The Deep 3 Podcast - How To Fix Everything Wrong With The NBA | Ep. 188

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

these issues are ruining the NBA for fans! #nba Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/ Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLW Listen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794 Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthree Follow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/ Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacg Mo's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_ Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D 0:00- Intro 2:15- Problems the NBA needs to fix 1:08:34- KD exposed 1:33:30- other NBA news roundup Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For about the past, I don't know, two, maybe three years, you asked your uncle, you asked your barber, you asked the cashier at the grocery store, what they think about the NBA, they'll probably have a lot of bad things to say. And we spent a lot of this time dissecting that. Why have casual fans turned against the NBA? Why does nobody care about the NBA regular season? Why is the product failing in the eyes of so many? It has been a nonstop talking point on the show. And the whole time I've been saying a lot of this stuff is overrated and, you know, people are going to be negative because social media. so much good going on.

I've turned the other way. There's a lot of serious problems to talk about. And this NBA All-Star weekend break where everybody sits down and talks about all the problems in the league has convinced me there is much that needs to be changed. And today we're going to talk about it. Welcome to the resistance, brother.

We're glad to have you. Welcome to the anti-Adam Silver gang. Yep. Here we are. This is the most like, this is the most like down that I have people seen on Adam Silver ever throughout his entire tenure. He's been in the league.

Not like 15, 17 years, something like that. Something like that. A lot of people calling for his job. Can't say I disagree. I at the very least I understand the points. And I'm sure you guys are home due too. So for this episode, what we did was, as usual, for these Monday episodes, I made a community post and asked you guys to give us your biggest issues with the league.

We're going to talk about them, talk about how they can be fixed if possible. Talk about who's at fault, how we got here. And just in general, look up and down the league and talk about all the issues that, if not something that are rooting the league, things that can make the quality of life as an NBA van better. Nice. Then after that, we're going to talk about

Kevin Durant's. Let's go. A lot of Kevin Durant news. Beasles, how are you feeling about Kevin Durant today? Oh, man. I don't want to say anything

about KD right now because he's about to talk crap behind the scene. So I like KD. They're a great guy. Don't insult my intelligence. We're going to do all that. Cue the intro music.

Let's get into it. We're throwing it back. Whoa. That's crazy. He was bragging. The cranium is crazy. Oh my God. Crown eaters rejoice.

So like I said, we're going to base this around your guys' submissions from the comments section of these biggest issues. And I think when we see everybody's issues, we'll either say we agree or disagree and then, you know, propose some ways to possibly fix it if it is. Even something fixable. Some of these really aren't. And that's going to be a through line of this conversation. And some of these things were in too deep. Yeah. I also do feel like you're Adam Sylvia like, damn, I can't catch a break.

The All-Star game actually kind of worked. Like the game was good. And so now it's funny because even like outside of us, I've already seen people still today to talk about like, how do we fix the league? And Adam Silver's like, damn, like I just did this. Like I just fixed it. Well, I'm glad you say that because the All-Star game is like 150th. All my biggest gripes right now.

I don't get what fuck about the All-Star game. I'm glad it was good. But we have much more important. stuff to talk about. And if he thinks that's fixing the league, that says a lot about him. All-Star game. One singular night,

fixing the league. Fixing the league. Get out of my face. So first off, let's start with the obvious conversation everyone's been talking about. Tanking. Cut off his username a little bit.

K.E.K. Sparrow says tanking. I think the lottery should be less favorable to losing teams than it is now, maybe even equal odds for all. I think we have not seen it actually helped bad teams long term as much as it would be justifiable. Success seems to be way more tied to front offices.

Ryan Dow also says tanking is getting out of hand. This is a prevailing sentiment. How to start with this because this is something that's been talked about nonstop over this week because there's been reports

that the league is taking this seriously. The competition committee is looking at how to stop tanking. Adam Silver said it's becoming more of a problem than it's ever before. Up and down, he's saying they're looking at everything. They're looking at potentially

abolishing the draft as an outcome. No stone is going to be left on turn trying to fix this issue. Is this a real issue? Yes or no? Yes. Yes.

it is because I think like in NBA discourse there whether like regardless of how big or small problems are there there you get certain words that end up being buzzwords that now just leave the like guys and become like in in part of the like kind of like the casual fans and so like load management tanking all all these types of things this is this is a word where it's a very clear thing but once everybody starts to like really notice it and you can mark your calendar to when the tanking starts, then it becomes a problem. So I do think it is at the top of the list. Yeah.

And it, it says a lot that Adam Silver is, you know, would heavily consider abolishing the draft. You know, however real that report or however heavily he is going to consider it, the fact that that's even out there is very, very, you know, important in telling as to how he views this issue. And I don't know if he's heavily considering it per se, but they're listening. I think it's more so the things that it's on the table and they're not writing. it off, which is still a huge, huge step. Yeah, I mean, they've been talking about this

for a long time. I don't think it's been an issue other than like how people are doing the taking the actual process of it and ruining the lives of people who actually pay with their hard on money for two and two and a half hours or however one of these games are to watch like guys

like, I don't know, Kenyon Martin or whatever just hoop their ass off for 40 minutes like they shouldn't be. It's just like, or like we've seen with the Utah Jazz a couple weeks ago where they like just randomly benched everyone and of course like things have changed and come out now they've since then like sat out jarrings oxygen you for the rest of the year because of injury things and he's having surgery or whatever but still i think it's the process of it now

that's the bigger issue well you really hate taking i don't hate taking i think it's a part it's a now you hate it you said ruining the lives of mbba fans bro if i'm like lucky if i'm a blue color worker and I just want to do none but sit down, crack open a cold beer and see my favorite team hoop. Oh, shit, I see tickets for like $55 or whatever. I'm going to go ahead and see what's going on. And you're like

losing your ass off? Yes. Danny Angel is ruining the lives of coal miners in Utah one by one. That drink beer specifically. But to your point, yeah, it's all right. So yes, this is an issue. Is this

something I think is the biggest issue? I feel like to say it's the biggest issue is to give Adam Silver ammo to do something stupid. And that's a problem. The idea of them abolishing the draft or reconsidering it shows just how much they're doing these overreaction to complicated measures and pretty much every facet of their job now as a league front office. You can't avoid tanking. And I think the notion of trying to remove tanking in a competitive sport that has parity and has a draft system is just a losing battle. so the idea of making so teams don't have incentive

to lose as impossible. We just did a 20-8 video talking about it last week where we got into the realities of if you're a sport that wants to have parity and not have the top teams

winning all the time the bad teams have to get the good players that's just kind of how it goes you have to have some sort of incentive and I pick this comment on here because he said it should be less favorable

to losing teams than it is now. That's crazy. You just can't have that. I understand people want to punish teams that are bad on purpose because they feel like it's like a negative negative that for you said quality of life for fans for the spirit of the game they don't want

people to feel like they're rewarded for being bad that's reality in sports they have to be otherwise it'll be bad forever so i don't like the conversation around that's but like you mentioned as well the utah jazz stuff is clearly where the line is where you can't be purposely not playing your good players in the fourth quarter you don't play them at all play them in normal fashion you can't let it be embarrassing to where everybody notices that extreme behavior yeah i mean one one can even argue i think we discussed it last week that them even Evening out the odds is why we're here. Correct.

So pushing for even more even odds, like how are the bad teams going to get out of their bad situations if you're evening out? Yeah. And even deeper into that conversation. And we talked about it in our last episode, too. Like, go ahead and do all the way with peck protections. Like, that's probably still existing just to make sure that teams are actually not trying to scheme their way out of trades that they made prior at all. Yeah, exactly. The Utah Jazz had one of the worst, one of these past two years, they had the worst record in the league.

I can't remember which year it was. if they would have got Cooper flag they wouldn't be doing this right now. You know, like, it speeds it up when they get better players. So the flattening of the lottery odds already keeps teams worse longer in terms of getting better through the draft.

And I know they want incentivized getting better in other ways. The reality is you're going to get better by getting the better players on cost control contracts, getting the stars in the door, which can only happen for Utah through the draft.

So the general point of punishing teams and making it harder to get good players if you're a bad team, I think as it fools errand a little bit. I understand it. But there's also a part of it where it's like, you do have to put the onus on these front offices. You do have to do your job. And like not every, every great player was not drafted first overall.

You have a bunch of teams. Yonis was drafted at 15. Kauilandah was drafted towards the end of the lottery. Same thing for Devin Booker, for Donovan Mitchell. Steph Curry was not a top five pick. Like you have so many, so many players around the league that are not in the top five. And like, it is, it is at some point, like, he craps you because you're betting your entire future or the next five years on 18 and 19 year olds. And there's so much development, so much that happens.

But you have to do your job and you have to, you have to figure out and figure out a system for you of what works and how to get actually good players in the door. And just, and to say, oh, we didn't have the number one pick. Now we can't be good. That seems like like a little bit of a cop out. And so if you are looking at, you are looking at trying to fix whatever structure it is for the tanking. I do think it is, it is still okay to say, hey, we are going to punish you for being bad. Because a lot of, because a lot of punishment for being bad. The like, even in out the odds and stuff like that and not making it so favorable.

I know what you mean. Because like there are, there are some regimes that are here for a little bit longer than they probably should be because they can say, oh no, we're resetting. We're rebuilding. We're tanking right now. And you probably just aren't good at your job. Yeah, of course not. Yeah, there is teams that aren't good at their job. That's always going to be the case.

Doesn't mean they should stay bad forever for the fan's sake, you know? And yes, of course you can find stars outside of the top of the draft. That's not like the best argument against it, I think, because if you look at every single draft position and the percentage of all stars or Hall of Famers or whatever measure of success you have, their draft at each position, number one is by far the highest hit rate. Number two, the second highest hit rate. It's a very even distribution. So, yeah, it's possible to find Nicole Yolkish in the second round.

there's only one Nicole Yokic in the second round there's only a handful of Hall of Famers in the second round. So it being possible doesn't mean there's not a super strong correlation I think. So I agree in theory that it's like not great to have these teams be bad on purpose and it would be nice to be like, I'm not going to reward that. But I think for all the parties

involved, fans, players, teams, etc. You kind of have to just like accept it. That's what's needed. You don't. The more we talk about it and the more I keep thinking about it, I really like, yo. Well, did you get these that are bad forever. And yo, I hate these guys.

So freaking be it. I need you to go out here and get it out the mud then. Like, like, that's not a real strategy for a league. Because, because, because you're, you're going to, in the same way that you, that you say, hey, there's only, there's only one, there's only one, there's only one Yoki in the second round. You can look around the league and say, oh, there's, there's only one, one LA. There's only, there's only one New York, right? We can only put two teams.

Like, we can't have 15 teams in L.A. and 10 teams in New York and five teams in Miami. There's going to have to be different ways in different, in different processes. And I understand that for small market teams, you're going to say, okay, well, we have to build it through the draft and do this and do that. You're going to have to do it a different way. And it's going to like those disadvantages are built in for you. I'm sorry. That's just how it is. You're just making their life's 10 times harder.

That's just how it is. And you're going to have to, you are going to have to find players. You are going to have to do all of these other things to go out and get. I agree. And that's why they need to have high draft picks when they're bad. Like, you're saying the point. But no, the point, the point is that to say that we can just accept it, I do think that if you're looking at it and for Silver, the number one thing that he has been worried about this entire time is how do we get more dollars, right? And how do we make sure that everybody is liking our product and doing X, Y, and Z?

He has to, he has to figure out a way and make the decision of are we going to value this as an entertainment product, which he just said, Yesterday, which he said at the end of the day, we are an entertainment product. Are you going to value that and value your fans and the things that they are saying in that way? Or are you going to say, we're going to prioritize this tanking stuff and or not the thing. For prioritizing tanking. We need it. Exactly. But are we going to prioritize this specific team building strategy, which is going to lead to tanking?

And we're just going to live with that, which in turn is then going to affect the other side. Yeah, exactly. That's a point. If you're having a draft, I think you have to live. live with that. I think to try to both sides it is crazy to me. Either you have no draft and you're going to be a league that doesn't do that type of structure and you're going to be a team, a league that does free agency and it's just completely different top to bottom or if you have a draft, it's going to like no matter what incentivize bad teams needing to tank and et cetera. So I think

I agree everything you just said. I feel you got to pick a path. Yeah. And I think the simple path is what's going on right now and every single league across all sports. Like there's always going to be a shitter. You need the shitters in order for things to be balanced out in the league. And it just really like applies to cross like every fucking face of earth really. Yeah. And when it comes to the tanking, I think it's fine at the end of the day. It just ties back to how you're doing so. Going back to the 76ers days, the process and what started it and Sam Hinkie and all that, how public things were and I would like let teams people know like, oh yeah, we're being bad on purpose. Our strategy is to get number one pick up for

number one pick, number after number one pick. That is bad. But if you're a team like, I don't know, let's say the Milwaukee Bucks moved off of Janus, and they're like, yeah, we're going to turn this whole thing down. That's fair. That's what you should do. That's what you have to do. Exactly.

And like, it's not really an issue in NFL because if you, the worst team, get the number one pick, and you get better real fast. Now, the hard part is 82 games is a long time. So someone's going to tank because they know if I get the least amount of wins, I will get Cooper flag. That's you can't, that's untenable. So you have to have a lottery system. otherwise the tinking would be insanity.

So I understand why that comparison isn't one to one. But yeah, in the end of the day, you need to have tanking, I think. If you're going to have a draft, it's just about the behavior that leads you there. Doing it in a polite way that fans don't hate. Yeah. I wonder what Sam Hinky thinks he thinks I was ahead of my fucking time. And they put me on a cross and maybe die there. It's ridiculous.

No, everyone wants to do it. That's tough. He really did get. That's another top of another day. He really did get fucked by the league. It's crazy. Yeah. All right, number two.

It's crazy the amount of people that. it after him with no issue. Yeah. Issue number two. We're putting them on the stake right now. Like these people should be. Yeah, but like kind of. Not really, though.

Like, he doesn't have a job. Like, it's difference. Who deserves to be on his thing? What teams? I don't see Danny H. I'm being fired and never allowed to work in the league again. Should be doing that.

That's what I'm saying. Sure. Well, what actually did do with those? Bring Danny A into the town square right now. What tough society is you running, man. End this madness. Next. Grype.

Lower the regular season games to around 70 and get rid of back-to-backs, it would help the injury issue. And the second comment also says the increase in injuries due to the pace of the game today. And I agree. The injuries is a massive issue. And this one's a little less black and white, I think, because the draft and the tanking stuff, you could say, I don't like tanking, they should stop it. Or I think tanking is necessary evil. We should get over it. Injuries, that shit just sucks.

And you can't really know. No, it's pro injuries. But is there anything to be done? I mean, no, right? Like, it's just a completely different game that we used to see being played just shit, not even like 30 years ago, really like 15, 17 years ago. The pace is insane. The amount of coverage and space that you have to account for is just like,

hasn't been thought about overall. And I think one of the things that probably can help is, yeah, you could lower games. Yeah, put less minutes on these guys. Will the league ever do that? Fuck no, because you're going to make, like, not much less money, but a sizable difference. 10% or so because it's 12 games less. That's like one ninth of the season, I think.

Yeah. And they get paid per game. Yeah. We had Roy Hibbert on my podcast and we asked him like, would you want to lower the games? He's like, no. They're paid per game. I'm good.

So that needs less money for them. Yeah, the TV deal is smaller because there's less games to be broadcasted. So everything proportionally gets less. Yeah. I think you could mitigate that by doing it at the time of a new TV deal because as the per game boast. If you lower the games, you have, you'll kind of offset that cost.

So not everybody will get the huge raise and a huge salary cap bump that they would normally, but they wouldn't go down or anything. I think the bigger issue is obviously salaries can't go down. That's ridiculous. They're finding new revenue streams

every fucking five seconds. I kind of, they could find a way to supplement the income. I think they just being greedy, man. Yeah, they are. Like they just, with this whole betting,

betting stuff and how the league is actually like working with one-to-one partners like, fan duel and all that. Where is this extra money? going to. To the players and everybody accumulate. But you're right.

Like, now we enter this new conversation. It's all greed is the real answer to all of this. And it's all nonstop venture capital funds must go higher and higher and higher. We must push revenue higher and higher and higher. Lower in the games is like a clear winner in pretty much all departments, I think. Everybody benefits from less games right now. The players do from their health. Obviously, the money aspect, they'll not benefit.

If we can find ways to offset that, so their money stays the same, that's clearly something that could be done, I think. but easier set than done. Their health benefits, the fans benefit because there's less games and they care more per game. We know this is the NFL model. There's only 17, so every game is life or death every single season. We can't get quite that far. This is still going to be a volume-based sport.

But we can find a way to make it a little bit. Eliminating back-to-backs is an easy way for that. You always have a day to let your team breathe and to mentally reset for the next one as a viewer. Again, that's more injury-related stuff, no back-to-backs. The quality of plays is going to be better because less travel. That is a clear win outside of money. the game stuff is something where I just don't think it's ever going to happen so I don't even look at like as shortening the season as a realistic option or anything that we can actually like talk about I think for for the league like the the best way that you would do it is all of the ancillary things and so like like you said getting rid of the back to backs also finding a way finding a way to adjust the game because you can play 70 games but if you're But if I play five games in the first five games and I'm running from one corner to the other corner trying to close out and the style of play is so tough, I can bust my Achilles in the first five games of the year.

Yeah. Because because the style of play is there. And you see guys, it's not, it's not like we're playing, you know, obviously it's not going to happen like this. But it's not like we're playing 70 games and then boom, I get hurt at game 71. People get hurt all the time. And I think that more is a product of the style of play and the pace of the game. And it's just done you can do about that through. Yeah, that's interesting.

No, I actually do think, I think that you can, you can do things to incentivize, to incentivize slower, slower games or more. But then you're ruining my entertainment. I like seeing these guys run up and now. And also, like, so yes, you can do role changes that let you get into. But I think the idea of like you can get injured in the 71st game is like the same type of faulty argument as you can drive your open in the second round. Of course, it's not one to one, but you have to look at it in like a very macro sense

that there's a certain percentage people get hurt every single game. The more games, the higher volume of injuries. So some years it'll be different, obviously, but in general, it's not obviously. But I'm saying that to say when if, if Adam Silver comes through and it's like, okay, we actually are going to shorten the season and everybody gets what they want, the moment, the moment that you look up, and again, the style of play is still what it is. And the way that offenses are evolving in the game gets even more wide open, even more spread out. now whenever people still have

soft tissue injuries and we keep seeing cap strains then if you're the league what do you go to at that point? There is no like final step at that point and so I do think ultimately finding a shorter season would be great but you also have to give yourself

some place to go and I think that shortening the season would be like the last thing and the last step so if you can adjust the game and have a couple rule changes to where the way way the way that you're playing isn't as conducive to injury, then we can do that. Because people were playing 82 games before, but the issue is what? The game itself is different.

Of course. And so if you can find a way to adjust that, then 82 games would not be as bad. If nobody was getting hurt at the rate that they are, we would not be looking at 82 games as bad as we were in terms of an injury sense. The main way that we would be looking at it is saying, we have too many games. People are tanking too much. That would probably be the conversation. So I think the rule change is one of the main things that they should be looking at prior to trying to reduce the number of games.

Yeah, you're 100% right that it is style of play more than anything. But you can't outlaw three-pointers. And like in the same way that 70 games wouldn't be a fix-all. Injuries are gone now. There's no fix-all for the style of play either. Like you really, you'd have to ban three-pointers. Like that would have to be the one thing is that nobody can stand out a three-point line. We have to have no spacing again and make everybody forget that running up down the court faster than

slower is good. Like, there's no way to make X's and O's get that much turned back so it's no longer an issue. So to me, I think it's probably more reasonable that 70 games has an impact than any singular rule change outside of, like I said,

completely altering the fabric of the game in a way that you'd have to like somehow get coaches to just like forget the things they've learned over time and be less smart. And I just don't know if there's any like one move that could like negate all that. But even that, I mean, everything that we're talking about at this point in terms of changing the league, you're going to change the history of the league.

You're going to change the way that the game is played. Instituting a three point, a three point line in the first place. It's like, oh, wow, what are we doing? So we've seen the league before, even the lottery. The lottery wasn't something that was here from day one. It was something that they got put in in the 80s post merger. So we've seen multiple times the league go in and do something that radically changes the way that the NBA operates. And so I don't think it's crazy.

But you've never seen them be purposely anti-intellectual. You've never seen them tell people to not do smart things they've learned. That's the harder part. It's like making a change that's like side to side, such as a lottery, like yeah, you can do that. But to say we've learned as a coach that I should tell my players to go to these

areas and just try to convince them or implement a way to not do that. But why do you go to those areas? Because it makes you win more. And so what I'm saying is if you do change, change the three point line, you go to that place because you can win more because the game incentivizes you to take those specific shots. You can just say,

hey, we're going to close this thing down just a little bit. And I'm going to put, I'm going to put faith because literally in every single aspect of the game, it's different. It's smarter. It's better than what it was 20 years ago. In 20 years after we make this change, we're going to get to another point and it's going to be fine. But right now, the same way that in 04, the game was too physical, right? You incentivize defense too much. Now what do we do?

Now we open it up. It's a it's a give and take. What are you saying? You want to see happen, though. Like, remove corner three. Like, is that your... Potentially. I think...

I think it's important to decide what you'd actually want to see, though, to actually get this conversation in any, like, meaningful way. Because, say, saying, I'm... Because no people propose a lot of things, saying there's a certain three-point attempt limit, or there's going to be a, like, any artificial way of saying you just can't do this. That's not going to work. I think it has to be a court change or some kind of actual dimensions of the game that actively, like, you can't do this valuable thing.

And that's real hard to figure out, like, the smartest way. And that's why it's a slippery slope for me. the change that we've been already seeing over the last few years specifically is how teams have been overly emphasizing how okay like we can't build such a top heavy offense or defense at all roster overall we have to focus and prioritize on our depth to give ourselves the best chance to win the what you like to say win the war of attrition and all out of the shit that's the best way to go ahead and counteract that there's nothing in my mind that you can actually do on the court to actually fuck with the fabric of the game to fuck with how the game has been played I just agree I I I I I

I disagree. You think in principle you can, sorry, let me cut you off. You think a principle you can. And I don't think we disagree. I think it's like in practice how, if it's specifically a three point line, how to make a solution that actually makes things better. Eliminating the corner three is like the best one I've heard. But we can get into a big conversation about how that's a slippery slope for style of play. So I agree with you in principle.

You can make changes. And I don't think history is a good argument against it. But I think the three point line is just hard to figure out a way that would make the game actually better. And right and right now in this moment. And you, one, you never know. exactly how everything is is going to play out. So I do understand if you're going to push back because of that. But also, I'm not the one running the billion dollar league like this.

And I'm also, I'm personally not saying a change has to happen this specific summer. You do not have to, you do not have to rush into it. If it is going to be something where you are changing the dimensions of the core, the actual fabric of the game, please take your time. Take your time. It's going to be okay. Do not rush this at all. I think the Donovan's point, I think we're thinking of solutions, which is the whole point of the segment, but specifically going back to the injury stuff, I just want to know the cause.

Like what are the findings? What are what is the research that your team is doing saying? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And I think from there, then we can come up with solutions, but we're kind of in the dark. Like, we ask Adam Silver this question every single year. And he's just like, yeah, our team's looking into it. Our team's looking into it.

What, like, what is your team saying? What is the cause? Is it the pace? Is it the three? Like, what is it? Is it the game? Like, I don't know. We need answers.

We need answers, I don't. He says, our team's looking into it. Also, we got hello money. I don't know if I got for God. Also, we're bredded, by the way. Let's talk about that instead. Which, yeah, I think we agree that finding a solution should be done and if a style of play is a solution, they should, by all means, go about it and not let themselves be stopped

by history. I'm just dubious of this specific solution being findable with a three-point line change. Yeah. But we agree in principle. And I just mentioned that greed. Next one, we have to talk about the gambling of it all. You look in the comments that community post you made,

people are pissed about the infiltration of sports gambling into the league itself. I think everybody had accepted it's a part of media forever. You go on a show, you go on any podcast,

there's going to be gambling ads. We've done gambling ads in the past. I'm sure we'll do in the future. It is a core pillar of the media ecosystem and this media ecosystem is dying across the entire country. Sports is alive and well

as a media ecosystem largely because of gambling. And I think the fans had accepted that. Until the league said, actually, we are going to be equally as part of that money as the media. We are going to take Fandal ads, drafting ads, put them on the court, make it intrinsically linked to the game

itself. And now, Turchwine says, Janus owning a part of a betting company is absolutely ridiculous and the worst possible PR for the league. I think he should be suspended indefinitely for as long as he owns stock. That's dragging a little bit, man. So obviously, I mean, he's mostly just saying it was up to me, which I understand the sentiment.

But the idea of the league getting so close to gambling that fans have gone completely sour on gambling as a whole even before when it was like obviously there's downsides to it and it's like it's a problem when it gets unleashed in a way that's unregulated but again people had kind of like you can understand it in some some proportion not it being the way the league markets their games the way the league says we are embracing this 100% with no drawbacks including a player having financial gain in one of these prediction markets succeeding you can understand why that gets a little sticky for fans. Yeah. For me personally at this point of time, it's just shameless. It's like,

all right, like, we get it. You got, the one of the best things that Adam Silver has done for the league is inflate how much money has been poured into and find different revenues and have avenues of cash flow and all that, which is cool, whatever. But to do this, it's just like, all right, man, like, you're kind of, you're doing a little bit too much. And of course, like, I think regards to the league, whether or not the league was going to be a part of and actually like be partners with guys like Fan do and all that. Like we're always going to see

players specifically going to go ahead and get in trouble on their own regardless. But to have this be the face of it just makes things so much worse. Yeah, I think you, what the league did with gambling is speed running the demise of gambling as a like acceptable part of sports.

Because you know, like again, it wasn't always like this. First, it was illegal and it was taboo. Then it was, okay, what's a fun way to make yourself care about the game? By putting a little bit of money, yada, yada. now it's like, oh my God, I cannot escape it, and fans are sick of it. And it's certainly understandable.

And you mentioned that Adam Silver is in a very good job and continuing to have the income streams go up and up and up. Great. Good for him, right? It's a fine line with this type of stuff. I agree. Capitalism does not promote fine lines very well when you're a league like the NBA and an owner like Adam Silver who decides that, fuck them fine lines. I want up and up and up and up. And you just look aside and you look at how fans might react to this.

and you don't say, let me prioritize what's going to be most successful to them. You prioritize what they're willing to deal with and what they're willing to deal with without stopping watching. And they've said, we don't care if fans hate us for the gambling. They'll still watch. And that's the problem. That's your number one and only priority. This is the worst thing that Adam Silver has done as commission.

Because all the other stuff, a lot of the, like, aesthetic part of the game, one, I do think some of it is like a real issue and like it is a problem. But also half of that is me turning into an old man and being like, like, Like, it's not the same. But so there's that aspect of it. Once you allow gambling and you make it, like you said, a part of your fabric, you've opened up the NBA to have the integrity of the game challenged on every single night on every single platform.

And that's the biggest issue. All of this goes away. Like, we find out that that Janus was out here rigging games and stuff like that. Like, that would be crazy. It would be an insane scandal. And that's the hard part is he's, like, I'm sure he's not. But you allow yourself and your face to be next to that it has that assertion in people's minds that you might be. Exactly.

Whether it be fair or not. Correct. Yeah. Exactly. And when they asked Adam Silver about this, he said, actually, it's not, it's not really a problem because in the rules, you're actually, you're actually allowed to own up to one percent. So it's actually pretty fine. And everyone was like, Adam. It was a dirty game, man.

And everyone's like, Adam. That's the problem. Why is he allowed to own up to one percent? Yeah. He said, he said it's a pretty marginal investment. we don't give a fuck how much money he's making is that he can make money at all. It's literally the principle of the thing

and he completely missed the point on that question. Guys, Yonis isn't getting filthy rich off of this. It's just a passive income stream. It's okay. He's just paying rent with this. We don't care. That's not the point.

And it's so tough because like, like I said, we are going to do more gambling in the future, I'm sure. We've done sleeper. We've done a underdog. We've messed. We've done. We've taken gambling as before. So I'm not here to say we're like morally,

we're above it we'd never even touch gambling but we're not the NBA exactly that's the difference yeah like it's gonna be a part of life and I'm not even saying that fans shouldn't gamble or shouldn't be like allowed to enjoy sports gambling it's if you're the league and the game itself has the players itself and the logo of the gambling company yeah that's an impossible PR win yonis is like a superstar that also affects the other stats of other players too yeah it just gets too tricky for the point of the conversation is why casual fans are turning on the NBA and why certain narratives

have taken hold of people that aren't active NBA followers every day, that's what matters more than anything for the long-term health of a league and there's no way that the gambling stuff can have a victory for that. The NFL doesn't do this, right? They're not, are they tied with any... Oh, no, they're equally greedy. The NFL is the grittyest motherfuckers in the world. We can big up the NFL

in some ways. Greed will never be one of them. Greed will never be one of them. They are probably worse. My brother, they finish start the season in Australia. they're greedy It's international CTE with them They are greedy They're greedyer actually

They're quite bad But yeah The green is another thing You mentioned the aesthetics of the game I think I have one on here Let me find it I'll go back Where is it?

Here you are Oh, gotcha The ads on the court Why are there 15 different gambling guys on the court Covering them playing in all bright red So taking away the gambling of it all Man

I'm sitting up This is me. This is my best. There are so many ads on every court, every jersey, everything relating to the league. When Adam Silver came into the commissioner's office, it was widely talked about that he is inspired by European soccer as a business model for the league and how he can explode the revenue streams. My God, is he a man of his word?

It looks exactly like European soccer teams with jerseys having 44 fucking ads on everything. The courts are crazy. The digital ads are placed on there to always have new ad placements and always have new stuff for the TV viewers based on their motherfucking region. It is advanced technology that I'm sure is top of the line impressive for ad sales people. Gross. You know what felt like the most intrusive

ad that I've ever had is on Amazon Prime now like throughout games or whatever or if they're in some like commercial break. You have the opportunity to add something to your cart on Amazon after you see a commercial. And gamble. That's bullshit. That's dangerous.

See I'm like on one hand it's like oh okay that's a cool use of technology. if you're going to be on an Amazon streaming platform, yada, yada. But the amount they do is so crazy. And what's worse is there's no one in sight. He was asked about this at All Sur Weekend, and he bigged up that technology. And how cool it is that I'd be able to have this everything app type of thing

feel for watching NBA games. He also was asked about AI. And he basically was like, yeah, we're a full steam ahead, baby. I love this shit. Get ready to have your own perfectly singularly tailored AI experience while listening to a basketball broadcast. What's this problem? man you good man you good bro yeah he just has he just has so many ideas and so many of them are just

bad and it's it's they're just so very clearly bad and and very clearly annoying and everything that that he does it's not it's not even a slippery slope that thing is just a slope yeah you just fall down it's a clip it's a clip yeah that's what it is like as soon as like adam silver came in and then like he got got the deal and then it's like okay okay okay we're going to put the Nike check on there. And everyone was like, okay, that's cool. I kind of like Nike. Then every team gets their own individual sponsor.

And then now we have a million ads on the court. I saw a video the other day on Twitter where some dude was breaking it down. And I think he counted 15 total ads in terms of on the court, the stanchion, and the sidelines. Crazy. And even including like the ticker. And so at all times you have something in your in your face. They're maximizing those slots, man. Fuck.

How many? Four slots do we have? All of them. Speaking of slots, next one we have, streaming availability. I'm not paying 10 of your streaming services just to watch the NBA. Adam said, get your money up.

That's what he said. Yep, and the bigger issue is a lot of times, like, we believe in Chicago. I have NBA League Pass. We have YouTube TV to watch NBC, ABC, ESPN. Can't watch Bulls games. It's insane. Insane.

That annoyed me. I didn't have that problem back in Boston, but since I moved here, And luckily the bulls aren't that watchable I don't think I'm missing that on much But when D. Rose's jersey was getting retired I couldn't watch that game. Yep.

That was annoying. And it's a very complicated thing with TV and RSNs which is regional sports networks that have individual contracts with every single team individually. That's not regulated by the league. That's to each their own for the team and then for those networks to each their own

on whether or not they'll be in cable packages or YouTube TV. For instance, the Chicago one, I forgot the name of the network. which I think is Chicago Sports Network is the RSN that the Bulls work with. They did not get an agreement with YouTube TV. So they're not on there.

You have to get a Chicago Sports Network subscription or get a like, I don't know, Xfinity cable or something, which nobody does anymore. Yeah. The NBA isn't controlling that, which maybe is the issue. I don't know if it's possible for them to control that.

That's just like deeply baked into the history of how media broadcast rights work. But now, you know, we got NBC into the mix now, Amazon into the mix on the NBA national scale. It's a lot of streaming services. It's a lot of money. A lot of people bidding and getting in different stuff, you might argue it's good because there's more ability to watch national games than before. But nevertheless, the average fan is going to look at that and say, fuck, how many streaming services do I need?

Yeah. The only positive thing that I can say that has came out of this is that, okay, like ESPN doesn't have much grass on the league as much as it did. And also, of course, the whole team thing, too. And now we have new companies like Amazon highlighting the game in a different way that we've seen prior before. And also the same thing compared to the same thing with NBC as well. I see the game in different lights and I see how it's just like portrayed differently. That's the only thing positive. But outside of that, it's just too much going on.

And you're making things, you're making your life harder for people. And it's expensive. It's just expensive to keep up with. It's the quality of life. If you have all the streaming services already, like I do, it's great. I already had Peacock. So it's stupendous. I can watch games on Peacock now.

Not everybody has every streaming service. So everything is going up and up and up to be able to watch everything. And it's also more complicated. That also ties into what Cubby Bear said, probably the price of attending a game. This part, I do it on here real quick. It's not being changed. Live venues is just expensive as hell.

Same issue with concerts. Shit's getting more expensive left and right. You can't do anything about it. This is kind of just a reality of the league. Make sure you're available to watch them highlights that Adam says that you can get. You can always have those for free. Those are everywhere. Here's an interesting one.

The 65 game minimum for awards. I do think this will get fixed when Shay wins MVP over Yokish because of eligibility. Because the only thing people hate more than low management is Shay killed with Alexander. Which he might have won either way. He won last year. But I understand the sentiment that, listen, man, first-team-all NBA this year, might be sticky. It might be Kade, Jalen Brown, Jalen Duren. Oh, shit.

Oh, Jalen Dirk. O. G. N and Ovi. I don't know who's going to be left over after all these 65 game guys aren't making it. It might be nasty. And hopefully this is one they can get rid of, but I think this is, we've talked about at length. this has been a clear miss, I think. Yeah. The moment,

the moment Brunson gets back to back first team Miami, then we can take it out. We'll do that. This is, this is one of those reasons that, that early I would say take your time. Because this was a decision that they made that felt a little bit rushed because

it was in response to the load management conversation that was going around. And then you start looking around and you have one or two meetings about it with the competition committee. Say, yeah, this will work. And now we're here. a couple years later and you see the you see the history of the league being being

affected you see all-star games you see all NBA teams be really really messed up because you have this this 65 game rule and I understand why why they did it like I truly do I think they just messed up a little bit yeah that was rash and never made sense nobody ever needed that donovan I know this one is near and due to your heart starting the games and they are scheduled if it is a 10 p.m. start don't start at 10 10 10 10 Not the biggest issue, but if the game starts at seven, start the damn game at seven. Very valid point.

These games are starting later and later. There's some of these games that start at like 1030 Eastern. It's ridiculous. That's one. Two, for Adam, who's like, I love European soccer. Them European start on time. On time. If the game starts at two,

they are kicking the ball off at 159, 455 seconds. They are on time. So how he could figure out how to do everything else. We think the NBA Champions League is on the way. you want to do everything else like European soccer except for start the game on time. Start the damn game out on time, man. NBA Champions League, I don't know what the hand motion was.

Dude, on top of this too, scheduling overall has been such a weird thing for the NBA. Like, why the fuck are there sometimes games starting at like 2 p.m. 2.30? The All-Star game, you actually was like 2 p.m. No one knew that, bro. You just made me miss the entire game.

Probably wasn't going to watch anyways. But, or the fact, like, it should be a night thing. Yeah. There's just so many times where like there's just a humongous slate of games in the other other days just like maybe one or two games that are just a man, you made me not care about the league for a day. You know, you stopped that? How so?

Removing 12 of those games from the regular season schedule. Not having it to do it. You ask me to lose my money. I can't do it. Motherfuckers. The NBA Cup needs to have some sort of incentive beyond just cash. Given the winner to automatic one seed to make it more interesting, not obviously that's too far.

But another thing we talked about, the NBA Cup has not been a resounding success for the average fan. we enjoy it. We're in a bubble. A lot of people don't give a flying fuck about the NBA Cup. The players don't give a flying fuck about the NBA Cup.

Part of it is time. Part of it you need to give time for history to build and people to start treating it like it should be something that is cared about in its own right without incentive.

That only comes with time. That's never going to be day one. I need this trophy. Nevertheless, it would be a lot better. I think if there was some type of reward outside of merit and bragging rights. Eh, I think, honestly, I think it's okay.

I think obviously you want the NBA Cup to, well, I don't know how, how much Adam wants the NBA Cup to like really, really mean. I think if the overall intention was we're going to put in this tournament, regular season games are going to matter a little bit more. Okay. Like, I feel like it's done that on a pretty solid stage and you get yourself through through Christmas and you have, you have some reasons for people to go. The courts are fun.

And it's just small enough to where it's something halfway, halfway meaningful. And we don't have to, you know, we don't have to have this, like, massive, massive parade about what it means to win the NBA Cup. I do think it's okay just to have this tournament, just for the sake of it, just to have some fun in the early part of the season. I think, I think it's okay. Yeah, it's fine. I mean, yeah, it's fine. Like, I'll live. But it would be nice if I had a reason to care more.

If you're going to do it, it'd be nice for it to, like, to really do it and have it be something we really care. out. We do a lot of things in the NBA now, a lot of changes that are just like, oh, it's fine. I would like for this one to matter. A lot of shit in the NBA is fine. And that is, listen, that's a, that's a bigger problem of we're just doing stuff just to do stuff. Correct. So I think also maybe adding on to this might fall into that bucket of we're just doing stuff just to do stuff. Well, that's what I'm saying. If you're going to do it, do it. Right now, we're doing it just to do it instead of making it matter. And I think care and what fans take away and want to feel invested is a difference between doing it just to do it or it being a meaningful

edition. And yeah, I don't know. I just, maybe we're too far gone too far into the history of league to make people care about it just on its own. Like you're describing, is it just being this cute little thing? Then it's like, well,

why should I care with the amount? You're making me care with all the marketing? Do you have any solutions? Wait, go ahead. No, I was just asking Isaac, do you have any solutions on, like,

what they could incentivize? I think he said, get the automatic one seat. That's too far because, like, that's crazy to make 82 games not matter. I think a tiebreaker for ties in a win column in the final standings could be a good one. It could be, I do like the idea of an impacting playoff rewards.

It's just finding where the fine line is. Like I've seen some people say you've got automatic home court advantage. You can't give an eight seed automatic home court advantage over a one seed. Maybe your floor is the six seed if you win the cup. I know the MLB does that with the All-Star game. Oh, it used to be the home court advantage in the World Series. Yeah, I don't know if they still do. They recently stopped doing it.

But yeah, I think maybe having it. your floor is a six seed, but within a certain game amount. So, like, if you're five games below, that wears, like, too much, like, okay. But let's say you finish two games behind the team there. Maybe that gives you a five game boost, so you get the six seed and they're in the play in the play in the playoff scale, but not to a, like, overwhelming degree is probably the way to do it, I think. You said an idea, like, maybe a year, a year and a half ago. You said you saw this on someone else's platform and someone said that.

Oh, I said it. What if they were like, what if a team? idea. What was the first C team or whatever, like, whatever team won something of importance, which is in this case, the NBA Cup, got to sit down and pick who they wanted to face in the first round of the club. Okay. I also think that's that specific idea. I did not say that. I think you give them. I know. There was another. There was another. There's two things, though. One, uh, for also, I do think that for the NBA Cup to matter, these teams that wouldn't need to figure out how not to fall off a cliff immediately after. If you can,

Because if you do have some type of pattern of we win the NBA Cup and that somewhat means something towards the rest of the season, that would be fine. And it's like this, this like launching pad for it. That's cool. The Lakers won it. Dry spell.

The Knicks won it. Team went downhill. The Knicks won it. Had the worst stretch after. So they can't like it. It's very hard also to ramp up to these like very intense games and then go back down. It's tough. Another answer.

I think that I like this. I don't know people else. anybody else would. I feel like it's a pretty low friction thing. Give it the winner of the NBA Cup the 15th pick in the draft right after the lottery.

So it's not a premier pick but it's an extra asset. I've never understood that as a massive incentive because why do you focus players care? I know people say that. So they still get their money

so that's why they care. And people always say this argument of why would the players want to try hard to draft the replacement. I feel like that is such a like naive way.

They're always knowing their replacements around the corner. They're always playing for their careers. They get it. The 15th pick in the draft is not going to spook Devon Booker. It's not going to spook Dylan Brooks. What, is Colin Gillespie going to be worried? He's already worried.

He's on top of the money? Yeah, on top of the money. On top of it. Okay. There already have impending every day I've got to fight for my job. I don't think this would change that. Why would you add more to that? There's no adding more.

It's 100% there regardless. Colin Gillespie lives every day knowing I have to earn a contract every day. A 15th pick in the draft has zero impact on that. He wasn't chilling before, and now an extra first round pick is going to make him be fucking spooked. Yeah. I understand how that adds on to, like, the, the nature of having something to lose and having some meaningful to the game.

So that makes sense. Yeah, only the 15th man on the roster who would be replaced would care in which he is not important to the winning of this game. He was going to be gone regardless. Anthony Edwards, you'd be like, dope. We hope we can get someone nice in the door.

We haven't asked it. Like, more players wouldn't care or it would be like, cool, let's help the team. But you also keep the money for that reason. There's a very marginal group of people that would care about an extra traffic. The only part, the, on the team, the people are like, oh, bet,

we can get somebody in here. The people who have the security. There's about, well, like, two or three. guys maximum on the team that like year in and year out have that have that security if you have if you're Gillespie and you already have 100% worry about about somebody you know coming in and taking your spot then if you add that to the table what added incentive do you have to it you guys do you make money like you make money no but like do you think con Gillespie's go out there and play poorly

but you're saying but you're saying to add it on top of of the money the money's are already here right I'm already playing for the money. So now if I'm already at 100%, if I'm adding the traffic, who is that helping outside of the team? It's helping fans and the team. It's helping the fans and the team. It's not about the players at this point.

Exactly. We don't need to coddle the players this much. You already give 500,000. We keep using Colin Gillespie, just as an example. Colin Gillespie, you already give $500,000. We can allow the team and the fans to have some incentive as well,

which is a solid middle ground first round pick. We don't need to coddle the emotions that players that much where they've got to be scared of another rookie. Mostly, like, that's like, I don't even think players, think about that. There's so many different assets.

So then why would you put that on their play? I think. Because fuck their plate. It's not about them. It's about everybody else. But I think I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I would not do that because I think your, your, your immediate incentive now, now directly goes against what the, like, the best interest of the players. I think if you can find it. That's so dramatic to me.

I think if you can find, I mean, obviously it's not like the number one overall pick, but if you can find a way to, to have a prize where everybody eats, then I think that that would be great. I don't think the 15th pick is necessarily bad. They eat with money. They're already eating. We're talking about making it better for the fans, not the players. So then let's figure out something else for the fans. This is the best thing for the fans. I don't, I don't agree.

What will be better for the fans outside of your team getting better and getting more assets? That's like the ultimate prize. I think one also, this is a, this is an early season, regular season tournament. Yeah. To have to have this now affect team building year in and year out. I do, I do think that will be. That's a fine argument. That's fine.

I think that's one. If we can keep it contained to just this year and like one year at a time, I think that would be the best way. The idea that you said, who are you worrying about on the New York Knicks for them to lose a raw spot? Landry Shannon's spook. If you had the 15th overall pick, you would be not geeked, obviously, but you'll be looking forward to it.

And that's an extra wrinkle, an extra level of investment that you as a fan didn't have prior, which makes you care about the league. And I understand your point. If you think that we don't want to tie in larger things as tournament because we don't want to impact things too much, okay. I just think the specific talking point of the players won't like it. Don't give a fuck about that. This is, but this is. And I guess I'm worried about them.

I guess two percent more than you are. It's fine. I do think that we have to, we at a lot of times we do have to remember the initial intention of what we were trying to do. And the initial thing is how do we make people care about about the regular season. and this specific thing, you know that the playoffs is going to be the thing that everybody talks about

is all this stuff. The year in and year out stuff is a little bit much for me. And all I'm worried about is how do we make October to November the most interesting as possible to then lead us into the playoffs? And so if you are, like I think

and the only issue, the only, because the idea that I have and the only problem that I have with it outside of that, flawless idea. The only problem is, I think you would like, in order, in order for it to work, you have to have like tiers. I think that for fans remembering like, okay, are we in tier one, tier two? Like adding just another layer to the standings is a bit much.

But having some sort of boost in terms of we're five games out. If you're like the, if you're with like one through four, you get home court advantage. If you're this, you know, escape the play and all this other stuff. That's probably the best way. I don't see why it's better to have it affect the playoffs than team building. Either way, you're having it affecting. outside of itself. You know what I mean?

Because it's more singular to this year as opposed to like year in and year out. I guess. That's fair. Either way, like you're, you want people to care more. First people you need to care is obviously the players still give them money.

Secondary obviously needs to be us because we need to be able to have story lines to carry us on through the year and have things to look forward to at the end of the end. And that's not all that matters. Yeah, it's a more, it's a more instant,

instant result rather than now I have to wait until July and then see if this 15th overall draft pick is going to be great overtime as opposed to playoffs. But even then like that you don't have to be because if you're a team like the Knicks you probably don't even want that 15 pick and that could be another asset you could get off to get someone like Yon's

potentially you know. It's an asset. It just opens up another like caveat of Avenue. You can you can have you can have that but I do think that like that that then becomes a lot of like a lot of if you're trading the pick the hypothetical and that if you again if you take if you have that pick

and you hold it and you take a you take a player then you have to wait to like a year or two just to see if that player is good. Your issue is people have the ability to think long term? I don't know if it's a bad thing. Whereas you got a I'm just And if this player turns good, if he gets good, bro, you got a player for a fucking stuff for a draft.

I'm just saying, if we're talking if we're talking about making it easy for fans and making it to that, to that they care. Hey, if you win this thing right now in the in the playoffs, which everybody recognizes as Oh, those games mean something.

Those games are going to help us win a championship. These games right now are going to help us win a championship, which at the baseline, winning regular season games should help you, should help you be more equipped to win games in the playoffs. Is a much simpler one-to-one doing that than adding a draft pick? It's way more complicated, actually, to explain the impact of it on the playoffs because it's not exactly, like, that's way more complex than you get a pick if we're talking about clarity for fans.

But I do understand your point if you just don't want it to impact things outside. the season. That is a good argument. That's fair. Yeah. Like, I'll be a fan of that too. Like, if the Hawks randomly just want a fucking NBA cup and they're able to avoid the playing, sure. Like, go ahead. Make my life easier. I'll look forward to it. Next up. The rest need to be taught not to award flopping with free throws. And that's the, I'd include that because people do really feel that way, that flopping is a major issue. Below that, I put what I think is a bigger reality, I think. Joe Flip 23 says, the balance between offense and defense. It's way more fun to watch without so many free throws,

a rule change that benefits defense would make the NBA so much better to watch. It's fair. That probably might be one of the more valid things said here. Yeah, exactly. I think flopping to me is not really an issue. I understand people don't like it, like more power to you.

That's not a huge impact on the actual style of play. I think it's pretty few and far between in terms of the amount of plays. The bigger issue is how, especially this year, Freema movement has been unleashed to the next level. You can club people with your arms. Offensive players can do anything they want,

and defenders have no, ability to have any type of contact, the balance has been thrown too far off. Question. Was there not a flopping rule implemented like a couple years ago? There was. I swear, I don't know if you remember that season. They, they like enforced it the first two weeks.

Never saw it again. Same thing for carrying all the drip moves. Jordan Pooleger, I call for it like six times and nobody else. They do that a lot where they do these little rule changes and they've enforced a shit out of it to set the tone and then slowly wanes off. That's so dumb though. Yeah.

Oh my God. And again, I don't really care about the. a flopping rule. Like not, flopping is not that big of a deal. Yeah. If you want to have some type of flopping rule to not let egregious stuff happen,

cool, they've done it like you said. Yeah. That is like an easy thing to legislate. The offensive stuff you can do now with your offhand with dribbling, sure to some extent, but just the amount of contact

offensive players can initiate is outrageous. Yeah, simply like pushing defenders off with their offhand or just swiping away, that should be like, ah, you're doing a little bit too much. I agree. It's a balance. Bring back hand checking.

Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, if offensive players can be involved. violent with their hands. Let defensive players be violent with their hands too. And to be fair, you can. I think people act like you can't touch anybody.

You can. We just saw in the playoffs. There's a lot of hand checking. I see a little dork. And people cry about it when it happens. So there is more contact defenders are allowed than we're leading on. But man, offensive players can do anything.

Yannis can punch anybody. Anybody can just throw their arms around and just do whatever they want. And that's probably a problem. One of my favorite moves that Yonis does that should be highly illegal is whenever he is in the post. And whenever he's trying to attack and get over the rim, he, like, shows people around their open. bleak and he takes his elbow wraps around him and goes up.

Liver shot. Yeah. It's an annihilies. Shag does that too. Yeah. The bows. The bows of death. And the bows of death are okay when you can also do the extended arm of death right after. It's a lot. They can do anything they want right now. Let's get back to holding people off ball.

Yes, exactly. Allow holding offball. Allow contact the other way. Yes. Let this be a contact sport. It is. Exactly. So let's let it be that fully. It's too much.

I'm a fan of it. Because I'm not even against offensive players being able to have weapons at their disposal to get open. Just allow the defense to have equal amount of contact. Yeah, I agree. Just balances all it matters. If you wanted to be back in the day,

you can't touch people back then. But you know, if you wanted to be a thing where you can't touch anybody like you can today, but you also can't do any dribble moves or contact like you couldn't in the 80s and have it just be like everybody's waddling off the court with one dribble, cool. It needs to be balanced.

Let me see how good your handles really are. If you can't, if you can't carry it, let me see it. If I took care of no way right now, what I would have the best handle. Oh, fuck. You know who would be unaffected? Kauai. Oh, yeah, he would.

He doesn't get the little tight crossovers off regardless. He's who forever. He's, bro. The way he just dribbles. He is very ethical. Yeah, it's like very straight direct. None of the floss and shit. All right.

What? You know, I heard that. Yeah, like none of the floss. He doesn't do too much like glorifying of his hand. What are you saying? None of the what shit? Flossin. Like he doesn't like...

Oh, I thought he said flaccid. No. Because you said erect. And then I thought he said flaccid. I said like directs. It's not erect. No, you said erect. I said he erect, dog.

Oh, God. Support this. He said, nasty man. What the fuck? Because you were talking about being straight up and you say he needs to be erect. And like the littals, man, then you said none of that flaccid shit. All right.

I meant to say, I meant to say, keep that soft shit away from me. Good God. Keep them gummy worms away from me. You're nasty. You said it, You made the sandwich You guys know what you want to talk about I know what you guys are

It is too hard to retain drafted players within the current rules Why will a team like OKC be punished For drafting well by not being allowed to retain them? And I picked this in the specific issue of being dinged for drafting well and not being going to pay everybody is an entry point to talk about the real thing.

That's the second apron. And how they've since kind of done seven years ago, there was like no salary cap it felt like. You could infinitely trade and build these insanely big luxury tax bills if your owner was ready to pay up and deal with the repercussions financially. But they also don't want to do a hard cap.

So they've done this in between and done the second apron era that has completely changed the way team building works. Do we view this as a negative? Yes, it's basically a hard cap. Yeah, it literally is. Yeah, it's basically a hard cap. And I've done it's basically a hard cap.

I just, yo, if I am worth $5 billion, let me spend my money, right? And I truly do think that it just puts, I think you have to put a lot of pressure on owners and on front offices

to do their jobs properly. I think you have to make it so that if everybody else in this league is spending $50 million, $100 million on luxury tax bills, if you want to be competitive. Now we've seen the worst have crazy,

your tax bills, right? We've seen the clippers have very high ones. But if you know, if we are going to be competitive and we have to go for it, you know, go for it this year, then we're going to have to spend money. Okay, so, so be it. And I think that we talk a lot about parity. And we've said this before. I do not like parity coming, coming at the expense of the people who have worked to get there to the top. If you are doing that because you are saying that the, like the jazz, they suck. They need the first overall pick. Okay, cool.

That's your opportunity to do it. For the Thunder who have built their team the right way, who have drafted guys year in and year out that have now developed, their entire coaching staff has now developed these guys to be all NBA level guys. It is not fair and it is not right for them who have, quote unquote, done everything the right way to now be punished because even if their owner wanted to, it would effectively end so much of the other team building stuff. that they could do. Yeah. One of the lamest conversations in tweets I see like now is, oh, this owner saved $700 million in taxes. I don't give a fuck.

What this owner saved in taxes? I'm not as accountant. What? I find it's so lame. I agree with everything you said. I don't like the second apron. I was fine with it before. I didn't feel like we needed the change.

It was a, to me, a rash response to the clippers and the warriors getting blooded bills and, like, being able to buy good teams. They weren't winning with those teams. it's fine the clippers can do anything i think it wasn't the biggest issue in the world to me i go back and forth on this in terms of like if i was putting myself in the shoes of the front office and evaluating the pros and cons of this i agree with you on like an emotional level i think it's dumb to like hamper good teams because i as a fan want to see good teams being rewarded in this way it does work for creating parity and if that's what they want it does work like you know

greatly and other rules like the nfl has a hard cap obviously that they have some complex-ass things, you can kind of get around it. But ultimately, they do have a hard cap. If you are going over it or being finding a way to duck under it, you're paying the price later. But there is a hard cap there, and it makes for a lot of player movement and a lot of tough decisions to be made.

So I don't know if it necessarily is a bad thing that GMs have to be more careful with their money. And I don't know if maybe we just haven't adapted to it yet. And eventually we can get past this era of bloated contracts where young players automatically get max contracts and teams are just going to have to be a little bit more careful with how they give money, not giving certain players $50 million right away because maybe, like, you know, previously when it didn't really matter, if you were a max contract guy,

in terms of you were just like an also level guy, you got max contract, now we're starting to see like some difference in value there where Tray Young, you get 30, Devin Booker gets 35, someone gets 45 and there's actual differences in value. Maybe that's a good thing long term. I don't know. Like I feel like part of me that kind of understands that. I do, but I also feel like it's, like it's coddling the front offices. Is it coddling?

I think it's the opposite. You're holding him more accountable for being gracious and giving someone like Jared Jackson Jr. You're 50 million dollars. You know? You're right. You're right. Yeah,

you are. You're doing them a solid. He's not worth that when it comes to all the other players who are actually making that level. Exactly. Who are a top 10 player in the world. It's not coddling at all. I see why you say that because the other guy is like,

it's coddling from like a financial differences there. It's the opposite of codling though. You're turned the difficulty up immensely. And it's like parity for parity sake by making it harder because you have to like okay see we keep talking about how they're the team that's equipped to deal with this because they can ship off hardinstein ship off door they have a thousand draft picks up a bunch of young guys and find the next one eventually that's what's required that's the opposite of coddling that's turning the difficulty level up immensely

which isn't really a bad thing i guess like i kind of can understand that to some degree i just i think i think at a lot of levels even if even if i agree with you um and i say okay cool It's not, it's not cobbling for the front offices. It still is coddling to, to the owners, I think. Because I can't, and maybe this is the emotional part that you're talking about. I cannot, in my head, rationalize trying to put in these barriers to have these billionaire owners who team values are going up every single year who have all of this money and say, Oh, no, you can't spend this amount of money because it's going to affect everything else.

If I have this bread and I want to win, that's what we're doing this for, right? I mean, with that logic, you should argue against the existence of a salary cap at all then. With that logic. Listen, we would talk about this in the all season. We have a lot of, we have a lot of conversations to get to. I'm just saying, it's very, it's very hard for me to look at this and say, okay, the players, you guys have to do, you guys have to do your best to do everything in your power to win these games. front office coaching staff you guys have to do the best thing in your power to build this team

and to put those players in the best case in error and the owners don't get don't have that that pressure necessarily well i i do think ultimately this fool um does come down to our parity conversation so i do want to ask you are you more pro or against parity if it just comes me i'm i'm against parody i'm i'm against parody i'm i'm against parody and i'm and you can't even say that because the Knicks do not get everybody. Like if I wish they would. Of course. You're all shouldn't.

Me too. I want us to have them. I want us to have the benefits of being in this big city. But I do think that parody for, for parody sake, which for a lot of the things that the NBA does. We need to get more liberal, man. I don't, I don't think. I don't think it's necessarily great. And I don't, I'm not as opposed to this idea of having a big bad wolf in in the league.

I think it's kind of cool to see a team be, be good and chase this like level of greatness of like, can you go back to back? Yeah. Can you, can you three P? I think that, I think that's cool. This is a different combo now. All that is true from a narrative emotional element. That's a very, you can't bring that into actual team building rules.

I see what you're saying. What you're, what you want is you want ownership to be an equal part of the skill gap and the impact as a GM as players. You've said that. These two groups have the onus. why should owners do? I think the point that the league would say and a lot of fans that aren't New York Knicks fans

would say is ownership should not be an element of this. We should reduce the impact of ownership. Your owner being rich versus my owner being poor should not impact things or should impact things as least as possible because obviously it always have some impact in terms of the grand scheme of things. But it shouldn't be a team building element at the fact that you are.

Like you're at this point out. Get your money up before you get your money up, man. Get your money up. Not one. I do two money spreads on you. I don't care. Yeah. So what we're hearing.

You better go sell them plates on the highway, man. Oh my God. So we're hearing guys. Tell him you got travel ball coming up. You try to make the tournament. I don't give it to end about you. Hey, you're broke. Get your money up.

Come winning some basketball games. I'm care. So Donovan has a movie. Get your own PJ. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. We got three in New York. Don't have three PJs.

You don't have one. Oh, nasty. Jaylon and Bruns is going to be celebrating at the Masonian room in the Bivolose. You at the Hilton. You're the Westin. Get up. I don't care. So Donovan has removed himself from logic in this conversation.

Fuck you. You're broke. Get a life. I'm crying, man. Be so going, read me the last one. All right. These players don't be kissing like they used to. Why would you...

Back in the 90s, dudes kiss for real. French. Eye close, real romantic. Dudes these days too scared to kiss, afraid to mess up their box score. Well, the French might be back. We've had a massive French revolution in the NBA. This is also true, though.

Magic Johnson and Isaiah Thomas stay kissing. They don't do it like that. You couldn't have named any worst players. They kissed before an NBA finals game. Stay kissing. I'm not touching this. I'm just talking about the history of the league. And what happened prior?

What's the next slide, man. We tried to say that we were done with the 90s. Listen, I'm just trying to teach everybody about the things that were happening in the league at the time. Okay. So you want the physicality of the 90s back? You want the contact to the 90s back? That better include lip-to-lit contact. Physicality is a big word.

Anything. That's broad. Exactly. A lot goes under it. Oh, Magic Johnson. Magic Johnson. Okay. Okay.

Next year we're going to do that is all of the issues. with the league. Yeah, what are we going to do? Let's, let's calm down. How do we solve this right now? How do we solve the kissing issue? Guys, as we go into the second half of the show, it's only right. It is only right that now we talk about Kevin Wayne Durant.

His middle name is Wayne? It is. Wow. Kevin Wayne. Wayne Durant has been exposed on Twitter. The KD files. I fit the timeline. And man was it epic.

We have a lot. to talk about today. It was amazing. So if you guys are not aware, Kevin Durant has been very active on Twitter for the past six or so months. He's re-in-for ever. For the past 12 years.

For sure. But he's gotten more into it as of late. He's gotten very active. Arguing with people. Shameless. Shameless. I spend a lot of time arguing with fans. Feel how you feel about that.

Kevin Durant is a investor in a company that funds drone technology that sold that drone technology to the IDF and has been an active part of all of that. Conversation turned real quick. Damn.

People on Twitter have been begging Kevin Durant to acknowledge that he is involved with the company that is an active part of the IDF. He's been ignoring it

nonstop. What is he going to say, right? He has acknowledged it. And this led to chaos because he responded to this random discourse about the trophy design. He responded to it.

And then Pranav went down here and said, not as much as I hate your drone investments. And then he responded. on to that, opening the floodgates because he finally acknowledged it. Once this happened, obviously he didn't say anything about it. He made a joke and inducted again. They didn't

want to talk anything about the war crimes. And just kept it pushing and talking about trophies, right? This opened the floodgates where everybody said, all right, time to Rose, Kevin Durant. And what do people do? They pulled out receipts. And what are these receipts? They were leaked DMs from group chats

that he's been in for years where he has been communicating with fans about everything involving his NBA life behind the scenes. and has been telling them all kinds of stuff. And this is stuff from slandering teammates to making jokes about his involvement with IDF to talking about his coaches that he hates. Up and down, he's had so many leaks

that do not bode well, I think, if you're in the locker room with Kevin Durant. And I think we can start with this one where, can you zoom out, put it on the screen. Coach called that play and that pass to Elpy. I'm going to turn the ball over with this shitty-ass team. I don't give a fuck.

Your franchise player can't shoot or defend. that's a way bigger issue than my turnovers. Remember, these guys are your future. Also in this one, he insulted one Jabari Smith Jr. by saying he cannot be relied upon, and he insulted his intelligence by calling him the R word. Jabari Smith Jr. is a player

on his team that has said he's looked up to Kevin Durant's entire life and has modeled his game around him. And Jabart and Kevin Durant says, this guy's a fucking idiot. How old is Katie? About 37. 37? What a burner.

What a burner. Get off my dick or sin. And now you may say it's a burner. Is that true? That is him? 40, by the way. 40 by the way. These are all off a burner, right?

Mm-hmm. Allow me to be a reporter a little bit. Go ahead. This is all true. Yep. Me and Donovan have known about this for about four years. These group chats he is in are the worst kept secret in the NBA. And a lot of people have known this.

And that's why our timeline has been flooded with them. We have a friend, obviously, not going to put it out there, who is in these group chats and has been in them for years. In 2021, he used to do this on his main account, at KD. Trey 5. He led to see on his phone. I went through and I saw him talking about the Brooklyn Nets in 2021 on his official accounts. That got exposed in 2021.

Didn't get a lot of motion, but a screenshot will get out there. He started using these burners. But we have known about these for years. A lot of other people on Twitter have. It's been a worst kept secret that somehow has not gone out there. It's insane. These are just Kevin Durant fans turned like, you know, social media friends like a lot of people normally would. You know, you meet the guys on Twitter to your friends with and start communicating with them.

That's normal. not when you're Kevin Durant and those people are your sycophants and are your stands who you just get this weird parasocial relationship with, which I guess it's not parasycial because they know each other, which is a strange dynamic to have these groupies and these fans turn friends that you sit here and talk shit with and think is going to stay on. It's not going to leak anywhere. And it's funny because in this specific screenshot, like you have the two thumbs up in a lot of the screenshots that we saw whenever, whenever Katie would make a joke, eight reactions. Not reactions. Like everybody is glazing to the topest, topest team. And it's very funny that even after the, like you said in 21 when that first league happened, even though that like it got out there, that you would still have multiple group chats and still say, yes, this is something that I'm going to do. He needs it.

It's crazy. And to be fair, it's not just glazing. I forget we've seen these group chats. It's also like they're roasting him. And like it is like, it's more than just people being like Kevin around, I love you garg garg garg gargur. like they're they I get it's not just that but it's weird I'm sure that I'm sure that can't help man because he'd be coming up here sometimes on whatever press conferences or interviews whatever and sometimes he'd be referring himself to the god and I'm 100% sure partly is because of these people too yeah he's it's a weird dynamic where he has these group chats and he says everything under the sun too we have this next one from pull up you souls I started holding Steph accountable and they looked at me like this listen he is he is funny also a little really reactions. I thought you did go on it.

The funny part is everything he's saying is true, by the way. He's not lying. He's being dead honest. Alperin Shingun cannot shoot. He cannot defend. It is hard to deal with us. You're Kevin Durant. But he's saying all this stuff to these people and allows it to go online.

This is horrible as a teammate. How is the Houston locker room going to get come back from this? I have, I have no idea. And there were so many, there's so many pictures and videos of KD with Shangoon yesterday. And everybody just keeps quoted in and say, does he know?

Does he know yet? Like, what is Shibari Smith Jr.? How does he pop? possibly you can get over this like that is I get he's an adult he's grown ass man don't they'll move past it clearly I won't forget that all you I spend all this time on TV saying I look up to you yeah you call me that to people like just snicker at Katie got to be one of the worst teammates of all time

yeah so that's the real takeaway outside of like MJ and him actually put physically being like mean to people actually I don't know I don't rather you be like MJ and like do something physical get your shit off rather than Katie and just have like a nasty paper trail just Ever. It's a constant just talking shit about people. That's way worse. Yeah, that's the, that's the biggest thing because I'm, I'm a thousand percent sure. There are other players that have felt the way that Kevin Durant has about his teammates. I'm sure LeBron has went home and cussed out and cussed out Mo Williams to Savannah.

Like I'm like, you know, like he has had problems. Now, if it comes out that LeBron for years has been in Twitter DMs with random people, saying all of these stuff, that's just a complete lack of awareness on his side. and that's the bigger issue. And so nobody, like you said, nobody's saying that Kevin Durant is a liar. Nobody is saying that he is not valid in feeling this way about certain teammates

or about his current situation. You cannot be putting this information out there with so low security about your thoughts. This cannot operate this way. And like, everybody talks shit about their co-workers to their friends. That's not like abnormal. You know, he's not some fucking villain

because he doesn't like certain people. There's DMs of him hating every star teammate he's ever fucking had aside from James Hardin and to do it to like I've told you issues I have a co-workers I'm not going one by one it's not like my M.O. to let you know in my

most common form of conversation how much I fucking hate everybody and how bad everybody is like he comes off just like an asshole like just like a loser like he's just like it just does not reflect well on his character overall as a professional to say this to just random people on Twitter

like if this came out and it was just a screenshot off from ex best friend or whatever, no one would give a damn. I mean, you care because it's like, oh, wow, like that's like, I feel crazy. But it wouldn't be as bad compared to this. Yeah. And the, and the Rockets one is super interesting because obviously, like, these go back a whole bunch of years. And it's just crazy because what if this happened before, right?

Like, the Rockets are at the, at, in the top half of the West, right? They, they want to win the championship. They are going to be in the playoffs. So trying to go on a title run. If any of this stuff got leaked before game three of, of a play. game, it would, it would just, it would be, they should have waited. Fuck, man. I wish it would have happened.

But that would be the prevailing narrative and it would be the number one thing that everybody's talking about and asking about instead of, hey, like, how are you guys locked in for game three trying to win this playoff series? And let's look through them all. Let's cycle through all these tweets. There's so many to look at after the Rockets one, which I think was the biggest deal. This one is going back to, I think, the Phoenix Sun's days. I guess they lost the game.

He said, I really got to laugh to stop myself. I'm crying. I swear I miss Ben Simmons. At least he would give me the ball. And another one of these, he was like, Ben Simmons is depressed. He doesn't even like basketball. He's like Carolina for shit.

Keep sucking through the ball. Let's keep finding more because there's no. I'm crying, man. Yeah, no, there's a lot. It's just like, it's so weird, because it's like, you're an all-time player. One of the 15 people would say you're one of the 10 most talented players of all time to ever fucking touch a basketball.

And you're just with randoms, bro, like this. Come on. He said, nah, Kyrie really on his best. behavior around the Europeans, but treat his own people like they owe him something. Actually, is this one fake? I think some of these are fake and they're pretty clear. I don't know if this one's fake or not. Because some of them you can see on the text, there's like weird gaps on the blocks that tell

they're photoshopped. This one I can't tell. I haven't seen this before. So it might be. You would have thought me and James Hardin shit in his cereal. This one might be fake because some of them you can tell. There's like a Trey Young one that's egregious. Possibly, possibly.

Okay, this one's real. I think. Since MJ Putsch. Kerr in the face, he don't find with dark scins. You gotta give it to me. He's funny, man. Mentally, this guy is 17 years old. He was born in the wrong era. Like, you would expect

shit like this to happen from, I don't know, some like Jeremiah fears. That's valid to go in and feel like that. It's valid. It talks shit about someone like Zion or whatever it is, and the head coach and all this stuff going over there. But you, KD? This one's funny. This one doesn't bother me. This one's funny.

It is funny. He's hilarious. He's hilarious. It's just crazy that we're at this at this point and we've had multiple instances of KD like being being on Twitter. He's been, he got exposed years ago for the burner. And then the stuff in 21 happened that was, you know, again, swept under the rug. Every five years we have something of like, bro, why are you doing this on, on Twitter? He called, this is a response to some graphic that had numbers of two point guards. he said, I wouldn't say Kai was competing with me,

but that light skin and that triple double cocaine bear were. Triple double cocaine bear. Obviously talking about Steph Curry and Russell Westbrook. He said he feels like, he's saying what everybody's always said, there's some little dynamic where they're competing for numbers and like some stepping on the toes. He said facts. And he called Russell Westbrook a triple double cocaine bear.

I'm not going to lie. So what the fuck. I hate to say it, but that's a perfect description for. Rosh and Wacklewreck. Cocaine beer. He said, I miss James Hardin, man. He's a good guy. Slightly delusional, but I understand him.

Slightly delusional. We just got to get all this shit off, right? I need to introduce him to journaling, right? I need to introduce him to the notes app, bro. It doesn't talk back the same way DMs do. I guess so. Life with Devin Booker and Vogel, someone sent, and it was a screenshot of Kevin Durant's numbers.

He was struggling at the time. he said all this because book returned again this is obviously during the suns in the first year he said two dictators Stalin and Hitler Mussolini and Kim Jong-un The sons are my team when we lose And Bloch's team when we win I've seen this one before

This one is real This is the type of stuff we've seen him talking about A lot whenever our friend was showing us This in years past Meanwhile Devon Booker's on Instagram posting 36 Brothers for Life That being 35 plus one

And then being this dynamic duo And then he's in the DMs actually he's musilini and the coach is Kim Jong this is bad this is so bad just a Grammy guy why are he just saying this to rain

dude does the bruce drop him off of the NBA and he's just saying this for group chat kikis like just in front of all these fucking fans like laugh at these jokes they're gonna love it when I talk about players because I'm a player they always want to hear this stuff

this is why just no just no awareness and it really is it's funny because there were like you could get a lot of information because there was like like there were times where stuff would happen and we we go to our friend and we'd be like yo ask kd about this and then he'd be like okay and then go ask go ask kd come come back we get a screenshot

and then see see his response like it's it's very it was very easy to get a lot of a lot of quotes like this he was he was I don't know why they're starting so I remember back then when there's the nets yeah he was saying that I didn't ask for dr. jordan the reports are me and kair who wanted him the coach loves dionja jordan I'll go fuck about him I've At this point, I feel like he was lying. And it's just like, now he's saying, DeAndre Jordan sucks, don't on one of the bus because the group chat

will find it funny. That's the other thing. A lot of people get in the group chat and make jokes. And like, it's not too bad to like, want to get last in the group chat. It's a friendly fun thing to do. Not when you're Kevin Durant. These are random motherfuckers on the internet that you don't know.

Why do you need this as a release in your life? Find your wife, man. This will prevent so much. This is the issue. Hoop is literally his life. So we have, this is the recap of all of them. I think we don't have some screenshots up.

But here's the full. list of things we got from the ones that I think are real. The Rock is franchise player, can't shoot or defend, being shangoon. Jabari Smith is R word. Steve Kerr has hated black people ever since Michael Jordan punch him in the mouth. Oh, but we didn't even pull up that one. If Israel needs drones, just let me know. He made a joke about it.

That was just like somebody had sent the link in there to somebody criticizing him for it. And he said, if you all need drones, let me know, making it into a fucking joke. Which to ignore it, okay, I guess from a PR perspective, I don't know what you're supposed to say. So like, I'd rather you ignore it than that bullshit. Like, that's fucking outrageous. obviously to make light of it. We didn't even pull that one up.

Devin Booker and Frank Volgaard dictators, Stalin and Hitler, Mussolini, Kim Jong-Hun. The Sons are my team. We saw that one. I miss Ben Simmons. Steve Kerr never drew up plays or suggested anything, but he wanted a bunch of titles. Chris Paul doesn't know shit. Yo, he's just talking like a random dude on Twitter. And I remember we saw that too.

Back then, Ben Day when our friend was in there, I remember him talking about Chris Paul being annoying and being grading. Many people have said that. He caught our yoke just turnovers right here. Yep. If you don't run the cut off and pass the ball to Steph Curry, the Warriors will cut you. I saw somebody quote that tweet and Camino's like, facts. Yeah. I'm trying to tell you.

So again, nothing he's saying is like outrageous in terms of the facts of it all. Why are you saying these things? Should not be here. We should not have one a tweet where we have to scroll down multiple times to get everything in the frame of all these of all these leaked conversations. And I'm, I'm curious to see how it affects,

how it affects the rockets and how, and obviously it's big on Twitter. Like, Katie is going to know it, but for, you know what's the funniest part too? When this all leaked, it happened like around the All-Star game.

And then he would just talk, the camera would just pan to him and throw out like every single picture, whatever would be the tunnel or he's just like out there right before the game starts. He's on his phone the entire time, bro.

Yeah. And he's just witnessing this chaos happening. That was the funniest shit. Yeah, he's out there this phone the entire time. The funniest part though The icing on top of the cake I think this is real

It seems real to me but I don't know for sure This guy on Twitter Buzzbee Who if you are on hip hop Twitter He is a gigantic Kendrick Lamar fan In the whole beef he was like the face of Kendrick Lamar glazers Wightly known as being Kendrick Lamar glazer Kevin Durant Best buddies with Drake

Big fan rides or die OVO tattoo on his chest I'm sure That's his actual friend So he's obviously a Drake defender in the whole interaction. Mr. Busby tweets. Look, I got my past transgressions. Hilarious start, if you have any idea

what he's talking about, that I haven't put on the summer jam screen for in the past. So in a way, I kind of empathize with Katie. But he has been a whole ass weirdo talking to himself in my DMs. And you go on here and look at this. He was in his DMs all the time during the beef stuff talking to him.

Buzz, you talk to Kendraimar today? Hey, goof. Your daddy dot text you today? Hey, goof. Who cares about a chain when you got billions? I'm wondering if your daddy Kendrick really knows you exist. Hey, Fats. Do you want Drake dead? Just harassing him.

Going glaze for glaze. Yo, he's actually... Oh, by the way, there's three pages of this. You ignore me? Stop ignoring me, bro. Look at the times. Are y'all seeing the times? It's at 6 a.m.

Yeah, he's doing a lot. He's doing it. okay, come on, man. He wakes up and glazes. This does something to him when it comes to like how we view him as a player, a top 15 player of all time because now like obviously like players in their personalities get exposed a lot more and that's done a lot of good and a lot of bad, but specifically for Katie and for his all time status, it does so much bad because

whenever you talk about him, feelings are involved way more in the conversation compared to like talking about him at the talent. what he did on his own, which is bad in all times conversations overall. I think it affects how you view him as a person. Like there's, yeah. I never want to like, I always say we like not to psychoanalyze people. We can psychoanalyze a fuck out of this. I feel like we have that free rate. He allowed us to do so.

Correct. This is crazy. I feel like if I'm a teammate of his, I can't really trust him. Granted, everybody talks with their friends. So it's not that crazy. Yeah. We're seeing a lot of evidence that you do it more than most people or you do it in ways most people don't. It makes it. That's, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the most people won't. Also, lokey, kind of have to push back. Kind of respect is you're high functioning. You're right.

I mean, he knows he has an issue. You're out here with the problem. Still one of the greatest scores of all time. It makes you look immoral. It makes you look greedy, making those jokes just because you're invested in a company. Like, everything about this makes Kevin Rant look bad. High functioning is insane. Only something like you would say that.

Just being up in his DMs, a 6 a.m. is insane work, bro. Go stretch. Fuck. And this is also funny because. Because apparently he had, he had called out Shams. Because remember Shams is at the Celebrity All-Star game. And he was on his phone. And Katie was like, really Shavs?

Like during the game, get off your phone. That, bro. We're about to tip this game off. Game starts to seven minutes. Lock the fuck in. What's going on? And they panted him in their warm-ups. You see in his eyes.

He's thinking elsewhere. Let me pull that up. He's thinking about them drones. He's thinking about their tweets. God, man. And to think, all of this happened because he decided to get involved with some trophy discourse and replied to the tweet about the drones after finally he broke his no contact on the drones of it all and now this shit ruined his life overnight look at this dude

yep i am a criminal proud to be about it they got me i'm not going on lie i'm getting cooked out here that's that face right there man man man Kevin durant shout to kd man he's always out here giving us content giving this stuff to talk about man respect you bro this is a crazy it's a weird player

if this happened two months ago what do you think what happened in the Rock his locker room what happens now like do they can they get over this

clearly they're the grown men but like they also could not this could sink their season like I don't think it's an exaggeration nothing it's a guarantee

it very well could it might it might I think the yeah because the the week and a half two weeks leading into

it really for a while but like those two weeks specifically leading into the all-star break you really saw a lot of the issues for the Rockets really start to pile up and they seemed like a team that just needed a break just needed time away and now it comes out and it's like yeah Kevin Durant needed to be away from those guys but I think for them it's also it's hard because they were already turning down they had a couple injuries and so if they do kind of fall off are they falling off because of their of their overall problems or are they falling off because of this KD stuff yeah I think the Rockets should slash would suspend them I saw those conversations. on the time. Nah, you can't. If you suspend them, then you're completely acknowledging.

Of course, we all know this is real, but you're acknowledging and you're showing everyone on the team that, you know, this is very much real. And at that at that point in time, you're cooking your chemistry. Well, it's pretty clearly real. I don't know if you can get past that. It's already real. The one thing that Katie fans and Katie Stans are holding on to is like, we keep asking people for screen recordings.

We're not getting any. Like, that's it. I have seen screen recordings. Let me be the first. Let me be a reporter. I have seen screen recordings. I understand that publicly. If the screen recordings are not out there

That's the one thing that the Rockets can Can use that KD can use We're trying to indict KD To have some kind of like Plaudable DeniVVie I forgot the tweet One of the people that was in the joke tweet In the screenshot of the joke about the drones

A guy above it I forget his name was in that screenshot And people were on him seeing like Oh you're letting him laugh about this You think it's funny to make jokes about war crimes huh And then he basically was like I can't believe you take this away I sent the message before that

Not after laughing Yeah. So he basically just confirmed that that is a real message. So that one is real, confirming that the burner account is real. There's other points of confirmation people found. The holdup will be, because some of these people were making some as jokes to, like, play onto the joke. So which are real, which are fake, is hard to figure out in the age of AI. But a good amount of these are clearly real.

And that's something that I don't think he can just deny. It would be pretty, for someone who prize himself on being, like, honest and open, it would be pretty hilarious to try to decline it now and say none of this is real. But do you think the rocket should suspend it? him. Should? No, I don't care if they suspend him. Like, if they did, I'd get it.

But, like, I don't know if they should necessarily. But I also know that if I'm a teammate of his and I see... You're losing them games. Yeah, I don't care if they do that. But I know that if I'm in the locker room and I don't know, Fred Van Vee or some veteran leader who probably cares about this type of stuff. And I know that when the going gets tough, he'll go to his friends and insult Jabari Smith's intellect and his ability to

fucking be functioning. I would feel a type of way about that. Yeah. I just know players have been suspended for behavior detrimental to their team. before. Oh, yeah. And I don't know,

this is directly team related. This isn't, because wasn't John Moran suspended off of that cause? Yeah. Yeah, this is like,

I don't know, directly involved with the team. I don't know. Yeah, and it's tough because his name isn't technically on it from like a PR standpoint

to the rest of the world that's not terminally online. Yeah. So it's probably harder than like John Morant being like, hey, like it's pretty easy.

You should get suspended. Yeah. Well, this is his problem. So it's probably pretty hard to go that far. What do you think like the internet

was going to say or react to me like yeah man he's so tough bro yeah and it's also not it's not a crime to be mean to your teammates so I don't know what the league was suspended for yeah he's so tough bro dot to me man I'll do that

what do you think we were gonna do tough man well now I think less of Katie than I thought of him yesterday unfortunate for him for him for sure exposed I thought it was over the burner stuff man never never

because he was tweeting more from his main so I was like I he lied he lived a double life and Montana had ass all right yeah uh what's your favorite to eat James Ardwin yeah probably I understand him yeah James Hardwin triple double cocaine bear that's that shit was the funny say St. Steve Kerr has hated dark skin uh I like the I started holding step accountable and they looked at me like this That shit was crazy. This is so funny.

Who do you think was looking at him crazy for criticizing Stephs? You know exactly who was looking at him crazy. Right. Stephen Dr. No. Iggy. Iggy. Iggy will ride and die for Seth Curry.

Actually, I think Steph Curry would be me the right decision. Does not take the charge? I can picture that Bean and Phil and Katie speaks up and he just puts his hand on Katie's chest. He's like, relax, man. Relax. stop what the Andrew Wiggins bit so bad but Katie was like I ain't Andrew Wiggins dog He's like we don't do that here man

You better buy him That's tough Oh man Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin He needs to retire man He's a retired man He's a retired

Do this full time go all in Fuck it break It was limitless content Let's get on to the rest of new stories Of the week finalizing this episode Steph Curry said he has already scheduled

his appearance to play an extra three point contest and he's trying to get Damian Lillard, Clay Thompson, Kevin Durant, or whatever other

elite shooters that can get to have the ultimate three point contest. Are you excited? If it's real, cool.

I'm old enough to remember when people said this a year in advance and then we're like, yeah, actually I'm not going to do it. So if all of these

guys are going to be in the three point contest, I will be excited when it gets announced next year. For the next year, I will not care about this statement. Yeah.

It's exciting, man. Me personally, the three-point contest for whatever reasons, like one of my two, maybe my favorite competition because it's all about just like strategy and technique and all. And you see like a really up-close thing. So it's cool. I'm excited. I love strategy. Did y'all see this clip?

Trump. I said there was a catana. I love technique. So when it comes to shooting, man. I love shooting. Ron Harper on whether he expects his sons to both play in the NBA are expected. because they're both in the NBA now. They're doing a press conference about that.

I'm not LeBron James. I'm not going to tell my kids what they have to do. Yo! And Ron Harper Jr. and Dylan Harper were both like, p. Damn it. Why did you say that?

That's fucked up. And there was a tweet that was cool. Look at his face. Look at her face. Head in the hand. He stressed like, bro, I know, Ronnie. Did the speed meme?

There's also a tweet from a couple years ago where Ron Harper was on the timeline. saying I'm very proud of LeBron and what he did for his son. So talking about both sides of his mouth. You think he was like trying to troll? No. Just didn't get out right? Nope. No, he meant that.

He was 100% serious and very old man. Cina, oh man. He was very serious and very disrespectful. He did not care. Yeah. Speaking of LeBron, Victor Womniama was asked if he'll cry when LeBron with tires and he said no. Listen, man, stand up to the institution that wants you to glaze LeBron at every single moment.

Shout to you, Wemby. And this is why Timor fucking lost, man. No, thanks. Anthony Edwards was asked about that. Same question. And he said, I'll probably tear up a little bit. Yeah. Real.

It's very, no, it's, it's, it's very funny, though. That won't be said no. And to ask people, like, are you going to cry? And, like, there's certain questions. The one question that will always stick out to me was, was them asking Kyrie, what kind of parental figure has LeBron? there for you. He's like, bro, I have a father. Who do they think he was? He's actually very present in my life.

He said his name too. I have one father. So that's funny. Wendy has been talking a lot at all his own weekend. He has been clip farming. He's been bar farming. He was asked if he wants to be the face of league and et cetera, all this type of stuff. He said, well, I'll do this one first. He said, I'm definitely chasing my own greatness. I'm very much pursuing it. Actually, every day trying to push myself out of my comfort zone and do hard things. In my opinion, the first step to greatness every time

is what you can do in the moment. Bars. Write that down, write that down, write that down. And he had another one where he did. This one, people were like, that shit is not hard. You can let me know if you guys think it's hard or not. Pulling it up right now.

Now, we've talked about this before, though. Do we respect bar farming? It depends on what type of way you are. Because he's, it's obviously Wemby. he's at the top of the league. We expect him to be face of the league, him making this, you know, this kind of personal. I respect it because I think he actually does it

and he could live up to it. Yeah, so it's fair. He asked, he was asked by Chris Haynes if he wants to be the face of the league. He said, I definitely see it happening. Supply and demand. I'm here to supply. I'm rocking with it.

I like that. I'm the supply. All right. I'm rocking with it. And I think, honestly, he's done his job. And Ant said it yesterday. The All-Star game is something that you, we've talked about it before.

The format, the format matters a little bit, but what really matters is people just going out there playing hard, trying to make it an actual game. And Wembe went out there and played extremely hard. He was very invested. And Ant said it's very hard not to follow his lead whenever you have somebody like that playing hard. He is here to supply, this hard work, to supply, this enthusiasm. And he did it. He followed it up. So I have no choice but to respect this quote.

Yeah, you're right. And Jim Brunson said, like, yo, this guy's a leader. We followed his tone. Like, what are you going to do when someone's over here trying to absolute best? Not go back, not punch back, not bite back. You have to. Be souls. Are you calling when be the supply from now on?

Are you buying into this nickname? I like the alien better. I ain't going to lie. I like the alien better. But we did have this conversation over the weekend. Do we want NBA stars to be performative? Yes. Yes.

I think so. I think so. I think we need it, actually. I think to be a star and to be, we just spent an hour talking about the league not being in the best PR space right now. And I think the nonchalant era of stars is part of that. They need to care. They need to make this bigger than themselves. They need to play up being a superstar, performing as a superstar.

They need to farm bars. We need to have legends that have moments and are self-aggrandizing in some ways. It's important to be performative if you're the face of the league. I feel so bad. Why? Because Jason Taylor was trying to hit his band-list. To do this. Don't do this.

Don't do this, man. We're trying so hard at every single moment to come out here and give good quotes, to come out here and give good moments. To be the face of the league. Every day he woke up was like, the league needs this. I'm here to supply. We're like, no, bro, we're good. It's so true. It's slurting versus harassment for sure.

He tried for years. For years. Try to push himself into MVP. He still trying. I want you to know that. Oh, 100% because now there's like an NBC documentary about his recovery and when he's coming back. And I will say I watched the trailer yesterday during the during the game. It did look.

It looked kind of compelling. But it is funny how he has been trying to do all the things that we're like, yeah, players need. Players need to do that. Hey, man. He shows his son. Like he's trying to be here. He shows his son everywhere. He's like, listen, I'm a good father.

I'm a good player. No scandals off the court at all. I'm out here. I'm just light skin with a good hairline and I'm dating an R&B star. I should be the guy. It should be me. He checks all the boxes. Plays for Boston.

Tough shot maker. That's how to play. Champion already. Went to the finals twice already. He should be the guy. Passes the aesthetic test. Has it like build like a wing superstar. Yo, stop, man.

You stop. He should be the face. of the league. Y'amma say it. He does check all the boxes. He's handsome too. That helps a lot. That's exactly what we're saying.

Yeah, exactly. He passes a face card test. Doesn't matter. So. Never declares. Never declares. He's outmogging everyone. Bro, and he's frame-mogging everybody.

He's big old shoulders. And guess what? And guess what? It doesn't matter because the prerequisites of all this is being cool, unfortunately. You can do everything right as an athlete. If people don't think you're cool, get out of here we don't we don't care

he ain't cool he ain't influencing the masses at all bro like anything lebron does people do and eat the fuck up even his new pregame new pregame ritual where he just throws a ball up and then he waits until the second bouts down and everyone does the eat

I've seen a video where people are doing that outside of the stadium and doing the bar walk people are doing similar things to wemby kind of their fucking heads completely bald people meeting Kelvin johnson who has jason taitam influence what is the influence Super flag, chill.

Cooper flag. You can't fake authenticity and people for some reason have decided that Jason Tatum is not authentic. I think Cooper Flag got a better chance of being the face of league than Tatum.

He's white, so yeah. He's a Caucasian superstar. He's guaranteed to be the face of the league if he's a top five player. He's white and he dunks on people? Yeah. Yeah.

He's going to lead team USA in three years. He's going to carry the flag. Oh my goodness. Tatum still ain't go get minutes. Pass Bam of water. Bam being the player He's going to be Scotty Barnes this time God

past Scotty Barnes the water I'm not ready for this man He's not even worthy of giving Cooper flag his water We got somebody else one for to do that I need my guy to get a final as MVP That'll solve a lot of this Still won't I promise you won't

We need more performative stars Like the nonchalant era Having a Shee Actually she's not even that nonchalant He isn't like talking but he also like does the superstar self-aggrandizing stuff. Yokic and Luca are the real issue in terms of like, you know, they're not trying the All-Star game.

They don't care about the small things. Hey, called it. Yeah. And really Yokic. Luca at least is like emphatic on the court. He doesn't give a fuck about the All-Star game. Having a Yokic who's like so nonchionate that actively don't care about being a star is like cute and funny when it's one guy.

When it's like a bunch of them and that's like the main mode for your stars, that's not good for the league. I'm not going to laugh. I feel like soldier boy, man. You're really good. I was ahead of the curve with that with that. He was a conversation. He had a conversation before one of the last TV three episodes.

Yeah, I remember you talking about it. Tough. So, yes, more performing stars. Wemby, setting the tone. Facts. Al-Santhi Edwards keep saying, I'm not going to be the face to the league. Don't do it.

Don't do it. He keeps coming out and being the face to the league. And it makes you want to do it more. That's the real face of the league. That's how you know. You're the one. Of course. The least in Al-Gaib would say he's not the least in Al-Gaib.

Making him that much more than Elisanaa-Aib. Of course. It's prophecy. It's prophecy. He can't run from it. I love that. What else we have to close out newswise? Anything important?

Pat Riley put Jimmy Butler on the trade blocking for 2023. I don't care what that old man has to say. We don't have to talk about this. This old man, he's seen now. He for a lot of his seat now. Oh, well, okay. God you got off the chest.

He didn't say anything. This is a report that's after 2023. He was shopping Jimmy Butler. Could you imagine if they'd sold him after getting him to the finals and then they ship him out of town a month later? You're still on mad high right now. Mad high. That's kind of shameless.

No, they didn't do it. So maybe it was maybe it's not true. I don't know, but. Couldn't find it. This is a lie. This cannot be true. It's been years of him losing his wits. You hate that, really?

I just don't buy anything. We just have, yeah, we just have like half a decade of him fall out of it off. Yeah, yeah, he's cooked. Same with. He's washed. And that is end this episode. Be souls, if people are still here, what should the comment? They should comment.

Is senile crazy? Probably right. Comments. Nah. Tell me why you think Jason Tatum is whack. Let us see that in the comments. Let me see a dissertation, a paragraph with a thesis, a follow-up, and a conclusion about why Jason Tatum is not cool.

From your own unique perspective, what you personally hold against Jason Tatum in his endless quest to be the face of the league, in his endless quest to be Kobe Bryant. Tell us why he's not Kobe Bryant to us. How do we get here, man? I can give you a piece by piece breaking on how we got here starting with the Kobe jersey Secondly with the texting of the old

Kobe number and posting of the screenshots Posting the screenshots so bad That was insane Yeah, it was nice I can give you step by step by side How we got here The all think if he did all of that And won that year

No No it would be look It would still be whack Damn it He just not destined to be that You know It's fine Yeah that screenshot man

Who's that screenshot That's performance Performative in the worst way Before it was he was even a term. The invented performativeness. That's good. But yeah, tell us why.

Tell us why. And we'll see y'all on Thursday for the next episode featuring more Jason Tatum Slender.