All right, we are back NBA scrimmage games are in the books in the bubble and I wanted to bring on West Wilcox now with serious XM and NBA TV former GM of the Hawks and we're gonna talk about a lot of stuff including his role at sports business classroom.

We're both of us will be presenting this year as well as just the overall NBA bubble experience and his thoughts on that. How do you do West?

I'm doing good Nate, it's good to be with you. I've listened to many of the dunked on podcasts so I'm grateful to be on.

Yeah, and we're grateful to have you as well. So put on your GM hat again for us here for a second and I'm sure you've thought at times what it'd be like to be working 14 that was going into this bubble.

So I want to just kind of give you a Blake canvas to start with of just what some of your general impressions are what you would be thinking about as someone working for a team with this incredible logistical challenge in front of you.

Yeah, well first of course the health and safety of everybody involved as everybody said that that of course would be your number one priority making sure everybody's following the NBA protocols.

And then just a big time nod to what the NBA has done the magnitude of this lift you guys have talked about it on your podcast it's incredible how much work has gone into this and even watching these scrimmage games and looking at how good the court looks.

So you know you got to just respect the amount of work that's gone into it so you want to try to be your do your best to be a good partner to the NBA.

And then I do think native changes though like what you're thinking about from a GM's perspective depending upon the type of team you're you know you're with if you're with a contender you know the clippers, lakers, Milwaukee, Boston Toronto however you want to define that group versus the race for eight in the west or the teams with lesser expectations.

You know the Washington Brooklyn San Antonio each of those teams or groups of teams would have different challenges that you would certainly be thinking through differently as a you know as an executive with one of those teams.

Yeah well let's take it then by those groups that you talked about it starting with the teams that you know we don't have to talk about exactly who that is but the teams that might be viewed as a contender that are gearing up for you know potentially three months here in the bubble would be some of the paramount considerations there.

Well number one as of course availability so health and these teams have most of them have the benefit of the runway they have time so they should take their time of course and we're going to probably see that in these seating games and then you know preparing for a long stay like what is what is the mental health of your team you know can you incorporate potentially families down the road like has been talked about after the first round of the playoffs and and how do you keep the group sharp.

When the novelty of the what looks like NBA summer camp wears off when the fishing and the golfing wears off in the competitive you know the competitive games begin you know how do you keep everybody excited about those games would be a lot of things you're probably thinking through as an executive.

Yeah what about for that group I the middle group to me that's kind of the toughest challenge of anyone your New Orleans yeah Portland Memphis to where you've you're coming in with this unprecedented four month hiatus and now you got to actually be ready in games that count starting on July 30 July 31st.

For sure and and the pressure is probably more on Memphis than those other two because they have a jumpstart and so every time you lose a game you could feel like it's you know slipping through your fingers and of course we just saw they had a big injury to Justice Winslow who they had not played with of course but still that's going to impact them.

But yeah if you're if you're New Orleans you got to get Zion back you got to make sure Zion's being tested every single day that's probably your number one focus if you're the pelicans of course Portland trying to get your team ready with players who have not played for a long stretch now.

To try to get your timing together to be ready to win games right away close that gap with Memphis getting that playing game and so it is really fascinating you know the race for eight is one of the more interesting things to watch in the bubble certainly it probably is the most interesting element of the seating games though you could argue kind of the middle of each conference how those kind of two through seven three through six how those are going to play out because of course matchups matter as we know.

But beyond all that race for eight is going to be fascinating.

Yeah for sure when you've been involved you know in organization I mean when when did you start in the league like 2000 or something like that 2001 yeah so I mean you've got a good feel for what it takes for players to come back after a long layoff so I mean is that is that realistic to expect you know teams like the pells and the blazers to be at you know essentially 100%

in games that matter starting you know July 30 July 31st.

You can be close I would think because you know it's hard to work in players that haven't been around or in playing with you for the majority of your schedule so like Portland for instance with

Nirk itchens at Collins that'll be a harder inter you know integration or a more challenging integration but at the end of the day that they're going to go where

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