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Arsham Sharanya

law so good, so good, so good.

David Remnick

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Arsham Sharanya

The new yorker radio hour is a co production of wnyc and the new yorker.

David Remnick

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Rumnick. It would be an understatement to say that this summer has brought a flurry of incredible sports activity to the city of New York, to the country and the world. What started with the triumph of my beloved Knicks in the NBA Finals has led to some remarkable tennis showdowns already in Wimbledon and a dramatic and already politicized World cup tournament. And then there's all the speculation about the fate of 41 year old LeBron chains, the greatest scorer in the history of the league who may be on the cusp of his NBA swan song.

Arsham Sharanya

Breaking news out of the NBA. Arsham Sharanya reporting that after eight years LeBron James, the NBA's all time leading scorer, will be playing a record 24th season in the NBA, but it will not be with the Los Angeles Lakers. The reaction is pouring in on.

David Remnick

To make sense of all the headlines and all the heroics, I sat down with my colleague New Yorker sports writer Louisa Thomas. Louisa, it's good to talk to you again. The last time we talked was with Vincent Cunningham, all verklempt and hysterical about the Knicks win. And I still think that's the dominant story in sports possibly for the next, I don't know, decade. What do you think?

Arsham Sharanya

Nothing else has happened since then, but

David Remnick

we're gonna let a few other events sneak through the door, namely the World Cup. And I gotta say there are a lot of reasons to Be a little, well, I don't know, sheepish about American ness lately, but that whole Trump episode and the American team, what do you make of it? What a disaster.

Arsham Sharanya

I mean, it really was a U turn in good vibes.

David Remnick

What compelled the President of the United States to get involved in a red card and tell us the story?

Arsham Sharanya

David, are you asking me to wax poetically about the interiority of the President of the United States?

David Remnick

Yeah, why not? Why not? Why not?

Arsham Sharanya

Well, I think Trump had been kind of snoozing through the early part of July. He'd actually been remarkably hands off about the World Cup. He'd been involved in his, you know, his own 250th celebrations. He had not been at any of the games so far, but he repeatedly claimed that he did not know what a red card was.

David Remnick

Red card. I didn't know what the hell a red card was. When I found out, I said, you

Arsham Sharanya

gotta be kidding, until that moment.

David Remnick

But he had lots of thoughts about it.

Arsham Sharanya

Yes. He knew that that wasn't a red card. Whatever. It was.

David Remnick

Generationally, a guy who's 80 years old, who grew up in the New York area, soccer is not his thing. This is a guy who still thinks George Steinbrenner is the owner of the Yank. And so he gets involved and he protests the red card, and then the team gets their star back. And admittedly, it was not a great call, the red card. And the American team just seemed to go belly up. What happened out on the field?

Arsham Sharanya

Well, one thing that happens, that they faced a superior team which had not yet happened. Belgium played extremely well. Belgium played like they were motivated to defend not only their honor, but the honor of football. And, you know, it's interesting because the US Actually came out a little flat in several of the games, even in the first game against Paraguay, you know, for the first few minutes, they were pretty disorganized, and Paraguay was actually the one with the better chance. But what happened in the first two games especially is that they scored early and that seemed to settle them and allowed them to sort of get into their patterns. But in this game, Belgium came out and had an immediate chance. I mean, it was like, from kickoff, an electric start.

David Remnick

The USA didn't really take charge, and Belgium did.

Arsham Sharanya

And I think that that rocked them back after what had been obviously an emotional 24 hours. And then Belgium scored quite quickly. And then it was just like the wheels just not only came off, but flew into outer space.

David Remnick

Belgian celebrations fill the Seattle Air as the Red Devils roar into the quarterfinals United States of America. 1 Belgium 4. You know, now that baseball, you know, people are, you know, you've got instant replay about balls and strikes and plays at first base and all the rest. And we have all kinds of video second guessing and other sports. How is that dealt with? In football and soccer, what happens is

Arsham Sharanya

the use of as known as VAR in soccer. Video assisted referee is extremely controversial and contested among soccer fans because when it helps your team, it's obviously just objective truth and when it goes against you, it's misused somehow. But basically the idea, and this is infiltrating sports, all sports really, is that there's this idea that we should get calls, right? And we have the technology to do it. So let's try. Basically there is someone monitoring these, these TVs basically, and they have the capacity to slow down or replay. And when something is, is missed, you know, the referee is alerted that they're going to go to a video review. And in this case, the original call was not even made on the field, but the video review alerted. We were going to review this. And there is a rule that if you basically, if you step on someone's leg, that's considered quite dangerous because it is, you know, and there have been cases in which players have just totally kind of flown out of control into players and stepped on their legs and, you know, broken them. So in this case, though, in the, in the sort of regular run of play, like in the flow of the game, it was just a sort of typical football challenge. But what happened was when they went to video review, they actually watched the replay over and over. And when you slow these things down, they can look pretty horrific. I mean, there is a photo of Flo, as many people in soccer call him, for the obvious reasons, standing on top of the Bosnian player, twisted ankle. And that is pretty uncontrovertible. However, you're actually supposed to watch it as the referee has watched it. So One of the US's objections here was that they had misused VAR by slowing it down and focusing on the still photos instead of watching it as the referee would have watched it, which is a sort of more typical play.

David Remnick

This drive toward exactitude. It's kind of like a philosophical question that we no longer are going to tolerate the, you know, sort of the ups and downs of the judgment and eyesight of an umpire or referee. And we're going to get it so absolutely right that you can now have offsides calls determined by a sensor that's in the ball.

Arsham Sharanya

Yes.

David Remnick

How does that work?

Arsham Sharanya

There are Sensors in the ball. Yeah, there. I mean, it works as it sounds. There are sensors in the ball that can measure exactly not only where it is, but if it's been touched. And so there have been some, several controversial calls where it hasn't looked like it's been touched, but the sensor has kind of flared and maybe it sort of hit a few strands of someone's hair or, you know, maybe someone was offside by a millimeter. And one of the interesting things here is that there is a very small margin of error for all of these things, but we are not allowed to operate in the gray here. This has been an issue in tennis, this has been an issue in baseball. Obviously this has been an issue in all sorts of sports as we try and figure out what kind of human judgment we want to involve.

David Remnick

Now, another big issue with World cup before we leave it is, I'm now starting to see, because as you know, trend pieces in journalism, if you have three examples, all set to go. Is there a Trump curse? Trump came to see the Knicks in game three. The Knicks lose. He goes to see the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. The Chiefs get obliterated, and now he interferes in the World cup, and the US Team really performs poorly. Are you willing to set down the law here and say there's a Trump curse when it comes to sports? Because I, and I was ready to,

Arsham Sharanya

I was ready to do it after two, you know, a series makes.

David Remnick

Yeah, there you go.

Arsham Sharanya

But yes, I mean, I do think, you know, there is some question about whether or not this was just a soccer question, was the US Going to win? But I do think that there was a different kind of energy around the team. There was a different kind of energy around the Belgian team. We cannot, these are not double blind experience experiments. We can't go back in time and say what would have happened if they were able to, to play without this kind of interference. But I can say that, you know, the US Coach is very interested in energy. He thinks everything comes back to, like, positive, good vibes. And that stuff is sort of usually kind of overlooked because he's such a good tactical coach. But in this case, I think he might be completely right. You know, the energy around this team, it shifted.

David Remnick

Yeah, it did. I'm speaking with the New Yorker's Louisa Thomas More in a moment.

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David Remnick

on Consider this NPR's afternoon news podcast. We cover everything from politics to the economy to the world. But every story starts with a question. At npr, we stand for your right to be curious, to make sense of the biggest story of the day and what it means for you.

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David Remnick

Now let's get to very important things. The Knicks, I feel they did not improve substantially during the free agency period. I think they kind of, for financial reasons, so and so on are standing pat. The big news in the NBA action in recent days has been the destiny of the 41 year old now former Laker LeBron James. And the choice seems to be whether he goes to the Cavaliers for a poetic ending of his career or whether he goes to join the warriors and have fun with Steph Curry. What do you think he'll do?

Arsham Sharanya

And here I thought you were going to spend the entire segment talking about Mitchell Robinson going to the Celtics.

David Remnick

Fare thee well Mitchell. Don't break your hand. Don't punch any more trucks.

Arsham Sharanya

I mean, where does my heart go? My heart always goes to poetry. So I want him to be Odysseus returning home. But much like Odysseus, I actually think that there is something in LeBron James that always needs to leave.

David Remnick

Bye bye Penelope Exactly.

Arsham Sharanya

I think he really is considering Golden State. I mean, there are other reasons for him to want to go to Golden State. One is, yeah, to have fun with Steph Curry, which would be its own kind of poetry.

David Remnick

Yeah, I watch that.

Arsham Sharanya

Yeah, for sure. And also it is closer. He has no intention of moving his base camp, his, you know, back to Akron, has family there. He still has roots there, but his life is in LA now. And that's an easier trip from San Francisco than from Ohio, I think.

David Remnick

You and I and Vincent, even though we're all reduced to tears, tears literally streaming down the face of Vincent Cunningham on our substack live final night. Wemby tries a three, puts it up off the mark. Anunoby the rebound. It's over. It's over. Nick Vans. This is not a dream. Your long, long wait has ended. Go ahead and cry. After 53 years, the Knicks, we all realize that San Antonio is a great team and Victor Wyama is a fantastic player who's only going to get better. What does he have to do in the off season to be that much better, particularly in the playoffs? What's the slight missing piece in Wemby that's going to have to come together?

Arsham Sharanya

Well, one thing that happened is that he played 20 to 30 minutes during the regular season, and suddenly he was playing 40 minutes a night in high pressure situations. So one thing is just building up his fitness base. I think, though, that, you know, Wemby is a person who is sort of obsessed with the. The completeness of the game and, yeah, keeping his cool. You know, you referred to his. His penchant for, you know, smushing the opposition.

David Remnick

Oh, whoa, that's. Excuse me. That should be a flagrant one.

Mint Mobile Announcer

I can understand why Brunson and then

David Remnick

Wimby's laughing at it. I think some of that was a little deliberate because he was seen as a little bit soft and a little too nice and a little not badass enough. And okay, maybe you don't have to try to break our hero's ankle in the process, but I think some of that might have been deliberate.

Arsham Sharanya

Yeah, he does do that. And, you know, it's going to be interesting to see because he went. Speaking of u turn U turns on vibes. He went from someone who was universally admired and celebrated almost to being someone who is seen as a great villain. And there is a place for villains in the NBA, for sure.

David Remnick

And finally, another thing that I was watching was tennis, and I was really taken, really, really moved by Serena comeback match against this very young, very nervous. It was just very touching to watch this match. Tell me about how you saw that.

Arsham Sharanya

Oh, yeah. I mean, I was actually surprised by how moved I was in part because it seems to me that everybody was surprised by Serena coming back. I had Been waiting for this day since she had quote unquote retired. So I was not at all surprised when she came back. But yeah, I mean you saw it from the very, you know, there's this kind of. ESPN has these cameras everywhere. I mean it's like absolutely surveilled. And in the hallway where you go from the players locker room out to the court, they are tracking the players the whole time. And, and Serena's opponent was, she did not know where to put her eyes.

Mint Mobile Announcer

Right.

Arsham Sharanya

You know, she had, she had never been in this situation and she was just like a deer, you know. And Serena, because she has been in the situation so many times and she very much knew she was on camera, just looked as relaxed as, you know, a lake. And when they stepped out there, I was like, wow, this is a, this is, this is moving and. But we didn't get, you know, it sort of was a slow, a slow build. And just when I thought the match was, you know, going to be over, Serena did the thing that Serena does and she started throwing down aces. You know, down Breakpoint she started kind of, There was really, there's a, in, in tennis there's this classic pattern of the, the big surf followed by the big forehand. And, and she did one of those like, you know, and it was just like I was transported back to 2011 or 2012, you know, I mean, or, or 2002, you know, I mean it was just one of those moments.

David Remnick

Muscle memory.

Arsham Sharanya

Oh, game.

David Remnick

Williams, you don't become one of the greatest athletes of all time for nothing. Champions, champion, spirit. And she's st in this fight. Serena Williams. But now Serena has knee problems and do you think this comeback is over just as it started?

Arsham Sharanya

She has actually announced or one of her coaches, Renee Stubbs, who is herself a doubles grand slam winner that she's going to play in the US Open and hopefully as long as her knee is okay, she's going to probably play a warm up event. So do I think it's over? I don't know. I mean she is not someone who likes to go out on a loss. The problem is in tennis, unless you win the tournament, you go out on a loss. And it's also hard to imagine her going out on a win.

David Remnick

It's really, that's.

Mint Mobile Announcer

That.

David Remnick

That would be just beyond beyond.

Arsham Sharanya

Yes.

David Remnick

Well, Louisa, it's always a pleasure to talk sports with you. Thank you so much.

Arsham Sharanya

Always.

David Remnick

Louisa Thomas writes the Sporting Scene column for the New Yorker and you can find her writing on the World Cup. Serena Williams attempted COMEBACK and much more@newyorker.com David I'm David Remnick and that's our program for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

Arsham Sharanya

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Sommer, with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Parish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.

David Remnick

Did you know that the New Yorker Radio hour is on YouTube? Well, you can listen to the show on any podcast platform. And now you can also watch our biggest interviews on the New Yorker's YouTube page.