The Bill Simmons Podcast - NBA Playoff Mailbag and Charlamagne tha God (Ep. 203)

Episode Date: April 21, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons discusses the top NBA playoff story lines, including Rondo's injury (4:00), CP3's future plans (11:00), Steven Adams's disappearing act (14:00), the Jazz's struggles (19:30), Spurs-Grizz (23:30), Raptors-Bucks (27:00), and Round 1 playoff predictions (28:20). Then, 'The Breakfast Club' cohost Charlamagne tha God joins (35:50) to give his thoughts on Charles Barkley (40:00), the power of Black Twitter (44:00), the cultural influence of 'The Breakfast Club' (52:00), Nelly's fighting skills (56:00), confronting Kanye (1:00:00), Jay Z's dominance (1:09:00), Nas's impact (1:14:00), ways to fix ESPN (1:20:00), Serena's pregnancy (1:30:30), and who owns the belt in hip-hop (1:38:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Subscribe to the Ringer NBA show as well. So we unfortunately, just from a schedule standpoint, we had too many BS reports in a row here. We put up one on Wednesday, which was a NBA playoffs check-in with Jason Concepcion and Robert Mays. Then we put up another one yesterday with Deza Samara, who I've been dying to have on, the Bodega Boys. And we talked about a whole bunch of stuff, including the death of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry and whether that could be revived. So those are in your podcast archives.

Check those out. But I wanted to have one more. We taped in an interview with Charlemagne, the God yesterday. One of my favorites who was on my HBO show at least once, but we became very friendly. He is a, uh, an outspoken New York media personality and also on MTV has a new book coming out. And, uh, we ended up talking a lot about the whole rap scene and stuff like that. But I want to talk playoffs really quick because it's 9.30 a.m. West Coast time. There's three games tonight, four on Saturday, four on Sunday.

Lots of subplots going. So we're going to talk about that. And then right after that, about the 20 to 25-minute mark of this podcast, you can hear me and Charlotte talking about a whole bunch of stuff right now. All right, here we go. NBA playoffs. The big news. It happened an hour ago.

And I was very concerned that the Celtics were either going to get swept or lose in five because I did not like the complete lack of fight that they showed in game two. And I do agree with Rondo. I thought they quit. But unfortunately, Rondo's right thumb also quit on Rondo as it's fractured. And all I can tell you is i stepped on my game today i i'm wearing green larry bird socks look at these tate those are nice larry legend socks larry legend he's back um i'm wearing my yellow good luck celtics t-shirt that's brought me a lot of luck over the years and i paid somebody to break rondo's

thumb so i i don't know what else i can do, people. I'm trying the best I can. Now, I will say this. Rondo is a tough MF-er. The dude played with a dislocated elbow in the 2011 playoffs. Literally, it was dislocated. He played anyway. He tore his ACL in a game and finished the game. Anyone who thinks that Rondo isn't coming back for game four or game five has not followed

his career. I would argue that of the guys that I've watched in the past 40 years, he's one of the 10 toughest and certainly one of the toughest in the league and one of those guys that just is playing unless the doctor says you can't play, your leg's hanging off. So I just think he'll play, he'll be back, he's taking this seriously. And if you're the Celtics, you went from thinking that all the tragedy and all the terrible stuff that Isaiah Thomas went through this past week inadvertently submarine their chances to win this series

because he's the lifeblood of the team. He's the guy that even when they're not playing well can just pull a fourth quarter out of his ass and change the game and swing what should have been a loss and a win. And he was not the same guy. And in game one, which I went to, the team was affected by it, as they should have been. But they were affected in a way of, you know, it was such an emotional game and they were so cognizant of all the different emotions he was going through minute by minute that you can see it. They just weren't able to match the intensity that the Bulls had. And I went to that game, and the Bulls really bullied them and knocked them around

and did all the stuff you have to do to win a playoff game. Game two, the Celtics just sucked, and that happens with them. And that was one of the biggest reasons why I was not sold on them as a one seed. I was not willing to give up on them yet though because this is a pattern that they've had these last couple of years where every time it looks like, you know, oh my God, the season's falling apart

or oh, this team's in a skid, they're not gonna get out of it. That's when they would win. You know, the best example is the West Coast trip early March, I think, when post-All-Star break, this team wasn't the same and just stopped making threes. Marcus Smart started making, stopped making shots. Olenek stopped making shots. Jalen Brown started to hit the rookie wall and it started to look like things were sliding away. And then they went to Golden State and they won. So they have a history of doing this.

And I thought they were going to win tonight. Now with this Rondo thing, I don't know what to think because sometimes if you're super confident and you think, oh, this is great, we're going to win, then Grant comes in and starts making threes. Who the hell knows what's going to happen? They had Tate Portis in game one. Yep. German guy Zipsich.

Zipser. Zipser. Yeah. Zipsich. Who is Zipsich? I think he was in the Red Sox the German guy comes in game two he's making shots sometimes it's just your series when stuff like that happens I do think they had some

rebounding advantages they have Butler who's playing great but in a playoff series if just random guys start playing out of their ass, that's usually a bad sign. Like I look at the Milwaukee series. Milwaukee might be better. Yeah, from a depth perspective, yeah.

They just might be more athletic. And Giannis is the best player in the series. And if you have the best player in the series, I don't know, five out of six times you're going to win the series. Yep. He's the best player in the series. Absolutely. They're super athletic.

Defensively, they've just figured out how to throttle the Raptors, and they're making shots. I watched that first quarter this morning, actually, on NBA TV. They're up by 20 in the first quarter. They're making threes. Then on the other end, they're just shutting everyone down, and Giannis is just flying around like seven-foot Kawhi Leonard.

I think they're for real. I simultaneously thought they were going to make the finals, and I thought they could lose this Buck series, which sums up the East in a nutshell. It was a bad series matchup for them. DeRozan was 0-8. It was the only guy

to ever go 0-4 that the average over 25 points per game in a playoff series like that. I think everyone who watches the NBA knew Giannis was one of the 10 best players. Yeah. But I don't think America really knew it yet because who the hell is going to watch the Bucs unless you're dorks like us that watch League Pass every night. And so I'm not surprised Giannis is doing this,

but he definitely raised his game. Like he's making threes and he's even in game two when it looked like they were just going to lose. He's like, no, we're not going to lose and almost brought them back. There's some superstar stuff going on with him now that I did not really see the whole season. And he's sort of like talking trash like a little bit. In the press conferences, like he's got like a little bit of a cocky edge. I always remember. He's kind of an asshole.

I like it. I remember when they lost a game like a couple of years ago, and he was singing, going to the locker room, and people were like, you can't do this. We just lost a game. Yeah. And he was like, it doesn't affect me. We have bigger things on the horizon. And I was like, oh, this guy is...

He's got a bigger plan. I'm not willing to count the Raptors out, because I think they have a lot of playoff experience. And it happened. We've seen this before. Yeah. It's 2-1. the Raptors out because I think they have a lot of playoff experience. And it happened. We've seen this before. Yeah. It's 2-1.

We've seen lots of teams come back from 2-1. I think that the thing that they need to do, what I've noticed from watching is they need to be a little nastier. They need to turn into a playoff series. They need to knock Giannis on his ass. Yeah. Damari Carroll's not doing it. He's not stopping Giannis. They need someone else to a playoff series. They need to knock Giannis on his ass. Yeah, Damari Carroll's not doing it. He's not stopping Giannis. They need someone else to just man up on him.

Put P.J. Tucker on Giannis. Put P.J. Tucker on him for 40 minutes. Try to get him in a fight. They need to turn into a hockey game. There you go. That's the difference. I was looking at last night with the Bucs. Steve Kerr, when he used to do media, and he would come on my podcast,

he always had a theory that the young team in the playoffsucs, Steve Kerr, when he used to do media, and he would come on my podcast, he always had a theory that the young team in the playoffs that looks, it's going well, things are going their way, and then they have that game three at home, the fans show up an hour early, it's like oh yeah, and then they come out and they lay an egg. Because there's

so much energy and intensity, and it's a young team, and they're trying too hard, and they get away from what they're supposed to be. They don't breathe. The Bucs did the opposite. The Bucs had that energy intensity that came out, and they actually kicked Toronto's ass, which makes me think, fuck, I don't know what the ceiling is for this team. Because Giannis, Giannis I think is going to win an MVP someday.

Yeah. I would say he's the best under 25 bet other than Davis. Davis would be the number one pick. Giannis would be the number two pick. Giannis is on a much better team. Somebody sent me a great email. Well, two emails actually. Simon in Vancouver asked,

if you were the Bucs and the Cavs called right after the season and offered LeBron straight up for Giannis, would you take that trade? No way. No. He's 10 years younger. Yeah, you have 14 more years of Giannis. You have, what, like six more years of LeBron, maybe? Yeah, depending on science.

Maybe he'll play to his 50. This is an even better email from Chris in Brooklyn. Why wouldn't Chris Paul opt out and go be point god for the bucks that have a lineup of paul brogdon middleton yannis and monroe and maker with delhi and parker off the bench oh my god and he's like if you're gonna go ring chasing is there a better up-and-comer to latch on to i think not my answer yeah we'll see how much chris paul cares about winning because that's a great idea chris paul on the bucks why wouldn't he do that couldn't that be like oscar robertson

going to play with like young kareem yeah on the bucks it's a great idea i love it now chris paul you know he they basically made the chris paul rule in the CBA where he can sign, I think, like a five-year extension for $300 gazillion with the Clippers. NBA PA. So he's staying. We'll see how much he cares about money versus the rings because if he wants a ring, I would go to that Milwaukee team. I like it. And I don't know who else in their prime or slightly past their prime point guards are out there. But all of them should be studying this Bucs team.

Yeah. Especially if you're a spot-up shooter. If you're basically a good version of Delvadova. Yeah. That should be your team. JJ Redick. Kyle Lowry. Oh.

That's awkward. Lowry pulls a Durant and goes, thank you for the Bucs. Kevin O'Connor wrote a piece for us about a month and a half ago. And Toronto got really mad about yeah i would have to blow it up if they didn't do well it's a running joke on the ringer nba show that kevin o'connor wants to blow up every team in the nba he does it's great team we should call tnt yeah just blow it up c-t-o-t love drama all right so here's what we have tonight friday Celtics Bulls 4 o'clock West Coast time 7 o'clock

East Coast the biggest game in the Brad Stevens era I'm just gonna throw it out there this is the first time he's taken a little heat back home

yeah 2-10 I've seen that everywhere weird lineups yeah really got outcoached by Hoiberg yeah

could Zeller start that's what i heard that zeller could start to shut down robin lopez i don't think zeller's gonna shut down robin lopez if anything i think i think they have to go smaller oh i would go horford and jurebko so horford at the five yeah i would go smaller it's try to space them out and space out they did this against utah when they when they beat utah and utah they spaced out gobert with shooters all around and made it so gobert had nowhere to go and he had to come away from the rim yeah that's how you get lopez to stop rebounding so much now i don't know how you stop

the offensive boards but um they're gonna have to start boxing them out rocket thunder is the second game these games are great tonight i mean this is the best night of the year so far. Rockets-Thunder, I think the series ends in five. The Rockets are just better. And I actually, I regret my supporting cast argument now. And then the Rockets, I was like, ah, it's relatively equal. It's not. The Rockets just have better. Now, if Westbrook trusted his dudes more maybe that would flip it but i think

i was too high on oladipo i don't know whether playing with westbrook has screwed him up or whether we just overrated him and you know it's not like he had a ton of success in orlando i always really liked him i think it's weird that he can't guard harden yeah i always thought he was like this two-way guy and uh just watching closely, I thought he'd be able to shut him down. Adams, I don't know what happened to. He just looks, yeah, neutered. He just looks lost. Doesn't look active.

So how much do you blame Russ for this? I don't know. Yeah, everyone looks dejected. It looks like everyone has one dribble, then they have to pass it back to Russ. Yeah. You always say this about touching the ball. People like that. When you play basketball, you like to touch the ball.

It looks like the whole Thunder team just looks like they don't get to touch the ball in the fourth quarter. Basketball is not hard to figure out. Everybody needs to be involved. They came out in game two and they're up 16 to four and Westbrook had two points. And Oladipo was making plays and Adams and Robertson made a play and they looked like a team. And by the fourth quarter, I knew they were done in that game when they gave up, when they rested Westbrook.

And they gave up a basket and they showed Westbrook screaming at Donovan to put him back in. I was like, they're done. Like, if he doesn't even trust his team to hold the lead for two minutes. Now, Donovan played terrible lineups. You have to, Old Depot has to run the second team. Samaj Christian, who's the worst player in the playoffs just we can't see him again if he plays again this is that's you're almost like trying to sabotage the team is there a worse playoff player than samaj christian i just don't understand how do they not have a better backup i mean is that there's a hundred point

cards in the nba is that like a complex with russ where he doesn't want anyone to like give him like obviously we saw reggie got sent out. You know like the guys Cameron Payne. Cameron Payne's out. Eric Maynard. Yeah. There's tons of guys

that have been there. Like even like an Ishmith. Why can't Ishmith be his backup point guard? Or someone just That might have had Ishmith. Yeah. Like there's plenty of

options. Tim Frazier. There's point guards everywhere. There's a million point guards. That are better than Shamaj Christian.

The Celtics have Demetrius Jackson on their D-League team from Notre Dame, who easily could have played 10 minutes a game for them in this series. There's 100 point guards, and there's going to be 10 more coming into this draft. And all you really have to do on that second unit is be able to make an entry pass. Like, if you want to get Adams or one of those guys. Just don't fuck up. Just don't turn the ball over and miss a three.

Yeah. I'm also, i think they i think simultaneously they need to go small but they also can't run away from what worked for them last year last year when they almost beat the warriors and they were up 3-1 in that series bully ball bully ball yeah rebounds it was two guys just hammering and abaca was one of the guys but if you if you really look at the minutes like gibson and and uh sabonis replaced the abaca minutes oladipo replaces the durant minutes that's tough yeah and then uh the waiters was playing 30 minutes a game for them in the playoffs but you can replace him with with dougie mcb. He's just a shooter. He's standing in the corner.

McDermott can do that. I don't think this is inconceivable that they could replicate the Warriors thing. I was looking at their box scores from that Warriors series, and KD and Westbrook shot like shit in that series. They were like 20 for 55, 20 for 60 every game. What was winning it and what was keeping them in was their rebounding and their defense. And second-chance opportunities opportunities tipping the ball out yeah they gotta unleash adams has to bring them back if they have a chance and i just think he's in a fog his one moment in

the series was the screen on beverly and that instead of that like setting the tone for the thunder like flipped it for the rockets it seemed like beverly loved that and then it fired up the whole rockets team to get back in the game which was so weird yeah for and for the Rockets. It seemed like Beverly loved that, and then it fired up the whole Rockets team to get back in the game, which was so weird. Yeah, and for the record, I thought Westbrook played an unbelievable two and a half quarters, and then his fourth quarter was one of the most abominable basketball things I've ever seen in my life.

I mean, he took 18 shots, which is even in a pickup game with the most selfish guy you could ever play with. I've never seen anything like that. Kobe was jealous. Yeah, Kobe was like, wow, this guy's selfish. He had Grant wide open in the corner. He had McDermott wide open.

And what was interesting, because I watched that fourth quarter game pretty carefully, the guys that kind of gave up, like Taj Gibson was like, fuck this. He wasn't even rebounding. You just can't do that. And I think that's the danger with him. It's like he wants it too badly.

Yeah. And it's like you can't take a step back. Calm down. I would bet on them winning tonight just because I think he's going to get like 30 free throws. Yeah. But the Rockets are good. And they have the X factor of, oh, we're not playing that well. Oh, here's Lou Williams.

Oh, he just scored 12 points in five minutes. Yeah. Oh, here's Eric Gordon. Oh, he just scored 12 points in five minutes. Yeah. Oh, here's Eric. Oh, Eric Gordon just made two threes. Like they have these wildcard guys that might not show up, but sometimes they do. Yeah. Yeah. And Russ is averaging 11-3 attempts, the most in the playoffs of anyone.

Russ is. And shooting 23% from three. Anyone who defends Russ's second half of that game with the whole, oh, what teammates was he going to pass to? The open guy. Any of the open guys, and he's four for 18, so obviously that didn't work out. And he was tired, and

he knew it, and he's throwing up air balls, and that was embarrassing. That's on Donovan a little bit, though. It's on Donovan a lot a bit. Yeah, that's how I feel about it. Stand up to your superstar. I'm not yelling at Russ. I'm not blaming Russ.. Donovan a lot of it. Yeah, that's how I feel about it. Stand up to your superstar. I'm not yelling at Russ. I'm not blaming Russ. He obviously has a lot going on.

But Donovan has to reel him back in some sort of fashion, I feel like. Yeah, but that's the thing. It was the same thing with Kobe for many, many years. Once they got in that mindset, you couldn't reel him back. Kobe in 03 and 04 for the Lakers basically won one finals game in those two years with end of his prime Shaq and reaching his prime Kobe. It was because Kobe was so selfish those two years and Shaq was out of shape. That didn't help either.

Clippers, Jazz. I thought the Jazz could have won game two. They had a bunch of, my dad would always call these like get over the hump moments where it's like they just couldn't get it to three or two and i think if they had that the clippers would have gotten tight and like joe johnson missed a couple huge threes hayward missed a couple big threes hayward bricks threes in the hayward was terrible in that game and i think the clippers feel like mabamute can actually guard him because he was playing a lot. Yeah. He seems very happy lately, Mbamute. Yeah.

I'm proud of him. Because all he does is play defense and do backdoor layups. Yeah, it's easy life. But not good for Hayward's mega contract in the summer if he can't score Mbamute. Now, I'm guessing the crowd's going to be crazy. They'll probably get some calls. They got to figure out what to do with DeAndre. I would personally do hack-a-shack on DeAndre when the clip's getting grooves. crazy they'll probably get some calls they got to figure out what to do with deandre i i would

personally do hack a shack when on deandre when the clips get in grooves yeah just take them out just screw it out just mess up their rhythm uh the other thing to watch in that series the fact that blake isn't posting up dl and joe johnson is insane to me this was the third best player in the league two years ago and if he can't score on those guys, if they're going to guard him one-on-one with D'Allen Johnson, then that tells me like he's not a superstar anymore. Yeah. That's embarrassing.

Like you would have on your Charlotte team, if Cody Zeller was being guarded by Joe Johnson, you would go to Cody Zeller. Every time. Or yeah, even like Frank Kaminsky. Right. Blake Griffin can't guard. He's going to be shut Or, yeah, even like Frank Kaminsky. Right. Blaker for K-Guard. He's going to be shut down by Joe Johnson one-on-one?

Yeah. It's like they're trying to get him with a quick guy so he can't catch the ball at the elbow and drive past him for that easy layup. But it's like, Blake, you can post people up in case you forgot. It's weird because Utah's best advantage, and I think a lot of teams' best advantage

against the Clips is speed. Because Chris doesn't want to run like that for four quarters. George Hill started pressing it, and it kind of threw Chris out of his rhythm. The Gobert thing is a big deal, though. Yeah, he's out. And he's not back for until when? They said late in the series, right?

Yeah, that's not good. So like game six, game seven. I was there for game two, and the guy sitting behind me at halftime said to me who long time clipper fan he's like is this the last half we're ever gonna see a blake and chris it was in the air wow the clips won but it's in the air everybody in my section was was at least cognizant of like, they blow this game, they're going to get swept. Team's going to get blown up. Doc Rivers is going to become the Orlando GM.

Yeah. And Blake's going to be another team. Was sitting there. That's amazing. Who would you pick for that series? I have the Clippers. I've already told you, I do believe in the Clippers for whatever reason.

I don't know why. I just think that continuity will play out. And I think Gobert really was favorable. usually they have something bad happen to them and this time 17 seconds to lose gobert in a series yes it's really sad for the i thought that they could swing it into an advantage because they could space the the floor yeah and they had different options but that involves them making threes and as this series keeps going and you're relying on threes that gets dangerous i want a rodney Hood game for the Jazz. I want him to have like 21 points.

I don't know how I feel about him. Yeah. I believe in Rodney Hood. Do you? Yeah. And that's coming from a guy that doesn't like Duke basketball players. Yeah, I know. That's a big concession for you.

Yeah. Saturday, Wizards-Hawks. The Hawks blew it. I think they had to win game three. And I think the crowd will be unbelievable for game four, and I think they're better. And Dwight's going to do his Dwight Bolivirus on the Hawks, and I'm writing them off.

John Wall, feels like it's his time. It's his time to at least have, I guess I would play the winner of the Celtics-Bulls. Starting to feel like Washington's going to be in the Eastern Finals. Yeah. I think that they got a good draw being that four seed. Really good draw. Yeah.

Spurs-Grizzlies, that one. Pop felt like he threw away Game 3 a little bit to make a point. I don't know what point he was making, but I didn't feel like they were playing for their lives in Game 3. It felt like the only guy he would talk to on the bench was Jonathanathan simmons yeah he was mad at everybody it was like he went in the game going out we don't have it tonight and i'm gonna just teach a point and get everyone pissed off but it didn't feel like that game was a complete loss yeah lamarcus audridge played good in the second quarter i thought that they were gonna like turn it around behind audridge

but then it was just like oh no this is just selfish Aldridge for a quarter, and he got his stats. That's the thing with the Spurs is you can really land a haymaker on them every once in a while. I don't know how high their ceiling is as a team. Kawhi didn't blink on the bench when he was sitting over there. He just was staying straight out. I know.

He's just mad. It was great. Warriors-Trailblazers is over. It ended in the fourth quarter of game one when the trailblazers um threw haymakers at uh at golden state and got everything you'd want from their two best players i think they finished like 80 points and they still lost by 15 if you if your two best players play as well as they can play and you lose by 15, the series is over. So they're going to get swept.

Cavaliers Pacers. So last night, LeBron played one of the best 10 playoff games of his career. And I don't understand. It was almost too perfect how they fell behind and then he came back. You think he did it intentionally? It was. He never seemed stressed by it. You know I love those conspiracy hot takes.

It was the biggest comeback after a halftime deficit. It was 26. The deficit before that was 25, so it makes history. Well, it's great. They'll close it out. They'll win game four. They'll get some rest. They would play the winner of Toronto-Milwaukee,

and Milwaukee's a bad matchup for them. Yeah, I think they want Toronto. Yeah. I think they desperately want Toronto. And I thought Toronto was a team that matched up really nice for them. But now I'm looking at them like, they don't want to see Giannis. Now, maybe Giannis will pull another level out of LeBron that we haven't seen in a while. I'm trying to think who the last great

forward that he played in a playoff series i guess it was kawaii in the finals yeah or durant i was i compare that to the young thunder team where like lebron can pull the seniority and those guys get like a little tight because they're playing against like quote unquote the greatest player i don't know if janice is going to get tight i feel like he gives zero fucks he really does and that's on and brock did all those young guys don't look they care they just like i was living on the streets in greece like begging people for money like i'm gonna be nervous because of a playoff game i'm already playing with house money yeah that guy that guy's had a rough life and just does not give a shit yeah he's a's a tough dude. Man. So.

That's why I feel like the Raptors are going to come back. But I'm pulling for the Bucs. All right. So here's my predictions, Tate. And then we're going to throw it to Charlotte, man. Cool. We have Celts, Bulls. I think it goes seven.

And I don't know who wins. I think it goes seven now. I hope it goes seven. Yeah. That would be fun. Cavs-Pacers is done in four. Yep. Where does Paul George go from here?

The Miami Heat? He's just a... Get over yourself, Paul George. Get over yourself. Yeah. That's CJ Myles coming. I won't get over that. Yeah, be a better teammate.

You killed your team when you undermined CJ Myles in game one. Toronto-Milwaukee is... I'm just not giving up on Toronto. If I had to bet my life on it, I would say Milwaukee in six. But I wouldn't bet on it. I wouldn't bet on this series. I could see Toronto winning game four. Yeah, it seemed like Lowry was pretty set on that they were going to flip it around.

He was like, it sucks right now, but we'll be back. They need Kyle Lowry to be awesome in game four. They need him to destroy everybody in the Bucs in game four. They need a vintage, old school Kyle Lowry game, but maybe he's not healthy. That might be it. I mean, that wrist injury, that was my one hesitation with picking them. Washington, Atlanta will somehow go to six and then washington win and joe house will freak out but they'll end up pulling out

golden state's gonna sweep san antonio winning five houston wins in five clippers utah is the one that i just had no feel for i don't know when gobert comes back i don't trust the clips i i think the clippers are gonna win in five and i think that I just have no feel for. I don't know when Gobert comes back. I don't trust the Clips. I think the Clippers are going to win in five, and I think that they should have swept, but it's just like the Clippers not to sweep by losing that game one. I think without Gobert, they should sweep the Jazz. Well, if you go by best guy in the series for every series,

the best guy in the series is going to win every series, just assuming everything holds, right? And the best guy in that Utah is going to win every series. If, if just assuming everything holds right. And the best guy in that Utah series is Chris Paul. Yep. He's also the biggest asshole in that series. I mean, he now stomps around like he's yelling at guys, yelling assistant coaches. He is the angriest I've ever seen him.

He just wants, that's all I believe. He, he, he's like one of those angry police sergeants in an 80s drama. Quickly, a couple mailbag questions, then we'll get to Charlemagne. Joshua Benton asks, the Cavs are proven to be the Robert Durst of the 2017 playoffs. When are they going to get caught?

My answer, I don't know. I don't know. I like the Robert Durst analogy, though. Brian Atlanta asks, if you had to win one game would you choose lebron at the height of his powers or jordan my answer stop it yeah unequivocally just stop it just stop uh william jacobs wonders i've heard people say the celtics should send someone besides isaiah thomas to the lottery isn't he the exact person we need there? My answer, Tommy Henson. Tommy Henson has been involved with the Celtics since 1956.

He is the living legend that we have in our direct tie to Red Auerbach and Russell and all those guys. I would send Tommy Henson. Nice. Tyler from Seattle asks, can we officially add Camilla beating Laurel in this week's challenge elimination

to the list of improbable upsets of the past year? It may be more improbable than the Cubs or Cavs. Laurel is literally the predator in Aliens' robot love child. Camilla is 5'3 at best and is either hammered, screaming at her team, trying to fight someone, or all three at once. Are we sure Cousin Sal didn't bet on Laurel to win it all before the season started? My answer, we're not sure. And I agree with you.

I would say it was not as improbable as the Pats coming back from 28-3, but more improbable than the Cubs or the Cavs. Because Camilla is 5'3 and 100 pounds and is literally drunk all the time. Joshua from Fayetteville arkansas says you called this the rondo sans the rajana sans was right there my answer you're right it should be it should be the rajana sans is good it's better than the rondo sans yeah i like rajana sans rajana sans is good andrew asks if you type miami vice into ringer search box, you get the following message, quote, no stories found in the ringer. Does a different Bill Simmons own this site? My answer, unacceptable. And people are going to get suspended. I'm very upset about this. It's really, it's, it's, I have nothing to say other than just regret and apologies. Jeff Hager in

Evansville, Indiana asks, with all due respect to you and House concerning trying to figure out Karl Malone's signature move, doesn't it have to be him giving Isaiah Thomas 40 stitches? My answer, yes. He didn't like the whole John Stockton made the dream team over Isaiah. The next game after it was announced, Isaiah torched John Stockton. The next game after that, 40-stitch elbow. Yeah, the mailman delivers.

The most vicious thing that happened in the past 25 years, or past 30 years of the NBA, I would say. Intentional flying elbow and split his eye open. And you can see it on NBA TV, it's the giant scar on his left. But you know Isaiah loved it. Secretly, he respected it. Yeah, secretly loved it.

Jake from Minneapolis wonders, Towns is the first player in NBA history to score 2,000 points, collect 1,000 rebounds, and make 103 pointers in a season. You're the king of coming up with club names. What would you name this club? My answer, the 2,000-1,100 club. Why are we getting fancy? In 3,000 minutes.

Chris Haneke wonders, where is when the championship kd gets his ring russ wins the mvp thanks katie in his speech kd decides to resign with okc you can't totally rule this out can you my answer yes yes he's not as long as the current owners in front office is running okc ke Kevin Durant will not be at OKC. Yeah. I would not rule it out 10 years from now. Two more. Kobe and Shaq won three titles. Russ and KD are future Hall of Famers.

But Vin Diesel and The Rock have now made four blockbuster movies together for the obvious best franchise of all time. What is your power ranking for most successful disgruntled teammates that's from tyler and patchogue new york i still have kobe and shack first yeah those guys genuinely hated each other and then when when kobe got uh arrested for the hotel thing and he gave his deposition that the smoking gun had the deposition for, and he threw Shaq under the bus. Yeah, he snitched. Yeah, he snitched on Shaq. I still think that to me that's number one, that they won three titles and that happened.

Can't beat that. Wow. All right, last one, and then we'll get to Charlemagne. From Tyler Lowey, why hasn't anyone proposed the idea of dangling the MVP trophy from the Jumbotron during the Rockets Thunder Series like a Money in the Bank match. My answer.

Brilliant. Yes. I think there's still time. Yes. Let's do it. Could you imagine Russ and Harden just staring up at the MVP trophy in the middle of games? That's a great idea. I love it.

All right. Before we get to Charlemagne, what if you stopped wasting money on expensive takeout orders? What if you signed up with Blue Apron? For less than $10 per meal, Blue Apron delivers easy-to-follow seasonal recipes along with pre-portioned ingredients right to your door. They have the highest standards and build a community of home chefs with no rival. No more overspending at restaurants or high-end grocery stores. With Blue Apron, prepare delicious, memorable meals yourself in under 40 minutes.

Some of the meals available in April include spinach and fresh mozzarella pizza with olives, bell peppers, and ricotta salata. Sweet and sour salmon with bok choy, carrot, and ginger fried rice. Parmesan crusted chicken with creamy fettuccine and roasted broccoli. I would eat all of these. Baby broccoli and fontina paninis with hard-boiled egg and arugula salad right now you can get your first three blue apron meals for free with free shipping just go to blue apron.com slash bs blue apron a better way to cook and by the way i want to give a shout out to uh our ringer mlb show on tune in that you can find them for free all month and if you do a deal right

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Last thing, I jumped on the Oilers bandwagon last night, Tate. Nice. Edmonton. Yeah. Good for them. Overtime. 3-3. I got into it. I really like McDavid. I got excited. Yeah. Good for them. Overtime. 3-3. I got into it.

I really like McDavid. I got excited every time he had the puck. It was one of my best unadulterated bandwagon jumps in a while. Yeah. I'm not a huge hockey head, but when I do think of Connor McDavid, I think of that Grantland video and you. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah. The taking.

Yeah. All right. Here we go. Charlemagne the God. Enjoy the weekend. Go Celtics. Taping this on a Thursday morning morning i'm not sure when it's going up so if anything crazy happens between this taping and when you actually hear this don't blame us charlamagne the god is here bell simmons what's up my brother author yeah black privilege yeah opportunity comes to those

who create it uh it came out this week. You know, it's eight principles that I learned in my life that I just want to share with the people. You know, I always say I'm too dumb to be closed-minded. So all I have, you know, education-wise is just the sum total of my experiences. So I'm just sharing some experiences with the people. And I'm a big self-help guy. Like, I love self-help books. Like, I love Gladwell.

I love Wayne W. Dyer. I love Robert Greene. But all those guys are way smarter than me. And they have, like, historical examples to back up their principles. Yeah. I don't have that type of historical context or historical education in my brain. So I'm just using, you know, examples from my life. What's the number one favorite example that you have in this book?

Principle seven. Give people the credit they deserve for being stupid including yourself because that's basically to know it all knows nothing because like i just said i'm too dumb to be closed-minded so i have to be receptive to new information i have to be receptive to new people like i talk about the uh the drake and dj callous song no new friends and how like i hated that record not because of how it sounded sonically but just the message in it. Because it's like that, no new friends, no new friends. No, you should meet new friends.

You should grow and evolve and meet new people that can teach you new things and help you get to new levels and new places. Why would you close yourself off from new friends? That's closing yourself off from new information, which I think is stupid. Do you think this is the most interesting time for music and music personalities since you've been doing your show um 2017 all these different famous people at different points of their career the way they're releasing music has totally changed and just everything about it trying to put out the

perception of who you want people to think you are versus who you actually are i'm fascinated by all this stuff i'm very fascinated that's one reason i named the subtitle of the book opportunity comes to those who create it because i feel like we live in this era where it's a free-for-all yeah like there's no rules like remember back in the day you had all these gatekeepers you had people that had to press the button to make this happen or you know you need to press the button to make this thing go like now you can just be your own machine like there are no there are no gatekeepers anymore because there's no gates like if you want to be a broadcaster you could just start a podcast if you want to do tv you could just turn your video camera on if you want to do music you could just go do music and put it out on soundcloud and you may get an audience

and it's like everybody's scrambling to catch up with you record labels are scrambling like yo who's this guy this guy's already sold 500,000 records, got 500,000 streams. Our radio's like, this record's already red hot. Like, you know, he's got 40 million listens on SoundCloud. Like, why aren't we playing this? Like, it's a free-for-all. It's the perfect era to just create your own opportunity. Chance is the most fascinating one of all of them because he's basically eschewed the labels.

And he owns all his own stuff, basically. Yeah, there's this big debate going on on whether or not Chance is independent because his last project, Coloring Book, he actually sold, well, he gave it to Apple to be exclusive for like a week or two days or something, but they gave him a half a million dollar check. To me, that's the epitome of independence. You know what I mean? I can give you my project and for a couple days you have it exclusively,

I get a half a million dollars and then i can still give it to the people like that's up the independence like a mother effort like that's when you really control your own masters you control your own destiny you control your own product like i love what he's doing i don't know why these kids are signing the major labels nowadays what so what makes you want to stay with the breakfast club because that's like basically on a major label, but you could also have your own thing if you wanted to. That's a very good question, but I think... I mean, obviously you have a great thing going. It'd be stupid to leave,

but you must have thought about another direction too. No, I think it fuels everything else. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like I always tell people like, you could be a general and a soldier simultaneously. Like, you know, I got my own podcast the brilliant idiots and you know i got other things that i'm the executive producer of that i actually own i'm

the general there but you know when i'm with the breakfast club and i heart i'm a soldier and i'm fine with that yeah you know because i can i can use that platform to boost my other platforms right it's so i did that show i guess in October, November, December, somewhere in there. Yeah. Yeah. And you have the person in the middle, but Angela's on the left. Yeah. You're on the right. Yeah.

And DJ's in the kind of facing. Everybody calls him DJ. So you gotta, you gotta go, you gotta do this. So you're doing this the whole time. So you have the guest on a, you have the guest almost on their heels the whole time. I liked it. Yeah. It's like a triangle

triangle of death but somebody gets shut out like i i felt like i didn't give angela enough love and i felt like she i i think her feelings were hurt by the end it's all about i didn't flirt with her enough oh you thought she well no i just didn't i didn't flirt with her i didn't engage her i don't feel like i didn't put my arm around her after like i just i have a lot of regrets they're gonna call you misogynistic for that, though. What? Because they're going to. Well, I would have felt the same with you if I had spent most of.

You could have said you flirted with me, Bill. I was most of the time turned toward you. You could have said, I didn't feel like I flirted with you enough. I didn't flirt with DJing you enough. I didn't feel like she was totally engaged. Well, I got to flirt with her because she's a girl, a woman. Yes. No, I didn't feel like she was totally engaged.

I felt like I could have done more. Yeah. We live in that hype. We live in that hypersensitive era, though. I don't even be knowing when I'm offending people anymore. Well, you don't give a fuck, which I love. No, I didn't feel like she was totally engaged. I felt like I could have done more. Yeah. We live in that hypersensitive era, though. I don't even be knowing when I'm offending people anymore. Well, you don't give a fuck, which I love. No, I don't. I really don't.

You give zero fucks. No, I can't because it's too stressful. Yeah. Like, this is my thing. That's why I say you got to give people the credit they deserve for being stupid, including yourself. Like, I'm okay with learning. Don't jump down my throat because y'all have new ways of doing things now that i'm just not

accustomed to right i'm older you know what i'm older than y'all like for example the word female like i called a young lady a female like just like you know you know females we're not allowed to do that anymore they say it's offensive what yes because they say you're not being specific like meaning that meaning that there's female uh this is what a young lady told me verbatim, there's female rock snakes, there's female kangaroos. So you have to say female human. Oh my God. I'm telling you, I don't know. I'm confused.

I was at Harvard last week. They boycotted me. Well, they didn't boycott me, but some of the kids boycotted me. They said I was transphobic, misogynistic, and homophobic. I said, when? I'm literally the only person online that's everything. Like, you'll go online and you'll see somebody call me gay. Then you'll see somebody call me homophobic.

You'll see somebody call me a racist. Then see somebody call me an Uncle Tom. Like, I'm literally the only person that's everything. You're something to everybody. Yeah. So I'm like, when did I become homophobic and transphobic? So I'm like, what are the examples that y'all have of me saying that? They were upset because when I interviewed a lesbian rapper named Young M.A., she has a line in her song that says, Shorty gives me head and she deep throats.

So I'm like, how? So when she came to the show, I asked her, how? Did she suck the scrap on? How is that pleasurable to you? That's like getting a tattoo on a fake arm and saying, ouch. And they were like, that's transphobic. I'm like, I had no idea. So I'm sitting there talking to these kids at Harvard,

and they're telling me terms like homo, normal, heteronormal. I'm like, I don't know what's going on right now. I have no idea. But I'm open to learning. That's part of your book. You don't know what you going on right now i have no idea but i'm open to learning that's part of your book you don't know what you don't know and you're gonna learn stuff so you can't be offended at me just because i don't know i'm not yeah i don't know so one of the i said this when i came on your show which i loved i had so much fun when i came on but i'm very envious of anybody who who uh can just get away with saying anything and there's not a lot of, you know, there's fly by the seat of your pants, just go say stuff.

And certain people just reach this point where it's, I don't want to say it's acceptable, but people go, oh, well, that's them. They can do it. Like I had Daisies and Mero on. Love Daisies and Mero. On the pod this week. And I feel like they're hitting that point.

I think the Breakfast club is in that point i think howard stern's on that point joel rivers was barkley was there and now people kind of come at him with stuff so it was like he had it and he would but it's very hard to get to and you guys are there and i'm nervous of it i think it's because charlotte number one charles barkley's black and charles barkley speaks out against the black community a lot that's what i think it is because let's be clear there is nobody that can get you out of the paint faster than black twitter right when they are ready to get you up out of there you are done i know i've seen they've they got bill cosby they got nate parker they got o'reilly

like when o'reilly insulted everybody talks about those sexual harassment allegations. No, when O'Reilly insulted Queen Maxine Waters about her wig, they jumped on his ass, and it's been all downhill from there. I don't even call him Bill O'Reilly no more. I call him Bill O'Rapy. That's his name. Bill O'Rapy from the O'Rapy factor. Well, I think yesterday he got bounced. Yeah, he got bounced, which was shocking. 13 million dollars in sexual harassment suits is a lot like that's like you

could get a backup power forward for four years for 13 million dollars yeah it's just a lot of money but he's an asshole though but i mean i don't know him personally but people that i have friends at fox i don't know he says am i allowed to say that as a black person i have friends at fox but i have friends i have friends at Fox and they always say he's an asshole so it's like I talk about that in my book how manners will take you where money won't like if you're a genuinely nice person people may have your back so they had his back up to a certain point because he was making money but you know when he's those advertisers started pulling from his show they was just looking for a reason to get rid of Bill already but if Bill was probably a genuinely nice guy

that people liked, they'd probably be like, alright, you know, we can support you. What's the best thing about Black Twitter? The best thing about Black Twitter is that they can blow things up. They can blow things up for positive and negative. Like, they can

either empower things, like they do with like Issa Rae's show, Insecure, or, you know know shonda rimes scandal and how to get away with murder and all that stuff like that or they can destroy you like they did when they found out you know nate parker had uh been accused of rape 17 years ago and birth of a nation was coming up like they that movie disappeared y'all forgot that even came out that was supposed to be the big oscar thing that was supposed to be the movie that made oscar so white disappear right you're going to give this black liberation story and oscar is going to be the bell of the ball but moonlight ended up being that they

empowered moonlight right you know so i think the best thing about black twitter is they can empower things and they can destroy things what's the worst thing that twitter's done to your show that you thought was unfair? Oh, man. I mean, that's easy. And I don't even like talking about it, but I mean, I have to. I literally was texting

someone like, they keep asking me about this, but now it's me talking about it. Tommy Lauren. When I, I met Tommy Lauren once in my life. She was supposed to come

on The Breakfast Club the same week she did Trevor Noah's show. And I guess after she didn't do so well on Trevor, they pulled her from our show. And then I went up to Viacom because, you know, I work at MTV and MTV, too.

I got a show called Uncommon Sense Live that comes on Fridays at 1130. But I was up there because somebody up there had a bright idea that Charlamagne and Tommy would be good on the show together because I went on her show and, you know, debated her about the Black Panthers. So I went up there to have the meeting, no intention of doing the show or nothing. I really just wanted to have a conversation with her about how dangerous her rhetoric is to the Black community. So we actually sat down and chopped it up about that. I was explaining to her the things she says about the BLM are not accurate.

She compared the BLM to the KKK. And her reasoning for it was because she said she saw a video where some guys were walking and marching about wanting to kill cops. And then she was actually in Dallas the night that that guy went crazy and shot those police officers. She was getting texts, you know, to her phone saying she's next. And they put her parents address out there. So I understand why she felt the way she felt. I don't agree with it but i understood so i said to her well you're a trump supporter right and she goes yeah i go all trump supporters racist and she goes of course not she goes when i go to these rallies a lot of them are but it's some of

us who are just anti-government want somebody to drain the swamp so i said how come you can see the nuance in the trump supporters but not the nuance in the blm all trump supporters aren't racist all blm members don't want to kill cops so why can't you see that so that was the type of conversations that we were having met her one time in my life but what i messed up a couple days later i tweeted out and this is a conversation i should have had on my podcast or a conversation i should have had on radio that's the lesson i learned from this i tweeted out it'd be dope if a woke woman of color created a platform to control her narrative and become control our narrative and become a voice like Tommy Lauren did. Oh, my God.

I was trending on Facebook for like two days. So people thought you were complimenting her. Yes. They thought I was telling black women to be like Tommy Lauren. When all I was talking about was infrastructure. Right. That's all that. Like her Facebook is popping. You're saying the role

model of her path, you wish that a black woman could do a similar version of it. Of course I'm not comparing none of the sisters to Tommy Lauren. They're smarter. They're more intelligent. They run circles around Tommy. I was just talking about infrastructure, but what I learned is certain conversations

should not be had on social media. That is a conversation I should have explained to people. I don't know if I've totally learned that yet even though I've been burned many times. Yeah. It's just tough.

Sometimes You ain't get that black Twitter roasting. Well the problem with social media is it's 140 characters and you're not putting a lot of thought into it

and I've learned over the years like if I'm going to tweet something and sometimes I'll screw up but for the most part it's like I'm putting thought into this. This is going out in the world.

Because if you're in your car, you're getting coffee, you're in your house in your pajamas. It's just see how president goes. You forget like, boom, it's going to be seen by all these people. And you better make sure the words are the way you want them. Well, let's do a social experiment. You should pull out your phone right now and tweet out. No, I think Bill O'Reilly misunderstood. And watch what happens watch what happens i remember pat oswald had a great series of tweets once where the tweet kept cutting off it was like nine or ten tweets in a

row and the tweets kept getting cut off but they were continuous but if you just saw the individual tweet each one was like super offensive yeah twitter then it would lead to the next one. Yeah, it's a bad chain letter. Yeah. Like, because literally, if you literally followed my timeline that night, I explained exactly what I was talking about. They don't care.

They don't care. They took that one tweet out of context, ran with it. It went from me wanting women of color to have the infrastructure that Tommy has to Charlamagne hates black women. Right. I'm like, huh? You've had that happen a couple times, right?

Like that time you got jumped? Yeah, well, that wasn't because of, well, I got jumped on Twitter by black women, but I got jumped. No, no, you literally got physically jumped. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you ran for your life. And then didn't you take shit because people were like, you didn't. No, because I talk about that in the book, too.

That's part of the Live in the book too that's part of the live your truth chapter that's one of my principles live your truth so nobody can use your truth against you and that's the eminem and eight mile theory because at the end of eight mile b rabbit said everything he possibly could say about himself so it left his opponent speechless and defenseless so when that it's a good theory yeah when that happened that can i get a drop moment i immediately when i when i ran into building, I ran right to the microphone and was like, shout out to those dudes who just tried to jump me. I said, I talked about the story all morning. I didn't try to make it seem like I fought them. I ran. Dude hit me in the back of the head. I've heard way too many stories about dudes getting kidnapped in New York and oh yeah yeah I saw the guy with the camera I didn't know if they were gonna try to hold me down and pee on me they had a plan and whatever their plan was I wasn't gonna let that plan go through so I took off and I would do it again right now if I'm not fighting four guys at one time so when I told the story when the video

came out it softened the blow yeah like people still got their jokes off they still get their jokes off to this day but they really couldn't kill me they couldn't use it against me because i already had owned it does it scare you that you the platform that you have led to four people who wanted to beat the shit out of you and actually tried to do it nah because i've seen um i've seen it happen to so many people before like i always think about chris everett when he jumped on jim rome you remember that oh uh jim everett well because he kept calling him jim's fault jim's fault i he because jim ronald kub kahn jim's fault jim's fault i called him chris just now but he kept you know he did that and so i always think about stuff like that like that i think about the guy when he got stabbed on cheaters

do we know if that happened or not i still that positive i don't know joey greco yeah joey greco so i think about stuff like that i'm like it's possible like you can't say what you want to say and expect people to react the way you want them to react I hate people that do that I hate people that say something and then when somebody jumps out the window and reacts in a way they don't like they be like yo you're overreacting man no who am I to tell you this person that they overreacted when did the breakfast club get to the point when it became the go-to place for basically all the black pop culture power brokers that's a good question man i think like five years ago four years ago i'll say about uh

i'll say maybe 2014 because i remember us i remember kanye stuff was the stuff that really pushed you to the next level right it was the first kanye interview that that took us to like a mainstream level but it was actually the second kanye interview that took us to like a mainstream level. But it was actually the second Kanye interview that took us over the top. But it was that week. It was a culmination of that week. Because I remember like it was yesterday. This is when Tiger first started dating Kylie Jenner. Right. So he was denying it. So for whatever reason, Tiger was denying it because she was like 15. Boom. Yeah. He was red shirting her. Yeah yeah so he came to the breakfast club to defend it yeah and then it's like no no amber rose came first and was giving tiger shit about it then

tiger came to defend it and for whatever reason kanye came the end of the week to do a second interview and kanye basically was like this is why i love coming to this show because this is like the epitome of pop culture and i remember that week because i remember harvey 11 calling me and saying yo congratulations let's team up yeah harvey i mean harvey posted a lot about stuff but he was just like yo congratulations y'all guys have become like a a pop culture hotbed and then like last year was a big year because the same week people forget this because i was on you of course no it's true just like you give us a different audience it's like a crossover thing yeah But Hillary Clinton came on a Monday. Yeah.

And that was the whole Hillary and the hot sauce thing. And I told her, this is one of them times they're going to say, you're pandering to black people again. And then Birdman was that Friday. So it was one week. Birdman. Yeah, we get those moments where it's just like the whole week is Breakfast Club content. Birdman was the one that seemed like he wanted to fight everybody, right? Yeah, put some respect on my name that was pretty great he most amazing when the guest comes

in that angry and that hot i don't even know i wouldn't even know what to do nothing you don't do anything you turn the cameras on if you watch the if you watch the video i already had told him because i saw him outside this is a true story he was in the lobby and eminem lose yourself was playing yeah i don't know where it was coming from, but it was playing. And he was just pacing back and forth. So I go, wide shot. Yeah. So if you notice, if you watch the video, when he walks, it's a wide shot.

Yeah. All the cameras are on. And then he starts talking. He curses us out and then sits down for the interview. And then Envy starts the interview. And I'm like, oh, no, no, we're not just getting away from that. I'm like, okay, this guy just cursed us out. let's get in he was like no i already said what i needed to say i was like well say it we on the air but we the camera was rolling the whole time like i

knew that was gonna be gold was that the closest you came to an altercation in the studio no actually i think the it's never the guys that are like rah-rah and real hostile that bother me. It's the cool, calm, collected guys. The one time I really thought I was about to get my ass beat in the studio was Nelly. Really? Yeah, because Nelly's an athletic guy. He's in shape. And he was just sitting in there.

And I said something to him. I was like, you know, Nelly, you cold out here right now. Ain't nobody checking for pimp juice. Like, you know, like you're cold. Like you're just cold. Like you're not hot as an artist no more. And he kind of like cracked his knuckles and he goes, you know, man, I keep retainers for guys like you.

He's basically saying I got to keep lawyers on retainer for guys like you. You know, I'll give you a couple shots to the head. You sue me, here's this $40,000. Get the hell out of here. You know what I mean? But I really felt like Nelly would have swung on me. So did you respond, it's getting hot in here? I just fell back. Because I'm not ever purposely trying to push anybody.

Yeah. I'm just honestly not. That's kind of insulting that you said that, though. What? That you said that he was cold as an artist i mean that's not he is that's a i mean that's a very upfront thing to say i mean musically he was at the time i mean nelly is a legend no doubt like nelly walk in this room everybody knows who nelly is but you're not playing nelly music right now i know not to mess with him if he's got people on retainer for people like us and then nelly's to play baseball football like yeah nelly i'm never scared of like loud out of shape rappers like that don't

scare me the loudest person in the room is usually the softest anyway it's the cool calm collector guys who calmly tell you like this is not what you want right now relax you know who did that to me too robin thick robin thick pulled me to the side one time and was like I really don't appreciate none of the shit you be saying about me Robin Thicke Robin fucking Thicke

because he was at the MTV offices one time this is a true story this was years ago I had just started at MTV and he was taking a shit and he like I mean the bathroom

was fucked up like it was funky and shit and so when he walks out I'm just the bathroom was fucked up. Like it was funky as hell. And so when he walks out, I'm just looking at him like, look at this guy in this clean cut suit and all these girls running up on him. And they have no idea what he just did in the bathroom. So I was telling that story. And he just did not appreciate that at all. Yeah.

Robert Thicke. Him and his dad, I think, are the premier father-son stick men. Really? I mean, his dad I think are the premier father son stick men really I mean his dad passed away last year tragically but I think

the two of them they've had a lot of sex yeah he probably smashed all the yeah Robin Thicke I can't think of

nobody else you don't think Charlie Sheen Martin Sheen maybe that gets dark though yeah it does get dark it's the non-dark father-son stick. Yeah, once you get age, you went too far.

The Sheens, that's a rough story. There's Clint and his son. Who? Clint Eastwood and his son. Oh, that's a good one. You think Clint Eastwood? Clint Scott. Clint definitely got it.

I don't know who Scott is. Clint definitely got it. Scott's the Paul Walker replacement in Fast 8. I've never watched a Fast and Furious movie in my life. If you watch Fast 8, there's a new white guy that you don't totally recognize to replace Paul Ed Scott. I've never watched a Fast and Furious movie ever in my life. So you had Kanye twice. Kanye is my dream podcast.

He'd be my number one choice. If I had a fantasy draft of like top 10 podcast possibilities. He's in LA. He's right in Calabasas. Kanye and Michelle Obama would be my top two. I love Michelle Obama. Have you had Michelle Obama on yours? No, I haven't.

I'm actually doing something with Michelle soon, though. Like, I don't know if she's going to be there, but I'm not supposed to talk about that? Oh, never mind. All right, we'll cut it out. We'll cut that part out. No, you don't have to cut it. No, we'll cut it. It's fine.

It's good, man. That's why it's a podcast. Huh? Yeah, I might be doing something. Okay. All right, we'll keep it. But Kanye's interesting. I think Kanye...

So what was your read? Just as guy to guy, dude to dude. I was an upset fan. Sitting five feet away with him. Upset fan. I'm a disgruntled fan. First time you were disgruntled. Or the whole time you were disgruntled.

First time. Second time I respected the fact he came back. Because you went at him the first time. Yeah. It was like uncomfortable. Yes, because I was upset because he's out here talking about all of these things that we don't give a fuck about i don't care that the fashion industry won't accept you i like when kanye was socially conscious kanye and was saying things

like george bush doesn't care about black people like we were at a very tumultuous time we're still at a very tumultuous time in this country we need voices that gonna stand up and speak out against the injustice black people are facing he's out here ranting about sneakers Yeah, and clothes like I don't want to hear that brother we don't care and then I hated the thing when he kept saying he came out with the song new slaves and You come out with the song new slaves But then you're yelling and screaming for these corporate entities to embrace you like it doesn't make any sense I guess it's a mixed message like either you want to be of the corporate fashion industry or you don't.

Like, you can't say you're a new slave, but then, like, Nike, sign me. Gucci, Louis, love me. Like, what? Come on, make up your mind. I would also argue that he's had the biggest impact on sneakers of probably anyone this decade, right? You think? Well, just, like, the Yeezys and all that. Like, just how cool and unique

they were I'm gonna ask Tommy what do you think Tommy? Who's had the biggest impact this decade? Overrated Tommy says He's top three Who's number one?

LeBron LeBron's She isn't selling though Steph Curry Steph Curry got people to wait Steph Curry the Under Armour

stock tanked after the Chefs I know No I thought they went up I had the Under Armour stock I thought when the Chefs. I know. No. I thought they went up. I had the Under Armour stock. I thought Unalma went down after one of them said

they support Trump or something like that. Who's the one? Yeah, that's what it was. Unalma said they supported Trump. Well, but I think the shitty shoes didn't help either.

They came out of the Chefs. Who's the Adidas one? Because Adidas is the hottest one right now. James Harden. Maybe the Hardens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Steph Curry's sneakers are trash, but he made people wear them.

Yeah. Which is like saying something. Yeah, okay. All right, so back to Kanye. Yeah. I was watching, I'm ashamed to admit this, and I don't watch this show, so don't judge me, but I happen to watch this show because it was the one, the robbery show on Keeping Up with the Kardashians, whatever the hell it's called.

Gotcha. So I watched the whole episode. Okay. And I i watched it with my daughter which was a mistake because she was like i love this show let's start taping i'm like oh my god my almost 12 year old daughter oh why are you doing that no i was like no you're not watching the show i'll let you watch just about anything i'm not letting you watch the kardashians but in this show there's this whole french runway section with kanye when he goes because they're going to walk the runway and kanye is giving them advice on no no wear that outfit no you should try this dress and i'm thinking like i mean more great for him that he loves us this is his hobby but

we've kind of fucking needed kanye last year yeah out of all for yes for his music i think 2016 would have been important yes and he's in paris he's in the sunken place have you seen the movie get out have you seen the movie get out yeah i have kanye's in the sunken place that's a great way to put somebody needs to flash him with a camera light and get him up out of that kardashian world now don't get me wrong life of pablo was an amazing album too by the way i loved the life of pablo but it's almost like nobody cared. I thought Famous was one of the three best songs he ever did. Yes, Famous.

Just for pure enjoyment. I just fucking love that song. The joint with Chance the Rapper, Ultra Light Beams. Oh my God. What's it called? The 30 Hours. That album was amazing. No, he didn't get credit for it.

He didn't get credit for it at all. Because his personality and everything that surrounds him is bigger than his music now but the Kardashians are just boring period like because you know why because of the Trump administration

like I'd rather keep up with the Trump administration than keep up with the Kardashians keep up with the Trumps yeah they're more entertaining would Jared Kushner say anything I like the SNL where they

Jimmy Fallon played Jared Kushner and he didn't say anything I didn't see it he was just mute I didn't see it they kept asking him questions and he would just stay in there like. I didn't see it. He was just mute. I didn't see it. They kept asking him questions and he would just stay in there like If I don't catch SNL online

Keep up with the Trumps. I don't watch it. So you'd watch that? Yes. I'm watching it now. That's what CNN is. CNN is like the new E! Network. It is.

CNN is the new E! Network. I'm watching it every day. The Kardashians are like just about everything you're against. It's about 85% of all the things that bug you, I would say. 85% of everything that bugs me because I think that they started- Under in fame.

Yeah. They started the era of people just wanting to be famous, but they actually are making a lot of money. Yes. Everybody else that's chasing that dream of fame isn't making any money. Fame is not a foundation to stand on. I talk about that in the book as well. We live in this era where everybody's chasing a celebrity.

And success is almost dictated by if you're a celebrity or not. But that's the stupidest mentality in the world. Success should always be subjective. Like me, I chose to be a radio personality. And that led to TV and books and movies and other things but it's a guy living in Charlotte North Carolina right now making 50 to 60 thousand dollars a year and he hates you no no he got a car he got a nice place to stay his wife is good his kids are good he's happy that's successful right that's really successful the American dream is not celebrity they I mean, it happens to some people, but everybody cannot chase being a celebrity.

I would say chasing celebrity, but also maintaining celebrity. I don't care about maintaining celebrity. No, I'm saying that's been the other part of this whole thing is people figuring out how to stay relevant. Oh, yeah. Maintain the relevance, whether they're doing little commercials or how they're doing social media. Setting themselves on fire on social media. Yeah, or little gimmicks to try to be relevant for a day yeah i talk about that's more annoying than anything very annoying i got a principle in my book called fuck your dreams right and it's fuck your dreams if they're not your dreams because you know when you grow up

especially as a black man in america the people you see that are successful who look like you are usually in entertainment and athletics so everybody runs those fields, but that's not really your dream. You're just doing that because you're seeing it work for somebody else. So every now and then you need somebody to pull you to the side and say, fuck your dreams. I had somebody do that to me. I got a mentor named Dr. Robert Evans. I used to want to rap and I had just started doing radio. So when I saw it working for Ludacris and he was a rapper and he was doing radio, I was like, oh, that's what I'm going to do. And he was like, no, you're not because you suck as a rapper, but you're really good at radio. You should focus on that because you can go from good to great.

And that's what I did. Right. And now I'm sitting there talking to Bill Simmons and I got a book out. You should have that speech with Kanye about his fashion. I did the first time we interviewed him that's true you did i'm like why i got testy and guess what it's cool if that if you want to chase the fashion world great we just don't want to hear about it nobody cares about first world problems bro motherfuckers is really out here going through real life shit we don't care that the biggest issue in your world is that louis vuitton won't let you design somebody's silk underwear. Isn't that the biggest, that's the curse of when musicians

and comedians become super successful. Is that part of what made them successful is they were just like anyone else and they're rapping about the stuff that resonates with anybody or they're doing in their act.

And then you hit a certain point. was caught the eddie murphy syndrome where you know he's he's still the most talented person in my lifetime in my opinion eddie's amazing and he gets to a point where he's just around four people yeah he's living in this mansion well you know how are you supposed to be funny if you're just in some mansion with with you know your cousin and your three buddies and you can't go out because you're too famous what you have you're not having experiences yeah i mean in the 48 laws of power they talk about isolation being dangerous yes but i mean you can still make social observations like it's not like yes but you're just doing it through tv yeah you know you do got to interact right yeah that's what made eddie so great and especially in the early

80s was his ability to be like here's here's an invitation my uncle and here's my grandmother and here's celebrity and he was just he was always in it and then after a while you just I think that's why he hasn't wanted to stand up comedy I'm still looking for a comedian that uh can break down this new world we live in you know Chappelle kind of did it a little bit on on his special when he talks about social media I'm interested to see what Chris Rock does but those guys are older well you have you read about what Chris Rock's doing no like this new tour is it's a lot about his divorce and uh you know relationships and stuff I think it's dark I don't think it's what when I if I think it's on Netflix

when it comes out on Netflix I don't think it's what people are expecting Chappelle felt like I liked watching both of those I still feel like the third and fourth ones will be the ones he's coming back it's almost like Jordan coming back from playing baseball for two years he's gotta get his stuff back cause it seemed like a lot of old material

yeah it didn't seem like right now yeah yeah yeah you're right you're right his third and fourth will be better. I'm interested to see what Chris does, though. But like I said, I think we need the younger guys to navigate through this new social media world. I like Gerard Carmichael. You ever talk to Gerard Carmichael? You know, I thought his HBO special was really good.

He's supposed to come on. Time is getting him at some point. Gerard's funny. He's got a really unique rhythm to how he delivers his stuff, too. He does. I can't really compare to him. He's a little off kilter. Yeah.

I like what he said about Jay jay-z and martin luther king jr because a lot of people wouldn't say that out loud but it's a lot of kids who probably do feel like that because we are being more and more disconnected from our history so we don't even really i mean not me because i understand but a lot of kids don't even really understand what martin luther king jr meant right they don't realize that you're actually sitting here me and you are sitting here doing this because of martin King Jr. You know what I mean? So when he said that Jay-Z means way more to me than Martin Luther King Jr., I understood it. A lot of people was like, oh, that's disrespectful. But I'm like, I get what he's saying.

He said it up really nicely. Like he was embarrassed about it. He wasn't proud of it. Yes. But, and then he does it and it's like, all right. And he said, I can quote damn near every Jay--z lyric i know like two bars from the i have a dream that's pretty that's true yeah like if you of course in historical context you know of course who's big that might even be no you're i'm about to say that might be debatable no yeah you know who's bigger you know what i mean but that's true a true statement like i can't sit here and quote the i have a dream speech i didn't how did you feel post-Lemonade?

What's the move for Jay-Z now? I think Jay-Z's doing everything right. Okay. And the reason I say I think he's doing everything right is Jay-Z is a perfect example of constantly growing, constantly evolving, but somehow finds a way to still remain grounded. And it's like we've been taking this journey with him since Reasonable Doubt. Like literally he's showing us where he's at he's showing us every point in his life through his music from reasonable doubt to in my lifetime the hard knock life to you know the blueprint like he just showed us even you know when he puts out songs about blue ivy being born or you know when

he'll get on the all the way up remix and give you a couple little bars about the elevator incident like you know exactly what jay-z is at at every point in his life. We've watched him grow. We've watched him evolve. He's the guy that we constantly root for because he's the person that's really moving the culture forward and showing us that it really can be done. He's the epitome of black privilege. The epitome of it.

So it's just like, I feel like he's doing everything right. And he put a lot of people on. That's the thing I like. See, I'm the type of person, I like to throw more assists than I do score. Like, Jay-Z's a great scorer, but I mean, come on. Rihanna's his artist. Kanye's his artist. J. Cole.

Like, you know, these are his artists. Like, he had record labels. Beanie Siegel, Memphis Bleak. Like, he's put so many people on. I feel like that's how you continue to empower yourself and why he's looked at the Don he is now. What was it, like four or five years ago when he had the New York song that was played for a year straight?

Empire State of Mind. You know that was his first number one single ever? It's a great song, but it's also the all-time irrational confidence song because he's basically saying, I own New York, I'm the most important person. But nobody called him out on it. It's kind of right. It's kind of right.

It's kind of right. People are like, I want to fight this, but I can't. Who's more influential? It was unbelievable. I can see LeBron writing that about Cleveland. Cleveland, yeah. But Jay-Z's like,

I own New York, and here's a song about it that's really good. You're all going to listen to it for a year. You land at the airport, you hear Empire State of Mind. This one I knew things had really changed. Oh, yeah. I was doing a New Year's Eve special for MTV.

Ball Drops. First song they play. Frank Sinatra. New York, New York. When Frank Sinatra went off, guess what they played? Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z. And in that song, he's telling us that he's the new Sinatra. I was like, wow.

And the crowd, the energy never shifted. Right. The energy went from Frank Sinatra, New York, everybody loved that song. You know, hugging, kissing. Empire State of Mind, oh, even a bigger pop. So I was like, wow. It's in the top two. And then New York State of Mind, Billy Joel, which I think has endured too.

And that's like 40 years old now. But that's more like a love letter to New York. Jay-ay-z's like i own new york i'm the guy now and new york state of mind by nas oh yeah that was on that was on your matic album yeah that's when he that's when like that's for the old school new york when you get slashed across the face with a razor blade yeah and robbed for your pelly pelly on the subway train that's that's the old school have you had jay-z on the show? Yeah, we had Jay-Z on. That was another one. That was another one.

Kind of secretly boring, right? No. No? That was a great interview. Really? Yeah, man. It was a great interview for me because I'm a Jay-Z fan. And it was like just historical hip hop questions.

I always wanted to ask Jay and get his opinion. Like how people say things like he wouldn't be where he is if Biggie was still alive. Or like underground stuff. Like people said Jay-Z took young Chris from Philadelphia style. Things like that. And he wasn't opposed to answering any of them. Or even like, you know, rumors about Beyonce faking her pregnancy. He was open to talking about that. I mean, the pillow came out that one time.

And she sat down, remember? It did? No, there was this internet photo that people claimed no she sat down remember it did no it's there's there's this internet photo that people claim she was sitting down and like the pit the alleged pillow and her stomach bent forward and people have gotten six years of battle yeah so i mean jay's always a great interview all those guys like that are great interviews those guys that came up in the 90s early 2000s like they're they got the best stories those are the people you actually learn from like i like interviewing guys like you because i can learn from you right like i don't want to sit there and

talk to somebody i know i got more money than you know what i'm saying i got somebody i know is not going to be around next year like what's the point the third lead and two broke girls yes exactly so you're the chef yeah the third broke girl who's really broke in real life her yeah absolutely when i had kd and naz on yes we when you're talking about how you want to learn from people and how like the the best possible thing for you is when something unexpected yeah it was so cool that was one of my favorite things i've ever done because they didn't really know each other but there there was a common link because they didn't really know each other but there was a common link that they didn't totally know

they had. Hip hop probably. And also that Durant was, this was the summer he's taking all the shit for his decision and Nas had been in the same shoes to some degree. So this whole sellout you joined a better team type thing and as it's going I didn't want

to be overt about trying to be you know overt about trying to be like but i was trying to nudge him there and at some point i saw a click with naz and then he's like he had some moment where he's like you know and i look at this young fellow over here and i see and then he started doing exactly what i kind of hoped he would see yeah it was fucking cool you know it's like i mean he's like Confucius. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I just feel like he should just walk around just spouting wisdom. You know he doesn't do a lot of interviews. I know, he doesn't do anything. At all.

He's never done The Breakfast Club. Yeah. Seriously? No, he's never done it. Nas does not do a lot of interviews. Even if you go online, you're not going to find an overabundance of long-form Nas interviews. You might get some clips here and there of him saying some things, but I can't think of a real in-depth Nas interview.

If I had him for over an hour, his connection with Biggie was the most fascinating thing to me coming out of that. Because he brought it up a couple different times, and just almost like there was a sense of loss. Yeah. Just as a competitive musician, that it was just good to have Biggie in his life it would have made him a little bit better made him better the feeling I

got and I never thought about that before I love Nas Nas is one you know in my book Black Privilege I talk a lot about artists whose music resonated with me because they had a lot of socially conscious things in their music I come from a small town yeah called Monks Corner South Carolina and for me I was able to transcend my circumstances because of literature and because of music. And Nas was one of those guys who would be saying certain things in his rhymes that would make me go research. Yeah. I'd be going to research certain people, going to research certain places, certain books

and things he would name drop. And I feel like his song, I did a Black Privileges playlist for title. And he did a song called I Can. And I feel like that song is the epitome of just anybody embracing their divine privilege, embracing what they are and who they are and saying, I can do anything I want to on this planet because God made me and God put me here. And that record, Nah, I Can is is like the soundtrack to that whole book. He has my second favorite most improbable Instagram account. Really? That I enjoy, other than KG's, which is the goat of Instagram accounts. I haven't seen KG's account.

KG's account is incredible. I give KG dump. It's KG's account I would pay for. If it was like, KG's Instagram account is now $10. I'm at the bank. Done. I'll put it in PayPal. I gotta follow Kevin Gunn. Because he'll just be like i'm on the beach

with rashid wallace and then the next one is like i'm in my man cave with andre miller i get you on tnt and then the next one's like i'm in greece with paul pierce i don't know i just enjoy it he does a show right kg 21 yeah you got area 21 i gave him donkey of the day recently you did yeah because it was some word what was the word he he he was trying to pronounce it on his show it was like he didn't it was like undisputedly or something i don't know what the fuck came out of his mouth like it sounded like it sounded like if you muted the tv and buster rimes was rapping and it was just mad closed captioned exclamation mark yeah i did not understand what he said but it's like he didn't

even attempt the word he just like now you're reading the prompt and you see the word and you know it's something you can't pronounce so you just try to like brush over it yeah he did that and i had to give him donkey today for it i uh kg's from south carolina too i respect kg a lot he is all charisma on tv because if you ran a transcript of what he actually said it's like i'm with charlamagne that's my dude he's right here he's the best that's my guy it's just that for a minute and then but nothing's actually said yeah but it's it feels like something important's happening when you're watching he's very charismatic guy all right espn oh no every time it never fails every time before i come see you when i'm in la i end up doing uh sports center because my home homegirl Carrie Champion too Carrie she's a real

good friend of mine I love Carrie Champion oh she's amazing and so I was on there just now promoting my book and uh her co-host David Lloyd yeah you know they do this top five list uh-uh so today it was top five books yeah so Carrie had some great books Carrie had like Pyramids of Success by John Wooden she had uh I think it's Life from the Times Muhammad Ali and like David had like Friday Night Lights which was a good book but then he had Seabiscuit so as soon as I saw Seabiscuit

I got pissed off I don't know why Seabiscuit pisses me the fuck off I hate the movie I don't like the book the movie was terrible and that's why I go

David's list is trash I go Seabiscuit is trash horse racing is trash it's just trash and I just like he kind of he was like well you know so so carrie

was like yo you should need to apologize to him that's the fuck is you doing she didn't say fuck is you doing but you can't tell him it's awesome why would you say that to my co-host whatever whatever yeah so then on twitter just now jamel hill gave david props for a book he posted and then he tweets out so that was a subtweet by Jamel. Yeah. Well, yeah. I don't think it was a subtweet, but he retweeted it and goes, well, not according to Charlemagne to God. Oh, man. I'm like, well, damn, David. I didn't mean to.

I knew you guys were going to feud at some point. So I just apologized to him on Twitter. Like, I didn't think your whole list was trash. But I just don't fuck with Seabiscuit. Right. I just don't do it. It's nothing he did. You just don't like Seabiscuit.

Nothing he did. As soon as I see Seabiscuit, I just go to a dark place. I can't stand it. Like, I can't stand it. You gave a whole movie about fucking horse racing? Well, then it led to the second movie about, it led to the Secretariat movie. Seabiscuit had a sequel? Yeah, well, it was basically a sequel to Secretariat, which is the same movie, just different horse.

Who the fuck? Nobody, the only horse people give a fuck about is Mr. Ed, bro. If they don't, if Mr. Ed is the only horse anybody has historically ever cared about what other horse did people care about other than mr ed secretary really greatest horse ever made the made the sports century list of greatest athletes it was like 19th is the best athlete i think it was ahead of bill russell not doing it the only thing the only thing you should give props to horses about is their dick size that's it secretary was hung like a. That's it. Secretary was hung like a horse.

That's it. Everything else is trash. Seabiscuit. I can't stand it. I hate it. How would you fix ESPN? Because they're spending a lot of time trying to fix ESPN right now. Honestly, I would have more people of the culture on ESPN.

I love Carrie. Aren't they doing that, though? They are, but I think they should do more of it. Like I love, like, okay. It's odd sometimes because you'll have Carrie and you'll have somebody like David Lloyd on the same show, right? And not saying that David's not good. I'm just saying it's odd

because I wasn't disrespecting him when I was saying his list is trash. That's just how we talk. Yeah. You know what I mean? Michael Smith would have understood that. Yeah. And Michael Smith would have pushed back,

like my list ain't trash, bro. He would have pushed back. Like, my list ain't trash, bro. He'd have pushed back. He wouldn't have just been like, what does he mean, trash? Like, garbage? Because in his mind, he's thinking literal trash. Like, he's thinking about trash day. He's thinking about when the garbage man doesn't come and pick up his shit. Like, I know that's what he's thinking about.

So I just think you need more people of the culture. Like, I love the six with Michael Smith and Jemele Hill. Okay. And I love the fact that all of them are doing things outside of sports because sports is like pop culture it's blended in with politics now it's blended in with music so it's good that they have such diverse guests that come on the show i just think they need to do a little bit more with their um i used to take shit for that last decade really yeah well being diverse or no yeah be diverse uh no like mixing sports

pop culture all these different things ESPN last decade was basically it's gotta be sports and then I would try to mix stuff up and they would get mad at me

sports isn't just it's just not that interesting anymore not overall like it's all the subplots that come with sports it's what people are tweeting and like you said

KG on his Instagram like what people are doing like people care about more than just what you did on the court it's a culture around sports absolutely I think they got

a little upset too on ESPN because I said that baseball is trash it was way better when everybody was on steroids it was though not untrue

steroid era was way better baseball feels like each year becomes less relevant until the playoffs I don't even watch the playoffs anymore

it's becoming like a six month sport people are still watching playoffs yeah but like right now if we if we just started talking about bryce harper for 10 minutes whoever's listening to this on on in their car when they're working out we're out they're just bumping us off i don't even know who the fuck bryce harper is i told you that'd be a terrible conversation i'm talking to tommy earlier i said i couldn't name you one baseball player like none I don't know any baseball players

Gladwell has this Gladwell has this theory that that I wish I had thought of and I love and I'm very jealous of but he said on my podcast about how the NBA is

one of the only things left that's in the middle what does that mean? where you have all these different all these different things about life right now sports, music, pop culture

whatever it's all these little niches it's all like over here and it's over there and everybody's got their little things that they love but the nba is one of the only things that people of all different types of experiences cultures ethnicities class doesn't matter like everybody's got an opinion on the nba playoffs right now somebody like westbrookok, which is funny because 40 years ago, the NBA, as we talked about when I was on your show, the NBA, the rap on it was it was too black and the fans were too white

and how could this make sense? And now it's like, I would say 20 of the 25 most marketable American athletes are basketball players. It's completely flipped and it's in the middle, which I think is a good thing. I think it's a great thing, but there's nobody in their right mind

who should ever complain about the NBA being too black. Well, that hasn't happened for 20 years. Yeah, because if the NBA was white, it'd be baseball. Nobody would give a fuck. What white NBA player is amazing? It was a storyline in the mid-late 90s when the guys were making a lot of money

and the hip-hop influence had drifted into the weed. Yeah, Allen Iverson. And it was a lot of money and the hip hop influence had drifted into the league. Yeah, Allen Iverson. And it was a lot. They put the dress code in. If you go back and read Sports Illustrated, some of the publications back then, they're always like, what does the NBA do about their,

it's all coded. Yeah. Their problem connecting to fans. And it's like, what do you mean connecting to fans? Because their guys are making rap albums and wearing jogging suits to games and stuff like so what happened to the nba dress code do they still do that well the guys

the guys care about how they look now yeah i think i think they're scared to implement a dress code now because they'll be like i don't want to offend anybody's sexuality like look what he's wearing well yeah his jeans are really skinny he's got a russell westbrook's thing yesterday right straight 80s. He had a huge hole in his jeans. It's funny to me that they put so much thought into that. It's a must-win game in Houston. It's like, where are my jeans with the giant hole in them?

Russell Westbrook's amazing, though, man. So you're pro-Westbrook. I'm definitely pro-Westbrook. We're taping this after game two, and he took 18 shots in the fourth quarter, which I've never seen in my life. Why wouldn't he? Who else is going to shoot on the Thunder? See, I can't stand this.

I'm serious. This is the way. That's, no. Who else? No. Your list is trash. I don't understand how you average 10 assists a game. I'm like, who is he passing the ball to?

Oh, please. Seriously. The Westbrook defenders, I can't take. Who is he, though? Who is he passing the ball to? Ask yourself this. If you're in his team and you barely ever get to shoot, and in the fourth quarter he's going to shoot every time,

and then the one time you get past the ball, you're expected to make the shot. Is that a good place to be in as a basketball player? So how is he averaging 10 assists a game? Well, because the defenses are shading over him all the time, but he also has the ball all the time. They had 20 assists total in that game. He had 13. They took like 95 total in that game. He had 13.

Shit. They took 95 shots in that game. He took 43. Yeah. You can't win that way. It's never worked. Maybe he needs to... You gotta trust your teammates, man.

You gotta trust your teammates. You can't do your breakfast club and just be like, I'm talking the whole time. Everybody shut up. Oh, no, no. That's not gonna work. Angela, in an hour,

I'm gonna say something to you. Just be ready. You can't do that. You think that's why KD left? Yes. Absolutely. I did that in Oklahoma City. You can't do that. You think that's why KD left? Yes. Absolutely. I did that in Oklahoma City. Why couldn't Coach Reo that in, though?

Why couldn't Coach Reo that in and say, Westbrook, you cannot shoot 50 times a game? Some guys are just— I mean, that's the thing that makes him great is he really felt every time that he was the right guy to take the shot. He's got so much confidence, so much swagger. And you don't want to deter that. No.

You let it ride. I mean, that was the big thing with Kobe. Phil Jackson was always, starting in like 2003, Phil Jackson's always trying to figure out how to, you know, pull the steering wheel away from him a little. Keep the teammates involved. And Kobe had a lot of struggles with that. And then he finally settled into a selfish place that was still okay, beneficial.

I'd rather tell people that. I'd rather have to pull somebody back from doing too much than have to push them. So I don't really have a problem with what Westbrook does. It's just like, how do we figure, how do you figure out how to just pull it back a little bit? Here's the thing. You can't say winning is the most important thing

when you're trying a style that has never won. What he's trying to do with the ball and how much he has it and how many times he shoots and how he monopolizes it, we have a 70-year track record of this not working. It's never succeeded at any real level. So why do it? Maybe Westbrook's just realizing, I don't need to be here anymore. Maybe he's upset he signed that three-year extension.

Maybe he's like, I should get the fuck out of here too. They paid Oladipo almost $100 million. by that way yeah maybe he's upset he signed that three year extension maybe he's like I should get the fuck out of here too but they have I mean they paid Oladipo like almost 100 million bucks yeah and he's gotten worse in the last year they paid

Cantor like 75 million or something he can barely play in this series Adams is gonna get paid he's getting worse I like Adams but I'll never forgive them

for letting go of James Harden I feel like that was the beginning of the end right there you're preaching the choir I feel like they should've kept it was like over 5 million bucks. Yeah.

Keep those three together. How about this? Keep the team that almost won the finals the year before. Let's see how that works. Keep it together. Yeah. I would have let Harden

play the point though. I'd let Harden play the point let Russell play the two. What they had with Harden that year before he was basically like their version of Manu coming off the bench

completely changing games. He was only like 22. That's what I'm saying. They should have never let that nucleus go. There might be two or three championships who were coming off the bench, completely changing games. He was only like 22. That's what I'm saying. They should have never let that nucleus go. There might be two or three championships in if they kept that team together. They outsmarted. I think it's the best what if of this decade.

I wonder why they let him go, though. It was part money. They just got cheap. And I think they – it's almost inexplicable. I actually think that at the time they really thought they made a good trade. I think they liked the trade. That was the weirdest part of it. I think one day. They like getting the lottery pick.

They like Kevin Martin. They thought Kevin Martin could replace his offense. They like Jeremy Lamb. Yeah. James Harden is like that girl that you used to date. And like he was cool when he was with you. But then when she leaves, you think like, oh, she's going to fall off. But then she goes and gets hotter.

So now you're kicking yourself like, shit, I should have never let her go. Yeah, I think it's even worse than that. You can't find another girl. You can't find another James Harden. You can't find another championship window. And they would have stayed together. Those three would have stayed together. Because they'd have been winning chips.

Oklahoma City would have been the most popping team in the freaking country. They would have to change the jersey because jerseys are trash. But they'd have been winning chips. Oklahoma City would have been the most popping team in the freaking country. They would have to change the jersey because jerseys are trash. But they would have been popping. Have you been to a game there? No, I heard it's like a college feeling though. Have you been to Oklahoma City?

No, that's what I was about to say. Maybe that's why KD wanted to leave. Yeah, that's what I was about to say. How the fuck would I be in Oklahoma City? Only thing I know about Oklahoma City is Fort Sill. Is that even in Oklahoma City? It's a nice little town. I enjoyed my time there for a couple days.

You got some pussy out there? No, I'm just saying. I don't know if I'd want to live there if I was Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant's now. He's in the Bay Area. So what made you like it? It's great. I mean, I always judge this stuff when I'm traveling for sports stuff.

It's like, is it compact? Yeah. Can I just walk around? can i go to the game can i like atlanta to me is like the worst case scenario for going to write about the finals or something for for a week gotcha so atlanta is just like you know everything's in a different play everything's 20 minutes from everything oh absolutely so that's the thing with kevin durant is i like kevin durant but um i just feel like when you do those superpower teams yeah the rings don't mean as much it just doesn't like i mean i like i always said that if lebron won one ring in cleveland that's like six in miami how did lebron not do that with cleveland what do you mean he went to cleveland they had kyrie irving yeah who

was the number one pick in the whole draft. They had Thompson there already. And they had another number one pick in the whole draft that they flipped for Kevin Love. That was a super team. Yeah, not really. KG formed a super team. Yeah, but KG's team had already won a championship. Let's be clear. Golden State doesn't need Kevin Durant.

No, KG's team, the Celtics hadn't won in like 22 years. I thought you said KD. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the Celtics were a little bit different, but LeBron leaving to go to Miami and teaming up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh for whatever reason, that just seemed like the Legion of Doom at the time.

But to go back to – first of all, let's be clear. Nobody goes back to Cleveland. Right. You don't go back to Cleveland. He actually went back to Cleveland and won a ring. He's good. That's why I hate when people always try to compare him to Michael Jordan because

it's two different legacies total. It's two different eras. Jordan would have played for 20 years if he had all the stuff that they have now. How much would he have averaged the game? Probably more at his peak because they didn't have the hand check rules and stuff, but they didn't have they didn't know about napping. They didn't know about dieting.

They didn't have the hyperbaric chambers. Yeah, but they rested. They didn't have they didn't know about napping they didn't know about dieting they didn't have the hyperbaric chambers yeah but they're resting they didn't yeah they're i just think it would have been he would have taken advantage of some of this stuff yeah maybe some of the chemicals just kidding listen there's nothing wrong with performance enhancing drugs i want to see the best possible product on the goddamn court on the football field on the baseball field performance enhancing drugs don't make scrub players superstars. They just make superstars even bigger superstars. Who would have been your dream dad for Serena's baby? Common.

Anybody from the, first of all, Common is from the culture. I'm going to tell you something. That Serena Williams situation really pisses me off. I'm going to tell you why. Because once again, once again, black men going to tell you why. Oh, no. We're both going to get in trouble. Once again, black men have let white men make better choices than them. Drake and Common dated Serena Williams. Neither one of them proposed to her.

Neither one of them shot her club up. The all-time catch. Yeah, come on. You don't try to get Serena Williams pregnant. You don't marry Serena Williams. Drake and Common, like what's wrong? Serena Williams.

I know. Arguably the greatest athlete ever. I would say LeVar Arrington blew it up, too. He was there for a while. I remember LeVar was in there. Yeah. Yeah. Why wouldn't you?

Serena Williams? You let this guy come from a whole nother country and shoot her club up? Like, come on, bro. Like, no, that's terrible. That's disgusting. I hate that. I just think she's the greatest athlete we ever produced. She's up there, man.

She's up there. I would have loved to. She's up there. I mean, I think Michael Jordan was a great athlete. I meant greatest female athlete. Bo Jackson. No, greatest female athlete, I should have said. No, I'll say athlete, period.

I'll put her in that category. She's certainly the most successful athlete we've ever had. More than Michael Jordan? Well, yeah. How? If you look at, well, first. More than Michael Jordan? Well, yeah. How? If you look at, well, first of all, Michael Jordan only won six rings. So if you're going by success,

Bill Russell's the most successful athlete. Okay. But Serena, you're going from, what, 99 to 2017? 18 years? She's so far above whoever the next one is? Yeah, all of that is subjective, too. I guess it's based on how much, it. I guess it's based on how much, it's generational and it's based on

how much you care about the individual sport. Because I love tennis, but I don't think tennis is, the degree of difficulty isn't like basketball, football, even baseball, maybe. You know what I'm saying? The difficulty for tennis is once they climb the mountain, because it's so hard to get there

and it's so boring to play and you're by yourself for 10 hours a day and they get there they're at the top and they and they none of them can stay there for that long yeah because the discipline you needed to get there once you once you achieve it you're like ah fuck all right now what do i do i just got to protect this every year you're gonna love this but the person we're taking for granted right now who possibly may be the greatest athlete ever is tom brady and the reason i say that yeah i but i need to take a shower this is the nicest thing you've ever done for me but the reason i say that is because of the degree of difficulty of football yeah like it's the not for long league for real like you're

supposed to be he's had amazing luck yeah yes like look at Romo. Romo is gone. Peyton Manning is gone. They're gone probably because of injuries. He's only had one bad injury. Yeah. He's been really good at not taking big hits unless he has to, like if he's getting sacked or something. But he picks his spots. He gets rid of the ball fast.

Good system. Keeps himself in amazing shape. He's been to the Super Bowl seven times. He's 40 years old this year. He turns 40 in August. It's not even a might. Tom Brady is probably the greatest athlete of all time. Based off the degree of difficulty of football and how successful he's been in that sport,

I think he's number one. He certainly won the Peyton Manning argument. That's not even close. He's in the conversation for best football player ever from the length of how long he he played i think he's not you don't consider him the best quarterback ever now no he's the best quarterback i'm saying if you're gonna start a franchise with any football player i think you'd probably pick him because of how long he played absolutely how good he was absolutely but now it's like now he's heading into this michael jordan muhammad ali territory he's there already come on i don't want to say it i'm a homer if i

say people just think i'm being a homer he's there first of all i've never seen anybody beat the internet tom brady beat the internet because if you watch that super bowl game every slanderous meme the michael jordan face was like 75 80 on br on Brady. Three quarters. Killing, killing. Then all of a sudden, it's like he just shifted the whole tide and came back and won the Super Bowl. And everybody just had to delete their memes and start sucking his dick.

Like it literally went from the utmost Tom Brady slander to lining up to suck his fucking cock. So it's like, I've never seen that before in my life. I think Tom Brady is the greatest athlete of all time. I wasn't on the internet during that because I was too busy having a stroke, but I can only imagine how great it was for you.

How was that for you? I was with my dad and I was with my fam. I had to switch seats at halftime for better luck. Never gave up. Couldn't give up. How am I going to give up on Tom Brady? We're down 25 and I'm still like doing the math in my head for how they can come back.

Yeah, you Patriots fans are fanatical. I got a friend named G-Spin. He's from Boston too. I think I went to the same school or something. But he was like at the end of the game, he was like, I got to go hug my kids. And my mom, my wife, I'm like, you weren't playing. I know. What do you got to go hug your kids and your wife for?

Like I said, a reaction I was looking for. It got personal because of the whole DeFueke thing. You know, and it was like his legacy was being besmirched. And then it was like, oh, he's going to come back. They suspended him four games. He's going to come back anyway. Try to win the Super Bowl. He's going to shove it right up Goodell's ass.

Yeah. And then we're down 28 to 3. How do you think Goodell felt in that moment? Because Goodell probably had a sigh of relief, like, oh, I don't got to present him the trophy. He was fine. They changed his battery. He was good.

You got to take your anxiety medicine. They took the battery out of his back, put another one in. Listen, I... They reprogrammed it. I don't think there's a better athlete on the planet than Tom Brady. I truly mean that.

I got to... I seriously want to, like, pop open champagne right now. This is so nice. But it's because of the degree of difficulty of football yeah like it's just that simple football is the most dangerous sport out there he's prospered in it for years he's about to be 40 the only good thing is they did tweak the rules so that quarterbacks took a little bit less punishment but he's still like if you watch that atlanta game he gets hit like 12 times in that game hard his head hits the ground at one point. He probably got concussed until anybody. Are there any quarterbacks

left from Brady's era? No, right? No, not from 2000. Yeah, everybody's come and gone. That's what I'm saying. That's amazing. He won the Super Bowl last year. And he grew hair. He's got more hair now. Alright. Anybody who can grow

like him and LeBron, you can regenerate your own hairline like that's right you're at a whole other level you're right he's on performance enhancing drugs you're right you're right you're right you're right you're right i feel sorry for lebron though because lebron don't have a hairline and he does so much for the community so much for the city of cleveland he deserves to have a hairline well now he has one what rapper do you think has taken the most performance enhancingenhancing drugs? 50 Cent? Somebody else?

No, Dr. Dre. Remember when Dr. Dre was big as a hop at one point? Dr. Dre was super diesel. He got huge. Yeah, I mean, unbelievable. He's about to play the Incredible Hulk in the next Avengers movie or something. He was huge. Absolutely. It was not even close.

What do you think Dr. Dre does every day? What's his average day like? Be nice. Don't get me in trouble. No, no. I like Dr. Dre. I think he probably gets up, goes to the gym. it was not even close what do you think dr jay does every day what's his average day like be nice don't get me in trouble no no i like dr jay i think you probably i think he probably gets up goes to the gym and dr jay probably fights takes business calls maybe probably just one person jimmy ivy but does he make music do you think anymore i don't think so you know why i think jay's one of those people who's in his own way because of his genius because when you're on dr jay's level you're only fighting against yourself like literally you're only fighting against yourself who you are right so in your mind you're constantly saying

well damn if i can't make something better than this i can't make something better than that and he's probably making the most amazing shit but to his ear it's probably just subpar but if he was like let somebody else hear it they're probably like that's amazing put that out because his last album compton was a great album but they say he sat on that music for so long. It was too long. Because you reach a point where you don't mean anything to anyone under 30. You need to stay away for that long. Boom.

That's a great point. And Dre's like 50 plus. If I was Dre, I would just give my music to other artists and not even say it's me. I would give my production to other people. Or do a Garth Brooks and have a fake name. Absolutely. I wouldn't even tell people it's me. I'll just sit back and get the reaction off it.

Dr. Dre should do that. Yeah, and then like five years later, when everybody's talking about how great this project was and that project was, yeah, Dre did that under the alias fucking, you know, Billionaire Beats or some crazy shit like that. Who has the championship belt right now, Kendrick? That's a good question.

I mean, Drake still reigns supreme you know drake still got the ring you think jake drake when he's in concert he could bring a championship belt and nobody would yeah nobody give a shit about it i think right now it's kendrick season but it's such a weird time because everything's so fleeting so it's like what's like sports it's like sports so i gotta give it to the guys like drake kendrick j cole because for whatever reason they remain relevant all the time people still care about their products when they drop so those three are kind of like going back and forth don't get tate started about j cole you like cole i'm from south carolina i love j cole i love everything he stands for but i just think something you praise tom brady and j cole in five minutes

like tate and i might maul you but his his music is boring, though. I can't. I'm not right. I can't put him on that level with those guys. He is, though. Just me personally. I'm just saying I can't. I can't ride around listening to J. Cole. Like, I got to be in the mood to listen to J. Cole.

I don't think you really know who you are as an artist until you take just an incredible amount of shit for something. Like, Drake. So Drake's the man, then. Views was not that bad. It wasn't that good, either.'s demand views was not that bad it wasn't that good either it wasn't that good but it wasn't that bad now it's being now it's being treated like it was the titanic but it just wasn't that's it wasn't that bad it goes back to what we were just talking about it's like well when you put yourself like the dr dray thing like drake has

made so much incredible music but everybody's waiting for this one incredible body of work from him and he hasn't given it to that's a good thing people don't treat j cole like that i don't think i mean maybe there's a certain element of people that do but not in a mainstream way yeah cole's got a cult-like following yeah like he's got he's actually in a place that's probably easier to deal with creatively yeah and kendrick though because they come and go as they please kendrick's in the best place you could be i think kendrick album the new album man he's, but he's not too famous. Yeah. His decisions, for the most part,

people always respect and know that he puts the honor to them. But we take them for granted. Take them for granted? That's a good thing to be taken for granted. I definitely took this album for granted because it's a great album. Yeah. But it's like watching LeBron average 38 and 9.

Right. You're just used to it. You know what I mean? Like, he didn't take things to the next level for me with this album it's like why didn't you get score 50 yeah exactly so it's like i like the new kendrick album damn i think it's great but i'm just like all right that's just kendrick being kendrick like i'm not wowed i appreciate it as a writer that how he did the uh the titles for the for the songs and how they looked collectively i thought that i like little stuff like that

it was all one word things. It was caps. It was like, if you looked at it collectively, it almost looked like a poem. And Less Is More. I thought that was cool. The album title,

Damn, with a period. Yeah. I like stuff like that. I like simplicity. I want to have him on. You've had Kendrick, right? Yeah, my co-host Angela Yee actually was the first person

that ever gave Kendrick Lamar a radio interview. Ever. Like ever. The first time I met Kendrick Lamar was through Angela Yee because Angela Yee used to the first person that ever gave Kendrick Lamar a radio interview. Ever. Like, ever. The first time I met Kendrick Lamar was through Angela Yee because Angela Yee used to do these bowling parties in New York. And literally, this was like 2009. I walked, we talk about this all the time. I walked up to Kendrick and I go, yo, I wear a size 12 bowling shoe.

Can you go give me a size 12? I thought he worked there because that's how much of, he did not look like a star at all. He just looked, I literally thought he was working in there. And I was like, oh man, my bad. Because that's when Angela walked up like, this is Kendrick Lamar. And I was like, oh my bad, I apologize, my brother, I didn't mean that. But we talk about that all the time. And Top Dog, I remember one time Top Dog saw me and he was like,

does Kendrick look like a star to you now? I said, yeah, he does. Because he is now. But at the time, he's no different. He's the same guy. It's just that, you know, once you sell some albums

and you get that light on you, now we can see it. At the time, he really looked like he was supposed to be getting me a size 12 bowling shoe. We have to go. Yeah,

sure. Charlamagne Tha God, black privilege. Opportunity comes to those who create it. I picked it as well on the old bestseller list. It's doing pretty good

right now, man. You have something that really helps with these books, which is you can drive people, the awareness that it's out. Platforms. Platforms are very important. Platforms are good for you. Anything else you want to plug? Just the book, man.

It's out right now. You can go get it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, seethegodworld.com, and continue to listen to The Breakfast Club. And Bill, thank you for having me, man. And you can see Charlamagne on season 9 and keeping up with the Kardashians absolutely not

Kardashians are trash thank you alright thanks to SeatGeek don't forget to download the SeatGeek app today or go right to SeatGeek.com and if you're a Celtics fan go to SeatGeek get some Celtics Bulls tickets for game 4 thanks to Blue Apron thanks to Tay Frazier for letting me bounce off some mailbag questions

and some thoughts at the start of the podcast. Thanks to Charlemagne. Don't forget to listen to Dezus and Mero and our NBA podcast mailbag. And we have a bunch of good stuff coming next week. Also, bank the podcast with the South Park guys. That's coming. Matt and Trey. We've had Matt on the podcast before, but never Matt and Trey together.

And it's a good one. So I think we're running it at some point next week or by the latest, like May 2nd, but that's happening. Good times. That's it. Thanks for supporting the BS podcast. We'll talk to you next week.

I want to see them. When we saw that. I don't have feelings within On the way so I never said I don't have feelings within