302: Spencer Dinwiddie of the Brooklyn Nets

Spencer Dinwiddie is a professional basketball player on the NBA's Brooklyn Nets. He is also one of the most forward thinking business minds in the league, which led him to create the first tokenization of a professional athlete's revenue in the United States. In this conversation, we discuss who the best NBA scorer, defender, and shit talker is, along with a surprise choice for the Greatest Of All-Time. We also discuss the latest on Spencer's tokenized bond and what the goal of his recent GoFundMe campaign was. =============================== BlockFi allows you to keep your crypto, put it up as collateral, and receive a USD loan funded directly to your bank account. They do loans ranging from $2,000 to $10,000,000, and they're perfect for helping you reach your financial goals of all sizes. Visit BlockFi.com/Pomp to learn more about putting your crypto to work without having to sell it. www.blockfi.com/pomp =============================== Pomp writes a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy to understand language, while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at www.pompletter.com

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

• 0:00Anthony Pompliano?

  This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off.

• 0:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Spencer Dinwiddie is a professional basketball player on the NBA's Brooklyn Nets. He's also one of the most forward-thinking business minds in the league, which led him to create the first tokenization of a professional athlete's revenue in the United States. In this conversation, we discuss who the best NBA scorer, defender, and shit talker is, along with a surprise choice for the greatest of all time. We also discuss the latest on Spencer's tokenized bond and what the goal of his recent GoFundMe campaign was. I always enjoy talking to Spencer, and I think you guys will love this episode. Before we get into the episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. The first is BlockFi. They've got three products.

• 0:52Anthony Pompliano?

  You can buy and sell cryptocurrency, you can deposit crypto and take out a US dollar loan, or you can deposit crypto in stablecoins and earn up to 8.6% interest on your deposit in their interest-bearing accounts. I'm a huge fan of the company. I'm an investor and a user, and I'm most looking forward to later this year when they launch their Bitcoin Rewards credit card. Overall, BlockFi's at the cutting edge of a lot of stuff in Bitcoin and crypto. So go check them out at blockfi.com/pomp. Again, blockfi.com/pomp. The interest-bearing account is a no-brainer all by itself. Blockfi.com/pomp. And don't forget that I write a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business technology and finance.

• 1:36Anthony Pompliano?

  I break down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at pompletter.com. Again, pompletter.com, or just go in the description and you can click on the link there. All right, let's get into this episode with Spencer. I hope you guys enjoy this one. Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 2:24Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. Spencer's back for round two. Thanks for doing this, man.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 2:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. To start this off, last time, we did the rapid fire at the end. Let's start off in the beginning this time. Who's the best scorer in the NBA?

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Best scorer in the NBA? Kevin Durant. Easy.

• 2:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Best defender in the NBA?

• 2:48Speaker 01

  Best defender. Guard or big? Because that changes things.

• 2:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Both.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Both. I'm gonna give Bam the best big defender. Very versatile. Homer picks. I also like him as a person. And then I'll say best guard defender, Drew Holiday.

• 3:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Most underrated three-point shooter in the NBA?

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Most underrated. Actually, I'm gonna choose Kyrie Irving.

• 3:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Ooh, okay.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's actually a really, really, really great three-point shooter. And I think people don't necessarily lock in on how good of a three-point shooter he is.

• 3:29Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Hardest worker in the NBA?

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Oh, Spencer Dinwiddie.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 3:37Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Best shit talker in the NBA?

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Best shit talker. That's tough. I mean, I think, I think Russ is always saying funny stuff, especially in the media. It's called about Patrick Beverley was actually hilarious.

• 3:55Anthony Pompliano?

  All time, all time comment. Best business mind in the NBA?

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Best business mind. In terms of what they've actually accomplished, I go with LeBron. You know, with the school and everything he's done. So for sure.

• 4:09Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Best rapper of all time?

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Boy, all time, or we talking about NBA rapper?

• 4:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Let's go NBA rapper first and then all time.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Oh, NBA rapper, I'm going Dame Lillard. Sorry, Jack. All time, I think body of work longevity, you go with Jay-Z.

• 4:30Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, that's a solid pick. Greatest-

• 4:33Speaker 01

  I like Biggie. I like Biggie better, though. But I would say you have to go with Jay-Z. Just all time longevity on that.

• 4:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. Greatest basketball player of all time?

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Ooh Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

• 4:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, why? What's the logic?

• 4:52Speaker 01

  So I the the goat debate is always like I have to ask like what do you define goat ass? So for me, I say like the most dominant in terms of like high school, college, pro like a a complete career of just excellence. And if you look at it like that Kareem is not even close. He like never lost in high school. I think it was eighty five and two in college. He won the championship all three years he played in college. You know, then he goes to the NBA. He's the highest scorer of all time. He's like, I think in the top ten or so in rebounds, like, you know, he's got five rings, like yada, yada, yada, the list goes on and on. Um, you know, a lot of people measure that as like who had the highest peak? In which case I would say Michael Jordan for sure, the six titles, you know, not losing in the championship,

• 5:35Speaker 01

  yada, yada, all that stuff like I agree, but just spanning a complete career like to go from, you know, high school to college like eight years and you only lose two games and then, you know, you got five titles in the league and you're the great a bit uh highest scoring mark of all time. Like it's kind of unfathomable.

• 5:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's a good body of work there. What's the greatest? What's the greatest prank that's happened in an NBA locker room that fans don't know about?

• 6:04Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to pass on that.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  I am, I'm, I'm not divulging locker room pranks. I'm not, I'm not gonna be that guy.

• 6:14Anthony Pompliano?

  The look on your face told us everything we need to know.

• 6:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, all right, so let's get into uh some of the stuff you've been doing. You uh, I feel like you have seized the moment with quarantine. Uh, it started with uh proposing the playoff system. So maybe just give kind of a quick two seconds, like where did that come from? And then what was the reaction from the league or or the team or anything like that when uh when you threw that out there?

• 6:43Speaker 01

  So really, it it all stemmed from obviously quarantine, number one. And then number two, the conversations you have with your boys, you know, just like texting and stuff like that. And you you start spitballing ideas, you know, you get stuff from like, uh, John Geiger, and then, um, you know, just other people that I talk to, Jeremy Adams, one of my best friends. Um, and so when you formulate and put it all together, I decided to tweet it, see what the fans thought about it. Um, you know, my my model in terms of social media or motto in terms of social media is just, you know, I want it to feel like you're having a conversation with me. So a lot of that stuff that I put on Twitter especially, um, is really just like my actual thoughts. I'm just kind of talking, you know? Um, the league actually called me about it and asked me to explain it because they want to incorporate some of the ideas.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  You know, people thought they might be mad at me, but they actually really enjoyed that part.

• 7:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I I gotta assume that there's some people at the league who they enjoy the the banter, the fan engagement, and kind of the forward thinking. And then there's some people who are probably more old school, just like, hey, we got it. You know, everyone else, stay out of our job.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  1,000%, 1,000%. I mean, you, anytime you're dealing with a legacy system, um, there's always going to be people that are like, look, if we just do it our way, it'll always work, you know? And then there's obviously some upstarts that are going to be within the ranks that are like, hey, you know, maybe, maybe that guy's on to something. So I I know there's, uh, some controversy within that, um, and some going back and forth within that. Uh, for me, I mean, nothing that I do is designed to harm the league in any way. Like, obviously, why would I, you know, uh, start playing basketball at 3, 4 years old, wanted to do nothing else but play in the NBA? Why would I try to then like, take down the NBA while I'm only 6 years in? And potentially have like another, what, 7, 8 years to play or something like that?

• 8:28Speaker 01

  You know, this, this has always been about enhancing, um, any, any additional structure. It's been about like engaging the fans because at the end of the day, like, the fans, as we see, are the most important piece of the ecosystem. If you guys watch, you know, we still have a job. We still have a, you know, a, a league, a, a system of being an ecosystem. But if you guys don't watch, then we might as well be playing in the park. I mean, it'd be a lot of fun, but we'd also have to get a day job.

• 8:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. What do you think kind of the fan relationship looks like coming out of quarantine, right? Do you think that games end up getting played with no fans in the stadium? Or do we kind of wait till they can come back? Like, what does that look like from where we're sitting today in kind of end of May of 2020?

• 9:14Speaker 01

  I mean, with the immediate proposal, really, there's no way there's going to be fans. You know, with finishing this season and potentially playing, obviously, these playoffs and trying to get a true end to the 2020 season, there's no way they could do that with fans such a condensed time. I think 2021, we'll see what that brings. If there's a lot of headway on a vaccine, or we just have a lot more knowledge based on, you know, what this virus kind of means and its implications, then I think we will see fans return. I mean, I know, you know, that's what the owners are pushing for and what the league collectively is pushing for.

• 9:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Whoever ends up winning, whatever that ends up meaning for the 2020 final season here, is there an asterisk next to that win? Like, because it wasn't a regular season? Do people kind of look at it differently?

• 10:04Speaker 01

  1,000%. And you got to remember, like, an asterisk doesn't necessarily mean good nor bad. You know, it just means different. I know, and we could take, like, let's say the front row, for example, we'll take the Lakers, right? LeBron will have won another championship. He's on a quest to, you know, try to usurp Jordan as, you know, the GOAT or the most dominant or whatever you want to call it. Jordan fans will say, no, that championship shouldn't count. It was a weird season, you know, the quarantine stuff, and then they played in neutral site, and so it wasn't near as tough as Jordan going on the road, beating the Jazz and the shot and all that stuff. But then LeBron fans will say, well, because he had to deal with all this stuff, and because he had to go through all these

• 10:48Speaker 01

  things, it makes him, it makes that championship better. You know, he had to deal with, you know, Kobe's passing and the turmoil of the league and the quarantine and being off for so much time. And he came back and he was or wasn't rusty and all that other stuff. So when I put out that comment about the asterisk, I was merely just saying it causes more controversy in the debate. I wasn't saying it was either good nor bad.

• 11:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And it almost makes those debates, like, more lively, right? Having all of this, it's not so much just, hey, how many championships? Now you get into all the nuances. And as me and everyone else knows, that's really what people love to debate, is all the kind of nuance.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  1,000%. That's what really structures debate because if you really were only basing it upon like one hard fact, then there would be no debate because the one hard fact would tell you, you know what I'm saying, the answer.

• 11:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Give us an update on the tokenization. So your original proposal came out. Obviously, the NBA wasn't so hot on it. You kind of reworked it a little bit. Where are you with that right now? And kind of what updates do you have for people?

• 11:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I mean, obviously, I always have to preface these things by saying, you know, you got to contact the broker dealer on file, Tritonian Capital. You know, we're doing everything obviously on the up and up. It is for credited investors only. But pretty much, you know, we started the process back, well, shoot, when we started the process and went through all the legalese and everything, it was shoot, 18, maybe 20 months ago now. But when we kind of started talking to the NBA, it was in September of last year. Obviously, like you said, they weren't too hot on it. We continue to go forward, talk to them, kind of set it on a structure that was more like a pilot.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  It's a bond, obviously, and then, you know, attaching a safe to it for the larger business investment as well. But, you know, like I've said multiple times, I view this as the start of an asset class. It's about unlocking liquidity and creating fan engagement. So my bond is not necessarily the most interesting thing in the world, but as this continues to scale, there's going to be a host of different things. You know, any business can offer any product they want, and, you know, we all individually are our own businesses.

• 13:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And I think what's really interesting about this, right, is you came out with something that was really, really innovative. And then you kind of get walked back a little bit to something that, you know, your words is more boring, but it still gets it done, right? And it's almost like it's more important to get it done than it is to have the most innovative, sexiest structure right out of the gate. Is that fair?

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Oh, that's one thousand percent fair. See, and that's why I try to, you know, communicate to people a lot when, you know, they they see things like the GoFundMe, they see the things like the initial kind of spitballing of the offering and what was reported or misreported um in some uh places, you know, they think if you don't do the the absolute sexiest thing that you somehow fail, but in a lot of ways, you don't necessarily think that you're going to get all that accomplished when you're doing dealing with legacy systems, you understand they're going to draw their hard lines somewhere. But what you're saying is, this is all of what I want to do. Now, tell me what you're going to allow me to do and where we can work together. And so there's typically a midline that, you know, you get to because you were bold enough to say

• 14:10Speaker 01

  what it is that you wanted to do. But if you come out and you and you tiptoe, they typically would just try to hush you and move you over to the side and say, you're not going to do it. And then, you know, those people pack their bags and go home. You have to have enough gumption to, you know, really kind of try it.

• 14:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Do you think that there would have been a different uh approach from the league's perspective if it wasn't so much drawn to the um the player contract and it had been more like sponsorships or or something like that? Or is it just generally the idea of uh tokenizing a revenue stream from a player and having fans uh potentially invest in it? That's really what was kind of they were trying to wrap their head around.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  Quite honestly, I think it's uh both. You know, I I think uh they don't necessarily want the the athlete taking control of their revenue streams or their fan engagement or really um blurring that line between themselves and the fans and and really making it a a cohesive unit in a sense. I think because their jurisdiction does deal with player contracts, that's why they were allowed to say something. If I was doing that with, you know, Nike money, for example, they could hate it all they want to, but if they came out against it, I could very easily just say, hey, like, this has absolutely nothing to do with you, you know, so um that that's where they had some jurisdiction, but at the same time, um I don't think they would have liked it regardless.

• 15:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And then uh you came out with this GoFundMe, which when I saw it, I I literally said, this dude's either the biggest genius in the world or this is going nowhere. And so tell us kind of what what was the uh the impetus for even starting it uh and then kind of how did you structure it?

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, no. So the GoFundMe thing, it's another kind of tool of fan engagement, right? Like, um, there's all these factors that play into a person making a free agency decision. And typically speaking, they try to keep it, you know, off to the side, right? We talk about market size, uh, fan base. We talk about state taxes. Uh, if a shoe company is gonna pu- uh, push you to a team that has a lot of history or, or a team that, you know, has a big media following or whatever it is, or your hometown, etc. You know, there's all these different factors, your family, your friends, all that, right? Well, what if you involve the fans in some of those decision-making processes, right? Like, the CBA pretty much states that you can't, um, like, take a discount or anything like that.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  So, you know, when I tweeted and then went back and read the CBA, I was like, okay, I have to take out the minimum portion of it, but there's nothing in there that says they can't be factoring your decisions. Quite frankly, if I'm choosing a team based upon, you know, their, their fan base and, you know, how big of a global presence they are, then I'm choosing it because of those fans. You know, I just didn't tell the fans that they're why I'm choosing them, you know? And, and so, kind of reimagining that. Now, when I set the actual price, once again, I set it sky high because there was no way that it was gonna, uh, get there. And the way I chose that, I actually just picked my three favorite numbers, put them together, multiplied it by the price of Bitcoin, and got it.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  People, people thought I was choosing like market value or something else. I literally took, and, and I wrote it, I took twenty-six, twenty-five, point eight, and then multiplied it by the price of Bitcoin, which is probably, I think, like, ninety-two-hundred at the time, or something in that range. And that's how we got the sky-high number. And the reason why I said, you know, e- even if we're a dime short, it all goes to charity, is because it was about, it was about the idea and the concept. How can we enhance fan engagement? How can we bring more people in? How can this ecosystem thrive in the middle of COVID? If there are no fans in the, in the stands next year, but guys wanna do some things that kind of keep people entrenched in the game, well, what happens if they literally chose

• 17:57Speaker 01

  a player's destination, you know, or if a player had, you know, a set of three destinations? They said, you know what? I'm torn between, you know, Brooklyn and two other teams. You guys pick. You know, and, and, and obviously they wouldn't be able to talk about money and things like that because that's between the player and the, and the team negotiating. But if that, if that was right for him, then he could do that. And if a GoFundMe campaign or another blockchain based, you know, uh, uh, system allowed them to have that kind of voting power in there, then I mean, there, there's nothing saying that they couldn't do that. So, you know, like I said, it's pick sky high number because I know I wouldn't reach it. It would end up in a charity donation, which, you know, I wanted to do good during

• 18:42Speaker 01

  COVID as well, but it was all about the concept and the idea.

• 18:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Uh, my brother texted me. I, I didn't see it at first when you posted it and he texted me and he goes, what's he doing? And I, as soon as I read it, I said, he might be a billionaire by the end of this. If people give him 25, 25 million dollars of Bitcoin.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I mean, don't get me wrong. Like if, if they, if they had it done, I probably would have been like, whoa, like what just happened? Um, I would have definitely been shocked to say the least, but yeah, I mean, the, the plan was definitely always to give the money to charity. And that's why, you know, I, I wrote it in there like that.

• 19:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And, and so I guess part of this is, uh, at least this question of, uh, the GoFundMe is a hard one to do. It's had a sky high price, but, but this concept of like the fans having a say, uh, you could imagine somebody building some, you know, kind of auto magic, uh, governance system, let's say, and now fans can actually act almost as like mini GMs, right?

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you feel like that's closer to a world that will move towards in all sports, not just the NBA? Or do you feel like it's just such a big leap from where we are and owners and teams across the, the major sports? They just don't want to even get into that game where, where fans have that much type of control of players and, and how teams are put together?

• 19:54Speaker 01

  I don't think they necessarily want to get into that. And maybe I'm 20 years off here, but you're going to have to get there eventually. You know, with, with the more we kind of move into, you know, e-game and cyber, all that stuff, part of the attraction of that is the control. You know what I mean? Like that's just kind of like psychologically speaking, part of the attraction. So, you know, when, when you want to continue to compete, especially with live sports, you're going to want to involve these people, you know, as much as you possibly can. And you look at the Green Bay Pacs, for example, they have one of the most rabid fanbases and that's because, you know, a lot of those people own shares and feel like they are really entrenched and on the field with the Packers. That's what you want to create, you know, and like I said, it doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, a fan says, all right, Spencer, we're trading you tomorrow.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  But maybe it does mean that if I come to a free agency decision and I am choosing between Brooklyn and one other team, that I say, hey, you know what, normally I may flip a coin or I may ask my mom or I may ask this or I may ask that. Well, you know what, I'm going to let you guys decide. You know, and, and, and if that's right for that player and, and that specific business, then that is, you know what I'm saying, something that, that, that can happen. And I think it will, the NBA will see that that will enhance the ecosystem because they will feel personally responsible now for their team's success or failure. If you tell me to stay on the Nets, right? And then we don't win a championship and you feel like I'm the reason we don't win, then you're going to feel also personally liable for the loss.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  But if you do win, then you're going to feel like you personally had something to do with the win. And at the end of the day, fan is short for fanatic. You want them to feel entrenched in that environment, in that ecosystem. And so the closer you can bring them into, you know, the bubble, the better.

• 21:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And, and it feels like there's other aspects of sports, right? I mean, literally just if you own a seat license at, let's say, uh, the New York Giants stadium, right? Obviously the value of the seat license goes up if they're better. It goes down if they suck, right? And, and so there's, there's elements of this. It's just not as direct of like, hey, here's my vote for where you should go, right? And it seems like that, that's the big leap forward next.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Yep. Uh, I think you're 1,000% right on that.

• 22:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Um, talk to us a little bit about during quarantine, like what are players doing right now? I, I see you post on Instagram a couple of times, like you're still trying to work out and all of that, but like, how hard is that, uh, given that you're still, um, somewhat expected to be ready to go to a moment's notice really as a professional athlete? But then you've got kind of this whole healthcare crisis and lockdown going on.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, that that's definitely probably the hardest part um to a restart. I think I think it's the part that people aren't necessarily talking about enough. I know we have concerns about COVID, obviously. Um, we have families and and and people that we take care of that, you know, we were worried about, but there's also an injury risk to, you know, coming back too quickly if if they do decide to do that. Um, I know guys are are trying to work out to the best of their ability. Um, you know, some have access to more things than other depend upon, you know, their environment right now, which which city uh they're in. But um, yeah, I mean, it's tough. You know, most gyms are locked down, obviously. So getting basketball working right now, um, unless you're a max player and have, you know, a gym in your house and all that stuff, uh, is not the easiest thing to do.

• 23:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And and is there um concern about like coronavirus itself? Obviously, hey, I don't want to pull hamstring, twist an ankle, that type of stuff is just what we'll call it rust, right? From not having played for a couple of weeks. But is there actual like COVID stuff, um, especially since a couple of players tested positive uh earlier in the year?

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I I think there is. You know, if you talk around the NBA, everybody is cautious. Um, I won't say scared because we understand the demographic that we're in, you know, being between 20 and 35 and obviously in pretty good shape, uh, that we're probably not, you know, like death risk. And we're not in that demographic, but there there's so little information on it right now that, you know, people are cautious, you know, and and and rightfully so.

• 23:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Uh, you want to pick one of your teammates who you think will come back uh least in shape out of all this? Who who's at home eating all the snacks?

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Who's at home eating all the snacks? Uh, Theo Pinson.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  At home eating all the snacks.

• 24:16Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. I love it. Um, Last Dance uh has got a ton of attention, the documentary on Michael Jordan. Uh, what was your general takeaways from uh from watching it?

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Um, you really get a glimpse into the mind of, you know, who Michael Jordan was and what made him so great. Uh, you get to see kind of how the Bulls were almost kind of like the Beatles in a sense. Uh, the Beatles of the league. Um, that that's something that obviously I never really got to experience because I was too young, you know, when they were really on their run, I was four or five years old. So you understand who Michael Jordan is, how great he was as a player and all that stuff, but you don't remember all the fanfare necessarily surrounding it. Um, Dennis Rodman might be my favorite player of all time now. But, um, yeah, just overall, it was, it was, it was interesting to see. I mean, really, I wish they could have dived or dove even deeper into

• 25:09Speaker 01

  everything that went on. Cause obviously, you know, you only have so much time in a, in a 10 part doc.

• 25:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I saw a tweet about Rodman. Somebody said like, uh, uh, the first tweet was, uh, if you want to know how good Dennis Rodman was, he had Michael Jordan chasing around, uh, Vegas to get him to come to practice.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 25:25Anthony Pompliano?

  And then the other one was, uh, you're telling me this man was, you know, a multi-time NBA champion. He basically was doing drugs, drinking, going to WWE matches, like they laid out everything in the documentary and like, and he still was, you know, not even the best guy on his team, right? And you just kind of look at it. It's like, and, and by the way, like all that happens because there's no social media. Imagine some guy trying to do that today, right?

• 25:49Speaker 01

  No, there, there's no way. There's no way. You would get eviscerated by, you know, coaching staff, fans, media, all of that. Like there, there'd be no way because somebody would pull out their camera phone and, you know, video evidence is a lot different than hearsay. Um, yeah, that, that, that's not even possible now.

• 26:06Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm just imagining, I was watching it and when, uh, when he disappears after one of the games, right? And they find out he went to the WWE thing. I was sitting there saying like, imagine today if a player just disappeared, right? And everyone's like, where is he? You would have fans going nuts all over social media. Like it'd be a, a global manhunt to find the player.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. Well, I mean, he'd be found because he'd be walking through an airport, whether it was private or not, and somebody would snap a picture and be like, hey, I'm in, you know, Cleveland, Ohio, and I just saw Dennis Rodman. And everybody'd be like, what the heck is he doing in Cleveland, Ohio? So yeah, it would, it would, it would be over quick.

• 26:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And then what, what's your take on, uh, I, I saw like Horace Grant, I think Scottie Pippen, a couple of guys were, uh, unhappy with how the way the documentary was put together. Like what, what's kind of your takeaway from that?

• 26:53Speaker 01

  I mean, I think the Scottie Pippen one actually kind of caught me off guard because if you look at the way Michael Jordan talked about him, he basically said like, I don't win without you, you know, and for somebody that is notorious for being extremely hard and unforgiving and holding grudges and outrageously competitive, for him to basically say like, hey, I needed Scottie, you know what I'm saying? I didn't want him on the team, I needed him on the team. That's a huge compliment. And then, you know, the other stuff that went down, I mean, a lot of that was Scottie's decision, so, you know, I don't really have too much to say on the Scottie front. On the Horace Grant front, um, I can see how that was tough, you know, they blamed him for snitching effectively.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Um, but, you know, one of the things he said was that for the guy to publish the story, he needed two people at minimum to corroborate the story. So he said, you know, forget the fact that one, I'm denying that I ever said anything, but two, if he needed two people, it couldn't have only been, Matt says that like, it couldn't have only been me. So like, how are you guys solely pinning this on me? There's gotta be somebody else. So I could definitely see why Horace Grant, you know, felt a certain way. The Scottie thing is, you know, maybe it's personal or something, I don't know, like, I'm not, I don't know those guys. Uh, but I can't really, I can't begin to comment on that.

• 28:12Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. My two favorite parts of the entire thing is one, the Steve Kerr story where they get into like the fistfight or whatever, and it just showed like, one, I think Kerr understanding like, hey, if you stand up and basically back it up, Jordan will respect you. And I think that's kind of like, he just saw him over and over. And then two is the security guard with the jerry curl, man. That dude's all time.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, nah, his Jordan strike was crazy. Crazy.

• 28:37Anthony Pompliano?

  And like, I guess part of, as you're watching, like, how much of the behind the scenes stuff, right? So literally, we see Jordan like throwing quarters with security guards before the game. I'm assuming that a lot of that is, uh, they pulled the best parts, right, you know, and put it into a documentary. But like, is that the general atmosphere before the games for players in the locker room? Or did you feel like that was like, oh, that must have been fun in the 90s because we're not doing any of that type of stuff now?

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Well, not necessarily shooting quarters and and as of now, people don't really have their own personal locker rooms away from the locker room. But in terms of the banter and the joking and, you know, that type of stuff. Yeah, that's, that's, that's definitely consistently in NBA locker. You got to remember, like, these are 15 highly competitive guys who are about to, you know, kind of go to war in a sense. You know, you don't want to be on all the time. You want to be on, you know, an hour, two hours before the game, up until the game ends. But when the game does end, especially after wins, you want to kind of be able to turn off. And, you know, so in

• 29:45Speaker 01

  those moments, you're definitely going to see more quarter type of atmosphere and guys laughing and joking with each other.

• 29:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, makes sense. Since last time we talked, there's been a bunch of chaos in the financial markets. We won't even pretend that we know what's going on, but but just a lot of chaos. How have you thought about kind of your investment portfolio and things that you've looked at from investment opportunities? Like, how has that evolved over the last eight to 10 weeks as all this has been going on?

• 30:14Speaker 01

  Well, I know a lot of things have been hammered. You know, obviously, the crypto market as well. I mean, if you trade it, you've been able to kind of capture some of the fluctuations both ways. But I don't think anybody could have predicted, obviously, COVID as a whole. I think the the scariest part, even though, you know, it is seemingly necessary at the moment in terms of like, you know, the the SBA or, you know, the, the, what do they call it? The $1,200 a month or whatever. Stimulus? There we go. It's it's turning into helicopter money, man. Like, it's, it's crazy because, you know, they just printed $6 trillion over the last, what is it,

• 30:57Speaker 01

  like, several months? How, how we recover from this? I have, I have no idea. You know, I mean, we all obviously have our theories and hope it goes one direction, in part because obviously it benefits us as well, because we're kind of. Part of that vanguard, um, you know, solution, but it's, it's tough. I don't, I don't think this gets better. Quickly because I don't think people necessarily understand the ramifications. Like i- if the market goes through a normal cycle, I, I would, I would assume the U S at some point in time has to experience.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Hyperinflation. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money that they're printing and they're not showing signs of slowing down either.

• 31:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And, and I guess like the NBA players or other athletes are in a very unique position, right? Because most people who would have the type of income that an NBA player has, they're either very, very deep on finance, like literally an expert, you know, whether a trader, investor, whatever. They've built big businesses, et cetera. Uh, one of the trends over the last couple of years in the league has been people getting very sophisticated about business, about investing and, and all of that. So do you hear teammates or other players in the league talking about this stuff right now in terms of maybe not like, hey, the stock market's down, but the, the more like structural issues with the longer term impact of this type of stuff? Or they just focused on playing basketball right now and, and not talking about it as much?

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Um, you, you know, you actually hear more conversations about like the stock market being down or people getting into B C and things like that. I don't think, uh, people have, uh, really kind of gone deep enough to really talk about like the actual structural issues of the economy. You know, or the way we stopped the oh eight, kind of artificially stopped the oh eight recession with the bailouts, et cetera, et cetera.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Those are things that aren't really talked about in NBA locker room.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, uh, it's, it's tough, man. I mean, to, to be able to have disposable income during this time period is definitely a blessing. Um, obviously if, if you, uh, Invest into the storm and you are able to kind of strike right. Um, you know, you have good people around you that are able to kind of steer in the right direction. You have the capability to really come out, you know, more than on top on the back end, but, but this is going to get tough for everybody. You know, if the league wasn't coming back, I mean, you know, they're talking about, uh, cutting salaries for, you know, a, a period of time and, you know, it's already escrow system. So that already holds a portion of the salaries and all that other stuff.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  So, you know, it's, it's not as easy, um, on us as some may seem and, and it's just, it's a tough, it's a tough time for everybody. You know, it just really is.

• 33:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And, and I guess the last thing I want to finish up on is, uh, the smartest players obviously are surrounded by a lot of smart people. And these people have been investing capital, uh, for athletes and others for a long period of time. Um, how much has Bitcoin and crypto kind of infiltrated those portfolios or those conversations with what I'll call kind of the, the financial advisors to players, right? So players, obviously my expectation would be some of them care, some of them don't, and it's all personal preference. But the financial advisor is supposed to understand all the different asset classes and kind of give recommendations. What, what's going on there with Bitcoin and those financial advisors?

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Um, I don't talk to financial advisors that frequently in terms of like others. Um, but I mean, I, I definitely have heard a rise in, you know, the frequency of blockchain being brought up. Um, a, a, amongst those conversations. You know, obviously everybody knows about 2017 boom, everybody knows about the crash and kind of its fluctuations now in between. But I think people are really starting to kind of expand their horizons because they're not understanding what's going to, you know, come next. And I don't think anybody really does, you know, we all have our guesses. But I think as they're starting to say, hold up, this doesn't really make too much sense. And it's not just our economy that's going through it. There's a lot of economies, uh, most of them really around the, the world that are going through something like,

• 35:07Speaker 01

  how can we start to protect our clients and obviously make them money because, you know, they get paid by asset under management. So the better they do, you know, the, the, the, sorry, the better the, the client does, the more money they make as well. Um, and I mean, we just, we just had, uh, you know, Tudor Jones not too long ago say, uh, you know, he, he's now in Bitcoin. So, you know, it's, it's definitely gonna continue, the, the, the bug is gonna continue to spread. So I'm excited about that.

• 35:34Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. To end, I usually ask questions, two questions, but I've already asked them to you. So I got two new ones for you. If you're the NBA commissioner for a day, what's the one rule that you would change in the league?

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Oh, I would allow player contracts and ownership of teams to be democratized if they so chose. Bring them all in.

• 35:59Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. I love it. Last question is, if you were president of the United States for a day, what's the one thing you would do?

• 36:09Anthony Pompliano?

  That smile. Come on. What did you just think of?

• 36:15Speaker 01

  No, um, oh, man, no. Uh.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  Ooh, that's a lot. I don't know. Is there a drone around here? I don't know. Um, nah, man, that's, that's tough. That's tough because obviously we talk about finance and it's a, you know, predominantly financial platform. I mean, you got prison reform, you got all types of things. The president thing is, is hard. You know what I mean? But one of the things that definitely sticks out of my mind has to be, has to be prison reform. We, we look at everybody making money off legal marijuana right now and how many people have life sentences and 20 and 25 year sentences on marijuana. Like I, you, you gotta change that. You have to, you know?

• 37:07Speaker 01

  And then, then the prison system being privatized and all that stuff, you know, people are making money. You know, they're making money off of the wrongdoings of other people, which to me is a wrongdoing. Because if you're, if you can incentivize somebody to do something wrong because you have financial gain, then you're part of the problem. You're pushing them towards that, you know, end goal so you can profit. Right? So I would say from a personal standpoint, that would be one thing. For a personal gain perspective.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  I mean, we could start doing something about printing this money and switch it over, you know, which currencies we're going to use and how we're going to use them. So that's where I would go, but yeah, that's where I'm at.

• 37:58Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it, man. Listen, it's always a pleasure to do this with you. You got a lot of ideas and the part that I like about it is most people who have ideas, they're unwilling to kind of share them with the world because they're scared that the backlash, right? But I tell people all the time, look, not only do you share them, you get in the comments, right? You're there and you're explaining, you're defending, right? You're doing all this kind of stuff, which I think is important, right? Because we live in a society where as more and more people become afraid to do that, less innovation happens, right? You need to explore those ideas in order to kind of come up with where we're going next.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Exactly. And you got to understand the value of different opinions. You know, some people obviously go crazy in the comments and just want to be rude. That's one thing. But you know, there are people that ask really thought provoking questions and they make me expand. You know, they make me explain why it's nuanced this way or nuanced that way. Or maybe their little nugget actually propels the idea forward. So, you know, I welcome it. And like I said, I hope Twitter continues to be a conversation platform for me.

• 39:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely, man. Where can people go to find out more if they want to learn about the tokenization?

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Dreamfanshares.com. And other than that, just contact Trattoria Capital, brokered on record. Like I said, try to not speak about this in detail too much just because, you know, SEC, FINRA, I love you guys. My dog.

• 39:25Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, Spencer, look, I appreciate you doing this. We'll do it again soon.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Appreciate you.

• 39:30Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Thanks for listening to that episode. I hope you enjoyed it just as much as I did. My goal is to educate as many people with these conversations as possible. So please go subscribe on your favorite podcast channel, leave a five star rating and a review. These things really help the podcast get higher up on the popularity charts, which ultimately brings more people to learn. Also, don't forget you can go to YouTube to watch each conversation in video format as well. Just search my name, Anthony Pompliano, on YouTube and you'll find our channel with hundreds of awesome and informative videos. Thanks again for listening to this one and I'll see you for the next one.