On the NBA Beat

About 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).

Publisher

Aaron Fischman, Loren Lee Chen

Category

sports

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

14 Oct 2015

Latest episode

13 Apr 2026

Latest episodes

2 of 195 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   13 Apr 2026TRANSCRIPT

   On the NBA Beat Ep. 195: "Interstate '85" Book Special With Marshall Garvey

   Marshall Garvey, author of Interstate '85: The Royals, the Cardinals and the Show-Me World Series (https://www.amazon.com/Interstate-85-Cardinals-Show-Me-American/dp/0826223273), joins the show. Enjoy! Here are some highlights – 3:26-4:39 : “The ’85 Series always stuck in my mind in a really weird way just because of all the emphasis on Don Denkinger’s missed call. It just seemed a little jaundiced to me, but it stayed in my head for 20 years, kinda rattling around in there. It got even more layers in my mind when the Royals finally won it again in the mid-2010s. … My buddy Jonathan Daniel, he wrote the book Suds Series…that’s the ’82 World Series. That (book) got me on a train of thought when I was taking a run one day…and it just like blew up in mind, like, ‘Oh, my god, ’85, no one’s really written about this. … I’m gonna write the definitive book about ’85 and find out there was more than The Call,’ and boy, oh boy, did that turn out to be true.” 7:17-8:40 : “It meant everything. This World Series was just, and still is over 40 years later, an epochal moment in Missouri’s entire history, and Missouri has a really rich history, with lots of innovation, lots of crucial events both for the country and even the world at large. … It was especially a point of pride ‘cuz it was a defiance of bicoastal expectations – a lot of people wanted a Mets-Yankees World Series that year, a Subway Series – and instead it forced all eyes on Missouri. … It was a transcendent moment for the just over 5 million people living in Missouri at that time. I thought that was really beautiful.” 30:03-31:10: “It was obviously a very tough thing. It was tough to miss a big call like that and all the hate mail and threats he received, but what I emphasize is that Denkinger learned to live with it, and he learned to live with it pretty fast. Denkinger embraced it, he never tired talking about ‘The Call,’ and again, I do not think The Call comes close to defining him. There was so much more to him and he was a great umpire, but he learned to embrace it, learned to live with that flaw and even could have fun with it. Like, he would sign autographs of him, Worrell and Orta, saying, ‘Oops! – Don Denkinger.’ I think that’s one of the big lessons: learning to embrace that folly and not let it define you at the same time.” 31:58-32:45: “Joe Beckwith changed the book and honestly my life. I realized what the stakes of the book were: getting this done for someone’s dying wish. That was really heavy, and it changed how I look at my life. … I think about him every day. I miss him a ton, and I’m just grateful I got to make that connection just in time.’” 37:45-40:07: – “I got a copy of The Wax Pack early on in the book’s development, and I fell in love with it. I was blown away by the ease and depth of Brad’s humanistic storytelling. My jaw hit the floor at how fun and irreverent but also earnest and detailed it was. I knew I wanted to tell a deeper story about ’85, but when I saw that humanistic prose, I was like, ‘This is a good model for what I wanna do. This is your aspiration.’ But a few months after that, this is where the story really gets interesting. In September of 2021, I purchased a videogame on my Nintendo Switch called Return of the Obra Dinn. … When I got back to it, Brad Balukjian’s writing style – I felt I was able to elevate my style and be a lot like that – and all the things from Obra Dinn, the things that taught me about looking for specific clues, being able to identify people, capturing their legacy in a larger narrative. Obra Dinn inspired me every step of the way.” *If interested, Interstate '85 is available for purchase⁠ ⁠here (https://www.amazon.com/Interstate-85-Cardinals-Show-Me-American/dp/0826223273)⁠⁠, among other places.

2. 

   21 Feb 2026TRANSCRIPT

   On the NBA Beat Ep. 194: "Moses Malone" Book Special With Paul Knepper

   Paul Knepper, author of Moses Malone: The Life of a Basketball Prophet (https://www.amazon.com/Moses-Malone-Life-Basketball-Prophet/dp/1496238974), joins the show. Enjoy! Here are some highlights – 7:02-7:42: “He realized very early on that these people... were trying to get something out of him. He was cautious and kind of withdrawn before that, and I think that maybe that experience made him add even another layer between him and the outside world or certainly between him and people that he didn’t know well and people that could potentially take advantage of him. So it led him to be very protective in that way going forward.” 14:22-15:07: “It’s always hard to go straight from high school to pros. … I think in certain ways it was harder for Moses as the first. I think he faced tremendous backlash because of that, but also there was no infrastructure in place. There was a lot less moneyin professional basketball in general then, certainly in the ABA. It was a head coach, an assistant coach, and that was it; they didn’t have 10 coaches who could kinda babysit him and take care of him and make sure that he’s doing his laundry and paying his bills and all that. The other thing I think people forget is that very few people were even leaving college early at that time.” 19:38-20:21: “If you think of more recently maybe a comparison would be a Tim Duncan, who also had no flash to his game. He was better with the media in that I don’t think he was as standoffish, but he didn’t really give the media anything either. … It was almost like on the court and off the court there was no personality to him, and I think that’s how a lot of people saw Moses. Moses played with a scowl on his face. I always say Michael Jordan and Kobe also played with scowls on theirface, but then they’d go into the interview room and they’d flash that million-dollar smile and it was like you saw a different side of them; Moses just never gave you that.” 36:11-36:45: “When Moses signed with Philly in ’82, there was a lot of concern about whether they -him and Doc[tor J] could coexist ‘cuz they were the two previous MVP winners. Andthere was the whole ‘Well, there’s only one ball, and you’ve got two dominant players; how is this gonna work?’ And they both had big egos in their own way. But Moses really set the tone for that from Day 1. He said, ‘This is Doc’s team. I’m just here to help. I’m just here to help Doc win a championship.’” 39:50-40:05: – “He was a wonderful father figure to many, but not necessarily a good father. And he was a kind and gentle man who may or may not have beaten his wife. And so how do you reconcile that?” 44:37-44:48: “What I really admired about Moses [was] he didn’t give a damn what anybody else said, what anybody else did, what was popular, what was cool. He had his own moral compass.” *If interested, Moses Malone is available for purchase⁠ ⁠here (https://www.amazon.com/Moses-Malone-Life-Basketball-Prophet/dp/1496238974)⁠⁠, among other places.

3. 

   25 Jun 2025

   On the NBA Beat Ep. 193: "Mike Donlin" Book Special With Steve Steinberg

   Author Steve Steinberg discusses his book on baseball player Mike Donlin, exploring Donlin's complex life from baseball stardom to the stage and his relationship with actress Mabel Hite in this interview.

Inside a recent episode

On the NBA Beat Ep. 195: "Interstate '85" Book Special With Marshall Garvey

Published 13 Apr 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] Another thing, though, that I'd love to learn early on as we're getting underway here is what the process was like getting acquainted with St. Louis, Kansas City, I-70, connecting the two and some of the unique places in between. That is a great question because that was one of the more challenging aspects of the book. Maybe it's challenging because at the time I'd never been to Missouri, so I had to get my research straight. It was a little overwhelming because I had to figure out how much of that context am I going to put in the book, like Missouri history, the histories of Kansas City and St. […]

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

70 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 46 / 100

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Quality

71

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

51

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