Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we discuss the revelation that a member of Congress has been absent from her job and living in an assisted living facility for dementia patients for like the past six months. We also consider the power of online negativity to shape our perceptions of what we've actually experienced in light of a recent experience by one of our very own. And finally, we'll weigh in on all the hand wringing about the NBA ratings decline and what may be driving that.
Hello, welcome to the Call Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys and joining me today is a man whose takes can be explo as explosive as fireworks on New Year's Eve. Dunde Yoga. Lana Dunde, are you ready to give people something, something for the night today?
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah. It's funny because I just disappointed my youngest kid that I didn't buy fireworks. This.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: It's not too late, man.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: It's not too late.
Well played, sir.
I told him, I go, well, our neighbor's got better fireworks than I ever buy, so let's just go to his house.
Like I'll bring the bottle of bourbon, he'll take the fireworks if I can't.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Didn't seem to understand that everybody contributes something. Everybody.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Besides, you're bringing your takes, man. So that's, that's the explosion you got, man.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. I appreciate that. Good segue.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: There you go, There you go.
Your kid though.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: He'Ll watch the show and he'll get a laugh. So there you go. There you go.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: If you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe and like the show on YouTube or your podcast, appreciate doing so. Really helps the show out. Now recording this on December 31, 2024. And it was recently revealed that Texas Republican Kay Granger has not only missed all of her votes, all of the required votes in the House since the House Representative since June, but is in fact been living in an assistant living facility for dementia patients for the past few months now. At this point, many of us have probably have a built in sensitivity on this kind of story because we've seen in recent times reports of government officials such as Senator Dianne Feinstein and Joe Biden even have an age related diminished capacity while serving elected their terms. But even with that, I mean I think that serving a term or being, you know, having your term, serving out your term while living in an assisted living facility probably is pushing things even further than what we've seen. So Tunde, to get us started, what is your reaction to this revelation that we've had a member of Congress living in an assisted living facility as opposed to like being in Congress.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: On a serious note, I feel like I should be more surprised and shocked than I am.
And I would say I'm extremely disappointed to learn that. That's what I mean, it's disappointing, but it's not surprising based on what you had just said before about basically I was going to say this president, but I was going to say the one before him and the one that's coming back. So just kind of like this. We've been swimming between these people for a while, right? Yeah. And then it makes me think of the leadership in both parties. Right. You know, we have an outgoing sentiment.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Remember Mitch McConnell? They questioning whether he had a stroke in the middle of a stroke?
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Well, no, I mean, let's. Yeah, that's a year ago. Let's talk about right now. He just had his farewell, you know, retirement speech. And all due respect to him, he had looked like he just came out of a boxing match. He had a band aid on his under his eye. He was on his sling because he's been falling a lot because he's 82. I learned in preparing reading today that Nancy Pelosi, we know she's 84, she broke her hip this year on a foreign trip representing the United States as a congressperson. So, yeah, that's why I say I'm disappointed, But I'm not surprised because I'm not surprised because we all know we're here. That's why I make the joke about the fact we got to choose between, again, people that are so old that they should be retired and enjoying this part of their life and not forcing us to have to deal with them. And allowing, I would say more importantly than that comment is allowing our system to refresh and replenish kind of the tree, so to speak, through bringing up newer, younger people with newer ideas, newer energy, so on and so forth, and.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Allowing them to rise, you know, like. Because a part of what we're seeing here is that this elder class of people seems to intentionally, inadvertently and intentionally keeping down or keeping out the younger people.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Yeah. I think there's a couple things at play. I think, I think at an individual level, I'm pretty sure a lot of these people just have hubris, whether they would admit it or not, which is I'm so good and no one else can really do this but me, and I'm still good at it.
And so that's one thing. I think there is something, and we can go into this later in this discussion, there's A very few in a large society that can benefit from dysfunction. Right. And when I look at who some of these people are, this Representative Granger right now, she's still the chairwoman of the Congressional Appropriations Committee.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: That is one of the most powerful positions in the US Congress because they appropriate money to wherever it's supposed to fund. Yeah, yeah. And so this is an interesting conversation, James, I was preparing, I said, because this is what I think one of the roots of American unhappiness, but we don't recognize it because of how partisan everyone is.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: What I mean by that is Joe Biden is a Democrat and he's President United States as of right now. Right. And for next few weeks, Kay Granger is a congresswoman who's a Republican in Texas.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: She is the chairwoman of the Congressional Appropriations Committee. And the Congress has been led by a majority Republicans over the last two years.
The co. Equal branches of government. The way it's supposed to work is Congress has just as much power and authority in certain things as the executive branch is Joe Biden. And they're supposed to negotiate and come together.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: And that's how things get funded for the American people. And so what happens is we now learn that we have the chair of that committee to appropriate money to. To take care of American stuff, is in a nursing home since July with dementia. That is what causes dysfunction in a system. And that is not a partisan statement. That's not against Democrats or Republicans. That's saying we as Americans have been asking for adults to run this country. And for some reason both parties have not allowed, I mean, haven't behaved like adults.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: And it's not. For some reason, though that's the thing. You identified it already. Partisanship prevents us from being able to deal with this issue because if your people who are Republicans are sitting here pointing at Joe Biden and all up in arms, but then they'll look the other way with K. Granger and then people that are Democrats, Democratic Party will be like, oh, well, look at K. Granger. Oh, but then with Biden, no, we're not as upset about that. And so partisanship prevents us from, from actually addressing a substantive issue because we're only looking at it and we're only willing to address it from a partisan lens. When I look at this, I'm like, at first I'm thinking, okay, is this something about this particular generation, this baby boomer generation? And my inclination was first to look at that and like, oh, this generation is a very self centered generation or what can we say about the baby boomer generation that has them because this is happening in business as well. We've seen many like the, just that the people that have risen to the top aren't moving off the perch voluntarily to let the, let the next group come up.
But looking at it more closely, I'm wondering if this is more of a technical medical issue and then also the demands of these different jobs can be handled as people age better than they could in the past. And I wonder if previous generations essentially would have done the same thing if they could have, you know, if they were able to be do work jobs in their 80s, you know, and not just physically be unable to from a, you know, again from a medical standpoint or from a technological standpoint, they just couldn't do it anymore. And it was obvious, it was plain, they, they, it was just, you know, or they wouldn't live as long, you know, and they weren't able to. But I just wonder that as a society now we've gotten to the point where because people can live very long, you know, and our average age has risen, you know, average age or you know, that people live to is in the 70s. So your outliers are going to commonly in the 80s and you're not even that wide of an outlier, but in the 80s and so forth. And then the demands, the physical demands, the mental demands on the job can be managed in such a sense that an 83 year old or an 80 something year old can still kind of at least give the appearance of doing it. And so maybe it's less that this generation is more selfish than every other generation. It's just that the environment that has been created is one that they can still, they can hang on longer than other generations could have like just from an actual standpoint. And so but that begets that, that then it's like, okay, well then this isn't going to be the first time this happens like this. This is more of a trend that people can do this. So you know, it does. You have to take more seriously the idea of maybe we need to put some self correcting mechanisms in place to address the fact that now people can work and handle jobs on, at least on a surface level much longer and much past their capacity to really perform in those jobs. Whereas you know, again, 100 years ago you just wouldn't have lived this long or if you did, you wouldn't have been able to been mobile enough to even give the appearance that you could still do this thing, you know. And so I think That I think it's basically, it's an issue that we're going to have to get a handle on as a society. Like whether that's term limits, whether that's an age limit, there's a lower age limit for plenty of jobs. You know, like, you got to be at least X age in order to work here. So it's not like we're immune to age limits. And so whether we have to deal with age limits or so forth. And because I think this is. We're seeing the beginning of a problem here that is tied to the way people can. Or the ability for people to give the appearance that they can handle a job for longer and then just living longer, which otherwise is progress.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I feel you. The, the. So you said there's two specific things you touched on that I want to continue because they could be totally separate discussions. So we, I, I don't want to go too long into them, but number one, I think you're right about the technology. Just where humanity's come in the last 50, 70 years is part of why the baby boom generation is behaving this way. I don't think. I mean, they're human beings. Right. So I don't think that this is unique to them. I think had it been 200 years ago, you know, humans started living to the mid-80s, a life expectancy, we would have seen it back then. And if it took another 200, there.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: Were questions of whether, you know, like Ronald Reagan, you know, for example, was correct.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Towards the end of his time and so forth.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: And. But he was very old, you know, at that time.
[00:11:17] Speaker B: But remember when he got. He was the oldest president ever elected at 73, I think it was. Yeah.
Which at this point.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: Beat that now.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: Yeah. No, but I'm just saying 73 doesn't seem old at all for a politician anymore. That is like. All right, you know, but. And so that says something about us. Maybe we need to reflect on that. So that was the one thing that you said that I wanted to touch on, which is. Yes, because here's interesting. This is just anecdotal now. I just had a really nice long conversation with an old friend I hadn't talked to in a while and, you know, just good esoteric stuff and all that about life. But one of the things that came up, because I had just come off of 100 degree fever from having the flu and also surgery on my foot, so we're kind of talking about health and stuff like that and got into this conversation about longevity and he's, he's a real big tech guy. So he's into all this stuff with AI and everything. And he's, he believes that in our lifetime, you and I will. May have the opportunity to live to 150 years old.
I don't believe that. That's why I said this is a separate show discussion. But what I thought of appearing to.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: Be able to do that.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Yeah, no, yeah, that's for sure. That's why, that's why, that's why I had the flu in surgery. But, but, but the, but the reason I bring it up is because in preparing for today's show and just reading, it came to my mind like, these are the conversations again. We go online and we're looking at all. If you go on social media, everybody wants to live forever, right? And we did the discussion about the multi millionaire guy that spent millions of dollars already. And he's around my age. I think he's 46, 47. And he's in his biological age, is now 25 or something. And remember, he never goes in the sun. He doesn't need anything that tastes good, you know, all that kind of stuff.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: So definitely not having a version or whatever.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: But that's my point. Like, okay, so if we have these fantasies that we want to do this as a society, go live and double our life expectancy again. That's what I was going to say. I think these are the conversations we should be having. What are we going to do with all these people when they're at a certain point and they've been in a job for 75 years?
Like, is there, are we just going to let them still do it? Can they be alive at that age? But like you're saying now, are they going to have cognitive declines? How do we deal with that? So I just think this all brings up other conversations. And then the other thing you mentioned too is I think our society has continued to grapple and this isn't going to be anything that ends anytime soon, or maybe never ends, depending on what's learned about the human mind going forward.
We still don't recognize that the mind is as sensitive as the body and that just like our bodies deteriorate, like you said, it's easy for us to recognize that back in the 1930s, let's say, when the industrial age was just 100 years old or so, and we had been building big skyscrapers in cities like New York and the Empire State Building was built and all that, the idea that, okay, by 65, most humans still were out There doing some kind of labor back 100 years ago or so. Right.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Not just that. Let me throw something in with that real quick, because I didn't give this context. Like, even the demands for travel, you know, like, oh, I got to do an overseas trip. Well, the demands for an overseas trip 100 years ago, 120 years ago, is much greater than the demand, physical demand for an overseas trip now. Now you just hop on a chartered, you know, amazing plane, go to sleep, and you're there somewhere, you know, like, you're. You're halfway around the world when you wake up. So the demands for these types of jobs just to get from place to place, or like, I'm a representative in Texas, I got to take a train for however long just to get to D.C. and it's, you know, all this crazy, like, it's. It's temperature control is not really where it is. And, you know, there's all types of stuff happening, you know, like, with that. And so it's just the physical demands are much less just for the. For little things that we don't even think about. Well, go ahead.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's what I'm saying. I think just. But for everybody, right? In the 1920s and 30s, most men were doing something laborious, you know, either working on the construction site or in some sort of small business where they were like a meatpacking business, where they still have to get up and move around and carry stuff. And then a lot of women were either domestics or working something where there was also physical. So the bottom line was the idea was that around 65, a human body kind of couldn't take it anymore. That. That's when Social Security was kind of invented to say at least someone should be able to live this last part of their life with some level of dignity. That was the idea of Social Security.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: They couldn't earn a living anymore, or they couldn't really be able to handle their own affairs physically anymore.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: Exactly. I guess. Yeah. Getting them the bottom levels of Maslow's hierarchy. Food, shelter, and all that. That's what this should do, since you can't go earn it yourself. And I think we haven't brought that to, like, we recognize that with the physical body, but not everybody is recognizing it with the mental. And I know that it's very sensitive because, you know, people don't want to be accused of being crazy or having dementia or Alzheimer's when they don't. And it's a very sensitive topic. So, yeah, I don't. And that's Why I say that could be a totally separate show, but it's more like these are all the conversations we need to be having.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: That's part of the conversation we need to have if we're going to discuss like again, there is a lower age limit. You have to be at least what, 35 to run for president. There's a certain age minimum you have to be in order to run for Congress. And so for those we don't have a bunch of people out there questioning that, oh, why is that? Yada, yada, yada. And so it seems like we can quickly, very easily get to the conversation of an upper age limit. Now what the upper age limit would be is a whole nother thing, you know, because then you're going to have a bunch of interested parties arguing about that. You know, all the 70 year olds will say oh well it, it must be 80 something. All the 60 year olds will say oh, it must be 70 something. So either way, I mean it's. There was one other thing you mentioned though, that where I thought you might go, but you didn't. But it may raise even more like whether we can, our bodies can live until we're 150, you know, now and then within our lifetime we definitely may end up with something where your mind can live longer. You know, whether it be some combination of AI and some type of ability to transplant consciousness or something like that, our science fiction is there. So science might get there pretty soon and that'll raise a whole nother question. Like if my mind is over here and my body can't do it anymore, but my mind is still sharp because it's housed here and it's my consciousness and so forth. Like are we going to have to deal with that at some point? Like disembodied consciousness is like, oh well, I got elected, man. I'm serving out my term as a disembodied consciousness as opposed to having to give up, to let go. Because it just doesn't seem like the lesson here is that it just doesn't seem like a human nature standpoint that people in power, the people that rise to these positions, a lot of time they have to have a certain amount of self belief and you know what you say, hubris or whatever, just to get there to deal with all the crap you got to deal with to get there. And so it's self selecting in that way. So they're not going to be the ones that say oh well, you know what, you know, for the good of everything else, I probably should, you Know, I probably had my time. You know, that's, that's not going to be their inclination. So societally, we're just going to have to come up with ways to deal with it. And the issue's probably going to get more complicated, not less complicated in the short term. So before we wrap this up, man, you got anything else?
[00:18:28] Speaker B: Well, I'm going to tell you that you just gave me an idea. I'm going to invent a new political party called Just Going to Be Mega. Unfortunately, I can't put an A in there. It's mgga Make Ghosts great again because.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: You just Disembodied consciousness.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Disembodied consciousness. We're actually going to invent ghosts, which is going to be cool because with technology, that's freaking cool.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: And they're going to run for Congress in this. In your political party, I take it.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: Yeah, you.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: You know what?
[00:18:54] Speaker B: I think I saw that like in Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, that they had like these ghost suits. So, you know, that could be some whole interesting other technology. But the, but on a serious note, the one thing I did want to discuss because one of the articles that we do have cited in the show notes, I just want to actually take from it because it shows the importance of this conversation. That's why. Just be serious here at the end. It's about brain volume. This is something I just learned. Interesting. Want to share as well.
Brain volume, I guess, based on scientific research, begins to decline by about 5% per decade after peaking in one's 30s. And this is one thing I thought of too, James, when I was preparing, I was reminding with all this reading, like, yeah, human beings kind of were designed in nature. If you look at hunter gatherers and all that, just how humans were, let's say, 10,000 plus years ago, probably to live to about 35 to 40 years old. You know, people generally out there, like you said, in the wilderness, when you didn't have the comforts of now.
And the things that humans were being able to develop with their cognitive revolution, you know, the body just deteriorated or you got killed or you got injured, whatever. And so it stands to reason that the brain also begins to kind of suffer from entropy and kind of deterioration and corrosion of just nature, just like the body does after peaking during a human life. And so it got me thinking, I'll be 47 in March.
I've already lost a portion of that, you know, that 5 to, you know, going on to 10% of, of that stuff. And I was joking with my wife because I'M mixing up my, my kids names now. I'm starting to do that. And I was just laughing like, you know, I, I don't remember doing that stuff 10 years ago. So it's an example.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: If you did it, you may not remember that you.
Years ago. But. And I'll say this, don't make me.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: Feel worse about myself here now but here's what I was going to say to finish. It is through its connections to other parts of the brain, it manages executive function. And then I forward, I go a little bit forward. It's key to discussion of leadership capacities because it involves, it's involved in areas like problem solving, goal setting and impulse control.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: So I'm just saying that connective tissue in the brain, as it starts to deteriorate, people begin to lose those kind of skills. And those are the skills. You want someone who's in a position of leadership to make sure that they have those things going on. So that's what I'm just saying is that it's about that really.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: Yeah. No, and I think it's worthwhile to end on a idea of why this matters.
Now. I will be, I'm always going to, I stay skeptical of science, you know, so. And that's part, that's part of what you're supposed to do, you know, so like equating brain volume to brain capability. I would want more to. Before I walk down that road.
So you know, because brain connectivity and what you did get to secondly matters a lot more with that. And then the brain, we don't know all the ways in the brain work. So for us to try to make sense of it from the outside at this point is still. There's a, we're filling in a lot of gaps there. But that said, this isn't some, we're not breaching some new horizon here that no one's ever thought of here. Like we all have observed that human beings decline as they age. You know, like we have society, systems in society built in to take advantage of that or to. Well, to account for that and to cover for that in many respects. So you know, as you get older, your requirements on maintaining your driver's license change. You know, like just things that we allow people to. Your, your ability to fly airplanes if you want changes. So like we already, it's already built in. We don't have to, we shouldn't have to convince people that this is something we need to look at in many areas of society. We already have decided that this is something we need to look at. And be. Pay attention to. And what I'm saying is that things have changed enough in our society that we're going to have to look at this in leadership as well. In the same way that when they set the whole thing up, they were like, yeah, we don't want a bunch of 18 year olds trying to run for, for Congress or trying to run for president because all of these things that we know about 18 year olds. And so at this point they probably just didn't have a big enough issue with 85 year olds trying to, you know, trying to run the country that it didn't come up. It was just like, oh yeah, well.
[00:23:10] Speaker B: That'S, that's, yeah, that would be like us trying to write in some legislation about someone who's 130.
[00:23:15] Speaker A: Exactly. It just wouldn't.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: You would say, why are you doing that?
[00:23:17] Speaker A: So now that our capabilities have changed, it's something we have to take more seriously. Because yes, we do want for a lot of different reasons. You know, as you get older, remember you're more entrenched a lot of times in different fights that you that may be 30 or 40 years old at that point. And so refreshing of information and knowledge and just bringing new blood in is helpful. And just. I'll give a sports analogy and just to get out of here with like, it's common in many sports where like, if a coach has been somewhere so long, it's just like, look, it's not that you're not a good coach anymore, but we just need a new voice, like as a team, like the team has heard your voice for so long that it's just not as impactful anymore. We need to move on. So this idea is not something we're throwing in from left field that nobody's ever heard of. Just the idea of, hey, you got to refresh leadership from time to time so that you can move forward is pretty well established. And so again, because our capabilities have changed, we got to assess whether or not we need to bring that in, to what extent we need to bring that into qualifications for leadership in our government of the people, by the people, for the people. So yeah, I think we can wrap it right, man.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: And look, the mechanism's already there, bro. We got elections in this country every two to four years. That's true too.
It is on us.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: The finger should be pointed. We're talking about Kate Granger then the fingers should be pointing at the people in her district in Texas that put her in office at this point, you know, or the people in Kentucky with with Mitch McConnell, like, and it's like. Or, you know, the United States people when they United States or when they elected, you know, Donald Trump. But again, we didn't have much of a choice at that point. I guess we did, you know, but initially, when it was two old guys going against each other.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Listen, I'll say this to end it. That's why I am proud of my suffering from Dunning Cougar Syndrome, because I'm just gonna assume that my anecdotal example of me screwing on my kid's name is exactly why I'm right. So that's case closed science.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: How very human of you, sir.
[00:25:09] Speaker B: Yes, thank you.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: But no, I think we can wrap from there. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this part. Check out the later parts of this episode and we'll talk to you then.
All right. For our second part today, we wanted to discuss. I know Tunde, this is something very personal to you. You recently finished the new Call of D. You beat the game, so to speak, you know, with the Our as we go back. You know, I beat the game. You got the game and you enjoyed it. You explained how you enjoyed and everything like that. But then you went online and we're looking at some of the videos about it and all that kind of stuff now that you had finished it and there were a lot of negativity and then, which, as you said, made you start questioning. Well, I thought I liked this. Did I like this as much as I thought I did or, you know, and this is something you're aware of the effects, you know, like, you're not ignorant to the idea that online, you know, what you see online can influence you, influence you. And so, but you had talked about how, you know, even being aware of that, it's, you could, you still were susceptible to seeing these negative messages and again, questioning what you just experienced and what you just enjoy. And so, I mean, kick us off on this, man. What, what are your takeaways from seeing, observing this happen in yourself in real time? Enjoying beating, you know, playing the game, Enjoying the game and then calling that all into question once you get exposed to a lot of the negativity that just, you know, it propagates online, you know, in social media and so forth.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: And then, yeah, yeah, no, this is, this is fun. So let me set the stage here of kind of what was going on and why my brain was able to see this contrast in this way, just kind of what I was doing. So first of all, as we've discussed already, when you intro the show it's December 31st today, so we're. You know, it's New Year's Eve today, which means we're around the holidays, right?
[00:26:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: So I scheduled on purpose because, you know, my business gets slow on the holiday. I had to have surgery on my foot because I'm getting old. I got two huge arthritis bursts sticking out that hurt like hell. And I was supposed to be rested for two weeks. You know, I'm off my feet. So I said, okay, let me schedule this for now. Blah, blah, blah.
My son, my youngest kid, who's 13, had just got Black Ops 6 Call of Duty.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: So you're son, right? Meaning.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: No, this really was.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: It was really his or it was really yours.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: I've got every other one, so I'm not gonna hide it.
The only campaign I haven't beaten is Infinite Warfare, just because I just didn't like it when I started it. But every other COD campaign, Modern Warfare, all that, and no one is ever gonna find me on multiplayer. Cause I'm too old and I'm too slow, and I get pissed off because these kids are so fast that they got the quick trigger. So I only do campaigns. But anyway, so I decided, because I'm sitting there with my foot in the air recovering from this surgery, I want to play this game. So I spent like three days playing it. That's why. That's why I want to give this setup. It was, like, intensely playing. It had a great time. You know, I'm sitting there and, you know, we're in Florida, like, yo, man.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: This is awesome history from the 90s, man. They're really bringing it in and. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Because it's all from the Gulf War stuff. And, you know, we were kids. I'm like, yeah, this is cool. And. And, you know, and I, you know, I've got my medical card here in Florida. So, you know, I'm on my. I'm on my stuff and having fun on the PlayStation, right?
So I'm having a great time. So I wanted to wait till the end of the campaign, till I go on YouTube to start, because I like to then go look and see if I miss something in the story and the Easter eggs and how it ties to the other, you know, campaigns I've beaten in Black Ops and all that.
And like, you're saying I go on YouTube and I type in Black Ops 6 campaign. And the first stuff is all this negative. Why. Why Call of Duty is going. The franchises is going south. Why is everything is so bad? Why everything is so woke in video games. Why did, why. And it's like all this Haiti. And like you're saying.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: I'm saying you got the people saying it's woke. You got the people saying it's just military propaganda. You got like all of this danger and everybody's got their every angle.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So in only like three hours of my time, not the whole time, you know, I'm kind of back and forth between doing other stuff. And that's when I realized I call you, I go, james, hold on. I just spent like 72 hours of my life doing something that I really enjoyed. And I've been on the Internet for just a couple hours and I think I'm now convinced that what I enjoyed, I didn't like, it wasn't like.
And I'm like, this is weird because like, I'm aware enough to know this is happening, but it's working and it sucks.
But then here's the interesting thing, James. I kept going and trying to see some other videos and then some positive ones popped up and guys that had made videos and it's just like. And so that's why I brought it to you in the conversation personally, because it was just interesting. Like, honestly, man, if all of us really are honest.
And that's why I said, like, I'm starting to believe more and more about this thing, that we don't have self control because our egos make us feel like.
And I think maybe our culture too is individualism, that we control ourselves and all this. I was so ashamed almost of how quickly I was manipulated just by stupid algorithms sending me negative stuff.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: Because once I started seeing the positive stuff, like my brain was like, oh, yeah, I guess it wasn't that bad, you know, justifying to me that I could enjoy the game. So sorry to be on such a long rant, but it was.
[00:30:44] Speaker A: Well, but it's, it's fascinating though, particularly because your awareness while it was going on, like, I think we're all. We all know, you know, that online is full of, you know, negativity. Like some people get in, they watch a movie. Like people watch a movie or they watch a Star wars show or whatever. We did a show about this not long ago. And the people who want. Who can't wait, who rush to go home or do it from their phone and post and comment are the ones who are in the rush to do it, are the ones who have something bad to say. The people. Like, you don't see a bunch of rush of people saying, oh, best ever. This is the greatest Thing we like. So the most motivated people to get their information out there are the people with negative stuff. And that could be coming from a lot of different angles. And we know also that the algorithms have determined that the negative stuff drives more engagement. So you put those two together and yes, then you have that. But the fact that, like you said, we all feel like, generally speaking, that we're in control of our emotions and what we're thinking. And this goes to show that even if you're aware that this stuff can influence you, it still can influence you while you're ha. While you're observing it, influence you and so forth. And so I think that it's just, it really, it makes for a really depressing kind of state of affairs in the sense that your enjoyment, your ability to enjoy things can be hijacked by your experience online. Like, and it's not that your ability to enjoy something that you experience not online, you know, like, so I can go to a basketball game or I can go play with my, you know, go, go enjoy a movie or something like that. Go to a movie and, you know, I spent two hours. I enjoyed it. You know, it was like I wasn't walking out of there head down, depressed or anything like that. I got to spend the time with my family or something like that. And then, then I go, I go, if I'm going to engage with the social media, then I'm going to be hit with a lot of information to retroactively make me feel like I wasted my time, you know, like, and so the existence with that is very, very, very precarious in the sense that, well, being is subjective, you know, like, well, being is not an objective thing. And so subjective. Well, being can be destroyed after the fact. Looking back at what you saw, then you start saying, oh, well, how was my, my 2024? Oh, my 2024 sucked. I didn't see what. There was nothing but a bunch of terrible shows on tv. All the movies I saw sucked, you know, stuff like that. And so, I mean, it's. I say this, and I wanted to do this on the show because it's very dangerous. Got to be very careful because again, if your actual experiences that have already completed, if your impression of those can be changed after the fact, that's not something we're, we're really prepared for. Is like, okay, I enjoyed this, then I'm going to remember that I didn't enjoy it. Like, that's, that's, that's pretty jarring right there, you know, so, like, it's Something we got to be all be very careful of. And, and it can happen to you, even if you're aware that it can happen to you. You know, so this is more in the category of making sure you, you, you monitor what it is, how much you engage.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: Yeah. This is why, I mean this is I think going back to the idea that the pen is mightier than the sword.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: And I think that a lot of people, it's hard to understand that until you really see this stuff and you see it play out. This is why I think about it from Stalin with the Politburo. Right. He's, you know, to, to Goebbels with the propaganda to now with, with the way social media is handled and the fight for information. It's, it's, it's, you know, and here's an example because you're right, subjective well being. I go think about things like the disconnect that many of us in this country see, but many don't see it between things like statistics on crime in recent years or even on the border on inflation, that certain things do play out and they're, they get high at some point, but then when they come down, people don't have the same type of reaction that they did when it was high. Maybe a better example is gas prices. Remember when gas prices were up in 20, 21 into 22, I used to go fill up gas and somebody would put stickers on the gas stations I go to around here and with a picture of Joe Biden pointing his finger saying I did this, remember?
[00:34:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:47] Speaker B: And I remember thinking like, just like a couple months before the election or whatever when the gas, I'm sitting there filling up at $1.97 and it's half the price it was two years ago. I thought in my head like I don't see anybody putting a sticker saying what Joe Biden saying I did this. Right.
[00:35:01] Speaker A: Like, yeah, that goes to the motivation that negativity gives.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: Versus like the positivity. It's like people aren't as motivated to go and say haha, yeah, Joe Biden saved us. Like they're not going to, you know, like that's just not, that sounds silly.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's funny because you're, when you were talking there to help me actually finally articulate a feeling I've had for a while. So I appreciate it because. And just work with me for an extra 30 seconds. Let me get this out. Because part of me, especially with the military and stuff, this attack of everything that has a non white Male in it being woke, the military one is the one that kills me because I'm like everybody. I mean, at least in my lifetime that I've seen it recognizes that people like black people have been in the military participating and doing fine. Right. Not getting handouts and all that, but people like from Chappie, the famous pilot, all the way to Colin Powell. No one ever said they were like DEI hires and stuff. People just respected these guys.
[00:36:01] Speaker A: But that just didn't propagate as. As open.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: Right. It wasn't allowed to come. Yeah.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: And so. And so what I'm getting at is part of me, when I was seeing the online stuff specifically. Let's get back to my experience. This game was set in 1991. Black Ops, Call of Duty 6 during the Gulf War period. One of the main characters is black. Another main character is a female who's in the CIA. And some of the nasty stuff you see online about these games being woke and all that, that's what I was thinking about. I was like, oh, hold on, I never heard this before. Right. And then I'm thinking about Gina Haspel was the first female director of the CIA who was appointed by Donald Trump in 2017. I don't think because she was a woman. I think because she had a decorated career as a CIA officer who helped us beat Al Qaeda and was influential in the war on terror. And my point is, is that. So that's what I've been thinking. Like, it's amazing how quickly the mood of a large portion of a society can just be moved with this negativity and this information. Because we went from. And that's why using the military in this example, I guess based on this video game, people, like, you're saying the general culture accepting that the military was a meritocracy and now is a place where all Americans, you know, were welcome to go if they wanted to serve to now being a place where it's got to be, if you don't look a certain way, you're only there because someone gave you a handout. And I just think that it. I guess that video game, having those characters and seeing that reaction online got me thinking. Yeah, this is how you change the kind of perception of a large group. Because after a few more years of this, we're going to have people that are 30, 35 years old, that this is all they've known.
[00:37:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: And that's how you really get to shift long term. If we don't try and stop this now.
[00:37:55] Speaker A: It's a very appealing Message because remember, and we read something recently, I shared it with you from the New York Times and I'll put it in the show notes talking about how the mistake of human nature that has kind of the humans have had over the past hundred years or so and that humans thought, you know, like that or there's business kind of understanding that humans are predators. You know, humans are master predators in their environment and they, you know, when humans show up, you know, we, we, we, we are the big time predator. And then we evolved with predator mentalities. And actually a lot of the research that's come since then, more recently, it shows that actually humans have a prey mentality. So we're constantly on the lookout, generally speaking for, for people that we think are targeting us or coming after us, so to speak, for other, for predators. And so what you see when you see this like that source of anger, you know, with the, with these people saying everything is woke. If it's not a white man, it's woke is white men with a prey mentality, they just, they're, they are hyper aware, hyper alert of threats that they think are coming for them, you know, so they're, they're kind of just running scared all the time and everything they see is some threat to them, you know, and so it's unfortunate, you know, but that's, that's just one segment of the type of negativity that propagates because you'll see the other, you know, you'll see other stuff talking about, oh, this is all propaganda for the military and you know, military industrial complex and all this other stuff. And so there are a lot of reasons that, that people have. And the, the fact that I think the algorithms do such a good job of distilling which one of those, like it's testing us. Which one of those would appeal to you? You know, like there's, there's the negativity here. Would you like a little bit of this negativity or would you like a little bit of this negativity? Which one of those, you know, why don't you take a sample of this one, you know.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: Yeah, and so. Yeah, that's a great point.
[00:39:37] Speaker A: Well, but let me say it's able to distill it down so quickly. Like that can happen. That whole sampling of what kind of negativity riles you up emotionally can happen in like 30 minutes. Then it's going to just feed that to you over and over again. And that's why it can be so effective, you know, because it can find what triggers you or what gets you going quickly and then hit you with it because then there's so much stuff. The other thing I wanted to tie this to and because I do want to get out of this topic is the, like, when you look at people, like when they do surveys, you know, what do you think the country's going in the right direction, in the wrong direction? Or, you know, like the state of the country, state of the economy, like you said, state of crime, things like that. It really does help explain a lot of times not fully, because there are. If you want to find reasons to be upset or negative about something, you can always find reasons to be upset about it. But this overwhelming negativity that we see as far as like surveys show with the state of things, you know, like, and so, and things again relative to the last 100 years, 200 years, 10,000 years, whatever time frame, things aren't that bad right now, you know, like for human beings in the United States at least, you know, like, they're not perfect. There are plenty of things you can find to focus on to be negative, but there have been worse. You know, like, we're not in a war with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people die, like again in the United States dying all the time. Or, you know, like four years ago we had some pandemic that were killing people that we didn't even know, you know, what to do about it. And we're trying to figure it out on the fly, like, oh, you can do this, you can't do that. Like, there's a lot that we're not dealing with right now. But that perspective, again, doesn't sell as much as, hey, you know, what about this? This is pretty negative. What do you think about that? And you know, and so forth. So I think that just this does have real world implications. And again, your subjective, like, satisfaction with what's going on around you that it can be, that it can be so fundamentally changed so easily is like, look, if you're unhappy, it's probably because what you're consuming more so than what you're living.
[00:41:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, look, I could stay in this conversation for hours, but I know we're not an audience. Don't worry, we're not. But no, but that's to your point and that's the sad. So look, I think you're. This conversation actually could go a long time, but it won't. But this gets me thinking about things like, even, you know, for those that may have seen some of this type of information, like the lack of Local news leading to more of our partisanship in this country. Because people are worried about things that have nothing to do with them directly. Like someone in Idaho or Michigan worrying about the southern border every day. Meaning of course we should worry about the security of our country. Yes.
But to be shown every day that there's somebody coming across the board, all that. Exactly. That's your point.
[00:42:26] Speaker A: Well, but that's why it's made in the more I remember. Because it's quote unquote in an invasion or it's of course basement theory.
That act is made into an abstraction that then can, you know.
[00:42:38] Speaker B: No, I agree. But think about it. So this is what's been happening to our country for the last 15, 20 years is technology's allowed cable news and then the Internet to do this to us is people. I bet you there's more people in Michigan right now concerned about Gaza and the border than they are about the fact that people in Flint, Michigan still can't drink clean water 8 frigging 10 years after that initial issue. I would say the same thing in.
[00:43:06] Speaker A: Mississippi, which is a much more direct threat to your well being.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: Correct.
I would say the same thing about Mississippi with the issues that they've had in Jackson with the water. I will say the same thing in your home state of Ohio and East Palestine. More people, I bet you cared about immigration than they cared about the safety of the train industry.
Yeah. So that another train doesn't blow up there. And I'll say the same things, James, about at our first topic, whatever area in Texas, you know, this congresswoman that we talked about with dementia is I bet you there's more people in there worrying about the border than they are about their own representative who's in Washington to represent them that she can't. That she's in a nursing home. So.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: And in charge of the House appropriations where spending originates in the House and she's in charge of that. And. Yeah. So who's, who's making those decisions now?
[00:43:56] Speaker B: Yeah. So we should be doing some internal reflections. But I think as irrational humans do, we're going to continue to blame Haitians eating pets and everyone else and trans people.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: And you and I will hold our fist up and yell at the clowns. Yeah.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: And I'm going to play. Keep playing Call of Duty.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:13] Speaker B: And there you go.
[00:44:14] Speaker A: There you go. You show them.
Take, take those, those negative videos and you know where to put them. So.
[00:44:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:44:21] Speaker A: But no, I think we can wrap this topic from there. We appreciate everybody for joining us. Check out our earlier topic and we got one more coming today and we'll talk soon.
All right, Our next topic today we want to take a look at. There's been a lot of reports on the NBA ratings declining. And this is following, you know, reports from earlier this year about the, the huge media deal that the NBA signed, you know, with, with going, going with ESPN and NBC and Amazon and so that there's a disconnect there, obviously, with, with media rights that they're that are going up and people paying more money to broadcast the NBA, whereas then the, the ratings coming in from this season have been lower than expected and declining. So wanted to ask you, Tunde, you know, like, do you think this decline that we're observing represents something being wrong with basketball or maybe something wrong with the, the framework, how it's kind of presented or maybe just even a temporary blip that, you know, we're kind of, our sample size is too small, so to speak.
[00:45:19] Speaker B: No, I think there's a little bit of some of that in it, kind of like a little bit of a mix of it. I think. I think the NBA does have an issue in the way it's entertaining people versus the way it used to, let me just put it that way, which I know we'll, we'll discuss.
And then I do think there is something to be said about the nature of where technology has taken things like broadcast TV and then cable TV and now fractured it with the Internet and all that stuff. So I wouldn't beat up the NBA purely for ratings decline, only because of the way the game has changed maybe in the last five or six years and because the players are prima donnas or because they get rested too much or because they share their political views. I don't think it's like just that.
But I do think that, you know, less, maybe some of the gossipy stuff, but some of the actual ways the game has been, the way it's been played has changed and the strategy that teams have been using in the last five, six years, I think that has affected it. But yeah, I do think we, we would be remiss if we left out the changes in technology. The fact that cable viewership overall is down and traditional television viewership is just down because everyone's got streaming platforms. And, you know, I don't even have cable tv. I don't own any of that. I just do everything streaming so well.
[00:46:42] Speaker A: No, that's an interesting point. I want to get, I'm going to drill down in because as you've noted in previous shows you're a former NCAA athlete, not NBA, but former NCAA Division 1 basketball player. And so you, you in terms of gameplay, I know you have some pretty strong thoughts. I think the, you know, your point about the, like all of these rating decline reports have to be put in a certain context because like all, any television show now that you see, none of them have the ratings that television shows like Friends or you know, things like that had in the 90s. Seinfeld, like though, like the nature of television and you know, linear television in particular, where something, you start it when, you know, at a certain time and it runs straight, not just streaming, where you pop in and doing watch a little bit or whatever, like where you control basically your consumption of it. All of that has declined. You know, I guess the, the, the biggest exception to this is the NFL. And I think a lot of the hand wringing over this comes from comparisons to the NFL into football, which I think is just a, it's the wrong way to look at it. And I think that's where you get a lot of the, the, the people that are the heroes on fire, so to speak, is because you compare to football. Like the NBA from a framework standpoint, plays two to three games a week, you know, and the NFL plays one game a week. Now they're like, okay, so why does that matter? Well, we are a media culture. So when you play one game a week, that means after you play your game, you spend two or three days talking about what just happened, you know, all through the media, and then you spend the next three or four days talking about what's about to happen. So you build a lot of anticipation. So the NFL by its very structure is eventized. Every game is an event that has been built up for several days and then will be recapped for several days, you know, and that happens all over the country and all the different teams and so forth, all the different players. So there's so much buildup and there's so much discussion about each individual data point in the NFL that of course people feel like they need to go see the actual data point. NBA, it doesn't happen like that. Like, it's. By the time you get finished watching one game and you try to find out what happened with that, there's another game that happened. I listen to NBA podcasts. Most of the time I'm listening to NBA podcasts. If I'm not on it, like right away, a lot of the information I'm getting is a day or day late in the dollar short. It's like, oh, well, they've already played a game since then, or two games since then. And so the, the build, there's not a build up where I'm like, oh, anticipating, oh, you know, here's what's happening here. The other thing, what happens with that, which I'm sure you could comment on as well again as a former high level basketball athlete, is because you play games like the NFL. Every game the teams treat like an event, you know, it's like, hey, we're going to game plan. Look, we're going to look at everything this team does and we're going to try to specifically target how they approach things and we're going to try to take advantage of that. NBA, they don't even practice during the regular season because they're playing games three times a week, you know, so they have no time to game plan for individual teams and put their best foot forward. And then I can follow this out more in terms of the player. The players get hurt more or play less because of that. Because the NBA is a more explosive sport now than it was 2034. Like the players are definitely doing more explosive acts than then and that's harder on the body. So I think if you take away the comparisons to NBA ratings versus what NFL ratings are doing, then you can get much, you can get to have a better conversation on what's going on with the NBA. So I just wanted to start it with that, but then I do want to kick it back to you. So, you know, just your thoughts. If you want to get into kind of the gameplay stuff, which may contribute to less people wanting to watch or stuff like that, then I'm, you know, we can go there or anywhere else you want, you want to go to.
[00:49:58] Speaker B: Yeah, the, I mean, the gameplay stuff.
Let's, let's shelf that for a little bit later in the discussion because I wouldn't mind going back and forth with you on that. But, but I think for now, like just in response to what you're saying, I feel like as you're saying it, I get everything you're saying, but I'm thinking like, but that's always been the case. It's always been the case that each NFL team plays one game a week. And the NBA teams, you know, in the 70s, 80s, 90s, that was still the same case. So there's, you know, there's got, it's got to be more than that to me. And I think that's where we got a couple of things and I could even see now it's funny now that we're having this conversations in a row doing our show, I mean, I'm starting to see some of it too, that we see with other things in the Internet, with negativity. Like we just did the segment, you know, just now on Call of Duty and the negativity around, you know, video games and certain things. We've done discussions about Star wars, how Star wars itself hasn't changed in 40 years or almost 50 now, but. But all of a sudden, the last five, six years, everything's woke in Star wars, right? And if I were to go online, you know, like I do periodically, like to X or whatever, if you look at some of the complaints about the NBA now, it's the same thing. It's the same attitude. Oh, the NBA's woke. Oh, they talk politics. So I think some of this is just, I think the NBA is caught up a little bit in just this negativity that's swirling around our culture now with everything that there's always some foil out there whether whatever topic that's saying, oh, this isn't pure enough for me. So that I think is part of it. But I do think. Then let's get to the gameplay part. I do think that the game part itself.
[00:51:40] Speaker A: Well, let me respond to that real quick, because before you get into that, because I think that's a good discussion and what I. Where I was going, and I'm glad you raised this, pointed this out because I'm not saying that the NBA ratings, the comparison, so to speak, is the. The end all be all. But what I'm saying is that that provides the context for people to raise alarm that something's wrong with the NBA because of what's happening with the ratings. If you look at. Because NFL ratings aren't down along with everybody else's rating, everybody's ratings are down around all of television except the NFL. And so that. What. Why is that? And I'm saying the media environment, I didn't make this point all the way. The media environment favors eventized things, whether it be Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. If they tried to put Jake Paul and Mike Tyson or something like that on three, four times a week, it wouldn't do the number it did than if you build it up for a couple of months and do it. So right now, our media environment, if you want viewers, the best thing to do is eventize something, make it an event and that Tom Brady's roast, Netflix understands this very well. They want things they can eventize. And the context though, if you, if you're if you frame the NBA ratings in the frame of the cable is dying and the ratings are down all this amount, but NBA is propping it up because we're, we're cable ratings are normally, you know, 20% down. They're not as bad when the NBA is on. So it's actually helping prop up cable more. Then that's a completely different frame, you know, like that, that frame or you know, broadcast. So then it's saying, okay, well the NBA actually isn't, is bucking the trend of the decline in linear tv, you know what I'm saying? And so you, with that frame, you're not having the conversation of ratings decline. But I think you raised a really good point where, where you ended on. We're just saying, hey, maybe this is just the negativity that's going to break through more. You know that when, when people harp on this, people hand wring on this and focus on this and tell you all these reasons it's bad. That's just the negativity that will drive on social media, so to speak, and you come up with all the different reasons and the social media will find which reasons will appeal to which person in terms of why it's bad.
[00:53:36] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's the thing because, because you know, it's, it's anytime you hear about the politics and all that, you got to tell yourself, okay, that's not the real reason because this stuff has all happened before. I mean, I was thinking about the Cleveland Summit for example, in the 1960s that had a bunch of athletes there talking about politics. And each one of the people, if you were to Google and Cleveland Summit and look at the photos, you'll recognize all the faces and they're all some.
[00:54:03] Speaker A: Of the biggest athletes in the history of the world. Ali, Jim Brown, Abdul Jabbar, Bill Russell.
[00:54:09] Speaker B: So it's like, yeah, like all those guys are now considered pretty much American legends, heroes and all that. So it's just, you know, that's all the gossip stuff. But I do think getting to the game part, I think there's a couple things. I know that a lot of people now are blaming the three pointers and all that, which I can appreciate because I do think it takes away from some of just the beauty of the actual game. You know, good motion offense, you know, defense, things like that. But I also think there's something that is less talked about because I kind of see it kind of like we were talking about in our first segment today with the aging of the politicians.
I think one thing I'M learning and I realize as I'm getting older and watching all this stuff that's happened in the world over the last 10 years is that one thing that I think helped America for the last 250 years over other nation states is our ability, especially after FDR and not anything negative about him, but this idea that we constitutionally limited a president to two terms in office. And I think we need to get serious about doing that in Congress and the Senate as well. Whatever, how many terms and all that someone else will figure that out. The reason is, is because the idea, James that you and I both talk about a lot, which is the self correcting mechanism within whatever system it is. And so that was politics, the example, the ability for America to self correct every four to eight years on choosing a new leader versus a Russia or China or another type of system where the leader stays there for 20, 25 years, blah blah, blah. And I, I noticed that with the NBA now because of the way they treat the star athletes, the NBA is not self correcting and replenishing this kind of tree of stars and, and people that the aud. You know, the audience can get a little bit something new every five, six years. I remember in the 90s if you take out Michael Jordan, there were guys, Mahmoud Abdul Rauf, Chris Jackson, you know, we talked about Michael Adams, Latrell Sprewell.
You know, I could name 25 players that at some within one or two seasons may have averaged over 22, 23 points where they were very good. They were the ones that people could go see and get excited about. And then a few years later they got injured or something happened and now we don't have that. I feel like it's been LeBron and Steph for the last decade and Kevin Durant and it's like the media and the league just prop up the same names. And remember I told you because I'm not watching basketball like I used to at and that's something that's been going on a long time, not just this recent years. I was shocked when I saw Giannis, you know, the Greek freaks stats this season. You know this so far in 2024, averaging 32 points, 11 rebounds and six assists.
[00:56:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:57] Speaker B: And I'm thinking every time I turn on the Internet all I see is LeBron James.
[00:57:01] Speaker A: Yeah, they're not promoting this kid should be. Yeah, you know.
[00:57:05] Speaker B: No, this kid is the greatest player right now looking at his stats. But I wouldn't have known that being.
[00:57:11] Speaker A: A, that's a, that's stuff at you because that's. That. That's something that people talk about, is that they. Are they doing a good enough job marketing the next generation in the group of stars? Because, yes, the people that are, they're marketing around LeBron.
[00:57:24] Speaker B: So, I mean, it's like our politics.
[00:57:25] Speaker A: Those guys are 40, LeBron's 40. Curry is high, early high 30s, Durant, all those guys. The issue that they have right now, and this is chicken and egg type stuff, is that those guys are the guys that drive numbers still. So are they driving numbers because they're more engaging, or are they driving numbers because the NBA failed to do its homework and, you know, and promote the next generation?
[00:57:46] Speaker B: Such a good conversation. I think it's a lack of trust for the next generation, so.
[00:57:52] Speaker A: Well, yeah, so you look at that. But the thing is, is that the next generation. So now people bring up the next generation being foreign players. You know, Giannis being from Greece, Jokic one of the best players now being from Serbia, Luka Doncic, you know, like Eastern European, like. And these guys don't engage with the media in the same way that LeBron and Steph and Kevin Durant, through burner accounts or whatever, but through that, the same way that these guys engage with the media, you know, like. So is it that LeBron and Steph do more to engage and to bring people in, and so therefore they still are the draw, or is it the NBA's responsibility? So I think that's one of those chicken and egg things we won't know. As far as the gameplay, there are valid criticisms about, oh, well, the teams, you know, they shoot too many threes, and. Which isn't a problem if you're making them, as Curry has pointed out. But not all the teams that shoot a lot of threes make them all. So all of that stuff is. And that's where you look into kind of just the. The ebb and the flow of the game. Because we got the new guy, even, you know, Victor Wembanyama, the 74 guy who is. Who just anytime he's out there, it's like the most amazing thing you've ever seen. Like, maybe we're looking at the next generation. You know, remember after Michael Jordan retired, there was a lull in the NBA where it was trying to find its footing. And really, you know, it wasn't till Kobe and Shaq, and then eventually LeBron took off that it hit another high point. And so there's many people that say that this is just kind of, you know, there's a flow to this thing. An ebb and a flow. And so, like, we're coming into a time of transition for the NBA now. But even with that said, I mean, one of the things that you have to keep in mind, you know, like as we go into this, is that with the generational change, there's going to be a lull, you know. And the NBA though, what it does have going for it, and you compare it to any other sports, is the actual interest. When you talk about NBA stuff, it's, you know, in terms of its reach online, social media and all that stuff is greatly exceeds all the other leagues. And so I think the biggest problem, what that reveals is that whatever's happening, people, there's still a lot of interest in what's happening in the NBA and the personalities in the NBA. The bigger problem they have, apparently is not being able to turn that interest into people wanting to go watch a game as opposed to just see a highlight or follow a storyline and so forth. And so that's where I get into and then where I end where I started looking at. The games aren't eventized. The games are. You can follow the NBA and watch one game a week or 12 games a week, because the storyline, so to speak, following the game to game to game is really difficult. You know, it's just because again, and the teams don't prepare every game like it's the most important thing because they got to fly out that night and go get ready for the next game. So if it's not eventized, you're not going to maximize television audiences. I think that's just the way it goes. But they seem to be doing a good job of driving interest. But there is a disconnect there because you got a lot of interest, that means you got a lot of potential. But eventually, ratings wise, you're going to have to deliver there too, if you want to keep the money rolling it.
[01:00:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I just think it's a combination of, I'm sure a lot of things that we're discussing and probably more things that we can't even see. But I just think that with the, with the game side of it, and we talked about this offline too, like with, you know, if everyone's complaining that there's too many three pointers being shot. And you're right, Steph Curry's amazing. And he's like freaking that video game NBA Jam when we were kids and the guy had to fire on the ball.
[01:01:03] Speaker A: Yeah, people love watching him shoot three pointers, you know, so if you could shoot Threes. The threes are very entertaining.
[01:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:01:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:01:09] Speaker B: And so what I'm saying is, so. But there's other teams out there that have fallen. You know, like anything else. Groupthink affects everybody, right? So the NBA is no different. So when Golden State warriors started being successful with this strategy of just jacking up threes and spreading the floor back, you know, 10 years ago, you know, the herd began to follow. Like, I'm just curious, you know, there's teams out there that shoot 30% from three.
I'm just thinking, I'm waiting for someone to then start training big men again to have footwork in the post. And I couldn't imagine what a Hakeem Olajuwon or a Tim Duncan or a Kevin McHale or a Charles Barkley would do in today's NBA. They would dominate in the pink. That's why.
[01:01:53] Speaker A: Actually, you've already talked about it. It's what Giannis would do. That's what they would do.
[01:01:59] Speaker B: And the joker. Right, and the joker, exactly.
[01:02:01] Speaker A: So that's why they're so good.
[01:02:02] Speaker B: Because there's no defense in inside.
[01:02:04] Speaker A: Well, because the way it's spaced out now. So that's why I think that that's kind of a misnomer of an argument, because, yeah, we do see dominant bigs there, but there's only so many human beings in the world that can do that. Anybody can go out there, jack threes, but there's only so many people that can do what Giannis does or Jokic.
[01:02:18] Speaker B: Does, or you seven feet and be Courtney.
[01:02:22] Speaker A: That's the trick of basketball, is that big guys that can do amazing things is like, oh, my gosh, you know, small guys. Small guys all around doing amazing things.
[01:02:30] Speaker B: Honestly, man, I feel like I wish I was a coach right now.
And I might have to send this video out to some teams just in case, you know, maybe. Maybe they want some new. Some new input.
No, because I would love to just say, look, let's go find some big man, like, somebody that wants to put his ass in a post, bury it in there, and back somebody down every time they touch the ball and don't care. Like, you know, and pump fake and do all the old school stuff. I bet you they will wipe the floor.
[01:02:57] Speaker A: Yeah. The problem is, is what it always has been, is finding those dudes is hard. You know what I'm saying? There's only been one Kareem. You know, like, it's just, you know, like every. There's not 30 of those guys where every team's going to have one, you know, like you.
[01:03:08] Speaker B: Well, let's be fair.
[01:03:10] Speaker A: But let's be fair. Let me say this, but you can find a bunch of guys that are my height, 6ft tall, they can go around and shoot threes. You can find a bunch of them. You can only find, you can't find a bunch of seven foot or so. But that's part of the allure of the NBA when you get those guys and to your point earlier, when we can't market, when we're not marketing those guys well enough, you know. And again, Victor, when Benyama, the new, the French guy, that he may change a lot of this because he is being marketed well and he knows how to play the media game very well as well. So you know, like we'll see. You know, he was the sensation on Christmas when he's going for 40 some points and four or five blocks and 18 rebounds. It was like, oh my gosh, you know, this is so, it may be coming back, you know, like. But again there's just only so many of those guys and so it's tough to rely on, hey, we're just going to get these transcendent bigs. And so I don't know, I think we can wrap this up from here. But you know, I'll just got one.
[01:04:00] Speaker B: More thing I was going to say because I think this, this is important even for our own society when we start complaining about stuff like, you know, just how our country is, we got to remember everything does start at the bottom. And as I'm sitting here, what I was going to say is I realize we and everyone else is kind of beating up the NBA. But the lack of big men, skilled big men who have footwork in the post is actually the fault of the entire system of basketball from the little AAU kids all the way through high school and college. Because what it's telling us, like you said, it's a good point you made. Six foot guys like you are easier to find that can shoot threes. Of course there's less people who are 6 foot 10 and 7ft tall in the world.
[01:04:40] Speaker A: But that's not the only qualification and then coordinated in athletics.
[01:04:44] Speaker B: Correct. But I feel like when I College in the mid-90s, late-90s, it wasn't hard to find big guys that could play in the post. That's all I'm saying is because that's back when coaches in high school and, and, and, and when kids were younger would train tall kids to bury their butt in a post. Now everybody sees a six, nine kid and they all. He's got to be a wing guard.
[01:05:06] Speaker A: And it's just so everybody's selection there because also that. That guy can't. There are guys that can bang, and a lot of those guys aren't in the league anymore because they can't defend out there.
[01:05:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, yeah, maybe we gotta.
[01:05:18] Speaker A: The Jaleel Okafers that could. That can bang. But then on defense, he's given more. Even more back because he can't move around. So it's a tall order because of the way the game is spaced out. But, I mean, we got into the weeds a little bit. But, you know, it's an interesting conversation.
[01:05:32] Speaker B: Because we like basketball.
[01:05:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, basketball is an interesting sport, you know, like. And it's a sport. And then, you know, like, I guess the commissioner, David. Old commissioner, David Stern, he's passed away now, but he was like, you know, just. The game will. Will eventually, you know, make it right. Basically, it was paraphrasing his quote. And so that's kind of what we're waiting to see. I. I would tend to believe that we're kind of. We're in a transition moment right now, you know, because, again, you can't. The league is built around LeBron James and Steph Curry. The transitions come because those guys. LeBron is 40, you know, so, I mean, again, Father Time is undefeated, as we all know. So. But yeah, we appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode. A call. I can see it. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Till next time, I'm James Keys.
[01:06:13] Speaker B: I am Tunde Oglana.
[01:06:14] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk soon.
