The Daily Zeitgeist - MJGMB #59: We Love the Playoffs with Jared Wade

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

Miles and Jack were joined by longtime NBA writer Jared Wade for this week's episode. The trio discussed each series, Devin Booker's playoff scoring, Jokic and Denver's feeling of inevitability and plenty more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everyone, Jake Storielli here from John Boy Media. I want to tell you about my podcast, Wake and Jake. I've been a sports nut my whole life and there's nothing I love more than talking about it. If you're a sports fan, Wake and Jake is the place for you. Covering all the hot topics from the sports world. A lot of baseball, a lot of post-season coverage, mock drafts, awards, guest interviews, all of it. New episodes every Monday and Wednesday. Come watch along on the Wake and Jake YouTube channel

or listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. This is Jimmy O'Brien from Jomboy Media. I want to quickly tell you about my podcast. It's called Jimmy's Three Things. Episodes come out every Tuesday, and for 30 minutes, I dive into three stories in Major League Baseball that I want to talk about.

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We're talking sports, politics, pop culture, entertainment, and anything that catches my attention. Listen to the I Am Rappaport Stereo Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back. And the NBA playoffs have truly been, for lack of a better word, amazing. As we've got the eight-seeded Heat and the seven-seeded Lakers, each up 3-1 as of this recording.

And just total fistfights, love fest in the other two matchups. Those series might be over by the time y'all they're hearing this right yeah and i could be a very happy little chat uh but we'll get into all of that devin miles is wearing like little pantaloons with like his socks hiked up to his knees and he's got a lollipop but yeah we'll have to talk about the book and everything else with journalist and longtime NBA writer Jared Wade on today's podcast. I'm Miles Gray. And I'm Jack O'Brien. And this is Miles and Jack Gottman Moody's.

Three on one. Davis. Love. LeBron. There you go. Embiid driving, spinning, fading, hitting. Curry, a three-pointer. on one davis driving spinning fading curry a three-pointer steph curry from downtown again welcome back one and all

all of our wonderful boosties listeners and welcome guest Jared Wade. Welcome to the show, man. It's really good to have you. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me. Been a fan for a while and happy to be on. Oh, a fan? For a while? Wow, oh my god. A fan? Miles, we have a fan in the house.

Wow, wow, but I, woo, thank you so much. How professional we are that someone mentions they're a fan and we're like there's like a beat of silence i'm like all right you didn't tell us oh man uh you burned us you burned us man so you came up as celdics fan and now you're not a Celtics fan. What happened? What's going on? I was a Pacers fan. So I grew up in Maine and like, okay,

I'm probably maybe saying same age group as y'all probably, but you know, back in like late eighties and stuff, you really can watch that many games. Right. So I definitely watched like the late Larry Bird era more than anything. I was a fan and all that. I don't know.

I had a team at that point though. I think the Celtics were like too good for me to like jump on their bandwagon you know wait like when you were younger the appeal of a winning team never caught you're like you know i don't know it's so weird everyone like loves success and lebron and even like the jordan era took that over but i don't know i never really liked the team that was winning like it was when i was growing up like the cowboys and the yankees like you were lame if you were a fan of them you know yeah right so i did and then i remember the celtics played the pacers like three years in a row in the first round and i think they lost in five every year like they were never close but uh started like them and then reggie came up and i just became a pacers fan as like someone

that didn't have a team that's interesting i don't know too many Pacers fans who chose Pacer fandom. You mean not being from Indiana? Yeah, not being from Indiana. There's not many of us. I've met like three in my life. We have a support group. We all get together. It's really fun. What part of Maine did you grow up in? Central Maine, Bangor area. Oh, yeah. I know Bangor. I was a very competitive ice hockey player as a kid

no kidding and so yeah i used to take regular trips to new england to play hockey i don't ask how a black and east kid was playing hockey in burbank california and ended up in bangor maine but it was happening well specifically i grew up in orono which is where like alfondrina and university of maine was so that would probably be where you would have played yeah yeah exactly exactly exactly um yeah man um jack come on this is a podcast now man yeah get your hockey hair out uh but jack you want to talk a little bit i i know we were talking off mic a little bit about some some recency bias we're seeing in analysis do we do want to do we want to try yeah i mean that sure we can start i like i just i i'm a victim of this too but that i'm just seeing a lot of i mean the lakers series is a great example where i consumed so much commentary from like really smart basketball uh analysts you're i talk about zach low a lot

not because i think he's like bad but because i think he's very smart and i listen to him and you know read him a lot and he basically was calling it a rap after game two. He was like, that's like the Warriors have figured them out. Like, I don't know what the Lakers could possibly do. The Lakers are a one way series. They cannot score. LeBron is basically cooked at this point. And it's just,

I don't know. Like that's fine. It's also weird to see. And it's also like underestimating LeBron James, which is never a good gamble. But yeah, it just it does seem to like undercut what is so exciting about this, which is that these are actual people. And it's not like a math equation where you have one team figures one strategic thing out in one game and it's over from that point forward like playing backgammon or something you're like oh it's over

yeah i mean the one team i would say that can be true for is a lebron james team because he is so shrewd and just like calculating and figures things out but like for the most part it's it's not over after one team wins by a lot and that's never been the case in the nba playoffs so right i don't know there were i'm also noticing like different people being a little bit frustrated with the cover like eric spolstra at one point someone was like what's your defensive plan for shutting down randall it's just like i what first of all i'm not gonna tell you that but second of all like even if i did articulate that yeah how can i articulate it he's an amazing competitor and he's going to and then there was also this like yokich clip where they asked him before game three like do you expect their energy to be up now that they're back in their home

court? And he was like, no, my friend, I expect that they surrender and they give us the win. Um, like just like people, I think they're just like a little annoyed with the,

the commentary that assumes like, okay, so we've figured this out and it's, it's, it's a chess match and, uh, you, you we've figured this out. So it's hooked. It's a chess match, and you guys have figured it out, right? Figured them out. I just don't want to hear anyone saying they've figured anyone out because that's just not happening. Jared, are you guilty of the recency bias thing?

I mean, I certainly was. I was like, oh, Devin Booker and Kevin Durant have laid down. And I was just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was, I was,

that was a very not good take, but I mean, well, how, how are, I'm guessing you do this for real. So maybe you aren't as sloppy as maybe I am. I mean,

I really don't do this for real anymore, to be honest. I'm mainly a fan on Twitter at this point, but like, yeah, I totally, by mid second quarter of the game to Denver

Phoenix series. Like I thought that was a wrap. And then I said, we saw last night, maybe it was right. Like maybe it is. We're the better team. And like good teams just get blown out sometimes. Right. Like, I mean, the Warriors and Lakers have both gotten blown out. The Warriors got blown out against the Kings. It just I think that's what the biggest thing is. Like the

point margin doesn't really matter in any playoff game. Cause you won by 20 or you won by two. It's, I mean, it's cliche, but like you got to get to four. Hey, I said,

I said in game two, when the Lakers were getting blown out, I was like, this is better that it's a blowout for you. You get to rest your, you get to rest your horses. Like LeBon gets to sit back and you know analyze and he's been as much as he's not the most impressive thing

statistically like he is probably the thing i've been like i don't know i i'm a i'm a huge lebron stan so people are probably tired of hearing me say this, but like that, people would forgive you for being in awe of LeBron James. Yeah. But like what he's doing in these playoffs is pretty cool. Yeah. I think LeBron James is pretty cool. And that's my take. Thanks folks.

That's Jack. No, but I mean, brought to you by sizzler. Getting to what you were saying though, when like people are like LeBron's kind of cooked, he looks a little low in some games. He has a bad second quarter.

He misses three shots and doesn't do much. But ultimately, he's still LeBron James, and he controls games in ways that no one else can. I mean, obviously, Lonnie Walker won that game for them. But I don't want to discredit Lonnie, but LeBron gave him the ball, and he saw that happening. And he just made it continue to happen yeah there were some cool things where he like pulled him into like pick and roll action or yeah like freed him up got him yeah that it was pretty cool let's start with that series um with the Lakers and Warriors because yeah I think I mean Jack we're even talking about this off mic too about how like we're seeing just lebron he's he's getting

into his like wisdom phase now too where he's like i don't need to be the most dynamic now but i can use my savvy to like bring in players like austin reeves or lonnie walker and like use my outsized influences lebron james to like give them the kind of confidence that it takes to show up in like for like lonnie put up 15 points in that fourth quarter, which was a terrible site for Warriors fans, but a wonderful thing for Lakers fans to see. But yeah, I mean,

I think it is, it is nice to see him, you know, get a little bit of rest. Like, I forget what was like the shortest he was off the court. It felt like 13 seconds or something. It just came.

Yeah. That was almost comical. They were like, all right, you're back. But yeah, I don't know. AD just came right back. Yeah, that was almost comical. They were like, all right, you're back. But yeah, I don't know. AD looks incredible on D. They just seem to have figured something out.

And just the mindset of the Lakers team really seems to have things going in a pretty great way. We'll see if they've gotten blown out. And everyone's like, the Warriors have figured them out again. Right. And it could be a storybook comeback but we'll see about that jared how are you how are you looking at that series and uh where you think it's eventually going to go i would never count the warriors we've seen them do too much but that said they're getting pretty old you know clay's looking rustier

than ever coming back 3-1 is almost impossible for any team and even as up and down as ad has been he's gonna have like one monster game in these next three right even if it goes seven so i just don't think they can beat a lebron team three times in a row especially with ad playing i mean he's still what leading the league and block leading the postseason on blocks rebounds i think even those games where he doesn't score he's still a presence in the middle and we haven't really seen anyone changing steps like finger rolls and floaters as much as ad has i mean yeah it's like a bunch of bunnies that he always makes and he's just like i don't put more arc on his floaters or not enough or going too

high off the glass and he's just he's disruptive in there yeah that was something that it seems like they figured out ham has done an amazing job i guess i i say that like i'm a basketball expert or something but it seems like he's doing an amazing job and i think during that game too like one of the things that people were pointing to is like they need vanderbilt in there to stop steph and like that clogs up the middle and makes their offense like pretty stagnant and they were they just put ad on stuff and like that frees everything up and that's that's made them i don't know it's just incredible that you can put a center on steph curry and uh he can do as good a job as anybody can do on steph curry yeah but yeah we were saying before we started, for you, these Lakers wins. For me,

these Sixers wins are far orders of magnitude better than the days that our children were born. We're trying to remain calm and rational, but off mic. Off mic, yeah. I'm saying

some things that are getting me in trouble with my own parents. They're like, I can't believe you would hold that in higher regard. I'm like, there was a pandemic in between. A lot's been going on. So yeah, my calculus has changed a little bit. I'm not going to lie. All right. Let's take a break and we'll come back. We'll talk Nugget Sons and then we'll head on to the east side right after this. Hey, this is Mike Wright from the Fantasy Footballers Dynasty Podcast. You heard that right.

The Fantasy Footballers have officially entered the Dynasty space. Every week, we bring you the same in-depth analysis and entertainment you've come to expect from the fantasy footballers, only now from a dynasty perspective. Maybe you've been living in the dynasty fantasy football space for a while. Well, we're here to take your game to the next level. Maybe you love fantasy football and you've been feeling that itch to jump into the dynasty format, but it feels a little bit intimidating. No matter where you're coming from, the Fantasy Footballers Dynasty podcast has something for you,

and you're going to have a great time listening, I promise. Join me and the rest of the crew every Wednesday for a new episode. Listen to the Fantasy Footballers Dynasty podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends

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We're so excited for you to hear our brand new podcast, Senora Sex Ed. Listen to Senora Sex Ed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. when this episode comes out in Phoenix, I mean, man, Devin Booker. These statistics look really good, Jack. I'm no expert either. Yeah.

These numbers look good. It's just like the wildest. Again, like I was saying this with Jimmy Butler, like it's weird when you can try harder to just like make shots better. Just be like, I'm going to make all my shots in the post season because like that shouldn't be possible. You're the defense is harder.

It's more tiring. And you're like only missing like three shots, like a game. Like it's his ability to lock in has been crazy. Really, really impressive. And his partnership with KD, I mean, we've seen that really bear fruit in a way that at first I was not quite believing, but yeah, here we are.

I mean, but at the end of the day, Jokic is... Beast. Yeah. He's some kind of wonderful, I think. As we always say. He's incredible. Yeah, I'm glad Embiid got his MVP. Now we can all admit

Jokic is the best player in the league and just be done with it. I mean, in the two losses, he's been putting up like 50 points and just having crazy games. What do you guys think? Do you think it's going seven? I'd love to see it go seven.

And I'd love to see the sons be able to deal with the altitude for, for the first time and like make, make a pretty good game of it. Cause all the games in, in Denver have been pretty kind of, they haven't been really very close. Yeah. I mean, as a potentially if if the lakers get out of you know their series i would love to see anybody have to play seven on the other side uh so for that very cynical reason i would love to see that but part of me just thinks

yokich is just he's just casually so good and i just it's so fun to watch like we always talk about all the time like he really embodies like uncle in the driveway kind of basketball where he's just like just so casual like yeah i'm bigger and i'm gonna make this look so easy uh and it's been a bit of a nightmare no my friends i expect them to surrender i also i just i really like that he's got he's got jokes he's a funny dude yeah i think for me like i was gonna say with yokish specifically like i was trying to hold him accountable i think in the last couple years when he didn't do so on the playoffs but it was like no jamal murray but it's like yeah but he's still supposed to do better

than that and now he's got like the horses around him like you know aaron gordon and porter and just you know just a good supporting cast that saw and i'm like oh no he he's real. He's legit. He can just take over a series. I think he's averaging a triple-double in the playoffs so far pretty much. And that tiny horse that he... Doesn't he also do horse racing? Isn't his whole off-season is just going to Serbia

and kicking it with horses? Kicking it with horses and doing the chariot racing. I call it a tiny horse and now i'm realizing it's actually just because i've never seen a horse next to a seven foot dude before it's a clydesdale for real yeah but yeah and i would just say like in general a thing that i've taken away from the celdic series a little bit and we'll see but like Jokic's ability to just like distribute the ball and be like he he's just seems like he's so fun to play with and like gets everybody involved

and that's the other thing that I've really observed about LeBron is like you know he had those first quarters where he like wasn't even taking a shot or was like barely taking shots and just really focusing on getting the rest of his team involved and like having that ability on your team like as the as the kind of focal point of your team seems like a good situation to be in whereas like with the celtics up to this point it feels like they're doing like sort of a one my turn your turn my turn your turn type thing yeah i mean switching focus to that series our text threads about this have been so up and down whereas every time jabar and our watcher like jack

yeah just give you a little bit of confidence you're like nope i can still see it's completely imploding complete i mean also yeah yeah it's not and it's also similar like everything i see and hear from other like Celtics fans too like Like they're also like, I don't know, man. I don't know about us either. And it's just funny to see like both teams kind of like, I don't know, but. Just like a toxic self-loathing fan off between the 76ers and Celtics fans. I feel like we're seeing. But yeah, I've really seen a lot of myself in the Celtics fans where they're just like

after every loss, I'm like, I'm sick to my stomach. It was a gut punch. Right, right, right. They're, they're struggling. I feel for him.

Cause I know exactly how that feels having been a 76ers fan. Well, and it's gotta be wild too. Cause like with the Celtics, like they can beat any team and they can also lose to any team. So having that like duality going into these kinds of series, I feel the tension around it. But yeah, Jared, what do you think?

Is something amiss? I feel like there's a couple ways people are looking at this series. I feel like the one thing that I hear a lot is like, Boston's giving it to Philly. They're just giving it away. They're just letting them have it. And on the other side, I'm like, Philadelphia is playing a better team. So I don't know if we can take so much away from philadelphia and then other people

it's like well they got the personnel issues or mozilla's not he's not picking the right lineups where do you where do you kind of stand in this series jared what do you see going right or wrong for each team yeah i mean it's tough it's kind of puzzling. I feel like last year, the Celtics obviously won the East and pretty convincingly. They obviously had the Warriors on the ropes and they were kind of without Rob. And a lot of the Celtics fans would have told you last year, he was the big piece. Without him, we're going to limited. And then he's back, but he's still hurt. He wasn't fully himself. So that's kind of what I'm wondering now. I mean, they kind of walked through the regular season. They got Rob in there. Personnel's kind of what I'm wondering now. I mean, they kind of walked through the regular season.

They got Rob in there. Personnel-wise, there's not much difference. Is it all just Joe? So it just seems like some intangible thing. I mean, again, I'm not an X and O's expert. They're probably doing different things. But I don't see how they're just this inconsistent when this is supposed to be the finish the job year.

They just come out so flat. I know that against James Harden, I think people were underrating his ability to still take over we saw in game one right but yeah like and beats out there with a leg brace on come on like how are they just getting smoked by these guys yeah finish the job they did have a t-shirt that said finish the job this season like that was their team's motto yeah it is. I guess part of me was baking into my assumptions about this series, which my assumptions were like, there's almost no chance the Sixers win. I was baking in Embiid's injury

and Harden having a very spotty track record in the playoffs and Maxie playing badly against the Celtics every time they played the celdics up until this series so those are our three best players on the sixer side but yeah i don't know they've been able to kind of put some things together and the celdics continue to do a thing like i think there's part part of it is like there there's something with like the alpha. This is the sort of stuff that I usually think is kind of silly,

but the main person on their team who is not their best player, and I guess that's true of the Sixers too. PJ Tucker is the alpha person on the Sixers, and he's just in there because personality reasons and toughness reasons with the Celtics. It's like Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown and Marcus smart. And like Marcus smart ends up taking like the big shots a lot of the

time. And like, that's just not his role or it shouldn't be his role for the sake of the team. All of that said, all of the things that ail the Celtics seem really easy to fix. So I just, I still think

it's probably easier for them to come back from 3-2 in this series than most teams that I've ever kind of seen down 3-2 before. But I would have said... Great to see you maintain that pessimism. I was listening to the episode before the series with, with you,

Jack talking about it and you had no faith in them at all. And I was like, Oh, listen to this up three, two. I was like, Oh, amazing.

Still, still there. Yeah. Yeah. We'd love to see it. Second round as usual. Like, like just the,

the most toxic parent where i'm like well let's see how you screw it up hey that's your own kid man yeah i know but i've seen it a hundred times yeah but yeah it's three two they're playing at home you're gonna have some faith i don't know yeah we're a bunch of bums really no they're doing great there is like i always i keep saying like it it does remind me of uh the year the red sox finally beat the yankees like they're they're just these like weird things where it's like man it just seems like it's our year like this year for like they're just some of the things that have broken the way of the sixers just inexplicably yeah yeah like even like wasn't like mb's like first shot like a step back three

that like like bounced yeah with real goofy into the rim and i'm like hey you know what take that you take that and i think it's it's really interesting too because as those kinds of shots begin to fall you could really see the celtics just kind of crumble it was really and like the garden turned into a library like yeah quiet i wasn't expecting like the enthusiasm to sort of like empty out of there so quickly there's maybe an overall sense that like the sixers don't have anything to lose because everybody all of their fans are like me they're like they're gonna lose in the second That's all right. We're happy you got the MVP. And the Celtics came into the season with losing in the finals was a failure.

There's just an expectation among their fan base and their players. And there might just be a bit of a tightening that happens with a team like that. That said, they were down 3-2 to Milwaukee last year in this same round um and then came back so we'll see yeah well you know but they don't have an answer for that pick and roll at the moment so long may that last yeah for for the sixers you know when mb got hurt i was kind of like oh no here we go again sixers doing the sixers thing yeah but then you know somebody's pretty much like who are they still gonna thing. But then, you know, someone's pretty much like, who are the Celtics going to play in the finals? Because that other series didn't seem that serious compared to these two. But I don't know.

I mean, the fact that Embiid was able to come back and get through that injury after missing games and still look this mobile. I mean, it's one thing for him to get buckets and stuff, but he looks like he's moving pretty well. So I would actually be surprised at this point if Boston would put it together. They just seem, there's just something off with them. That is my one hope.

I like last week when the Sixers were up 1-0, I think when we recorded, I didn't have as much hope as I do now because it does seem like Embiid's getting stronger and we still haven't seen the game where he... It's his. Yeah, where he really just like takes over which and those games they do tend to win it's not like a thing where you know there's some players who will like have

50 and their team like Jokic yeah yeah yeah so it'll be interesting I will say though I'm hearing that a lot that like this Celtics Sixers is like the series that's going to determine who's in the finals i feel like speaking of buckets jimmy

buckets might have come into this season with a uh unfinished business uh shirt finish the job shirt on yeah under his wig um yeah Still the coolest thing anybody did this year. I'm waiting to see if anybody does anything in the playoffs that's cooler than Jimmy Butler coming in with a long-haired wig for media day and just keeping a straight face through the whole thing. It's amazing. Every graphic they put up on screen now uses that media photo. Every time.

It works every time. I forget he did it every time and then I re-see it and I laugh all over again. Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. I mean, yeah, you were saying like, Jared, you think, I mean, without casting any aspersions on the Heat or Knicks, that really

the stronger sides are coming out of that other series in the East. But do you see any, you know, how are you feeling about the heat? Do you see them, you know, doing something, putting something together? I mean, I will say I would have said they probably had more of a chance than I saw Jimmy get hurt. But then, like, I guess he's not hurt. He's just fine. He's an injury. Yeah. You miss a game in the playoffs and I assume it's going to linger.

But for both him and somewhat for Embiid, they seem to be fine. But even going back to the Hero thing, they seemed like they were possible when they were beating the Bucs. And it's like, but I don't know. Without Tyler Hero, this just feels like someone getting hot at a craps table in some way.

When I'm watching Gabe, Caleb, and Duncan, how are these guys beating anyone they can beat the knicks anyone can be they're just out of their mind yeah is that is that you know because jabari was bringing this up is like is that just heat culture yeah is it that's just the stay ready mentality that you can just be like hey they stay ready yeah i think it is i don't know like the thing I keep seeing with the heat is first round. What I saw was an individual player imposing his will on a game unlike I had seen like in ages,

but everybody else was like Milwaukee choked. The bucks are like the right, you know, and now we're seeing the same thing where people are like the Knicks are just a limited team and like they're going to lose to Miami because they're limited. And I'm like, maybe the heat are making everybody look bad because they're actually really good and just did what they needed to get through the regular season. And now they're actually really, really hard to beat.

And so I don't know, it'll be, it'll be interesting to see, but I don't, I don't think that the heat in the Eastern Conference Finals is going to be easy for either the Celtics or the Sixers. Whether or not I will be rooting for the heat is the question. But they look tough. Jared, quick prediction before we go to break.

Who do you see in the finals? Nuggets, Sixers. Going to get the MVP battle. Wow. I like that. I don't like that personally, but I like the idea of it. You know, fandom aside. I'm gonna go

Celtics Lakers. No, Jack. It's Sixers Lakers, the Mad Boosties the mad boost actually i'm gonna do heat lakers i'd love to see i'd love to oh the rematch yeah yeah okay bubble bubble 2.0 yeah bubble double toil and trouble i'm with that i i want to see like i said i'll say it again jack we deserve it you've been calling it lakers sixers lakers. Sixers-Lakers. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back to just wrap this thing out

with the rapid-fire round of questioning right after this. Hey, this is Mike Wright from the Fantasy Footballers Dynasty Podcast. You heard that right. The Fantasy Footballers have officially entered the dynasty space. Every week we bring you the same in-depth analysis and entertainment you've come to expect from the fantasy footballers, only now from a dynasty perspective. Maybe you've been living in the dynasty fantasy football space for a while. Well, we're here to take your game to the next level.

Maybe you love fantasy football and you've been feeling that itch to jump into the Dynasty format, but it feels a little bit intimidating. No matter where you're coming from, the Fantasy Footballers Dynasty Podcast has something for you, and you're going to have a great time listening, I promise. Join me and the rest

of the crew every Wednesday for a new episode. Listen to the Fantasy Footballers Dynasty Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and, of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment.

Lucha Libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring.

This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite.

I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning. In a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

And we're back. And you know what that means. It's time for the rapid fire round of questions. Jared. Now I know you've listened to the show. You are a fan, so I don't have to tell you, but I will for the first time listeners at home,

because there are many in the thousands, I believe actually, because the show is on a stratospheric meteoric rise. This is the fastest question and answer segment in all of sports podcasting. What we're going to do, we're going to ask you a question. Don't think about it. Don't expand too much on your answer.

Just chest pass it right back. Just keep it quick. Keep it tight. And if Jack and I start rumbling and ranting about other things, like how much we are more proud of Lonnie Walker IV than even Miles Jr.,

then it'll be on you to say, please, we have to keep this segment moving. And so that is your responsibility. Do you accept the challenge? I'm in. Okay, good. Here we go. Brian, start the clock.

So mean to Brian. It's just the way I started off. You know, I apologize. I text him right after I said it. I'm so sorry, man. You know, I can't control myself in rapid fire. Jack, you want to go first? I go first.

What do you want to do? Why don't you go first? Wow. Again. Okay. Thank you. You're a gentleman and a scholar jared 11 of the last 12 nba finals have featured at least one of lebron or steph if you were to pick two guys to go on such a run moving forward to take that man who are you rolling yokich hmm jason tatum uh is there a single

I don't really believe that I don't think I've ever booed no but yeah I just I don't know does Tatum I feel like I feel a statement coming on that I'm going to regret

so I won't say it but just he I don't say it, but just, he, I don't know. Everybody's always throwing up those side by side. Like here's Kobe doing this shot and here's Jason Tatum doing this shot. And that feels inappropriate. That comparison feels inappropriate to me when it comes to like having the

sickness that it requires to be be the level of competitor where you impose your will on. Yeah, to quote the great Reddit viral video, in a comparison like that, yeah, and if my grandmother had wheels, she could be a bicycle. It's that easy, right? Yeah, he just seems like a good person, like Jason Tatum. Like a nice person, a well-balanced person. Yeah, not the singular focus that just puts you at odds with everybody. Yeah.

All right, but Jared, what do we say, man? We got to keep this moving, man. Come on, man. I really appreciate that. Is there a single NBA player you would take right now over the chance of taking Victor Wembingama with the first pick this summer outside of yannis onto the cupo uh yannis has just reached out to us and informed us that he wants his name taken out of consideration for this question because that has been the answer

that everybody's given for for up to this point and he said i'm actually not interested in uh being traded for victorembingham. I would take the guy that I would have said for the last answer if he hadn't been the East. And that's Luka. Luka over Wembingham. Yeah. I mean, I think I don't watch a ton of guys who are not in the NBA. I've seen the clips, obviously.

Yeah. There's a little injury risk. There's a little everything risk with someone who's not in the NBA. And I think Luka's the real deal. And just the age thing, right? The guy like Jokic and Embiid and stuff, they're a little too old, I guess, to be like a 10-year run. Yeah, yeah. We like Luka around here, definitely.

I almost called Jared Luka. I don't know why. I got Luka on the brain. Jared, what is your favorite NBA city to visit? And what is your must-have meal in that town miami and maybe some ropa vieja wow some good old cuban food yeah okay yeah yeah yeah put a mojito of course yeah there you go yeah all right you can take any former pacer and put them on this current group in the indie which former great are you choosing to make a run in today's NBA?

I mean, the best play they ever had for today's NBA is probably still Paul George. Wow. Interesting. That's kind of cheating. Yeah. I mean, a wonder. Over Roy Hibbert. Wow.

Interesting. I was going to say Jermaine O'Neal was a monster in his best years before he got hurt. Yeah, he was, man. Yeah. I mean, I just want to see Rick Smith's against Embiid real quick. I'm just curious just to see, like, Prime Smith's. Because, you know, he was always giving— I just—I mean, not to say that that's the right answer, but because of how highly Shaq would always speak of him,

I would be curious just to see if you could simulate that, what that looks like, or if he's just getting absolutely dusted. I don't know, but that's something. I mean, he would get dusted, but he's 7'4". He's a big boy, so he's one of the few people you put up next to Embiid and it would actually look normal. And finally, Jared, the most important question of them all, Jack or Miles?

Got to go with Jack. Yeah! Woo! I was telling Jabari that I know Jack actually more from Crack Days, from that podcast, than I do from basketball probably. So I've been a fan since back when.

We got a ringer, baby! You brought a plant in. Well uh great to have you jared next week my mom will be the guest on the show uh and who knows can't let me get a winning streak can't let me get a winning streak yeah just a full-on plant for the next one oh man jared thank you so much for joining us on Miles and Jack got mad. Boosties, where can people check you out, follow you, and all that kind of good stuff? Yeah, on Twitter,

Jared underscore Wade. That's probably the best place for any basketball takes. And then I'm on Instagram, Wade Jared. There it is. There's some photography over there. We also asked our

Boosties listeners to vote on the best postseason player so far, and the results are in. We got 40 percent jimmy uh which is who i would have voted for i think he butler jim he yeah him he butler yeah him himmy i'm sorry himmy butler yes yes yes 28 booker 15 yokich uh 15 say other ad staff but i think someone's got to come take that mantle from jimmy at some point

it's going to be lonnie lonnie lon he yeah and you know what reeves i gotta say lakers fans are really good basketball fans like i was having i was on what was supposed to be like a work call with super producer sophie lichterman from cool zone media behind the bastards. And she was talking nonstop for 20 minutes about how they need to get Lonnie Walker, the fourth more involved. And like, why isn't he in?

And that night he put up like 20 in the fourth quarter. Um, it was really, and she's like, I've been talking about this for two months, and Lakers fans are really good basketball fans. He was

producing for us, and I was always a big Lonnie fan, and then he kind of went back of mind. But anyway, shout out to Lon He Walker, the fourth quarter god. We all know about you. And we also asked if we might eventually see

a 2020 Finals rematch. 43% of you said, yeah, LA would make it. Miami doesn't. 30% said, yes. 22% absolutely not. And five said, Miami makes it,

but LA doesn't. Ooh. Yeah. Well, make sure you follow us on Twitter at Matt Loosies. People are sleeping on Miami. Yeah. No, definitely.

Definitely. B-double-O-S-t-i-e-s follow us where you get all kinds of fun stuff like that yeah that'll do it for us this week go Sixers go Lakers go Lakers go everybody you know go everybody hey we just want

everybody to have a good time out there yeah what if we just cut the trophy up into eight pieces right thank you that would be nice. Yeah. Yes. Very good. Very good. All right. Well, we'll see you next week.

And hopefully we'll be very happy little chats after that. But we shall see. Good day. A good day to you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Hey, everyone. Jake Storielli here from John Boy Media. We'll be right back. for you covering all the hot topics from the sports world. A lot of baseball, a lot of postseason coverage, mock drafts, awards,

guest interviews, all of it. New episodes every Monday and Wednesday. Come watch along on the Wake and Jake YouTube channel or listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. This is Jimmy O'Brien from Jomboy Media. I want to quickly tell you about my podcast. It's called Jimmy's Three Things.

Episodes come out every Tuesday, and for 30 minutes, I dive into three stories in Major League Baseball that I want to talk about, or I do a stat deep dive. Sometimes I create my own stats. It gets weird. It's now your go-to podcast for staying up to date and in the weeds with Major League Baseball. No topic is off limits or too small. Bad umpires, great pitcher-catcher duos, new rules, old rules, three things that I want to talk about. Listen to Jimmy's Three Things on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Señora Sex Ed is not your mommy's sex talk. This show is la plática like you've never heard it before. We're breaking the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in Latinx communities. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between Latinas from Gen X to Gen Z. We're your hosts, Diosa and Mala. You might recognize us from our first show, Locatora Radio. Listen to Señora Sex Ed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.