 the show talking about what LeBron said that you know we want to play basketball I'm ready to play the Lakers are ready to play and then I asked the question how many people that are out of it would they really want to come back for a nine or ten game spurt to the end when they really have no chance of making the playoffs and you know we kicked it back and forth and our guest here didn't come on specifically for that but I'm sure that he has a take on it it's a rich climate a friend of the show right businessman a partner a manager with Kevin Durant as well and he joins us now on the Michael K show rich how are you doing you staying safe I am doing well guys thank you I'm staying safe I'm healthy I'm fortunate in that regard and I'm with my family so been enjoying the time being kind of quarantined with them I'm at you said that's not why I came on the show I came on the show because I'm supposed to be a regular co-host that's right I was by you guys yeah you know what this whole thing threw everything into flux though you know I'll have to revisit Rosenberg told me you didn't really want me on anymore no that was Don oh Don did I say that to you not out loud I say everything out loud you know so what do you think rich I think of course the guys that have a chance to win a championship they want to come back do you think that the guys on the bottom teams that have no chance to make the playoffs really want to come back for nine or ten games to get it up to 70 so they could have the RSNs pay the most money well I think everyone wants to come back to be honestly because I think they love basketball I saw Trey young post a few days ago I mean these younger guys who are on some of these teams that aren't making the playoffs I think they want to play basketball I also think that if they do come back there hasn't been any indication that it's going to come back in the same format in which the season ended so I think that there's some intrigue as well to what like this unconventional setup will be when they return if they're playing in one destination if it's tournament format whatever it may be I think overall people know how important sports are to the culture and society so I think everyone feels this like feeling of if they go back I'm going to go do my job and be a part of it and yeah I mean I think for the most part now are there teams that deep down inside are probably thinking like I saw Steve Kerr's quotes about you know we're taking the season as if it's over do I think operations of teams want to get everything back and started and and kind of figure out what the safety measures are to get back when they're 57 games below 500 probably not no but I think they'll all do it if they have to I guess the scary thing from a team standpoint rich would be all right well I'm not making the playoffs you want me to come back and try to finish up this season so you can crown a champion and then you might affect my bottom line next year right because if we go deep into this thing where maybe they have to delay the start of next year or trim the amount of games played for next year to fit it all in I could see teams saying wait a minute I'm not making the playoffs anyway why should I sacrifice my bottom line for next year too yeah well I mean first of all I think the starting later next year I honestly think you know I've heard it tossed around before I think it's interesting and a lot of things in this kind of dark time and with the league stopping I think there's a lot of things that you can try to take advantage of in terms of implementing certain things into the game implementing certain things to the league in the format that you may have been waiting to speed up but now it's the time and I think that for some of these players if they have to start later next year to get back on the court now they'll deal with it where I think it's a somewhat open-ended kind of conversation is with players that have come out of college that stopped playing at the end of February early March so that the season doesn't start till next December when are they playing organized basketball again when they playing competitive basketball that's a nine ten month break but your question I think yeah it's a real thing to think about for players that come back after this long a period of time to play quickly and if you get hurt and it affects your personal season next season that's scary but that's the risk always but I you know I saw Chris Paul said that he thinks players need at least three to four weeks I think that sounds right I mean game shape for us like getting ready to go play at the gym is so we can't even understand what game shape means so yeah I mean I think there's those are some of the questions that everyone's probably asking but I think getting back in the court is worth it for everybody do you do you get updates from the nets periodically what's that like relationship like at this point well what's up Rosenberg how are you hey rich how are you I well yeah I mean I get updates in that these are friends of mine like I speak to Adam because he's a friend of mine and I don't I don't try to get any proprietary information but you know I'm in a conversation where I hear things that are being tossed around and ideas being tossed around them but you know only with the nets as it regards to like me and Sean are friendly and we check in with each other and he checks him and how Kevin's doing if he hasn't spoke him into a day or two but not like asking me or anyone saying hey this is what's going to be announced in two weeks like I think everybody's taking a day to time what what kind of texture is Adam Silver tell us uh is he solid does he seem like an old guy texting or do you seem like a young guy texting I'm not at all like an old guy man not at all you know I mean that's you know I mean Adam Silver is the idea the reason why he's so successful in my opinion is he's incredibly educated and he's informed and like topical like he knows what's going on in everything and uh I think he's probably kept up with his uh his iPhone skills as part of that I mean it's a pretty good text there man now you mentioned Kevin uh Kevin scarily did get the coronavirus so how is he doing it was it a tough go for him and how is he doing rehab was no it was he was very fortunate he never had any symptoms and he was cleared you know in that after that first 14-day period I think what was scary was that it was like two days after Rudy Gobert and um Donovan Mitchell and at that time in our country I think knowing anyone that had had had it you know Tom Hanks was scary like hearing anyone's name mentioned it was still so raw and obviously it's still so frightening today but unfortunately we've been desynthesized a bit to the amount of people that we hear having it and you know at that point it was just like so real and then my kid you know my kids because they don't get it when they hear Kevin got it it has nothing to do with Kevin the basketball player it's like Kevin my friend so that seems even realer to them so that whole time for a day or two was scary but um you know he never got any symptoms and he isolated himself and um and then when that period was over just continued quarantining like everyone now richard is the fact that the nba facilities are closed has that set back Kevin in his rehab from his injury uh no no i mean i think similar to like i don't are you guys together right now are you guys all zooming in all zooming in yeah actually by camera but we're in separate spots yeah so i mean he's not doing a zoom workout but similarly he's uh you know you got to adjust a bit but i wouldn't say that his rehab has been halted in any way shape or form i mean everything is on a continue upwards trajectory if if they come back in july could Kevin play um i so i don't could he play you know i when this stops like when all this stopped that kind of conversation didn't continue because there was just no reason to have that conversation it just wasn't even on a list of priorities and for kevin and i it doesn't feel like it makes any sense to um to have that conversation because it all seems so unrealistic and i figure that if it wasn't unrealistic that the conversation will be brought up so you know my assumption is no um and i've kept saying that just because i haven't really had the conversation and i don't think anything's changed it is interesting though rich because you know if the season were you know none of this ever happened the season was going to start in october he would start to really be ramping up in july and i think it's interesting because let's say if chris um if kairi erving and and kevin durant come back and play with the next team that's in the playoffs they don't they're not a long shot anymore they've got a legitimate shot to make some noise is that in appetizing to him is that enticing to him i don't know uh i don't think that i think that this is a long game you know like um again i haven't spoke to him about that scenario so i can't answer it but what i would say is that i don't think he would be making that decision in a vacuum and um you know he's coming off a serious injury a long period of time and um when they come back to play we don't even know what that looks like you don't even know how a season after taking two or three months off can resemble the way it was left i mean imagine it's like starting a whole new season so and i think there's just too many variables for for him to think to himself like okay in a vacuum if i come back with this team we can get it a chip like i don't think he can think that way and again haven't had the conversation with him but i think when if you're a net fan or you're a fan of the game you you know it's a long game with him he just missed an entire season of NBA basketball one of the best players in my opinion never play and like do you you don't i don't you don't rush that back to like fit into a condensed season but again haven't had the conversation with him the post coronavirus world just seems murky to me rich and especially you as a businessman how how long do you think it will take not just for fans to come back and watch the sport but for for it to be viable again for it to be what it was can it can it get right back to what it was before it all happened well i mean in the short term i definitely think the answer is no and i think that um to what i was saying earlier i think that what positives we have to take from it are you use it as an opportunity to better each sport use it as an opportunity better each in arena experience in stadium experience at home experience how you give fans content and coverage and play by play because you can now this is when you have to get creative and then i think even when maybe we're told that it's okay to be back in the stadium imagine that's a year from now year and a half from now what's going to be like embedded in our mind a bit will be this societal change of social distancing and not being in large groups so do i think people are going to rush back into a stadium i don't think so because i don't even think it's like you're going to get your vaccine in the mail like all 300 million people in the world billion which are going to games so no it's going to be a long process but i think that sports is like pandemic proof and anything proof and that people will love that and love live sports and love the competition the story and the entry and clearly we're all becoming more adept at using technology and everything we do you know so i think it'll play an even bigger part of the experience as a fan and you know that'll evolve but the excitement will be the same funny to to think about rich the last time i ran into you i think that was the first time that like it was the first time i saw someone i knew we ran into each other and i went to i went naturally to go approach him and he gave me like a back off what are you doing and i think it was the first time i was like taking it back at first and to think of how naive i was at that moment we had no idea and you were being all serious but a little tongue-in-cheek to think that like you would never approach someone in that way anymore no the funny thing is that that is hilarious that might be like the day before we all just stopped right no it was the day it was that was the 11th that's crazy so i when i saw first of all i've been i've been reading about this for so long i'm not saying i was some like prognosticator but i got caught up in this like reading about this on a plane ride in the end of january kept i remember mba all-star weekend like deep in my phone in the morning reading about the virus my brother and i have that like relationship where we'll talk about sports back and forth all day and like we got into talking about what we were watching with this virus it still felt like obviously all this is happening but it can't happen in america when i saw you it was the who were having a a press conference and i was like just learning all the different groups and and the things i was learning about the disease and how news is broken and i started listening to the who's press conference when they officially like uh labeled it a pandemic and then here you are come walking up the stairs and i'm like no man no more don't even come close to me right now i know makes perfect sense to me with peter well yeah i just thought it was because of that because it was me but no it was apparently it was this and i just you know especially um you know rich coming from uh the world that you come from uh in music and where i am you know like dapping people up and like extended hugging and you know just holding on to people's hands and arms around people like rich can you imagine running into buster rhymes right now like there are certain people who their way of of interacting is so physical and i just wonder whether that will ever be considered normal behavior again well no i cannot imagine running into buster rhymes right now that's first answer number two uh i don't know if you saw the clip the other day they had up in the internet of luke donchik and j Cole having a conversation and they within the conversation had given each other like a record breaking 11 pounds i didn't see that i didn't see that voice over explaining what each pound was like that in the conversations is like the hello the hello again yo you've been doing a lot of great work man we gotta of course maybe we just reached the pinnacle of all that anyway and like it's over um i think those kind of changes are not going to be as hard for people to get over to be honest with you i think in the grand scheme of things i think maybe you know those are changes that people like dr fouchy thinks we always should have made right is weird though like at least we don't have to dapp up 800 people when you go out anymore man look at that silver lining that's true now rich tell me about the uh this this show you have coming up on show time what's it about it's uh it's called basketball county and tagline in the water and it's about a little bit of the history and origin of prince george's county where kevin's from but really about the amount of basketball players men and women and talent in general that's come out of this region um especially in like the last 20 years but dating all the way back in 80s and 70s and it's just like jerry and grant jeremy grant oladipo quinn cook kb jeff green michael beasley alex english len bias i mean the list goes on and on and on and um which kind of just tells the story about the evolution of like youth basketball and how that kind of became a haven for kids in the inner city there um but the story is rare and in the amount the sheer amount and just like it's a great story about a county i look there's tons of them all over the country that probably feel that same way about theirs but this was an important story to tell and i was coming out on showtime on may 15th was that always the timeline was it going to be may 15th no matter what yeah yeah no in from that regard um no i mean not always but it wasn't like uh a covid release date and the marbury dock as well um you know ended up coming out while people were all at home um and you know he was benefited in that regard because i think a lot of people needed to see that story and i was excited that it got some of the eyeballs um but no it wasn't sped up for that purpose we have sped up you know tons of boardroom content and conversation and you know felt like we would do our part to create as much entertainment and distraction and it's you know it's a brand that we're building that felt like it had to continue to have a conversation during this time so you know some things have changed as a business for sure have you enjoyed the last dance if you watched it at all oh my god i've loved it and this uh sunday that i heard episode six about nick bull's rivalry which i can like i can tell you everything that happened in every game of every one of those series so i'm excited for that it's gonna be crazy it's been great it's been great we're glad that you're healthy we thank you for joining us as always and uh stay safe and keep in touch please thank you guys stay safe as well literally that is rich climb in front of the show um businessman um man about town manager partner kevin durant a lot of things i i'm proud that i've made it to the point on the show where i've now contributed friends of the show