03

  And there is, we're not even really getting into this, but there's robust other forms of basketball in college basketball, international basketball, multiple international leagues around the world. And in many of the leagues, it's played oh so slightly different.

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're mostly doing NBA rules here.

• 1:19:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, but NBA rules is where we're sticking to.

• 1:19:04Speaker 01

  That is goaltending that you speak of. Goaltending.

• 1:19:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  I don't know if there's a tech equivalent of goaltending, like the 24 second violation is pretty obvious, but fouls are pretty obvious. But I think goaltending is just another like breaking the rules thing where it's pretty clear, the referee can see it, you will get sued, you will... Is there anything else small like that that you're not allowed to do? Yeah, there's little things. You're not allowed to kick the ball. If your foot makes contact with the ball, it's a kickball violation.

• 1:19:29Speaker 03

  You're not allowed to stop dribbling and then start dribbling again or move without dribbling. That's either travel or a double dribble.

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  Unless you're OG Ananobe.

• 1:19:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, De'Aaron Fox got to double dribble right in the middle of a finals game and they didn't call it for some reason.

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  Did he on the Spurs? All right, now you guys understand the game. We'll talk about some lore after the break. We'll be right back.

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

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• 1:21:23Speaker 06

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• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  All right, welcome back. I think now we've basically covered the rules and violations of the game enough that the last thing we should do is fill you in on some of the lore that got us to this point in the modern NBA. And there's so many things we could talk about, but I think the ones that have the best tech equivalents are the ones that we should give you guys. I'm gonna start with one of my favorite. LeBron James. Have you heard of LeBron James?

• 1:22:14David Imel?

  I know that guy, yeah.

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  Great.

• 1:22:15David Imel?

  They call him the king.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  Do you know how old he is?

• 1:22:18David Imel?

  Forty-five?

• 1:22:19Speaker 01

  He's more or less, more or less. He's over forty.

• 1:22:22Speaker 03

  You nailed it.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  He is still, to this day, at forty-one, one of the top twenty best players on the planet, I would say.

• 1:22:30David Imel?

  That's crazy.

• 1:22:31Speaker 01

  That is crazy, because he came in as a rookie in, I'm gonna get this wrong, 2007?

• 1:22:36Speaker 03

  2003.

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  2003?

• 1:22:38Speaker 03

  He was drafted, first pick of the 2003 NBA draft.

• 1:22:42Speaker 01

  So LeBron James-

• 1:22:43David Imel?

  Straight from high school.

• 1:22:43Andrew Manganelli?

  I was in seventh grade.

• 1:22:45Speaker 01

  With the longevity of his career and being one of the best, is essentially like the iPhone. Came out a really long time ago, was one of the best, and many others competitively have come and gone since then. And maybe at certain peaks could have been considered slightly better than him, but he was always one of the best. And here we are, two decades later, still one of the best. A lot of his competition bankrupt, totally gone. LG, HTC, Essential, come and gone. iPhone-

• 1:23:13Speaker 03

  Nokia.

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  Still around. Nokia, and come back, and probably gone again.

• 1:23:17Speaker 03

  BlackBerry, bro. Blackberrys were big.

• 1:23:20David Imel?

  So why didn't he win the championship?

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  So he is, I mean, it's a team sport, so you can't win every year by yourself. But he is from an era where, when he first came around, there were like these big dynasties of teams of the past. Almost all of the players that were act- actually, sorry, every single player that was active when he was drafted has retired.

• 1:23:41David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:23:42Speaker 01

  Every single one.

• 1:23:43David Imel?

  Has Yao Ming retired?

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  Yao Ming has retired.

• 1:23:45Speaker 03

  Long time ago. I loved Yao Ming, though.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  And there's, and you know, when you look at that time in the past, it was like, oh, BlackBerry was really big, Nokia was really big, Samsung was kinda starting to get big. And you look at all the waves of all the things that have happened since then, and now he's part of the modern NBA, and the landscape is totally different, and he's still one of the best.

• 1:24:04David Imel?

  The iPhone.

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  It's kind of insane, his longevity.

• 1:24:06David Imel?

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:24:07Speaker 01

  Some people call him a goat. There will always be debates about it, just like the iPhone, but that is LeBron James's career.

• 1:24:12Speaker 03

  Do you want to know a fun fact?

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:24:13Speaker 03

  LeBron James has been playing elite-level NBA basketball.

• 1:24:18Speaker 03

  Four years longer than the iPhone has existed.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  That's insane.

• 1:24:23Andrew Manganelli?

  That's crazy.

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  So it's literally more, he literally has been around longer than the iPhone.

• 1:24:27Andrew Manganelli?

  Taco Tuesday keeping him going.

• 1:24:29Speaker 03

  Taco Tuesday.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  Isn't that like he's played against 40% of the NBA ever or something?

• 1:24:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like 40% of all NBA players that have ever played.

• 1:24:40Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:24:41Andrew Manganelli?

  He's so good. I imagine if he had kids, they'd probably be really good in the NBA.

• 1:24:45Speaker 03

  He has one and he has a second one who maybe will make the NBA. I don't know.

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Is there a technical one of that? If like Apple had like a sub brand that spun off and like became another

• 1:24:55Andrew Manganelli?

  Crazy Apple.

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  Smartphone company?

• 1:24:57Speaker 03

  But they would.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  Well, there's a, there's nothing in CMF.

• 1:25:00Speaker 03

  I was thinking nothing in CMF. Yeah.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:02Speaker 03

  But nothing isn't like LeBron level.

• 1:25:04Andrew Manganelli?

  We always put, who's the CMF phone pro two?

• 1:25:09Speaker 01

  Oh, was that?

• 1:25:10Andrew Manganelli?

  CJ McCollum.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  CJ, yeah. There's also like Oppo and Realme and like Vivo and. Yeah, you know, that's a bad analogy. Sub brands are way too easy to make in tech. It's impossible to have a son in the NBA.

• 1:25:22Andrew Manganelli?

  Is it really?

• 1:25:23Speaker 01

  He's done it. It's insane.

• 1:25:24Andrew Manganelli?

  Wait, what about?

• 1:25:24Speaker 03

  Hey, Jalen Brunson.

• 1:25:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Jalen Brunson.

• 1:25:26Speaker 01

  Sorry. It's impossible to have a son in the NBA while you were still in the NBA.

• 1:25:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He was the only one to ever do that.

• 1:25:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:33Speaker 03

  I think.

• 1:25:33Andrew Manganelli?

  Jalen Brunson did that?

• 1:25:34Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no. LeBron playing with his own son in the NBA.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  In the NBA, on the same team.

• 1:25:39Speaker 03

  They're on the same team.

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  Threw him an alley oop in.

• 1:25:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was about to say LeBron has thrown an alley oop to his son.

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  To his son.

• 1:25:45Andrew Manganelli?

  In a real NBA game?

• 1:25:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:47Andrew Manganelli?

  That's unbelievable.

• 1:25:48Speaker 03

  I'll show you the clip after this. It's so cool.

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  Crazy. Wow.

• 1:25:51Speaker 03

  There's also, wait, can you turn your computer towards him? There's my favorite NBA photo ever is LeBron recording the All-Star game on like a Nextel phone back in the day. That was LeBron.

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  That doesn't even look like him.

• 1:26:02Speaker 03

  His rookie year.

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  That's how long he's been.

• 1:26:03Speaker 03

  That's him as a child.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Before his facial hair.

• 1:26:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 1:26:07Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  That's great. So yeah, good stuff. Okay.

• 1:26:11Speaker 03

  So if we want to jump more to the current NBA.

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  We're doing the lore, lore drop?

• 1:26:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, but this is, this is where I get to speak the praises of, of the New York Knicks.

• 1:26:19Speaker 01

  Is there any lore about Mike?

• 1:26:20Andrew Manganelli?

  Hasn't happened yet. First time.

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  This is where it starts. I just need, is there any lore about Mike Bibby?

• 1:26:26Speaker 03

  I didn't write any down, but.

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  Something up.

• 1:26:28Speaker 03

  Wait, Mike Bibby is awesome. Are you aware of what Mike Bibby's up to these days?

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  Don't.

• 1:26:32Andrew Manganelli?

  He's a crypto scammer.

• 1:26:35Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  Don't tell me he's a complete.

• 1:26:37Speaker 03

  He retired as like a very like lithe NBA point guard and then randomly just decided to get mega jacked.

• 1:26:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's huge.

• 1:26:44Speaker 03

  Dude, wait.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  Wait, what?

• 1:26:45Speaker 03

  You're Mike Bibby.

• 1:26:46Speaker 01

  The last time?

• 1:26:47Speaker 03

  You're jacked.

• 1:26:51Speaker 01

  The last time I saw Mike Bibby, he was really, really.

• 1:26:53Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:26:54Speaker 01

  Lanky.

• 1:26:54Speaker 03

  Look up a picture of Mike Bibby in the current day. He randomly just decided to get like mega jacked, dude.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  Um, okay. I also need to know about, um, uh, the guy that did the palm phone.

• 1:27:07Speaker 03

  Steph Curry.

• 1:27:08Speaker 01

  Steph Curry.

• 1:27:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:09Speaker 03

  What about him?

• 1:27:10Speaker 01

  I just need to know his lore, cause I feel like he's legendary. Who is he? He has a tech product?

• 1:27:13Speaker 03

  Uh, did I put Steph Curry down?

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  Steph Curry has changed the game and I do want to think of a good product that has changed the game in the way that Steph Curry has changed.

• 1:27:21Speaker 03

  Let's brainstorm it. So what's a product that existed for a long time and then someone came along and redid it a little bit and completely changed it for the future?

• 1:27:29Speaker 01

  The iPhone.

• 1:27:31Speaker 01

  Or Apple silicon is another interesting one. Or electric cars, like the Tesla Model S.

• 1:27:35Andrew Manganelli?

  Hyundai specifically were like.

• 1:27:36Speaker 01

  Hyundai?

• 1:27:37Andrew Manganelli?

  They're doing decent, but they weren't. And then like, they kind of made a pivot with their EVs.

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like Tesla Model S.

• 1:27:44Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay.

• 1:27:44Speaker 01

  For, so we had cars for forever. Everybody could make cars. We had a whole competitive landscape, lots of lore, lots of cars. Somebody comes along and makes an electric car that's actually effective.

• 1:27:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  Because electric cars' reputation before wasn't all that, but then the Tesla Model S comes along.

• 1:27:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:59Speaker 01

  And then you look at post Tesla Model S and there's a vibrant landscape of electric cars.

• 1:28:04Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  Everyone is doing an electric car.

• 1:28:06Speaker 03

  True, okay.

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  That is Steph Curry. Before Steph Curry, there were some threes. There were some teams that had sharpshooters, Peja Stojakovic.

• 1:28:13Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:13Speaker 01

  You might have heard that name before.

• 1:28:14Speaker 03

  Peja.

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  He's a guy who shot some threes, exactly. I'm just saying that because you've said that before.

• 1:28:19Speaker 03

  That's a Stojakovic.

• 1:28:20Speaker 01

  But you look at post Steph Curry.

• 1:28:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:28:22Speaker 01

  Entire teams build their entire strategy around multiple people being as good at three-point shooting as possible on their team.

• 1:28:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  It is just a different landscape now that he's done.

• 1:28:31Speaker 03

  It's actually, it really works with the Tesla thing too, because the Tesla Model S, I don't know if anyone would ever say like, this is the greatest car of all time, but they might say that this is. The most influential car of all time. And I think Steph doesn't often get talked about as the greatest basketball player of all time. But I, I think most hardcore basketball fans would say that he's the most influential basketball player of all time.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  Of all time.

• 1:28:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:28:56Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:28:57Speaker 03

  Because he completely, by his mastery of three-point shooting, changed how the entire league plays basketball.

• 1:29:03Speaker 01

  But the Knicks don't really focus on threes as much.

• 1:29:05Speaker 03

  They do.

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  Every single team now shoots way more threes than they did before Steph Curry. I felt like the Knicks missed almost every three they shot.

• 1:29:12Speaker 03

  Well, the good thing was that the Knicks were adaptable, but they, they did, they set a lot of team three-point records. They set some playoff three-point records in the earlier rounds and stuff. They shot a lot of threes this year.

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  The Spurs set a first half three-point record in the game that they lost to the Knicks because they stopped making threes.

• 1:29:28Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:29:30Speaker 04

  Back in the day, teams would have like one or two players that can shoot threes.

• 1:29:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:34Speaker 04

  So you would have like a whole team of people that just played regularly and then one guy that shot the three.

• 1:29:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:29:39Speaker 04

  And now it's like the whole team is built around people that can shoot threes.

• 1:29:42Speaker 01

  And even another thing that's interesting about this is that now gets you to a lot of the comparisons between old NBA and new NBA, where it almost feels like a totally different sport. Like when you look at cars today and how crazy they are versus like the record-setting cars of the past were goaded for their time. Right. But it's hard to compare them with modern cars. All electric cars are faster than the fastest. Exactly. That's kind of what like the record books look like today. Like you've heard of Michael Jordan. Yeah. A lot of people consider him the greatest player of all time. Right. He didn't shoot threes, like very much, and wasn't very good at them. And so a lot of people would argue, if you put Michael Jordan in today's NBA, he wouldn't be one of the best players. Oh. A lot of other people argue, well, he was, he was all mental. He would have figured out a way to be good at threes. What was he good at specifically?

• 1:30:27Speaker 03

  He did add threes to his bag late in his career.

• 1:30:29Speaker 01

  Very, very late. But then after baseball? Not like modern NBA.

• 1:30:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, actually. For the second three-peat, he was a much better three-point shooter.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  Michael Jordan was. Freakishly athletic and basically made every two pointer he looked at.

• 1:30:43Speaker 03

  And was also the most psychotically driven athlete of all time, probably. He like famously would make up narratives against him.

• 1:30:53Speaker 01

  Steve Jobs.

• 1:30:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, so he is sort of Steve Jobs because he would be like, he would be like, this guy said that I'm trash and that he can guard me and whatever. And it would be like one passing comment that a guy had made five years prior that was like, yeah, I think I could try to guard Michael Jordan. He thinks he can stop me. He thinks he can stop me and he can't.

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  So he would just create motivational energy for himself.

• 1:31:15Speaker 03

  Like there's, if you watch the documentary, The Last Dance, they talk about this a lot with Michael Jordan making up fake narratives against himself.

• 1:31:22Speaker 01

  And I took that personally?

• 1:31:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, literally the meme, and I took that personally.

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  That's what Michael Jordan made?

• 1:31:27Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:31:28Speaker 03

  That was just him all the time.

• 1:31:31Andrew Manganelli?

  Now he owns a NASCAR team, right?

• 1:31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, his post NBA career is a whole lot.

• 1:31:35Speaker 03

  He owned a basketball team at one point too. He owned the Hornets for a minute. He was real bad at that. No crypto stamps as far as we know. He sells sneakers.

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  I do think Steve Jobs is a really good, because a lot of the upside is like savant, possibly the GOAT. Nobody could do what he did, but also some of his shortcomings were kind of insane. And maybe this is like post-career Michael Jordan, but like one of the worst owners, probably because he's bad at judging talent. He's just like, hey, why can't you jump over the other guy like I did? Like just be better. So he's a bad owner.

• 1:32:08David Imel?

  Sounds like Steve Jobs to me.

• 1:32:10Speaker 01

  Honestly.

• 1:32:11David Imel?

  I know this is physically impossible, but just do it.

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  Like just be better, like be better.

• 1:32:15Speaker 03

  And that's what MJ asked of everyone around him.

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:32:18Speaker 03

  At all times. And that's why teammates did not love him. They talk about him now with reverence because they won championships. But they hated playing with him at the time. That's like with Steve Jobs, yeah.

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  I have another one. I want to make an analogy. And I'll have this fully fleshed out, but this one right here.

• 1:32:33Speaker 03

  Oh, we were trying to figure this out and we wanted your opinion.

• 1:32:35Speaker 01

  Okay, I wanna try, I wanna try, try something.

• 1:32:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:32:38Speaker 01

  Okay. The goal is to ship products, as many products as possible.

• 1:32:41David Imel?

  Sure.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  There are record books for the most products anyone has ever shipped in a single day. AKA, the most points any player has ever scored in a single game.

• 1:32:51David Imel?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:32:52Andrew Manganelli?

  Didn't we talk about this on the pod?

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  I think we did, because, okay. Famously, you know, NBA teams today are scoring roughly 100 to 120 points a game.

• 1:33:02David Imel?

  I was gonna ask if that's gone up over time.

• 1:33:04Speaker 03

  Yes, with the three-point revolution, higher scoring.

• 1:33:06Speaker 01

  And the clock era, etc. The most points any one player has ever scored in a single game was back in the day, this man named Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points by himself in a single game.

• 1:33:16Speaker 03

  Against?

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  Against ancient, yeah.

• 1:33:21Speaker 03

  Against the Knicks.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  There's a lot of, a lot of lore around this, because one, there's no video of this. But there is tons of eyewitness accounts and radio and it's, it's definitely happened, it's just a bit of a mythological performance.

• 1:33:35David Imel?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:33:36Speaker 03

  And there's a little bit of conspiracy about fudging the scorekeeping to get him to 100, but.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the idea is, this was one of the most dominant players of all time, but it's the 1960s. So, what equivalent, it's kinda like, in tech, it would be like, the fastest car of that time, it'd be like Jesse Owens or something.

• 1:33:56David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  And you're like, that's not tech, but that's like a different sport. But the fastest thing of that time, the fastest computer of that time.

• 1:34:03David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:03Speaker 01

  Was so much faster than every other computer, it's like, wow, that clearly is record beating, etc.

• 1:34:08Speaker 03

  A computer the size of a house with one megabyte of RAM.

• 1:34:12David Imel?

  Let's say like, the first time they hit 1 gigahertz.

• 1:34:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:34:15David Imel?

  Cause they, I think the US government put like a sanction on, like an export sanction on the first computer that hit 1 gigahertz, cause they were so scared of it, like, going to China or whatever.

• 1:34:26Speaker 01

  That sounds about like Wilt Chamberlain in the 60s.

• 1:34:28Andrew Manganelli?

  Sounds like Mythos right now.

• 1:34:29David Imel?

  That's basically.

• 1:34:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, nobody has gotten anywhere near 100 points in a game. And if you look at the record books, most of the top 50 performances for most points ever in a game are also Wilt Chamberlain. He also had like 70 something.

• 1:34:44Speaker 03

  He had a season where he averaged over 50.

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  Yes, which is impossible in today's NBA.

• 1:34:49David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:49Speaker 01

  So this really is like, this record book is like, filled with this one guy from the 60s. And today, this year, there was a player who got 83.

• 1:35:01Speaker 01

  Which is the second most anyone has ever scored in a game. And it's the closest anyone's gotten in a while. Uh, and so it was technically a legendary performance, but it was just by this one guy. Was that Luca? No, it's a guy who doesn't really have any other records. You might not even have heard of him. His name is Bam.

• 1:35:15Speaker 03

  Adabio.

• 1:35:16Speaker 01

  Bam Adabio. You've said that.

• 1:35:18Andrew Manganelli?

  We talked about it. I think we did explaining that in tech terms as a segment.

• 1:35:23Speaker 01

  Right. Okay. And so we explained it as if it was like, uh, I forgot what we said, but it would be like if the, if the LG wing shipped like 50 million phones or something. It's just like this crazy. You're like, well, what? This doesn't seem right, but I guess it is record breaking. So congrats. Yeah, it was, it was an anomaly and his team, once he got to like 65, 70, 75 was like, just, Just keep going. Give him the ball. We gotta try to get this record. And that was the closest anyone's ever gotten. Was the other team trying to stop him at that point or were they just kinda? So anytime anyone is near setting a record, everyone is trying to stop you from setting the record against you because.

• 1:35:59Speaker 03

  He also got a little bit of help from the referees. He shot about 40 free throws in that game.

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:36:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 1:36:06Andrew Manganelli?

  They're free. Take them.

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  Which if you get fouled a lot, you gotta make the free throw.

• 1:36:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:36:10Speaker 01

  You don't just get.

• 1:36:11Speaker 03

  And I think he made about 30 free throws on his way to 83 points.

• 1:36:16Speaker 01

  So yeah, it's hard to come up with a tech analogy for that, but, uh, the, the third most points of all time was Kobe. 81. Another legend. Everybody respects the 81. 81. Wow. So in one single game. That's a lot. Which is crazy. Uh, there's a lot of career highs right around the 70 mark, but those are, those are legendary iconic performances. Wilt, Bam, Kobe. What was Kobe specifically good at that made him so legendary? Kobe was.

• 1:36:43Speaker 03

  He was, he was like a Michael Jordan clone with all the sliders set to like 90%.

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  Okay. 96.

• 1:36:50Speaker 03

  96%. Yeah. Depending on the day, 90 to 96% depending on the day, but he, he basically modeled his entire game personality, everything after Jordan.

• 1:36:59Speaker 01

  Okay. Is there a Steve Jobs equivalent to that? Is there like a 96% Steve Jobs, like also a psycho, but just a little bit less?

• 1:37:07Speaker 03

  Like in the current era. Yeah.

• 1:37:10David Imel?

  Sam Altman.

• 1:37:10Speaker 01

  Really? Okay. I mean, I don't know, but.

• 1:37:13David Imel?

  I mean, who else is like ruthless? Like, I think Sam Altman's pretty ruthless because he just lies about everything.

• 1:37:18Speaker 01

  But also like gets to the point of like everyone outside of you thinks you're a savant. And sees all of the massive changes.

• 1:37:26Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't think anyone thinks that of Sam Altman.

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  Because Kobe, Kobe has a much better basketball reputation than Sam Altman has a tech reputation.

• 1:37:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would say so too.

• 1:37:33David Imel?

  Maybe like.

• 1:37:35Speaker 03

  I guess, I guess we don't really know until Sam Altman's done though, because the same thing with Steve Jobs was like people at the time like didn't necessarily love working with him, but now we'll idolize him.

• 1:37:43Speaker 01

  What about like Linus Torvald? That's a little more niche, but yeah, like very positive reputation.

• 1:37:49David Imel?

  Yeah, generally, but he's like can be mean.

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  I think that Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs thing is perfect because in the moment he was like levitating, like everybody understood that what this guy was doing was only something he could do. And then it would come out to people who know more ball or like, it's kind of hard to work with this guy. But he will ruthlessly get you across the finish line because he's a psycho.

• 1:38:09David Imel?

  Right.

• 1:38:09Speaker 01

  And you're like, all right, yep, it worked.

• 1:38:11David Imel?

  So it's like a CEO that they pull in when the current CEO is not working just to like get you across the finish line.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 1:38:19David Imel?

  I don't know if that's a tech thing.

• 1:38:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, like sometimes.

• 1:38:23David Imel?

  Like an interim CEO?

• 1:38:24Speaker 03

  A culture setter.

• 1:38:26David Imel?

  Oh, interesting. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know if there's a Kobe equivalent in tech.

• 1:38:29Speaker 03

  I don't know if there is, but that was what Kobe was. So if you, if you could find a tech CEO that's like 90 to 95%.

• 1:38:35Andrew Manganelli?

  Steve Jobs. I have a bad one.

• 1:38:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:38David Imel?

  Elon?

• 1:38:39Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:38:41David Imel?

  Maybe old Elon.

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:43Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah. That almost is.

• 1:38:44Speaker 01

  New Elon is not.

• 1:38:46David Imel?

  It's kind of even hard to compare.

• 1:38:47Speaker 01

  He's not winning in the way that Steve Jobs.

• 1:38:49David Imel?

  Right.

• 1:38:49Speaker 01

  Like 2015 Elon with Tesla, maybe just Tesla Elon maybe is Kobe.

• 1:38:55David Imel?

  When people kind of saw him as a savant at the time. Interesting. Okay. What's the next legend?

• 1:39:01Speaker 03

  I was going to talk about the current New York Knicks real quick. I think I have a pretty good analogy that matches up actually with an exactly with a tech thing. Right?

• 1:39:10David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:39:10Speaker 03

  So let's wrap up, talk about the best and worst teams of each conference right now. Right? So we'll talk about the New York Knicks first. I think I'm uniquely qualified to talk about this. Let's go Knicks, Knicks in five. Let's talk about Apple silicon.

• 1:39:25David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:39:26Speaker 03

  Right? Apple silicon comes out in 2020.

• 1:39:29David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:29Speaker 03

  Apple decides to put everything in their own hands. They're gonna make their own system on a chip. They're not gonna rely on Intel anymore, right?

• 1:39:35David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:35Speaker 03

  Entire system on a chip. It works with Apple hardware. And then all of a sudden, now it has completely redefined what computers are capable of, honestly. Like, not to praise Apple too much and get accused of being a family.

• 1:39:49David Imel?

  It's true, though. It's true.

• 1:39:50Speaker 03

  It is true. It removed all the fragmentation, made everything... They are designing their entire system from the ground up.

• 1:39:57David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:58Speaker 03

  Another thing that happened in 2020, the New York Knicks.

• 1:40:02David Imel?

  Could've gone a different way.

• 1:40:03Speaker 03

  Hired Leon, hired Leon Rose to be their president of basketball operations, right?

• 1:40:08David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:40:08Speaker 03

  So while they were way worse than Apple, and years prior to that, and way worse than Intel Macs, uh, because Intel Macs were still good computers. The Knicks were not a good basket.

• 1:40:19David Imel?

  The I9 one was kinda...

• 1:40:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess kinda like right before the Knicks hired Leon, they were like the butterfly keyboard, uh, I9 MacBook.

• 1:40:27David Imel?

  Putting in the, in the freezer to cool it down.

• 1:40:29Speaker 03

  Not, not great. Yeah, so they were not doing great. Things were fragmented. Things were not working well.

• 1:40:34David Imel?

  Sure.

• 1:40:35Speaker 03

  They hired Leon Rose, and he made his mission to build a cohesive team, like an M chip.

• 1:40:42David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:40:42Speaker 03

  Uh, he prioritized first teammates that play for each other, guys that are interested in working together, being collaborative.

• 1:40:52David Imel?

  The power of friendship?

• 1:40:53Speaker 03

  The power of friendship.

• 1:40:54David Imel?

  Wow.

• 1:40:55Speaker 03

  With Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, college teammates, all that.

• 1:41:00David Imel?

  So they were college teammates?

• 1:41:01Speaker 03

  They were.

• 1:41:02David Imel?

  They won college. I already knew this, but I'm just for the audience.

• 1:41:04Speaker 03

  Yes, they were college teammates.

• 1:41:05David Imel?

  What college? Wow!

• 1:41:07Speaker 03

  What college?

• 1:41:07David Imel?

  Uh, UC Santa Cruz.

• 1:41:09Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:41:10Andrew Manganelli?

  Villanova.

• 1:41:11Speaker 03

  Villanova, yes.

• 1:41:12David Imel?

  Where the heck is that?

• 1:41:13Speaker 03

  The Nova Knicks, uh, Philly.

• 1:41:14Andrew Manganelli?

  Philly.

• 1:41:14David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:41:15Speaker 03

  Villanova, it's a pretty big school, you know?

• 1:41:16Andrew Manganelli?

  It's a very big school.

• 1:41:18David Imel?

  I'm from California.

• 1:41:19Speaker 03

  All right, well, anyway, so the Knicks make it back to the playoffs in 2021 for the first time in almost a decade. They signed Jalen Brunson in 2022. Eventually brings in a ton of cohesive players, builds them around Jalen Brunson, and makes a perfect team that plays for each other and wins through the power of friendship, much like Apple system on a chip.

• 1:41:39David Imel?

  So there's a different guy that does the team organization? That's not the coach.

• 1:41:43Speaker 03

  Yes, he's called the president of basketball operations.

• 1:41:46Andrew Manganelli?

  Is that like general manager?

• 1:41:48Speaker 03

  There's also a general manager that in basketball, it depends on how you want your team to run. Some teams, their highest guy is the general manager. Other teams, they go, well, we want someone above the general manager. So we'll have the president of basketball operations and a general manager and whatever. The Knicks have a general manager also, basically, yeah. The Knicks have.

• 1:42:07David Imel?

  President of basketball operations, sounds like a title you make up as a six year old when they ask you what you want to do.

• 1:42:13Speaker 03

  I want to be the president of the Knicks someday. Yeah, that's me.

• 1:42:19Speaker 03

  But anyway, now the New York Knicks are NBA champions before Joel Embiid has ever made a conference finals.

• 1:42:26David Imel?

  So they all played basketball together in college?

• 1:42:30Speaker 03

  Not all the Knicks, but three of them.

• 1:42:32David Imel?

  Three of the starting five. That's pretty storybook.

• 1:42:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:42:35David Imel?

  That's pretty cool.

• 1:42:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:42:37David Imel?

  I like that.

• 1:42:37Speaker 01

  That makes them the best team in the East. The best team in the West was the San Antonio team.

• 1:42:43Speaker 03

  Boo.

• 1:42:44Speaker 01

  The worst team in the East is.

• 1:42:47David Imel?

  Sacramento Kings.

• 1:42:48Speaker 03

  The Washington Wizards.

• 1:42:49Speaker 01

  The Washington Wizards.

• 1:42:50Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, was the Wizards?

• 1:42:51Speaker 03

  In the East, in the East.

• 1:42:52Speaker 01

  In the East.

• 1:42:52David Imel?

  In the East.

• 1:42:53Speaker 01

  And the worst team in the West?

• 1:42:54Speaker 03

  Was the Sacramento Kings.

• 1:42:55David Imel?

  Is the Sacramento?

• 1:42:56Andrew Manganelli?

  No, really?

• 1:42:57Speaker 03

  I don't know if that was actually true, but they were pretty bad this year.

• 1:42:59David Imel?

  I don't think they could have been that bad.

• 1:43:00Speaker 03

  No, they were.

• 1:43:01David Imel?

  When I was there in December, they shot the laser, which they only do when they win.

• 1:43:04Speaker 03

  The beam. They call it the beam.

• 1:43:06Andrew Manganelli?

  They played eighty games.

• 1:43:07David Imel?

  They were tied for the worst.

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  No way.

• 1:43:09David Imel?

  With the Utah Jazz.

• 1:43:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, they were bad.

• 1:43:12David Imel?

  The Jasmine, wasn't Michael Jordan on the Jazz?

• 1:43:14Speaker 03

  No, he famously stole their soul year after year.

• 1:43:19Speaker 01

  He was on the Wizards, but yeah, the Wizards.

• 1:43:21Andrew Manganelli?

  Turned into the Blues.

• 1:43:23David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:43:24Speaker 01

  Also, I will say that, um, hmm, there's probably a tech equivalent to this. The San, the Pacers.

• 1:43:32Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:43:32Speaker 01

  The Pacers were the best team in the East last season. They lost one player and were now the second worst team in the entire East this year.

• 1:43:42Andrew Manganelli?

  Last couple of years.

• 1:43:43Speaker 03

  And then.

• 1:43:44Andrew Manganelli?

  We didn't, our player, our player got his hand cut at dinner and then we just fell apart.

• 1:43:50Speaker 03

  How did he cut his?

• 1:43:52Andrew Manganelli?

  Uh, he leaned on a piece of glass.

• 1:43:53Speaker 03

  Did he mistake his steak for a hand or, or his hand for a steak?

• 1:43:57Andrew Manganelli?

  No idea. It was a steakhouse, but it absolutely destroyed our team.

• 1:44:01David Imel?

  Damn, Golden State did pretty bad this year.

• 1:44:03Speaker 01

  Is it a tech equivalent to being one of the biggest, most successful companies, losing a single person? And then being one of the worst?

• 1:44:11David Imel?

  Steve Jobs, when he left Apple and then they basically tanked and then they brought him back.

• 1:44:14Speaker 01

  All right. Tyrese Halliburton. We heard it here first.

• 1:44:16Speaker 03

  And then Halliburton will come back and hopefully they'll be better, I guess. Uh, the Knicks need a little bit of competition next year, so I would love if, if the Pacers could come back better. Cause the rest of the East doesn't care.

• 1:44:26Speaker 01

  They're essentially the same exact team minus.

• 1:44:28David Imel?

  What do you want them to have competition?

• 1:44:29Speaker 03

  Cause it's, cause it's more fun. Honestly, it felt too easy this year.

• 1:44:33Speaker 01

  Actually, a perfect, perfect place to end this. Perfect place to end this. Okay.

• 1:44:36Andrew Manganelli?

  Knicks missing the playoffs next year.

• 1:44:38Speaker 01

  We've been using this entire podcast to try to explain sports, specifically NBA basketball in tech terms.

• 1:44:44David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:44Speaker 01

  And I think the number one overlap, the most obvious similarity between the two is fanboyisms.

• 1:44:50David Imel?

  Hmm.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  In sports, you pick a team and you ride or die with this team. Rationality be damned.

• 1:44:58David Imel?

  Right.

• 1:44:58Speaker 01

  They might be the best team. You get to cheer for them. They might be one of the best teams. You call them the best team. They might be kinda mid. You call them the best team, but as soon as they start to get a little bit bad, you ruthlessly rag on them until you get them back good again.

• 1:45:11David Imel?

  Well, you're, you're mean to your own guys.

• 1:45:13Speaker 01

  You're mean to your own guys. We gotta get them better. This is, and unacceptable. They have to be the best. They have to be the best.

• 1:45:18Speaker 03

  Knicks fans famously during bad years will boo their own team.

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:22Speaker 03

  To tell, to tell them that they suck.

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  To tell them that they suck. But it's the same thing in tech where, I mean, the fanboyisms of like iPhone versus Android, of like all these different companies, Macs versus PCs. Like this is a tale as old as time.

• 1:45:38David Imel?

  Hmm.

• 1:45:38Andrew Manganelli?

  I feel like it's even similar in the sense of like. In tech, let's say, like, our Android subreddit is insane.

• 1:45:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:47Andrew Manganelli?

  Because it's so many different company fanboys in one place. Where if you went to the Google subreddit, they would be like, I can't believe Google's screwing us again. I can't believe it's only, uh, 100.

• 1:45:59Speaker 01

  Booing their own team.

• 1:46:01Andrew Manganelli?

  But then in the Android subreddit, if someone says something bad about Google, that same person is like, how dare you? We are the best, you are terrible, I don't care, what's your problem? You're an idiot.

• 1:46:11Speaker 01

  And that is a one-to-one, perfect replica of what happens in sports.

• 1:46:16Speaker 03

  Where it's like, I'm allowed to say that, you're not allowed to say that.

• 1:46:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:19Speaker 03

  I'm allowed to say that about my team, you can't say that about my team, and your team is even worse.

• 1:46:22Andrew Manganelli?

  And you're not allowed to like your team, you're an idiot.

• 1:46:24Speaker 03

  Exactly, you're an idiot for liking your team. That's what Knicks fans were told for years.

• 1:46:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, uh, I would like to give you guys an opportunity to pick an NBA team now to ride or die with, and to defend them, and to live with them the exact same way.

• 1:46:38Speaker 03

  Till death do you part.

• 1:46:39Speaker 01

  For a tech team.

• 1:46:40David Imel?

  Wait, until you, because I feel like you should just root for wherever you live.

• 1:46:44Speaker 01

  So that's the easy version of this. We're also conveniently located in a desert where there used to be an NBA team, R.I.P. New Jersey Nets. You can pick the New York team, you will, just warning you.

• 1:46:56David Imel?

  I live in New York.

• 1:46:56Speaker 01

  I'm just warning you, you will get accused of bandwagoning, that's okay.

• 1:47:00David Imel?

  But I live there.

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  That's okay, that's okay.

• 1:47:01Speaker 03

  David's valid, I've already gave.

• 1:47:03Andrew Manganelli?

  Hey, you watch for 15 days before they win.

• 1:47:05Speaker 03

  I've given David the pass already.

• 1:47:06Speaker 01

  Many people do. And, and, the people who are already fans will give you a pass, but the people who are not fans will call you a bandwagoner. And that's fine.

• 1:47:14Andrew Manganelli?

  They'll give you the best.

• 1:47:16David Imel?

  There were some very dark years as a Knicks fan.

• 1:47:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:18David Imel?

  So, we're in a high.

• 1:47:20Speaker 03

  We're past that.

• 1:47:20David Imel?

  High era now.

• 1:47:21Speaker 03

  We're past that, we'll never go back there again.

• 1:47:23Speaker 01

  As long as you like, sort of acknowledge them.

• 1:47:25Andrew Manganelli?

  Pick a new team later, right?

• 1:47:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, he can just move and get a new team, later on.

• 1:47:29David Imel?

  David's from Brooklyn, so you should be with the Nets.

• 1:47:31Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:47:32David Imel?

  I'm not from Brooklyn.

• 1:47:32Speaker 01

  That's true, that's true, you live in Brooklyn. You live in Brooklyn. So if you want to.

• 1:47:37Speaker 03

  No, it doesn't matter, you don't.

• 1:47:38David Imel?

  I'm closer to Queens, to be honest.

• 1:47:40Speaker 03

  Dude, the Nets, the Nets aren't a real team, you don't need to root for them.

• 1:47:43Speaker 01

  I, I have similar, so this is the thing, I grew up in New Jersey. And when I first started watching NBA basketball, coincidentally, the New Jersey Nets were an incredible team. I remember I went to this, uh, this basketball camp randomly as a kid and got to meet some of the players. I remember bald Richard Jefferson, prime Richard Jefferson, comes over and like rustles my hair and he's like, "What's up, kid?" And I'm like, "Oh, my God, Richard Jefferson." Like, that, that moment I will have forever. Kenyon Martin, Kerry Kittles, Jason Kidd, like-

• 1:48:12Speaker 03

  You got to meet all of them?

• 1:48:14Speaker 01

  This was a team that went to the finals. That was incredible team. They have not been the same since. They have thus moved to Brooklyn and have been one of the stinkers who's been tanking and just horrible to watch.

• 1:48:28David Imel?

  Yeah, that's what happens to a lot of people that move to Brooklyn.

• 1:48:32Speaker 03

  Become a real stinker.

• 1:48:32Speaker 01

  I come from, uh, I, you know, that's the team I used to root for, but I'm not a diehard. They left me. I don't have a team anymore. So I kind of just root for players.

• 1:48:41Speaker 03

  You know, you know what's hilarious about that whole situation? Maybe there's a tech analogy here. Jay-Z was a 5% stockholder or whatever in the Nets.

• 1:48:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:48:49Speaker 03

  They do this whole thing to move to Brooklyn for Jay-Z because they're like, "Yo, we're moving with Hove. We're moving to Brooklyn," whatever. Jay-Z, like, one year after they move, starts a sports agency and has to immediately divest from the company-

• 1:49:01Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 1:49:02Speaker 03

  And leaves them high and dry and now is back to like cheering for the Knicks again.

• 1:49:05Speaker 01

  So, okay, here's the thing. I feel like you should, for life, have to cheer for, like, the closest team to where you were born. Okay? The problem with that, for me specifically, is that the Kings have not won since 1951.

• 1:49:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're bad.

• 1:49:21Speaker 01

  And they were called a different name.

• 1:49:22Speaker 03

  They were the Royals back then.

• 1:49:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. This is your opportunity to get on, on your Knicks. Like, this is the feeling that Knicks fans have had for 50 years.

• 1:49:31David Imel?

  All my life.

• 1:49:31Speaker 01

  Which is they've been bad for your entire conscious lifetime and they're finally good.

• 1:49:35Speaker 03

  David, plant your flag right now.

• 1:49:37Speaker 01

  You can plant your Kings flag now.

• 1:49:39Speaker 03

  No, no, no, not your Kings flag.

• 1:49:41Speaker 01

  If you, no, if you, I mean, you can-

• 1:49:42David Imel?

  I do have the Mike Baby bobblehead.

• 1:49:44Speaker 01

  By low.

• 1:49:45David Imel?

  So if they do win, then I have, like, some-

• 1:49:47Speaker 01

  Can't be the baby bobblehead.

• 1:49:49Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 1:49:50Speaker 01

  I think that's a more credible, deeply rooted, like- Like you could celebrate with tears if the Kings win.

• 1:49:56Andrew Manganelli?

  Here, I'll give you this also. People are less mad if you have two teams you really like when they're in different conferences.

• 1:50:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, so if you have a, if you have like, if you're like, the Knicks are my Eastern Conference team and the Kings are my Western Conference. That's alright.

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  Oh, well, that's my flag.

• 1:50:09Speaker 03

  I've kind of always had like a Western Conference team that I like.

• 1:50:12Speaker 01

  Who's your team?

• 1:50:12Andrew Manganelli?

  Which is? The Spurs.

• 1:50:14Speaker 03

  Oh, I mean, it's varied. No, absolutely not. It's actually varied for me, but like for a long time I liked the Sonics when Ray Allen was there.

• 1:50:22Speaker 01

  Where's that?

• 1:50:23Speaker 03

  Uh, Seattle. They're no longer there anymore and hopefully will be coming back in the next couple of years. But then I liked, um, when Tracy McGrady was on the Houston Rockets with Yao Ming.

• 1:50:31Speaker 01

  So you're doing what I do, which is like, I, I follow a player for a while that I really like.

• 1:50:35Andrew Manganelli?

  I wanted to bring this up.

• 1:50:36Speaker 01

  When they're a West Coast team, it's tough because I can't watch many games because they start their games like.

• 1:50:40Speaker 03

  See, I like that because I'm a night owl. So I, I like having a West Coast team that I mess with.

• 1:50:44Speaker 01

  Like 1 a.m. I was, I was, I've been a Chris Paul fan for basically his entire prime and he's bounced around a bunch of West Coast teams. And all of those teams have had heartbreaking disastrous losses, by the way, so it's been tough.

• 1:50:56Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:56Speaker 01

  But I'm, I'm trying to watch more East Coast because.

• 1:50:59Speaker 03

  Okay. I also don't really have a Western Conference team right now because that was always a coping mechanism for me when the Knicks were terrible. Was like, oh, what other team can I like just while the Knicks are terrible?

• 1:51:08Speaker 01

  Andrew, what is your, what are your teams?

• 1:51:09Andrew Manganelli?

  I was gonna kind of bring that up. So I feel like I have to be a Knicks fan, one, because Alex then roots for the Devils with me when he watches hockey. And he's, so I, I have so many friends that are Knicks fans.

• 1:51:20Speaker 01

  Friendship.

• 1:51:21Andrew Manganelli?

  Watching them throughout this was very funny. I mean, in game four, when they were down, my friend was like, that's it, we lost the series. We're losing 2-4. And I was like, that's the Knicks fans I know.

• 1:51:31Speaker 01

  They were already up 2-0.

• 1:51:34Andrew Manganelli?

  They're gonna win because that's the dejected nature that I'm used to.

• 1:51:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:38Andrew Manganelli?

  But then I was gonna say in basketball, you know, working with Marques Rong, I've never seen a sport where people follow players as much rather than teams.

• 1:51:46Speaker 01

  What about?

• 1:51:47Andrew Manganelli?

  So Darius Garland, who does he play for?

• 1:51:49Speaker 03

  He now plays for the Clippers.

• 1:51:51Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm a Clippers fan. That's my West Coast team.

• 1:51:53Speaker 01

  Darius Garland all the way.

• 1:51:55Speaker 03

  The reason for that, by the way? This, uh, the, well, maybe, maybe we can relate this to tech.

• 1:52:00Andrew Manganelli?

  NBA players are more marketable.

• 1:52:01Speaker 03

  They're marketable because you see their face all the time.

• 1:52:03Andrew Manganelli?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:52:04Speaker 03

  And then also, an NBA player, a single NBA player can influence the entire fate of a team more than a single player in any other sport, any other team sport.

• 1:52:11Andrew Manganelli?

  It's like if you were a quarterback that didn't have to wear a helmet and you could see their face.

• 1:52:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:52:15David Imel?

  Teams wearing.

• 1:52:15Speaker 03

  But even a quarterback, like, with a bad offensive line, still a bad team.

• 1:52:19Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, but it's still like, they're still the guy.

• 1:52:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:52:22Andrew Manganelli?

  Like, it's hard to be the guy in a lot of things unless you're Connor McDavid.

• 1:52:25David Imel?

  I have a question I should have asked earlier, but is related to the players. Um, what exactly does it mean to be a free agent?

• 1:52:32Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:33Speaker 03

  So, basically, the way that basketball works is you sign con- actually, this, this relates to tech.

• 1:52:38David Imel?

  We didn't really talk about this.

• 1:52:38Speaker 03

  Contract employees in tech, right?

• 1:52:40David Imel?

  Companies.

• 1:52:40Speaker 03

  A lot of tech companies have contract employees.

• 1:52:42David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:43Speaker 03

  All of basketball.

• 1:52:43David Imel?

  H1B visas.

• 1:52:44Speaker 03

  All, all of basketball are contract employees.

• 1:52:46Andrew Manganelli?

  They have no competes.

• 1:52:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:52:47David Imel?

  Non.

• 1:52:47Speaker 03

  They, they have non-competes.

• 1:52:48Andrew Manganelli?

  Non-competes.

• 1:52:49Speaker 03

  Until they become a free agent, at which point they can sign with whatever team they want.

• 1:52:52David Imel?

  So, they have to stay with one team until?

• 1:52:55Speaker 03

  For the length of their contract, so.

• 1:52:57Andrew Manganelli?

  If tech could trade, that would be really funny.

• 1:52:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I had.

• 1:53:00David Imel?

  They kinda do. They kinda do, but in a different way.

• 1:53:03Speaker 03

  But tech, actually, tech is kind of like Premier League Soccer, because they allow buyouts. Uh, Premier League Soccer, I'm learning about this. I'm learning a new sport. Uh, you can pay a transfer fee. So if you see a player on another team that you really like, you'd be like, hey, I want Erling Haaland, or whatever, who's a player on Manchester City. And, but he's really good, so the team doesn't want to give him up. So they say, fine, if you want to even negotiate with him, you have to pay us $200 million.

• 1:53:30David Imel?

  Duh.

• 1:53:31Speaker 03

  And then the team might be like, okay, here's 200 milli, and we're gonna also negotiate a contract with him to pay him

• 1:53:37David Imel?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:53:37Speaker 03

  hundreds of millions of dollars too.

• 1:53:38David Imel?

  Holy crap.

• 1:53:39Speaker 03

  Uh, so that's, but that's kind of like tech, where you can have, you know, people get buyouts and whatever, and yeah.

• 1:53:45David Imel?

  Is there a certain number of years that have to go by before you become a free agent?

• 1:53:49Speaker 03

  It varies by contract.

• 1:53:50Andrew Manganelli?

  Negotiate it, yeah.

• 1:53:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:53:51David Imel?

  Just based on your contract. So typically?

• 1:53:53Speaker 01

  A three, four, or five year contract.

• 1:53:55Andrew Manganelli?

  There's a max in the NBA, right?

• 1:53:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:53:57Speaker 01

  Once you get to the end of that contract, then you're a free agent. Okay, okay. So when you first start out of college, you are automatically in a contract and then after that, you're a free agent?

• 1:54:06David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:06Speaker 01

  Or do you start as a free agent when you're right out of college?

• 1:54:08Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:54:08Speaker 01

  You get drafted? And then you sign maybe a rookie contract for that one year with that team?

• 1:54:13David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:54:13Speaker 01

  Then you may be, you're a free agent again. You might sign another one or two year contract. As you get to your prime and you're more desirable, teams want to lock you down for longer, that you might sign a three, four, or five year contract where you're there for a long time. But once that contract ends again, you're technically a free agent again.

• 1:54:28Speaker 03

  But then teams can also arbitrarily decide to trade you.

• 1:54:31Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:54:31Speaker 03

  And be like, oh, actually, you're not as good as we thought, so we're gonna trade you to another team.

• 1:54:35Speaker 01

  So you have to go live where they want you to live?

• 1:54:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Players don't like it.

• 1:54:39Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't like that either.

• 1:54:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. But I mean, they're making millions of dollars to do it, so they deal with it.

• 1:54:45Speaker 01

  Okay, well, I feel like I know ball now.

• 1:54:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:54:48Speaker 01

  I think this is, I think this is a great place to wrap it up. Ideally now, when we do our smartphone awards at the end of the year, we can have like a sports equivalent, like you guys will know, like when I give an MVP award to a phone, you'll now have that much more lore and context.

• 1:55:03Andrew Manganelli?

  It should be the Jalen Brunson Awards.

• 1:55:04Speaker 01

  The significance.

• 1:55:05Speaker 03

  Can we call it the Jalen Brunson Memorial Smartphone of the Year this year?

• 1:55:08Andrew Manganelli?

  He didn't die.

• 1:55:10Speaker 03

  Memorializing his season.

• 1:55:13Speaker 01

  You'll now, yeah, you'll now be able to draw the equivalent. You'll be like, I can see how that phone is Jalen Brunson.

• 1:55:17David Imel?

  The JVP, the Jalen.

• 1:55:18Speaker 03

  Jalen Brunson.

• 1:55:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:20Speaker 03

  Valuable player.

• 1:55:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a million more strings that we didn't tie in this episode. I'm sure the comments section will help us out with that. There's many more crossover things between tech and sports, but uh...

• 1:55:31Speaker 03

  What do you think the percentages of usual Waveform listeners have made to this point in the episode?

• 1:55:35Speaker 01

  I think we'll find out because...

• 1:55:36Andrew Manganelli?

  Zero Spurs fans, I know that.

• 1:55:39Speaker 01

  If you made it this far, comment, Knicks in six.

• 1:55:46Speaker 03

  Knicks in five?

• 1:55:46Speaker 01

  That's how we'll know.

• 1:55:47Speaker 03

  All right, all right, all right. Everyone is saying Knicks in five.

• 1:55:50Andrew Manganelli?

  And then everyone, but then everyone who comes in is gonna be like, oh, Waveform's talking about Spacex, but look at the comments, be like, they obviously didn't do a very good job.

• 1:55:57Speaker 03

  Wait, what if you do Knicks in four? That's like another cut, because they did four in every other.

• 1:56:00Speaker 01

  Oh, Knicks in four.

• 1:56:01Speaker 03

  So we say Knicks in four.

• 1:56:02Speaker 01

  All right, all right. That's your comment. That's how we'll know you made it to the end of the episode.

• 1:56:05Speaker 03

  Knicks in four.

• 1:56:06Andrew Manganelli?

  And now we'll know if you made it to that part of the episode, but not this part of the episode.

• 1:56:10Speaker 03

  There's gonna be so many, Knicks in six. Wait, no, Knicks in five. Wait, ah, Knicks in four.

• 1:56:17David Imel?

  So that's been it.

• 1:56:18Andrew Manganelli?

  It's a hundred degrees in this room right now.

• 1:56:20Speaker 03

  It's so hot.

• 1:56:21David Imel?

  Just know that when the Sacramento Kings win, I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna be there with my Mike Baby bobblehead, okay?

• 1:56:27Speaker 03

  I'll be there with you. I'll work for them with you.

• 1:56:29David Imel?

  On your bubble bar, on my bubble bar.

• 1:56:31Speaker 01

  You will have really earned that one.

• 1:56:33David Imel?

  Sick. All right. Catch you guys in the next one.

• 1:56:35Andrew Manganelli?

  Peace. Waveform is produced by Adam Alina and Rufus Mulholland. We are partnered with Vox Media Podcast Network and our intro outro music was created by Vane Sil.

• 1:56:43David Imel?

  Bingo. Let's go.

• 1:56:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Nixon Five.

• 1:56:46David Imel?

  Nixon Five.

• 1:56:55Speaker 05

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• 1:57:26Speaker 05

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