Hour 4 – Weak Sauce Recruiting

Ben Maller has a problem with star players who recruit other star players. He thinks it is a weak move that gets a free pass from fans and media every single time, while the player who actually joins the new team gets crushed. The episode is built around this central complaint, using the hypothetical of LeBron James's free agency as a springboard to argue that the recruiting superstar deserves as much criticism as the one who signs.

The Double Standard That Bothers Him

Maller's argument rests on a specific double standard. He points to the 2016 recruitment of Kevin Durant by the Golden State Warriors. Durant joined a team that had already won 73 games and a championship, and he was eviscerated for it — called the weakest move in NBA history. But Maller notes that Steph Curry, a two-time MVP and reigning champion at the time, sat in that famous Hamptons meeting and actively recruited Durant. "Zero criticism whatsoever for recruiting Kevin Durant," Maller says. He finds this baffling. "How do we never look at Steph Curry, a two-time MVP at the time, an NBA champion at the time, and he's giving his best pitch to Kevin Durant? Really?" In Maller's view, the act of recruiting is itself a confession of inadequacy. If you are truly that guy, you should not need to beg another star to join you. "The definition of weak," he calls it.

Why the Recruiter Never Gets Blamed