On the NBA Beat

Aaron Fischman, Loren Lee Chen
  • 5.0 (70)
  • BASKETBALL
  • UPDATED MONTHLY
On the NBA Beat

A show bringing you nuanced perspectives on the NBA's most important stories, hosted by USC alums Aaron Fischman, Joshua Jonah Fischman and Loren Lee Chen. Find us on our website at OnTheNBABeat.com or our Twitter page (@OnTheNBABeat).

  1. On the NBA Beat Ep. 191: "Charlie Hustle" Book Special With Keith O'Brien

    MAR 8

    On the NBA Beat Ep. 191: "Charlie Hustle" Book Special With Keith O'Brien

    New York Times bestselling author Keith O'Brien⁠⁠, author of⁠ the widely acclaimed Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball, joins the show. Enjoy! Here are some highlights – 9:32-11:24: “From a process standpoint, what the records really helped me to do was create timestamps on a timeline. When you’re writing a narrative, and that’s what I’m looking to do any time I do a book, I want to write a narrative, a real story with a beginning and an end and a climax, all of that. … So when you’re doing that, timeline is really important to you. And I already had one timeline that was locked solid; I’ve got the baseball season. … Now, with those federal case files, I have a whole raft of different timestamps, so that while Pete Rose is in Los Angeles and the Reds are on a four-game win streak and he’s swaggering into the clubhouse and giving grandiose quotes to reporters about how great the Reds are, at that same moment, the FBI is knocking on the door of his closest associates in Cincinnati. These are dominoes that are falling. And I think what that did for the narrative was is it built an urgency to [it] in the final half of the book. You can feel the walls closing in around Pete Rose.”     14:29-16:38: “Pete Rose gets away with what he gets away with because he is charming. … The reporters –the beat writers in the ‘60s, ’70s and into the ‘80s – they loved him. … And I do think that Pete’s race did matter. I don’t think that a Black player in the 1960s, ‘70s and in the early 1980s could have gotten away with the kind of stuff Pete Rose did on and off the field.”   22:38-22:58: “He suffered from gambling addiction even though he struggled to admit that. And what does an addict do? They can’t stop. And I think that is ultimately what happens to Pete Rose. He cannot stop. And that’s what pushes him over the edge to gamble on his own games.” 24:10-24:45: “We, as baseball fans, know a lot of the key moments in his career – the batting titles in the late 1960s, the All-Star game [in] 1970, the playoff runs of the ‘70s, the Big Red Machine years, the World Series, etc. ... What I wanted to do when we were talking about those moments was sorta peel back the layers of those onions and talk about what was going on in his head. What was he thinking? What was he feeling?” 27:58-28:15: “I realized very early on that this truly is a Greek tragedy...and my job from a structure standpoint was just to stay out of the way.” 39:17-42:02: “Could Pete Rose be restored from the ineligible list? And if so, would he then be voted into the Hall of Fame? That’s an interesting question. And something certainly has changed that I think is relevant and that could move the needle with Major League Baseball’s front office, and that is Pete is gone. … If Pete Rose had been restored to the eligible list and voted into the Hall of Fame while he was alive, he would’ve stood up there on a warm weekend day in late July at a time when Major League Baseball’s partnering with legalized gambling apps and he would’ve absolutely rubbed Major League Baseball’s face into all of everything that has happened. … All players should be voted in or not voted in based on what they did on the field; it is the only thing we know for sure. And if what they did off the field is so wrong then I think we should put that on the plaque at Cooperstown, put their mistakes right there next to their accomplishments for all of us to see.”

    43 min
  2. On the NBA Beat Ep. 190: "The Original Louisville Slugger" Book Special With Tim Newby

    FEB 10

    On the NBA Beat Ep. 190: "The Original Louisville Slugger" Book Special With Tim Newby

    Writer and historian Tim Newby⁠, author ofThe Original Louisville Slugger, a fun, thorough and important narrative covering the life and baseball career of Pete Browning, joins the show. Browning, one of the best hitters of the 19th century, a deeply flawed but charismatic and pioneering man, has largely been forgotten more than a century later, although Tim's endeavor has worked to bring much-needed awareness to the man and his influence. Enjoy! Here are some highlights – 4:40-5:08: “So I took the rest of the summer and just started researching and digging in, and I really found that this story is a story that I could tell. And stories that I can tell are often about overlooked, underrated kind of influential figures or bands or musicians, whatever it may be. And Pete was that to me. Most baseball fans aren’t really in tune with 19th-century baseball. Most baseball fans have no idea who Pete Browning is. But all baseball fans know of the Louisville Slugger.”   22:48-23:53: “There’s a level of thought to it that we need these bats, and he eventually gets the first bat turned by what becomes Hillerich & Bradsby. But it also is convenient for him as somebody who’s odd and eccentric and superstitious like him. Putting so much stock into your bats makes it easy when you’re having a bad day to have a reason for it. ‘It’s not my fault. These bats only have a predetermined number of hits.’ … Pete’s bat was a massive piece of lumber that very few people could swing easily. … Pete’s bat was 48 ounces, and to put that into perspective, Aaron Judge swings, I think, a 33-ounce bat. When Aaron Judge gets on the on-deck circle…the batting donut weighs 15 ounces. So that means he’s warming up with a 48-ounce bat, which is what Pete swung on a daily basis.”   33:21-34:14: “The separating fact from myth and fiction was a big goal, but it was [also] something I really enjoyed doing with this. One of the things that was really helpful was I went to the Hall of Fame and there was a sports writer from Louisville, AH Tarvin, and his dad had been around in the 19th century. AH Tarvin would’ve been a young child at the time, but he had some memories from then. … I was lucky enough to go sit and look at all his papers and writings and notes, but again there was no one Rosetta Stone moment of opening it up and it said, ‘Here’s who Pete is’ and ‘Here’s what was true and what wasn’t.’ It was sometimes finding the answers, sometimes making a good educated speculation on it, sometimes finding a little bit of the story there.”   35:10-35:24: “As a writer, as a historian, you can’t beat that direct quote, right? I can say it and it can still be what they said, but when you hear how Pete said it and it comes from his mouth, I just think it gives it a different weight. And it allows you to be in the moment there.” If interested,The Original Louisville Slugger: The Life and Times of Forgotten Baseball Legend Pete Browning is available for purchasehere, among other places.

    47 min
  3. On the NBA Beat Ep. 189: "Season of Shattered Dreams" Book Special With Eric Vickrey

    JAN 14

    On the NBA Beat Ep. 189: "Season of Shattered Dreams" Book Special With Eric Vickrey

    Nonfiction baseball writer Eric Vickrey comes on to discuss his terrifically poignant and inspiring book, Season of Shattered Dreams, which recounts the deadliest accident in the history of American professional sports, the 1946 Spokane Indians’ tragic crash as their bus was passing over Washington's Snoqualmie Pass. Here are some highlights – 12:23-14:45: “No one from that [‘46 Spokane Indians] team is living, or anyone associated with the team. But there are some family members still around; I probably couldn’t have done nearly as thorough of a job without their input and the information they provided. For instance, Jack Lohrke’s son provided me with his military documents that told me what infantry and battalion he was in, so then I was able to kind of really dig into that and kinda track his movements throughout the war, which is how I wrote that first chapter about him. … And then a couple of family matters actually had scrapbooks of old letters and photographs and things that they saved and they were able to share those. And that was really cool ‘cuz I got to kinda get the players’ voices in the book even though they had passed nearly 80 years ago.”    22:29-23:55: “A very fine line to walk. I was able to reach I think 12 families of the 16 players involved, and they had different sort of levels of involvement and willingness. Some were very excited about the project. There were a couple family members who found it actually too painful to talk about even though it’s been this long, almost 80 years…but still were so supportive, I would say. And I got some very nice letters when the book came out from family members saying, ‘Hey, thank you for honoring our relative in this way.’ And that was kind of ultimately my goal of the book. … I certainly kept in mind as I was writing, like the chapter about the accident, for example, that family members would be reading these painful details. … It was just kind of pulling all the information together and telling this story accurately but in a respectful way.” 30:31-30:50: “It’s funny. Both of those guys [Milt Cadinha and Joe Faria] actually blew out their arms the following year, almost in the same manner, in the same way after throwing 200 innings over the course of a few months. So even though they weren’t directly involved in the accident, they were still significantly affected.” 39:53-41:21: “In Jack [Lohrke]’s case, he actually wore, for the first couple years after the accident at least, under his New York Giants uniform he would wear this red shirt that he pulled off the bus that he took with him that day of the accident. It was kinda his way of honoring his teammates, so he did that, but yet he never spoke about the accident. He was very reluctant to talk about it. … His [Ben Geraghty’s] dream was to manage in the major leagues, and so he continued managing in the minor leagues and that meant he had to ride the bus. So he was sort of reliving this accident over and over, and he coped with that by drinking heavily on bus rides. And ultimately that led to some health complications at a pretty young age. They both had very different ways of coping, and their lives took different turns.”    If interested, it's available for purchase here, among other places: https://www.amazon.com/Season-Shattered-Dreams-Baseball-Everything/dp/1538190729/

    48 min
  4. On the NBA Beat Ep. 188: "Not When, But If?" Book Special With Evan Ream

    JAN 13

    On the NBA Beat Ep. 188: "Not When, But If?" Book Special With Evan Ream

    Evan Ream, Communications Manager for NorCal Premier Soccer, comes on to discuss his colorful and inspiring debut book, Not When, But If? Here are some highlights – 8:35-9:17: “Nobody really knows what Sacramento is, especially from a national standpoint. The chapter of branding the team there, ‘Well, we need to brand the team, but first we need to brand Sacramento.’ Because what does Sacramento stand for or what do people know about Sacramento other than it’s 90 minutes from San Francisco and 90 minutes from Lake Tahoe? I honestly didn't know too much about Sacramento when I first started covering the team. Even though I lived in Davis 10 miles away, I had never really went to Sacramento for the most part. And so I had to figure out what Sacramento was.”      20:37-21:17: “They did the simplest thing ever and the smartest thing ever and something that too many, doesn’t matter what professional sport or who’s playing or whatnot, people just don’t do. All they did was just listen. They just listened to the fans. And when the fans are like, ‘Hey, we want this, this and this,' they were like, ‘OK, we can do that.’ Whereas in a lot of American professional sports…it’s like, ‘No, no, no. We need to overproduce this. No, no, we’re smart, we’re the owners, so we know what we’re doing, so we’re gonna tell them what to do,’ when in fact you’re completely out of touch with reality.”   45:50-46:02: “The sport has grown a ton; it’s just that the gatekeepers in the media world don’t understand that and have refused to accept it for the most part, however it is getting better.”

    48 min
  5. On the NBA Beat Ep. 187: "The Six Pack" Book Special With Brad Balukjian

    09/04/2024

    On the NBA Beat Ep. 187: "The Six Pack" Book Special With Brad Balukjian

    Sports writer and scientist Brad Balukjian stops by to discuss his fascinating, thought-provoking and important new book, The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of WrestleMania. Here are some highlights – 5:29-5:49: “The book really is about the line, the border between fiction and fact or myth and reality and work and shoot in Kayfabe terms. … to really find out where myth blends into reality and where that line is.”      9:34-10:09: “I was trained on more of that participatory journalism style, which you don’t see as much of anymore, but I was reading Gay Talese and Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe and all these practitioners in the ‘60s of kind of first-person narrative journalism. And that was what I always wanted to do ‘cuz I just think that if you can do it well you put the reader in your shoes, and they can kind of experience things as you experience them.”     25:25-25:54: “I’ve always been more of a process than destination person. So I always knew that even if I didn’t get every person to talk to me, what I could always tell is my own story and the story of trying to get someone to talk to you. And I think if you’re honest and you bring the reader in and you show them what you’re going through, you give them a chance to root for you.”   34:27-35:37: “As a writer when I learn more about the working conditions, where to this day the wrestlers are independent contractors without health insurance, it was just unconscionable to me. And so I thought if I have the opportunity to bring awareness to this issue, I want to take that opportunity. … A lot of these guys from that era end up with CTE just like the football players do. It’s the downside to wrestling not being taken that seriously, where they’re [regarded as] somewhere in between entertainers and athletes and stuntmen, yet all those groups of workers have unions and protections, but not wrestlers.”   42:35-42:59: “When I approach someone and I wanna try to capture their essence in one chapter, I’m gonna go with what they give me, right? And Tony [White/Atlas], the shoe thing was a big part of his life. … But it was not just sort of a fun fact; it was relevant because it related to the other dark stuff, the trauma.”

    47 min

  6. 11/18/2023

    On the NBA Beat Ep. 186: Jason Gallagher: Dallas "Has an Identity" Around Luka Again

    On the heels of the Dallas Mavericks’ 9-3 start, Jason Gallagher returns, and you bet the head of production at The Old Man and the Three (and ThreeFourTwo Productions more broadly) comes ready with analysis of the Mavericks’ scalding start as Luka Doncic has led the way with 30.7 points per game, the second-most converted treys after Stephen Curry, and the lowest usage rate of his career other than his rookie season. Jason touches upon the improved fit between Doncic and Kyrie Irving now that they’ve had adequate time to jell, teen center Dereck Lively II’s instant success, Grant Williams and Derrick Jones Jr. starring in their respective roles, Tim Hardaway Jr.’s sixth-man brilliance, ultimate team expectations and so much more. 5:05-6:08: “The second pleasant surprise and the second I said was that Dereck Lively needs to become the second coming of Tyson Chandler. Again, he’s not Tyson Chandler. However, he looks incredible. He looks so good that you actually see some of the deficiencies of not having more support in the big area. … But when Lively is healthy and when he’s in and when he’s not in foul trouble, they look pretty awesome. And then the third and sort of final one is some of these role players, they look incredible too. Grant Williams has been Steady Eddie for us, and he’s not only a good vibes guy on the bench, which every team needs; he is amazing from the 3-point line. He’s just a little bit more versatile than role players we’ve had in the past and same with Derrick Jones Jr. Derrick Jones Jr., who is an NBA journeyman, I can’t recall him looking this good, really ever.” 8:28-8:47: “If they’re playing a team, say the Wolves or someone like that, [they have] the ability to be able to speed up but then also grind the game to a halt and make it a half-court contest. I think Dallas has the versatility, offensively, to play both ways.” 12:55-13:25: “In terms of bringing in these huge stars, I’m sorry, the NBA is too good, and you have to have a training camp and you have to learn how to play together. And those are the positive signs we’re seeing from Luka and Kyrie and why I feel really good about this team, even with the defensive woes. It’s simply because they look like a team that has an identity, a philosophy, schemes. If you’re a team with that in place, you have a leg up on a bunch of other teams.”   18:12-18:29: “When you watched [Doncic] last season, you literally had the thought, ‘This is not sustainable.’ As great as he is, it is not sustainable to watch this guy control the entirety of every single possession, and it [ultimately] played out exactly how we thought.” 24:33-24:48: “Now, in my head, Luka has to show that he is clearly better than Jokic to win the MVP, and I don’t know if he’ll do that. But it’s funny that our brains do that, all because Jokic has a ring.” 26:39-28:17: “Being a big next to Luka, you just have a very specific job…and he’s excelling like crazy at that. … If I am, say, playing the Mavericks in the playoffs and I am scouting, the very first thing, the literal No. 1 agenda item is ‘get Dereck Lively in foul trouble.’”   39:19-39:30: “In terms of growth from year over year, it’s been nice seeing them just handle these bad opponents because they didn’t. I can tell you, ‘They did not do that in the past.’”

    44 min

  7. 10/24/2023

    On the NBA Beat Ep. 185: Alex Kennedy Winds Through the West

    Alex Kennedy, Chief Content Officer at BasketballNews.com and host of Running Up the Score, a biweekly live sports show airing every Tuesday and Friday night, stops by to wind through the Western Conference just as the league readies for tipoff. The Nuggets are Alex’s leading squad but far from the conference’s only contenders. Oh, and he has firmly taken a seat aboard the Wemby Train. Who’s coming with him?   2:44-4:03: “This is a [Nuggets] team that has been together, this core has been together for years, and they have so much chemistry. And I think that’s one of the most undervalued things in sports. We tend to get excited about these big, blockbuster moves and player movement, but chemistry and continuity really, really help and go a long way when you’re trying to contend for a championship. … There are a handful of contenders: Denver, Phoenix, the Lakers, and then, I think, to a lesser extent you go and look at Sacramento, Memphis, Golden State, Clippers.”   9:52-13:19: “We haven’t seen a player like [Victor Wembanyama], ever. … LeBron James said he’s an alien. He was like, ‘I don’t want to use the word ‘unicorn.’ That gets thrown around too often. He’s an alien.’ Giannis said he could be the best player in the NBA. I mean, these are superstar players that are raving about him and talking about him coming in and just dominating the league. Giannis even said, he was like, ‘I need to start winning some championships now because Victor Wembanyama’s coming.’ … It was interesting; in the first preseason game that Victor Wembanyama played, we saw [Chet] Holmgren and Wembanyama match up against each other, and it almost feels like the future of the NBA a little bit – these huge guys with crazy length that are kind of position-less that can do a little bit of everything and are super-skilled.”     17:49-18:13: “I still think there is a coming-out part to be had for Anthony Edwards, and I’m a huge fan of his game. I saw a ranking today. I think it was in Sports Illustrated. They were ranking the top five shooting guards in the league, and they had him at No. 3. I wouldn’t be surprised if after this season we’re talking about him as No. 2 and up there with Devin Booker, who I think is easily the top shooting guard in the league.” 33:09-34:13: “Everyone’s on the same page now. They really came together, and I think some of the drama that existed there…they’ve all acknowledged their role in what happened, and it seems like they’re ready to move forward. … This team has a ton of talent. They’re one of those teams that you kinda put the question mark, like, ‘OK, well, if they stay healthy, they can be very special. I hope that Zion [Williamson] can be healthy and have a full season. He’s so much fun to watch; we’ve just kinda been robbed of that as of late.”      36:00-36:43: “I think the question is can they take that next step? Can they become a legitimate championship contender? And if not, we could see this be the last year where this core is together. Guys could leave in free agency. The organization could decide to blow it up and make a ton of different changes. So, yeah, I’m very curious. The Clippers have a ton of pressure on them to kinda make it work. … There were reports toward the end of last season that the Mavericks were starting to worry that if they don’t put a contender around Luka [Doncic] that he’s going to want to go elsewhere, and that’s so common in today’s NBA.”      *The Steven Adams injury news broke after the recording, as did the Antetokounmpo extension.

    46 min

  8. 10/20/2023

    On the NBA Beat Ep. 184: Jake Fischer Explores the East

    Jake Fischer, Yahoo! Sports senior NBA reporter and the author of Built to Lose, makes his fourth appearance to break down the Eastern Conference's biggest storylines as the season approaches. Tune in to hear why he regards the Celtics as favorites, his thoughts on Evan Mobley's next leap, rookies you should keep an eye on, Jake's dark-horse team out East and so much more. 4:16-6:30: “I am pretty bullish on the Bucks. … but I think that Boston is the favorite. I’m not so certain that Milwaukee got so much better as opposed to how much better Boston got by adding Jrue Holiday to what they had. … I just think the Celtics’ top six is way better and stronger, and that’s kinda how I like to look at things, from a playoff standpoint. … The fact that Boston has its same core four basically of Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Derrick White, Al Horford, you throw in Kristaps Porzingis and then Jrue Holiday, that’s a pretty strong, switchable, malleable group.”        10:18-10:58: “The Clippers haven’t put Terance Mann in any deal, and the draft capital that they’ve been able to figure out they could potentially send to Philadelphia in addition to the original offer of a first-round pick and a pick swap just hasn’t gotten there to close that gap for the Sixers, so I don’t think it will. The last call I had about this, before we were recording, was like 30 minutes ago, and my impression following that call is that [from] the Sixers’ side of things at least, they don’t seem to think much will change from a negotiation standpoint between now and the start of the regular season. So, if something were to happen, it would definitely be something out of left field.”       12:24-13:01: “Can he be a linchpin on offense? Can he be a legitimate stretch 3-point shooter that makes defenses guard him out to that perimeter and then he’s got opportunities to make plays off the bounce, attacking closeouts? It’s all about Evan Mobley in terms of what they’re ultimate ceiling is, and I think we’ll know within 10 to 15 games. We knew 10, 15 games into last season that Paolo Banchero was gonna be a force driving to the rim and he was gonna be one of the greatest players in the league at getting to the foul line. We’ll know pretty early if Evan Mobley has taken that step or is in position to take that step.   13:53-14:34: “The Knicks could easily be the third seed and host playoff games and what have you. To me, the question marks are going to be there about Julius [Randle] in the postseason until they’re not. … I am struggling to see the next leap from them being a good team to a great team. I don’t know what it will be, but I feel like there is some move that has to be made for them to kind of take that next step.”    15:49-16:19: “Tyrese Haliburton was one of the most impressive players I saw in the FIBA World Cup. I’ve really come to appreciate him as a personality and a mind as much as a basketball player from my conversations with him. … I’m a big fan. I think he can lift that team pretty high, especially if all the other complementary pieces can continue to perform.”       22:24-22:54: “There’s an organization pressure, especially when you’ve got…right now, the Eagles are one of, if not the, leading candidates for the Super Bowl…the Phillies are six wins shy of winning a World Series. That city’s pretty used to winning right now, and if the Sixers come out and they fall flat on their face I think it will be heard rather loudly and clearly.”   *Our Built to Lose book special, Jake's previous appearance

    24 min
See All (191)

    5
    out of 5
    70 Ratings

    About

    A show bringing you nuanced perspectives on the NBA's most important stories, hosted by USC alums Aaron Fischman, Joshua Jonah Fischman and Loren Lee Chen. Find us on our website at OnTheNBABeat.com or our Twitter page (@OnTheNBABeat).

    Information

    • Creator
      Aaron Fischman, Loren Lee Chen
    • Years Active
      2015 - 2025
    • Episodes
      191
    • Rating
      Clean
    • Copyright
      © Aaron Fischman, Loren Lee Chen
    • Show Website
      On the NBA Beat

    More From Lineups

    Content Restricted

    This episode can’t be played on the web in your country or region.

    To listen to explicit episodes, sign in.

    Stay up to date with this show

    Sign in or sign up to follow shows, save episodes, and get the latest updates.
    Select a country or region

    Africa, Middle East, and India

    Asia Pacific

    Europe

    Latin America and the Caribbean

    The United States and Canada