Howard Beck

for core week for the Ringer in October.

Just that it feels to me, as someone who's been covering the league for almost three decades now, and I think this is just objectively true, there have never been more ongoing crises.

And crisis is a strong word.

Crises, scandals, concerns, just functional fixes that need to be made.

Like we had the Tim Donaghy scandal, right?

We've had a gambling scandal.

This one I think is less than that, but this one's going on at the same time that we also have a cap circumvention scandal.

Well, we had cap circumvention or some version of that with Joe Smith back in the day, but that was by itself.

Donaghy was by itself.

Lockouts were by themselves.

What we have right now is a cap circumvention scandal that is seemingly coming to a head soon with some sort of ruling or conclusions from the law firm about what the Clippers did or did not do with Kawhi Leonard and Aspiration.

On top of that, we have a federal investigation that we've heard nothing about since October.

But, you know, Chauncey Billups still not coaching.

Terry Rozier still indefinitely suspended.

That's looming in the background simultaneously.

Those two things alone, Zach, would be enough evidence.

To fill all of your time as commissioner and the league office.

And then on top of that, tanking, Adam himself just admitted it.

And Saturday night, I think, was the trigger for why I finally wrote this now.

I've been processing this for a while about how there are so many balls up in the air, so many things to try to manage or to fix right now.