Pablo Torre

We might leave him there on top of your book.

The elbows bobble.

You got to be the best.

But the point of this is now not merely the richest owner in all of sports in the world and not only the richest owner in the NBA by far.

He is somebody who in our reporting has embodied what it means when you decide these rules that are meant to enforce something like fair competition are things that we ought not abide by.

Right, which is the whole thing, like... As you know, there's nothing more credible than an organization investigating itself.

And I always have to remind those people that

The show has my name in it.

And if I find it interesting, I'm going to do it.

And at its best, we'll also make the case, as I am attempting to do right now, that this story is not merely a story that's specific to a rabbit hole inside of the NBA, but it's also the story of our time.

Yes.

the selfish person's case for why rules matter.

No, but I feel this all of the time.

I mean, we are living through this era in which owners in sports, again, as both the actual class of people we're talking about societally and also the metaphor for the class of people we're talking about societally.

Like these are the same guys.

They're coming from Silicon Valley.

They're coming from finance.

They're coming into the league at a rate and at a financial status, owning these heirlooms that we grew up caring about with resources that are unprecedented.

And the thing about someone like Steve Ballmer is always going to be, is it the case that

that we are merely enshrining, once again, money as the thing that matters most.