Ahead of his visit, Windhorst spoke with me about Filipino basketball fans, the NBA’s year-round news cycle, LeBron James and the Lakers, the Knicks, and Victor Wembanyama.
The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Jaemark Tordecilla: Thank you very much for your time. When I got the call from Disney+, I chuckled. Everyone here listens to you guys, but in other countries, when Disney wants to drive up subscribers, they bring in Marvel or Star Wars stars. Here in Manila, they’re bringing in Brian Windhorst and The Hoop Collective.
Brian Windhorst: (laughs) Well, I’m sure they would bring some Marvel stars if they could work it out.
JT: But we might be the only country where Brian Windhorst and The Hoop Collective can drive subscriber numbers. You were here when the FIBA World Cup was held in Manila. How did you find that experience?
BW: I was there for three weeks, and I absolutely loved it. I had a great experience. I remember arriving with Team USA from Abu Dhabi, where they had played some warm-up games. On the drive from the airport to the hotel, we were on the Skyway. I learned that when you get into a Grab, they ask whether you want to take the Skyway. Supposedly it’s faster; I’m not sure it is. We were stuck in traffic, and right next to our car was a guy on a motorbike watching a game. He was stopped in traffic. I think it was a World Cup game, though it might have been a replay because it was the afternoon. I had been in the country for less than an hour, and already I was seeing someone watch basketball in traffic.
You hear how basketball-obsessed Filipinos are, but seeing that was something else. The games at Mall of Asia Arena all had great atmospheres. I loved the way Filipino fans connected with the players. They loved Rondae Hollis-Jefferson. He was doing something reminiscent of Kobe, though I wouldn’t call it an impression, and the fans understood and appreciated exactly what he was doing. One of the great things about Filipino fans is that they understand the nuances of the game.
It’s hard to be a casual NBA fan from that part of the world. You have to love the sport because of what you go through to get information and to see games. The fans’ passion and their knowledge energized me. As soon as I left, I said I wanted to come back and engage with them. I’m very much looking forward to it. Disney+ is where you get the NBA, so it’s a great opportunity for us to come together and promote it.
JT: Actually, it might be easier now to get NBA information and games in Manila than it is in Nebraska. Have they sorted out your League Pass issues?
BW: No, they haven’t. I’ve given in. This year I’m going to take the special League Pass access the league offers me.
JT: The special pass.
BW: I didn’t take it for years because that gave me license to complain. But the Thunder, Timberwolves and Nuggets are the teams blacked out for me, and they’re all at least 500 miles away. Those teams are too relevant and too good for me to miss.
I’m in Los Angeles now, and I’m there a lot during the season. The viewing rules are different there, so I could still see many of those games. But last year there were times I wanted to see Nikola Jokic, especially during that extraordinary start to his season, and I was blacked out. That’s when I decided I had to go in through the side door. I’m not happy about it.
I think the way games are broadcast in the United States will change a great deal in the next year or two. Local television is changing, and maybe this won’t be an issue in two years. So I’m cutting the corner a little early.
JT: Speaking of complaining, there’s going to be one less complainer on the podcast this year, with (Tim) Bontemps moving to a front-office job. How soon did he tell you? And I’m even more curious about (Tim) McMahon’s reaction.
BW: We found out during the Finals. It was around the day of that remarkable Knicks comeback, when they were down something like 28 points. He told us he was going to leave. We then did a live podcast at Gotham Comedy Club in New York, and I had known for a few days by that point. I dropped a few Easter eggs into the show. I don’t know whether that one even went onto the feed.
I knew he’d had conversations with multiple teams over the years, but I didn’t know it was happening then. Believe it or not, our podcast is widely listened to within the league. We have a great audience in the Philippines and elsewhere, but people inside the league listen, too. That’s both good and bad. If you say something critical about a team, you’ll hear about it. I prefer that, because the worst thing is when someone is upset and doesn’t tell you why; you just get the cold shoulder. He may be known for criticizing and complaining, but he has a lot of people in the league he talks to. It’s amazing that one of our members has moved into a front office.
I spoke to him today. He’d been on his first team flight, with the Hawks from Atlanta to Nashville. They’re moving to new planes with lie-flat seats. NBA teams had generally had first-class seats; now some can actually lie down. It was a short flight, only about an hour, and those seats are for players, not front-office people. But he got to go inside the new plane, and I was excited for him.
JT: You often say the NBA has become a 12-month sport. I don’t know whether you even got a vacation. It feels as if the Knicks won the title yesterday, Jalen Brunson is hosting SNL, and training camp is already a few weeks away. This offseason more than ever felt like a year-round news cycle, starting with what may have been LeBron’s final decision and then everything that happened in Los Angeles. How has that changed during your time covering the league? How much attention does the NBA command even in the offseason, and what does that mean for you?
BW: You’re right. LeBron’s decision stretched it out this year. Then there was the Clippers situation, and the Kawhi Leonard trade stretched it out as well. There’s always contract news in the summer, too.
JT: And the Lakers, with that unusual ownership sale, right?
BW: Yes. I was at Lakers media day today, and I was talking to Luka Doncic. Luka has had five different owners in less than three years. In theory, a player who bounced around among teams could have five owners in three years, but a superstar generally doesn’t. It’s strange.
On the American sports calendar, there’s a slowdown between the end of the NBA season and the start of college football and the NFL. Baseball is going on, but those are regular-season games. The NBA has moved into that opening and become a source of news in July and August. I’ve advocated changing the calendar to lean into that even more. Depending on when the Finals end, the draft can arrive within days. One year, Game 7 was on a Sunday in Oklahoma City and the draft was on Wednesday. I’ve suggested moving the draft farther into July, spreading those events out and filling more of that summer window. It would be harder for those of us who cover the league, but it would make sense.
There’s excitement now about the start of the season. The opening games available on Disney+ in the Philippines include some terrific matchups. I think the first slate includes the Wolves, Heat, Warriors and Lakers.
JT: Amazing.
BW: Yeah, right out of the gate. I think Cleveland and Philadelphia play on the second day, which will be fascinating, and then there’s Denver against Oklahoma City. Jokic made news today when he confirmed he would re-sign with the Nuggets.
When you go to media day, people are excited. Today was the tenth different team’s media day I’ve attended in my NBA career, but my first with the Lakers. For those of us who do this work, we know how long the season is and how much will happen between opening day and the trophy presentation in June. I try to pace my excitement. But I really am looking forward to that first week: seeing LeBron play as a 76er, and seeing the Lakers with a very different look and Luka as the leader of the team. The next few weeks will be hard to get through.
JT: This wouldn’t be an ESPN interview if we didn’t talk about LeBron and the Lakers. What surprised you more: that the Lakers didn’t make a stronger effort to bring him back, or that he signed with the 76ers? From Manila, Philadelphia feels like a random place for him to go, with no real history there.
BW: It felt that way in the United States, too. He tried to explain it this week. He talked about his connection with Tyrese Maxey, whom he’s known since Maxey was 19. But LeBron knows a lot of players in the league and has known many of them since they were young. He also mentioned his connection with Joel Embiid from the Olympics, but again, he’s had many Olympic teammates.
JT: Exactly.
BW: To be honest, I think all his choices were a little imperfect, so he had to decide which one made the most sense. He was very firm today. He said, ‘I did not come to Philadelphia to get eliminated in the second round.’ That’s where the Lakers were eliminated last year. It was clear that a driving force was choosing a team where he thought he could win. People can criticize him for choosing a team that’s ready to win, but it indicates that he’s still very much in the competition.
The Lakers’ direction changed when they got Luka Doncic. Teams try to get players like that for years and may never succeed; Luka fell into their lap. He was 26 and LeBron was 39. If you asked someone who knew nothing about the NBA which of those two superstars to build around, almost everyone would choose the 26-year-old. That’s not a controversial position. But the Lakers were in the middle of a project with LeBron when Luka arrived. Their games overlap somewhat, so they tried to see whether it would work. It worked okay, but it wasn’t great.
When the Lakers didn’t give LeBron a new contract last year, he entered the final season of his deal. That had never happened to him before. He had left teams before, but he had opted out; no team had previously failed to offer him every opportunity to extend. At that point, it was clear the Lakers were preparing for the Luka era, and LeBron understood that. Everybody knew a separation needed to happen, but nobody wanted to be the one to say it.
Lakers president Rob Pelinka was respectful of LeBron and let him control the departure. The Lakers had decided not to offer him the contract. That wasn’t an insult; it reflected the reality that they had to pivot. They gave LeBron room to say he had decided to leave, and LeBron gave the Lakers a clean exit. They could feel good about parting ways. Maybe LeBron will be more successful in Philadelphia; maybe the Luka era will work. I don’t know how LeBron felt privately about not being offered a proper contract, but publicly they left in a good place. I give them credit for that.
It feels different now. LeBron spent eight years with the Lakers, longer than he spent anywhere else. His first stint in Cleveland was seven years. Eight years is a long time. The Lakers felt different at media day without him, but the team also felt new and fresh. There was a lot of excitement, and they’re hoping to turn that into something bigger.
JT: For years, Los Angeles felt like the unofficial capital of the NBA. Players spent their offseasons there, and the media converged there. This year, it feels as if New York has taken back the crown. We expect more coverage in the East, and you’ll probably be making more trips there. How surprised were you by the Knicks’ run? Even in March, they didn’t look like world beaters. Have you seen a team come together like that by the end of a season?
BW: No. That’s one of the things about the NBA: the season is long enough for drama to unfold. Often you see a team early on and know it’s very good, and it stays that way. But in January and February, when I looked at the Knicks, I wasn’t sure they could win 16 playoff games. Maybe if everything fell into place. Not only did they win 16, they plowed through the playoffs. I think they went 16-3 or 16-4; I can’t remember exactly. They demolished the Cavaliers in the conference finals, then beat a favored San Antonio team 4-1. Even if the Knicks believed they could win a title, I don’t think they imagined going 8-1 over the final two rounds.
A lot fell into place. Jalen Brunson played the best basketball of his life. We knew he was capable of it, but he reached another level. The Knicks also changed the way they played offensively in the middle of the playoffs.
JT: Yep.
BW: They began using Karl-Anthony Towns differently when they were down 2-1 against the Hawks. Teams sometimes discover something during the playoffs. The Warriors found their so-called death lineup, playing very small after falling behind Cleveland 2-1. They deployed it, won the Finals, and it became a foundation for later championships. Kevin Durant helped when he arrived, of course. But those Warriors had been the league’s best team all season. They’d already shown what they could do. The Knicks were a good, borderline great team that put everything together in the playoffs.
Look at the Knicks’ growth. They had players who’d been together for a long time, and they advanced step by step, year by year. They learned through those experiences. There’s something beautiful about that organic process. They weren’t suddenly assembled at the trade deadline or built in one burst of free agency. In many ways, it’s a very pure championship. It was also unexpected. Many of us thought the Thunder would win again. Not only did they fail to win it, but the Western team that beat them didn’t win it either. That’s part of what makes the spring so engaging.
The thing I love most about the NBA is how playoff series create stories. The tension builds within each series, then builds again from the second round to the conference finals and the Finals. We got an incredible run of stories from last year’s playoffs.
JT: What’s interesting about the Knicks is that they almost feel like a baseball team. Their popularity in their city is bigger, relative to their international following, than it is for some other NBA teams. The best and most successful teams often gain fans all over the world. Oklahoma City is considered a small-market team in the United States, but people internationally watch them and know how good they are. The Knicks own New York, though. Their victory seemed like a bigger deal for the city than for the international NBA community. Even from Manila, it’s hard to grasp how much it meant to New York, despite knowing the team hadn’t won a title since 1973.
BW: That’s a good point. The Lakers and Warriors are bigger international brands. So are the Rockets in China because of Yao Ming. The Celtics brand is big, too, and the Bulls. In Europe, you feel how large the Bulls’ following is. I don’t know how big they are in Manila.
JT: They’re pretty big.
BW: Yes. The Bulls haven’t been good in decades, but Michael Jordan connected with a lot of Europeans, and the brand is still huge. The Knicks don’t quite have that. What they do have is New Yorkers who moved all over the world. When you see the Lakers play on the road, you see local people who became Lakers fans. When you see the Knicks, many of those fans are New Yorkers who moved there, or people whose parents came from New York and raised them as Knicks fans.
I was in Abu Dhabi with the Knicks last year, and they had fans there, but there were also many general NBA fans. The Knicks had almost no success for a long time. There was a stretch of something like 17 or 20 years when they won one playoff series. Carmelo Anthony is considered a Knicks legend, and fans connected with him deeply, but his teams won one...
JT: One playoff series.
BW: One playoff series. That’s how starved they were. When the Knicks won Game 4, it was in the middle of the week, as I recall. After we finished our television work, I left Madison Square Garden around one or two in the morning. There were still people in the streets around the arena. They hadn’t won a title yet; there was nothing specific to celebrate. They just didn’t want to go home. They wanted to share the moment.
Winning a first championship is special. It’s even more special when the team has grown together organically and the title comes as a surprise. The Knicks came together at exactly the right time without the burden of being the expected winner. That is a golden moment. Even if they win another championship soon, it won’t feel the same as the first.
I say something similar to Bucks fans. They’re disappointed about losing Giannis, but the championship they won was such a pure one. The Warriors have won four titles, but people around that team often say the sweetest were the first and the last. The last was special because they’d fallen all the way down and climbed back up. All championships matter, but some feel different. Last year’s Knicks championship felt different.
JT: To my point about the Knicks feeling like a local team, Jalen Brunson still feels like a New York hero rather than an international superstar, although his play certainly gives him that stature. But the breakout star of last year’s playoffs was Victor Wembanyama. Do you think he can carry the torch? You covered him before the draft. How much of his image is cultivated, and how much is authentic? Is he really this seven-foot-eight warrior monk? He put his money where his mouth is: he didn’t take the big max, but the fun max, as you call it, to give his team a bit more leverage for the coming years. How much of that image is real, and how much of it is a warrior inside him?
BW: We’re going to learn a lot about Victor this year because he made some enemies last season. He’s always had a streak of arrogance, even as a teenager. When he first came to the United States and played against the G League team, there was talk that either he or Scoot Henderson could be the first pick. He made a dismissive remark about Scoot almost immediately. There were other quotes like that over his first couple of years, though they didn’t always get attention. Once he was on the biggest stage, more people saw how dismissive he could be of opponents.
The elbow he gave Naz Reid was a hellacious play. He was ejected or suspended for a vitally important playoff game. It didn’t end up hurting his team, but it was a notable moment. He also seemed to dismiss the Knicks a little. Look, his size and skill are unmatched, and he is very motivated to improve. But he also has a side that can pout.
Think back to one of his earliest big moments, when France played the United States in the under-19 World Cup final.
JT: The one against Chet Holmgren.
BW: That’s right. Victor fouled out and showed his frustration. As we’ve learned more about him, we’ve seen that part of his personality. This is a key moment for him: which way is he going to go? His talent is unquestionably rising, but he has to deal with the fact that in some late-game situations against the Knicks and the Thunder, he wasn’t able to deliver at the highest level. He’s only 21 or 22, and he’s just scratching the surface of his career. We’re in a gray area: he could go either way.
It’s one thing to want to kill your opponents, and another to want to embarrass them. Jordan wanted to kill his opponents; he didn’t want to show them up. The back-and-forth between Victor and Chet Holmgren is fascinating, and they play each other right at the start of the season. Chet has to deal with the fact that Victor is a better player, but Victor can still be beaten. He has the talent to reach a point where that might no longer be true. How he handles that reality is fascinating to watch over this season and the next couple.
JT: That’s all for me, Brian. I’m sure you’ve had a long day covering the Lakers. Thank you, and I’ll see you in Manila. I’m sure many people will come out to see you. What have you told McMahon ahead of his first visit?
BW: There are two things I can’t wait for them to see. First, the fans. In the United States, the NBA is popular, but basketball isn’t the number-one sport. In the Philippines, basketball is number one, and I want them to experience that. Second, the traffic.
Maybe third, the malls. I’ve seen malls in China, but Manila has so many. I visited three or four when I was there last time. I was there around the monsoon season, too. Perhaps McMahon should experience a monsoon, just to see what that means.
Manila will leave an impression on him. If you’re a basketball person and you come to Manila, or to the Philippines more generally, you feel how much the game matters. I’m very much looking forward to coming back.
JT: All right. Thank you, Brian. We’ll see you next week.
BW: Thank you so much. Thank you for doing this. Take care.