Season 6 Episode 6- Richard Deitsch, Jack McCallum

On the sixth episode of the sixth season of The Sports-Casters hosts Steve Bennett and Don Russ welcome Richard Deitsch (Sports Illustrated) and Jack McCallum (SI.com, Author). Starting the show with 3Things, Steve and Don look back at the NBA All-Stat Game, talk about yet another immature moment for Evander Kane, and discuss Ronda Rousey telling Ellen she thought about suicide after her fight with Holly Holm. The book club formally introduces the new first book of 2016 called This is Your Brain on Sports: The Science of Underdogs, the Value of Rivalry, and What We Can Learn from the T-Shirt Cannon by Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers. Finally, the show ends with Don talking about an awesome new Nerf gun and Steve gives his take on Vinyl and reveals what else is filling his DVR. -Richard Deitsch is making his fourteenth appearance (00:19:30) on the podcast. Deitsch joins us to talk about his exclusive interview with Sean Fennessey the editor-in-chief of Bill Simmons new website, The Ringer. Deitsch and Steve also talk about Michelle Beadle reconciling with the WWE and her strange twitter fight that followed with Mark Madden, the SI swimsuit issue, and the Shaun King and Jason Whitlock twitter fight and what it might mean for old mistakes coming back to haunt athletes in the era of social media. -Jack McCallum is making his third appearance (01:02:04) on the podcast. McCallum joins us to talk about his SI.com piece on the 50 best NBA players in the league's 70 years of existence. Jack was part of a panel of journalists that picked the best 50 in 50 for the NBA 20 years ago. He explains why he decided to update his list, why he included Stephan Curry, and why he dropped players who were on the original list off of this one. Jack also explains why Lebron James is 5, Micheal Jordan is still 1, and reveals who the players were that just missed the top 50.