 Welcome to another edition of Yes We're Here, Ryan Rucco alongside my good friend and colleague Sarah Coustach. Cous, always good to see you my friend. Ruc's wonderful to see you and see your smiling face, that's for sure. You know we have since that Nets game in LA, which you and I called just before the halt of the NBA season, we've been wondering when will basketball return and obviously more broadly we've been wondering when will professional sports return. When it comes to basketball, we have gotten an answer this week with the NBA agreeing to a 22 team format with games scheduled to begin July 31st at Wide World Sports Complex at Disney World. I mean there's so many different elements, Sarah, about how they're going to make this work, but just rose your overall reaction to hearing the news about the NBA coming back. Well I think it's been such a series of speculations about the different proposals that I was curious just to see which one that they would land on and I think you know by all accounts I didn't have really strong opinions on one thing or another, but I think this looks fair. I think these are very challenging, difficult decisions for the league and how to best do it to make it fair. But you know I'm enthusiastic about it, enthusiastic about the plan that's laid ahead of us. I think more questions don't come, but we haven't yet seen are the testing protocols. We'll get those next week hopefully, but more you know more of the issues come with how are they going to continue to try and make sure that this is a safe environment and I think those are still the things that we're looking forward to hearing a little bit more about. Yeah it's interesting right because it's like I mean there there's just so many complications to try and get any sport back up and running because you're not only you know having to you know find a way to keep the competitive integrity intact so that your championship feels legitimate and it feels worthwhile right? But you're also then first and foremost having to try and figure out every aspect of the health and safety which there are just so many variables and then you're also having to figure out the collective bargaining aspect which we know how difficult you know those items can be. I mean they take years to come to fruition and in this case you're trying to jam it into you know a high pressure you know month or month and a half and and it's difficult to come up with. I think you know Sarah the the testing aspect will be interesting. You would think though you know from a from a league standpoint if you're restarting then you're kind of committing to hey if a player gets it unlike before you know you're not totally shutting down your league right otherwise you wouldn't restart because you'd be risking too much. You know from a from a competitive standpoint what do you think about just the idea of hey eight regular season games going to be played as sort of a runway into the playoffs and then the potential for playing games for that final seed depending on where teams are at and how close they are in the standings. Well what I love about that is the opportunity and I know we've heard from a variety of players throughout the course of this suspension but just the the concept of how do we even try to understand the position these are guys these guys have been in to keep themselves in shape and the only way you stay in basketball shape is playing basketball and that is something that they have not been able to do so a variety of different levels to how they've been able to keep themselves in shape and then we talked about the fact that there'll be a training camp you know starting at the end of the month and then how they'll work their way into that but I like the idea that there are some games to to tune yourself up to get yourself ready to try and get both cohesively as a team and individuals back in a rhythm before you are tossed into playoff games and these games mean something you said it I mean there is a lot of jockeying a lot of I think there's been a lot of focus in some of those teams just outside the playoff picture in the western conference but even more so I look at the east and just maybe some of the possibility of movement there towards the middle of the conference and so I think it makes it you know exciting and maybe more motivating for these players understanding the potential of what these games can bring and you know you mentioned the playing games and I'm curious to see how that shakes out if one of the the ninth seed is within four games of the AC than the playoff games or the playing games I should say you have an opportunity to see so so I do I like the concept of it and I also think it keeps a lot of the integrity of understanding what it means what they're playing for and what these guys are you know down there risking themselves for playing in Orlando. You know the other thing I think too Sarah is like you know so often we see resistance to creativity and maybe not as much in basketball as we do in the sport of baseball right but but we see resistance to it because it's like well you know this is the way we've done things we like this you know you know there's a certain legitimacy we feel to seasons because of this and this is forcing everybody to step outside of their comfort zones and so even if you just look at it from a business standpoint right if you're like okay we we can't do this exactly as we've done in the past but our world our environment right now doesn't allow us that luxury so what are we going to do are we going to do nothing you know are we going to just sit home and bag it and not have a season at all or are we going to say like all right yeah there are going to be some wrinkles there are going to be some tweaks this is going to be a little different than before but we're still going to bring you the sport which everybody is clamoring for and we will bring it in a way that you know most closely approximates what we have done in the past as far as the competition and the legitimacy goes and to me overall even though yeah there's some you know there's some things that feel different to this I think within the confines that the league is working with it feels like the NBA has come up with the best possible scenario along those lines I think so I really do think they did I think you know the concept and the idea of what you're talking about of what we'll be able to see the presentation certainly will be different we know the idea that there there's not the travel the amount of games that we'll be seeing in the course of you know each day the fact that there could be up to seven games within a day that you know in some of these eight games I think each team is expected to play at least one back to back we may see back to back four teams in that first round but overall the concept of once the the top 16 teams are the top eight in the east and the top eight in the west already the playoffs are going to be seen as we know it and you know we know there's so many levels to the challenges that each team will face and how they will go about this and that's why I think you know when we look at crowning an NBA champion the amount of mental and emotional and physical challenge it will take to grind through and get to that point to me still exists it still is there um therefore I think you know for all of these teams what's ahead for them is very much often like what we anticipate what we expect and um the the amount of beauty that comes within the course of the NBA playoffs totally agree with your point about like by the time you get to a champion you know I mean when you're restarting and you've had this irregular break there could totally be that like sort of like tiptoeing into the water like is this real like you know at the beginning if you will and but by the time you've gone you've seen these teams competing and you go through all the levels of the playoffs and that you're going to understand that accomplishment still completely exists by the time you get to a title I think the other interesting part of this area is how it affects next year you know as the schedule is is laid out you are going to have this season potentially end sometime the second week of october and then the next mba season start december 1st you know which you know the mba has flirted with the id in the past or at least been you know there's been certain people have had ideas about starting the season in december rather than october but um it'll be interesting how quick the turnaround is going to be from this season to next yeah and I do think there is there may be some negotiations with the union I think michelle roberts the executive director of the nba pa came out and said that looked a little quick for her so I think these are tentative dates that we're looking at whether it's with the draft lottery the draft the start of free agency when training camps will start the proximity that comes with the expected end of the 1920 season um and you know that december 1st date that's put then put out by the 2021 season um we know giving an opportunity for many athletes uh to keep that in the olympics in 2021 however I think a lot of that it is important to say tentative because I think those things with all of this as we continue to go along will be very fluid um you know as the weeks past as the months past just as you know these past few weeks have been up the suspension all right so we'll see what happens as far as the calendar goes sarin and next season uh but you know I think the biggest question for net fans and obviously you know we have plenty of nets on yes uh viewers is you know is there a chance with this format that the nets get kevin dirant and kairi Irving on the floor uh there are so many um different aspects to the cases that can be made on both sides and there's plenty of information that is maybe known internally but hasn't been shared but but sarin just what's your general approach to that big question about whether or not kd and kairi will be on the floor for the playoffs uh once this tournament happens in orlando am I allowed to say I have no idea because yeah you could say it I have as good of a opinion guest speculation expectation as anyone and that's we don't know and um by all accounts the the message has been from the net's organization and from what we've heard that it is not likely that kevin dirant will play and I think that you know that is probably the most likely possibility but as we understand just the course of the timetable of training camp getting back to the fact that we are talking about these this news at the beginning of june and games are slated to start in nearly two months I think there's always room for anything to ever change but um from my perspective now I think the the expectation is likely he will not likely kairi will not we don't know and I think there's so much that goes into that decision that for anyone or or any of us or any outsiders to have such strong opinions or thoughts or what we think what we think doesn't matter nor should it matter because it's about what is best for kevin dirant what is best for kairi erving and I believe that the organization will um along with medical medical officials and personnel and also kevin themselves kairi themselves they'll make those type of decisions that is best for those individuals and that's all that matters um so I'll circle back to the I don't know I I don't necessarily think so but but I don't know and I don't think any of us really know other than kevin and kairi themselves and you know one other aspect of this Sarah which I you know I've brought up before um but I do think it's relevant again is you know we all assume like oh more time has gone by so these guys should be healthy but you know their rehab processes have been totally altered because of what's gone on you know I mean certain access to facilities medical personnel training staff that all expedites your ability to get back on the floor just taken away or significantly reduced so even though the time has been greater the actual access could be and I don't know this but it could be significantly less so as much as we look at and say wow they've had even more time to recover it could also be like but yes they've had even less resources to recover with and that could be a factor as well now the other interesting thing um Sarah is just you know we saw uh you know the Nets came off a big win against the Lakers right and we saw sort of um I think a hunger and a tenacity the last couple of games before everything shut down I mean we had Chris Chioza all of a sudden running the offense beautifully um and Jack Vaughn just getting a couple of games experience as the interim head coach uh with the Nets but obviously he is the man in charge when this thing reboots um are there anything that you were able to discern from that very small sample size or just from getting to know Jock that you think we can expect from the Nets their style of play and being led by Jock Vaughn well I think it was a small sample size to your point that he took over two games prior to that suspension um you know we know Jock were around him we understand his relationship his connection with the players with that entire coaching staff in general um the the respect that I have for him and I think we're going to continue to see you know the way that he connects the enthusiasm passion the care that he has um for for the game and for his players and I think you know there were small tweaks that we started to see whether it was inserting DeAndre Jordan in the starting lineup in place of Jared Allen whether it was maybe more switching defensively some schematic things that we started to see and I think that returns back to the to the circle of the questions of how does that change how does this suspension change that um has that given more time to the approach now and I think just the idea that there's been so much uncertainty about the return of the season what it would look like um I think a lot of those things will still you know yet to be told until we actually see them step on the floor and I just want us all to you know think about how we normally think about the off season about preseason about training camp how long it sometimes takes for a team to to re-jail and get back in rhythm with one another regardless of how well they know each other been playing with each other these guys haven't had the ability to even be together to play pickup games to get runs and go five on five a lot of stuff that normally you're able to do throughout the course of the off season so that's why I think any type of expectations um you need to temper because it's still going to be a work in progress of how you see things fitting into place how guys come back um and just where they're at in course in the course of how they're preparing themselves for eight games until a potential playoff run well Sarah we can't wait to see the Nets back on the floor and here on yes we can't wait to see the NBA back and it's so good to catch up with you on some good news for the league and um we shall see how it develops over the next couple of months but can't wait to see basketball and have uh you and I calling it against sometime soon Sarah I'll be ready thanks for it