It's regarding what Tom said to Oprah, that sports has taught him empathy and he respects the various reasons why players have taken a knee.
What Max is saying seems right (it's what I was thinking right away, it's my default reaction to something like this) -- basically, that Tom is giving the calculated response that satisfies all parties, from fan base to the players on the field.
(Which doesn't mean he doesn't also happen to mean it or to mean something approximate to that, but ya, the exact shape of his answer is going to be driven by what's best for his football team's chances.)
Yes, that's exactly what he's doing.
But for Max to imply some sort of general wrongdoing or reason for skepticism is actually quite a scoundrel and hypocritical thing.
Because if Tom did say something controversial, Max via his show on ESPN would be among the first people flooding the airwaves with a big stink about it that causes a distraction.
So Max is essentially an active participant in the problem he's describing. It's people exactly like him who contribute to a world where the game theory optimal move for someone in Tom's spot is to avoid a controversial answer.
Damned if you do, and Max wants to damn you if you don't.
Sorry Max, that Tom has a clue about how it works and doesn't go out of his way to give you easy material.
Comparison to Bill Russell
Max says that Bill Russell was someone who was able to be a great leader while also taking a stand. (To try to convey that it would be possible for Tom to make strong statements and also be able to lead optimally.)
But what Maxy doesn't appreciate (or, he deliberately manipulates) is that Bill Russell is from a different era. The 1950-1960s is an entirely different world, as far as media surrounding events goes. So why someone would draw on that as an example, unless they were full of shit, I'm not sure.
When Bill spoke, it wasn't the situation where every single sentence is rung through a highly sophisticated, coordinated circus that will light up headlines across the board the moment he says something a little off. So he had more freedom to say things without there being a big downside if he ever made a little misstep.
And actually, he probably wanted to aggressively say things to drive attention on him that he can use to inspire his team. Whereas in Tom's case, the attention is there, and his game becomes balancing the egg on the plate.
When the media is larger/centralized and potentially obsessive over any tiny thing, it encourages more generic statements.
[Which is why I agree so much with @phoneinf that we'll evolve into smaller online tribes. I think global media may always continue to be a thing, but it will be more like a bulletin board for important announcements. Nobody will look to that to nourish the ways they think and feel and make sense of their world. Your nourishment will come from your more intimate, p2p, two-way street channels of communication.]
Bill didn't face the same downside and trade-offs, basically.
The tools and technology we have now are wonderful and they're here to stay. It's just that it's rushing towards a tipping point of where we need to burst the cyst and evolve away from overarching media.
Max will always be able to tell interesting tales about his past life as a manipulative tool, so don't worry too much about him and how he'll survive.
Side note: On top of what I'm saying about the media landscape being different, the actual causes themselves during Bill Russell's time were different too.
In his case it was more clear who was right and which was the right side to take. So taking that stance in many ways is the inherently not controversial thing, being that all reasonable people think that way and there would be no traction against him if he says it.
The flag protests today are more grey and foggy, and in many ways kind of just a maze of competing sensationalisms. I think admittedly, everyone has different reasons, and it's hard to know what specifically is actually being protested. So what could Tom possibly say, besides he respects their right to do that?
Personally, I think blind patriotism is silly and statism is a dying myth. But I'd probably think some of the specific reasons of why they're protesting are mythical and silly too.
So it would be hard to have a strong opinion about the whole package even if he wanted to, whereas what Bill Russell was asked about about were clear and specific problems.
Apples and oranges. Manipulative comparison.