The Deep 3 Podcast - Moses Moody Tells Us The Truth About Life As A Warrior | Ep. 122

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

We talked to Golden State Warriors guard Moses Moody about life in the NBA, teaming with NBA legends like Steph Curry, his days at Montverde, and more! #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 2:26- Moses Moody Interview 55:20- interview reactions 58:25- Suns vibe check 1:12:50- Cavs vibe check 1:23:50- MVP debate vibe check 1:37:20- timberwolves vibe check 1:44:56- Clippers vibe check 1:52:25- tiktok time Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Most players in that scenario get drafted to go to a rebuilding team, whereas you got drafted to a dynasty. It's a different situation. The things that you do on this stage are magnified. It was funny one time, my 11th grade year, Kate and Ryan, they were wrestling for like an hour. And it was like mattresses and stuff. I don't know why they were going to wrong. Like, just because you want a bow and arrow, don't mean you need, you don't need to know how to use a sword when you win that opportunity comes. He got to spin.

He's been out this whole time. He ain't even been able to be on the court. I'm like, I ain't trying to be the one that hurt Clayton. Right now we need to figure out ways to win So however I can be beneficial to that The cranium is crazy Oh my God I mean I don't know what to say

Pray on eaters rejoice Put some side baby Give me a wall I'm going to be busting down for it I'm including that. Y'all, they just started dancing before I started the intro. I'm not going to be any context. There you go.

Welcome back to another episode. As you guys saw, the little intro that played before, Donovan and Moe started getting down with it. Very special episode today. Getting down with it. This is a serious episode. We have a special conversation with Warriors Guard, Moses Moody. It was a cool conversation. We went out to the Warriors facility.

You got to sit down with him. Talk about his career coming into the Warriors, what it felt like coming into a team. playing next to Legends of the game and Steph Curry, Draymond Clay, et cetera. Really cool conversation from a guy who has an interesting perspective compared to other young players. And let them know.

After he talked to us, he had a great game. He put him 19 points. So like, listen, we kind of had, you know, I'm going to take credit for that from us three. I'm going to say that our conversation was motivational.

You took credit for that. I've been to credit for two days ago when it happened. So I'm way heavy. I already took all the credit. There's nothing left for you to take. It's all over here. That's fine. I think we gave him the Jews.

and I'm taking the most credit for it. But yeah, man, after we have this interview play for you guys, we'll get into our normal episode stuff. We're going to do the secondary main topic of this episode. We're going to do a vibe check for a lot of teams around the league. It's going to be an hour long of that. So you're not missing out on a normal T3 app. There's going to be a full, full episode for you guys,

followed by obviously an hour of TikTok time games. It'll be a fun time. But for now, before we get into all that normal stuff we do, I'm going to send you over to Moses Moody. All right, y'all. We are joined today. for a very special episode. Usually when we start these,

I do these cold open intros. There's three of us here in different environments. You know, just three of us as always. Today we're joined by a very special guest, Golden State Warriors Guard, Moses Moody. How you doing, man? I'm good. I'm good.

I appreciate you coming through. No problem. You had a really good 2024. You know, it's December 29th we're recording this. It's the end of the year. 2024 has been good to you. So I've got to ask. How does it feel to be paid?

How does it be the second stage of your NBA career? Yeah, yeah. It's really cool in a sense of like your whole time. you got the you're in the NBA you know you get your first contract which I don't mean to like getting like that that is that's substantial and it's a great great opportunity but then just moving into that next level and being able to like support your family in that in that way and then it's opportunity but really just security for life so being able to kind of do that the first

time is really yeah I feel like every time people do a player podcast and they asked people about the first big payday. It's always, what was your first big purchase? It was about my mom at my house, all this stuff. I don't want to know that. I want to know, is there any boozy habits you picked up on? Like, for instance, Mo here, as soon as we got a little bit of podcast money, he's never rode the subway day in his life since.

Uber everywhere. I cannot confirm nor deny. Did you figure yourself doing any little small boogey stuff you allow yourself to do? Probably, you Uber, Uber eats a lot more than that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Listen, I got to know, are you still on a family phone plan?

Because I'm still on the family phone plan. I'm not leaving. I'm writing that to the wheels fall off. Yeah, yeah. I rode it as long as I could. I got off about two years ago. I was in the league on the family phone play. That's real.

That's real. Your parents are able to the championship ring? They're like, no, no more. Now that you are at this point, though, when you have more fixability to do whatever it is, what are like some of the cheaper habits that you have, that you just simply won't believe in or won't spurs on. I'm a really simple guy in a lot of ways to where I don't, the more simple I feel like my life is,

the more peaceful it is, the less complex. So I don't try to complicate things that don't have to be. So it's a lot of things that I, that I don't change. That makes sense. Yeah, getting onto the basketball side, I think you're super interesting. I feel you have a very interesting POV as a young player in the league. Because, you know, highly touted draft prospect, you knew you were going to be a lottery pick. Most players in that scenario, some of your peers from high school from college, get drafted.

They go to a rebuilding team. So, you know, they have tons of opportunity, go run 30 pick and rolls, get all the touches, develop on ball. Whereas you got drafted to a dynasty. You come in with the expectations of being the second timeline, kind of giving new life to a dynasty. That's a very different, you know, perspective as a young player. How do you feel that kind of that kind of altered your peer review coming into the league compared to, you know, some of your peers? It was definitely different, but, you know, good stuff, bad stuff, who knows, type of thing. Because some of those guys are put in the situation to where they got, to where they play and get to work out the stuff off-rip.

But you also show what you can't do off-rip. But being in a situation like this, you're able to kind of go develop behind the scenes, pick up habits and pick up things from players you watch, play, players you're playing with on the same team, learn how to play winning basketball, learn what that means, learn how to practice. learn different habits and stuff without being thrown out on there on the main stage and then had letting that happen later on so you know it's just a different journey yeah that makes sense you know fit is obviously everything some guys get thrown into the fire when maybe their game isn't best running 30 pick and rolls so you know you do you feel like there's more pros and cons to that you know experience uh I mean it just depends on perspective depends on the person in case case by case scenario you know I like the hoop so you got you get the hoop more than that's

positive too yeah yeah what's that balance like because obviously like you've been in this organization for a couple years now what's the balance between going into the offseason and trying to like work on your game expand your game you know trying to add different things into your bag but then you come into this system and you don't you may not necessarily get the opportunity to show that and so like how is it navigating thinking like I can do this and then you get to camping and decide okay the team needs me to do X Y and Z yeah that's interesting dynamic but it's more so I'm a work on it so I got it if I need it

Like, that might not be my role to do it every game, our game. But there's definitely going to be times to where you need to have it. I think of it back, like, when it was, like, when people, when it was, like, when it was, like, when it was, like, when it was, like, people, when it was, like, uh, Vikings and all that, everybody was fighting and stuff. Like, like, just because you're on a bow and arrow, don't mean you need, you don't need, you know how to use a sword when you win it when that opportunity comes. He's been, bar. Got you, got you, got you. So, since you've been in the league, I want to ask what has been, like, the most elevating tips that you've gotten on the court? We're either off the court.

Yeah, I get a lot of, I get a lot of jams and stuff, but I like to learn the most by observation. Because, you know, somebody can tell you one thing, and they can tell you how they want to do stuff, but you can see how they do it, see how they move and, you know, learn better from observation than even what they would say. So I picked up a lot of stuff from that on the court and off the court.

I don't have some really good financial literacy conversations with older guys, rather if it's honest, Andre C.P. Steph, Dre. Everybody's been able to like just talk about personal finance in a way in a different way that I've learned it before because it's a different way. So that's all been good. I love that you said Andre first because we were joking earlier thinking about you've played with some crazy amount of vets. The guys you named obviously Steph, Dre, Clay, Chris Paul for a year. It's crazy when you think about like the timeline of NBA grades. I just knew that you were going to mention Andre and financial literacy. We were joking like, I bet he got him right with the 401K all these investments, everything. So that's great. That's actually true. Yeah, yeah, it's cool because he, you know, Andre loved to talk, too. So you can go ask him a question here, sit there and tell you everything you want to know. But being in the bay with it too, he's so tied in with so many different people. It was a couple of times. I was in a, I went, you know, Dreamforce happens here every year with Salesforce that convention.

So then I went to like my agent, Rich got me, got me into this like two super, super big meet and greet type of situation with Mark Benioff and everybody was up there at the top floor of Salesforce. But then I see Andre in there, like we didn't come together. It's like, ah, what's up, man? Yeah, but that was cool. That makes subtle sense. So obviously you've learned a lot of off-the-court stuff in these guys like stuff you just mentioned. I'm interested in like the on-the-court stuff

would you learn from them? Because we mentioned, no, you coming to this specific circumstance, playing for this not just contending team, but a team that has a history of winning. They also have the history of winning because of their obviously very unique offense. What was it like adapting to that? Because I imagine in college and high school,

you weren't setting so many screens, running off of so many screens, making these reads, having to pay attention to where Curry and Dremont are, all these very unique styles of play you got to play with the war. years what was it like making that adjustment yeah it's it's different because you kind of got to play you got to it you you you got to you got to you can't just yeah they can't just teach you everything

before the season and then you know but you got to make mistakes you know getting to it different things as it evolves as it changes and get used to it and that's kind of what it's been early on figuring out the nuances of the offense and then it's changed too different players come in different different things you see coach changing the game playing with whatever that may be, but being able to keep up with that, and then being able to hoop, too, and not be a robot. Yeah. What were some of the, like, tougher nuances that you had to learn on the court that just

wasn't connecting to you immediately? We play different than most teams that I play for. It's usually, you know, the point guard is, like, the distributor, and then, like, the wing positions are, like, you know, that's a traditional offense a lot of times. But being with Steph, you got to know where Steph is at all times. If he get off the ball, you got to know where he comes out. off the screen set the pin-in, whatever that may be. And then Dre being the center and the point guard a lot of times,

but he bringing it up playing at the top of the key, that was different for me early on. Although it is a lot more space, but just knowing where those spaces are going to be, where the open shot is going to be, we took some adjustments to it. How is it a, you know, obviously there's the uniqueness of playing for the Warriors on the court. I think most people don't realize, like, off the court. I feel like being a Warriors probably extremely different than other teams because the Warriors' fan base is insane.

it's like it's so big it's almost like a cult like it's so intense that for so many people around the world not just in golden state step curry it's like they're michael jordan so you are like you travel around go to all these different countries different cities you guys are low-key like superstars do you feel more i don't know support from that or more pressure from that being that big of a larger-than-life team i feel the support um it's a different situation it's it's fun you know just being at the top of the NBA and just in the in the fans eyes and the public eye you know things that you do on this stage are magnified like that's what I always said about the playoffs like you make a you make a the same play you would have made in a regular season in the

playoffs and it's like oh you're so amazing same thing on the bad side too you make a small mistake and it's magnified too but that's just like high stakes basketball and that's the most fun way to play yeah you're either you're the hero of the day or you're the guy that ruins step curry's 35 point game in game two like a lot of bad comes with the good how have you like ingratiated yourself with with the fans whether be like, you know, going out and having different events of the community or just picking up on like small Bay Area things. Like what kind of like Bay Area slang have you added to the way that you talk like, do you say hello a lot now? You know, you listen to hyphen music. What kind of stuff

like has Bay Area culture gotten into you? Yeah. So it's been a, I had to kind of adjust to it. It's different than I'm from the South. So it's different, but it's also a lot of similarities. And as I've been able to like go to Oakland and move around. I get to know people and I get to know why things are the way they are and you really get to make some relationships. And that part, that part has been really cool about being here in two different ways. Like me and my brother live here too. He worked with the Warriors in the media department. So we've been able to kind of move around and he's the one that really brought it to my attention about how cool the culture is here. For one, it's so rich and so deep. Like most of these, like these people been here for a long time and like the, from

the like you know with tupac and all of the all of the greats this came through here musically and like activists and all the type of stuff like it's it's like the roots run deep in oakland so that part's been cool and then how uh like this the the people are cool too just like because of that that you can feel that in an interaction but it's also silicon valley and it's a lot of ambitious people here they got a lot of resources they got a lot to offer and i really like to learn from people, especially, like, people that really know what they're talking about, really been doing something for a long time. So I've been able to get in some really good conversations and just really sit up and listen and pick up on game, rather if it's VC,

rather if it's real estate, rather, like, so many different things and ways that, and then, too, just learn from people that have had money for a long time. Like, I've just acquired, like, just some traction and all of that. And I know you can give somebody a million dollars that They don't know what to do with it, and it can mess up their life. So that knowledge is where it really makes it good or bad. So just being able to be in a place that you can pick up on a lot of that. And you've been around, like you've been able to, you know, be in different places. But obviously, like you said, you're still from the South.

So, like, what was one of the bigger culture shocks coming from Arkansas to being out here in the Bay Area? Yeah. It's like I said, with it's a lot more ambitious people. It's a lot more going on, a lot more at stake in a lot of conversations, a lot of stuff that's different because the South or Little Rock in particular in particular is more it's like it's slower pace so that comes in conversations it's like that conversation that you having with that person is just about that conversation that y'all having it's not about the insinuations that they make in or what that person can do for you or whatever that is

it's genuinely about this conversation and that and that part's cool a lot of networking going on around here a lot of trying to get in with the right people how do you mean which is cool too though because it's like the people that you're talking to they have the power to do stuff and like all that and it's cool to it's cool and it's cool to have genuine relationship with those people too because i feel like a lot of times i can feel in conversations like that that a lot of business people that are they're used to having a lot more transactional conversation can kind of let they guard down because they see i'm just trying to talk to you and trying to have you teach and and i got a genuine intention when when when i'm coming to people to have conversations and that a lot of

times I can see that they're not used to that because they're used to having those conversations. They're not used to Southern Charg out here at all. I'm glad you mentioned that because I was watching a lot of interviews you've done a lot of times you talk to the media. I feel like people don't know that you are like incredibly mature for your age. I don't know if you grew up being told you're an old soul and stuff like that, but that's the first thing I thought about.

You have so many quotes I've heard you say in the media. I want to run through a little of them and you let me know what you think about them. You already gave us one earlier in the interview so clear you just you got a bank of them. I heard you say, a fool looks for happiness in the distance while a wise man grows under his feet. That's tough. That's tough. That's tough. He said, don't be surprised when the boat rocks you're in the storm. It's supposed to. Life is a storm and everything's a journey. And my favorite one, you give a pick a pancake and he'll want some syrup. Where do you get that from? Because you have so many in the bank that are so insightful. Where does that come from? Like I said, like I'm

observant. So like when I talk to people, somebody say something that made sense to me, I'm remember it forever yeah it's because i understood it and then i got a i got a lot of old people in my family too like my my my great uncles and aunties and all of that i've been sitting on the couch hanging out with them my whole life and then my dad kind of talks with them too i got i got to ask right so obviously like you're from you know you're from arkansas and right now at least on line people are talking a lot about what people from the south may eat for the holidays right and so i saw the other day like jerry jones who said he's from arkansas he said that him and his family that they eat raccoon and like they you know squirrel brain is that is that something that

you and your people do like do you do you be eating raccoon like that like what's one of the country's things that y'all've eaten nah we that's not you that's not you nah no i mean teach his own i'm sure some people do their own thing but yeah we'll do that i probably didn't got into crazier stuff since i've been out here oh like what i would think yeah um i mean colomari if you think about it that's kind of crazy octopus um tentacles yeah

i don't know i'm adventures like i'll try new stuff speaking of adventures this past summer you went to south africa and you went over there you were coaching the youth and you gave a lot of game and all that and i understand you were giving a lot of information shown in the roots and the way to you know be professional but as the teacher in that instance what were you able to like gather and learn when it comes to giving back to the youth yeah uh i was

that's a great way to ask that question because like going over there it was more so me learning than me teaching because we was in South Africa it was in Johannesburg but it was kids there from all over the continent they live in so many different ways and so like all my team all the players on my team and stuff I'm I should have been talking to them about basketball more than I did because I'm sitting there like asking where you from like how y'all live what y'all do what y'all do for fun what you eat so like that was a really good experience for me in that way But the main thing that I was trying to get across to them was like capitalizing off opportunity

because all of them wanted to be basketball players. They want to go to the NBA because that's what they hear about. That's the way to make it, quote on quote. But I'm trying to tell them like, no, this is an opportunity. Like basketball is an opportunity that doesn't have to end up in the NBA, but this camp is the opportunity. There's plenty of people here that can have an effect on your life. So just being able to be open and looking for opportunities

and trying to capitalize off of them. That's awesome. Now, going back to the thing about you coming to leaving, very mature, do you feel like you gravitated towards his older teammates early? Because I was listening to those podcasts you went on with some of those teammates like Draymond. It seems like they, he really felt a connection to you early on, it seemed like? Was that likewise? Did you feel like you really gravitated towards more veterans in the locker room? Yeah, yeah, I did.

But a lot of the connections that I've had on this team, I feel like I're really genuine. Yeah. Just because I'm open to other people in conversations. and so wherever those conversations lead can make a connection. Yeah, you want to learn. Yeah, so I used to go to drink my room all the time. I still go in there all the time and just have conversations, let him talk, see what he got to say. Because, like I said, coming into the NBA, I ain't ever been here before,

and you've been here for like 11 years at that point. Yeah. So I just wanted to, I just had questions and he answered them in that kind of relationship kind of formed from that. Same thing with Loon, Wigs, Juan, D. Lee, all those guys that was here my first year. Yeah, always wanted to learn makes total sense. I was listening to another podcast where a football player was talking about from the point he was a rookie to like year six in the league He learned a lot of like OG tricks like in the NFL. It was wear the same color gloves as your opposing team's jersey

So if you hold them as a corner, they won't see it And you're talking about Draymond who is Draymond did he teach you any OG tricks like that Any small things that you can get away with? Yeah, it's a lot of a lot of a lot of it's a lot of you know a lot of you know a lot of know. When we're talking about like Arkansas and going back to that and you know your experience over the summer, I think one of the really cool things that you did was like you had the trade summit and you were teaching his, you know, like you said, playing basketball isn't the only way to make it, right? And you can do other things. And one of the things that you said in an interview was like you were out there like laying bricks with them. Like can you expand a little bit more

on what that experience was and like, you know, helping kids understand it's not basketball or nothing to make it in the world. Yeah, that's cool. I said, I really did your research. Of course. Yeah, it was an event that we did focused on the youth, but it was, that was the gist of it, just because it's a lot of jobs and opportunities that come close to basketball. So, so many people don't make it to the NBA or don't make it overseas or whatever it

is in basketball, so then they end up doing something completely different, but it's a lot of jobs that are parallel, so it could be, like, nutritionist, chefs, and then we got like stylist we got photographers y'all do podcasts around sports like so many different opportunities and jobs right next to it that's not that big of a pivot so and kids don't think about wanting to do that because they're not exposed to it they don't know about it so that was that was a big thing just bringing people back so we had like a room like this to where somebody would just it was very interactive to where it's not a teaching setting just like no we having a conversation and I'm just telling you about what I do and you can ask about it talk to each other about it and make

like a cool dialogue like that but it was also we partnered with a group card trades for life who did the who had like you said laying brick you got a barber out there we had like a car where they learning how to change the tire um welding like all type of trades that you can have that don't necessarily have to be full-time jobs but it's just skills that you can pick up on and i'm out there learning just like they are uh like i ain't know how to lay brick before i got out there but i learned to the same time they did so just the and it's also uh creating the um community around learning how to learn because that's a big thing like a lot of people not it's not that they don't not that they don't want to learn something they just don't know how to they

don't know the questions to ask they don't know their own learning style because school is kind of based off one learning style so they get people get confused and don't think they're smart and for you so like if you weren't in the NBA what's a job that you can see yourself doing I can see myself doing a lot of jobs just because that I have that that that that mind mindset like I would want to pick up on a lot of trades so I could like I could be back home and I could be doing all type of stuff like I learned how to cut hair I could learn how to like invest I can learn how to invest in how to invest in real estate I can learn how to like so many different things to where I don't I don't know where I would go but I'd be in a lot of different

and I don't even got it before I'm not in NBA because like I said those are trades you can do with the job so I'm still going to learn how to do all that stuff I'm talking about I watch an interview where you said that when you were 13 14 years old you for a second you want to become a judge right is that true and then you witness someone get like 30 to 40 years alive and you're like I'm good yeah that was that was that was kind of that wasn't really it got I know I know what you're talking about it wasn't really like that I never really wanted to be a judge the thing I was saying was like as a kid you kind of need something to say because everybody always said they want to be a basketball player when they grow up so that was

something that I kind of was like I wonder what it is I wonder what that's about and then we had an assignment for school to where everybody had to go job shadow a job and I went a job shadow to judge and I said it's a 40 years because I was thinking about it more so in a way like I got a lot of uncles that didn't been to jail that's been like been through a lot of stuff so I want to be in a position where I can help them and like see and see the good and people and and make but then when I went in there I saw the opposite and saw people that really did need to go to jail and you the one that kind of make that happen and that way that ain't what I wanted to do yeah maybe the judicial system kind of sucks.

It's way different when you're 13 versus like 16, you know a little bit. It's like, never mind. Yeah. I'm glad he mentioned the what other job would you kind of want to do in the world because that transition is it. I want to play a little game. I kind of want to, on that same topic, see how well you know some of your teammates. I want to name one of your teammates and you tell us what job you think they would do

if they weren't in the NBA, just based on the personality and what their interests are. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. So first off, how about Draymond Green? Dr. mind he'll probably be doing TV podcast that's like we I just I was just in a conversation and everybody was kind of saying what they would be doing if they wasn't in NBA really yeah he was saying

he was saying some job to everybody in Sagittal Michigan does I don't know if it was a factory job or whatever it was but I mean probably he would probably end up be doing something different but he was saying if he's back home then that's what everybody do back home I could see him doing some on TV I could see him being a talker for a living that adds up doing now exactly easy pivot okay What about Clay Thompson? I feel like he's a man in many interests. Which one you think he'd go down? Yeah.

The easy answer would definitely be something with the boat. But if you really know Clay, Clay Thompson. It's a hard one. He's a man of many interests. That's what I say. I just going to be kind of hard. Yeah.

Like I know what people like to do, but do you want to do that for a living? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay.

Last one, then, Steph Curry. Yeah, golfer. Golfer? He's easily. I've seen the clips. Like, he's gotten a whole new one before. He's done all this stuff. Like, he, the way he talks about golf, sometimes this sounds like he loves golf more than basketball.

He loves golf. And then he's, well, he a golfer for real. Like, he golf, like, for a while, too. So it's not like you just picked up on it when you was in the NBA. I know he really likes the golf. So I can see him going in that direction. Have you been on any of the golf trips with Steph and, everybody else who golfed on the team?

Nah, I'm trying, I'm learning how to golf, but I ain't on that level yet. But when we was in Hawaii, my dad was there with me. So we went to the golf, we went to the course, and they was going to the course too. So I just rode over there with them, but then I went with my pops and they went together. Oh, gotcha. What are some other off-the-court activities you're really into, like golf or whatever may be? Any other kind of sporting-related ones that you kind of get that competitive stuff often? Yeah, like I said, I like a lot of different stuff.

So I'd be, I like, I like golf, me and my brother and my dad getting into that. I like ping pong When I was in my Vird We played it all day I like pickleball I've been doing that in the summertime I want to learn how to play some instruments So I kind of been kind of been playing around with that

a little bit I want to learn how to I'm trying to get into shooting like bow and arrows and stuff Oh Yeah that's crazy Bowen arrows is wide As like a hobby

I've never heard anybody say I'll just pick up this bow and arrow here You know just have a little fun Jerome Robinson He was here with our team last year he did it like on off days like he's lived in my building so i would walk running to him he's going to go shoot bow and else i didn't know how to do it at that point but i like to try that out that's cool so you mentioned montvert earlier um i want to know how was your experience there

how montvert came to be the option and how did you like differentiate monvert versus all the other schools that you were leaning towards yeah uh i never really thought about other prep schools that was it's not like i wanted to go prep so i need to go find the school it was kind of my verb like I met them they told me what it could be I went a tour to school and everything and and just went that way but I was in Arkansas plan and I'm glad you asked me that because like I know a lot of kids now like they're in their hometown and they feel like when they get they're supposed to go prep and all of that but prep is not for everybody prep is not for most people

so I I would if I'm if I'm encouraging or talking to people because I could even in my city I see a lot of people trying to do it similar to my journey and see think that's how you get to the NBA, but it's like, it's a lot of benefits to stand back home and playing, playing around there and learning the game that way. What makes you say that it's not for a lot of people? What specifically about prep happens in between those doors? That's just like most people ain't built for it. You moving away from your family and your friends.

And when you go to college, everybody moving away. So it's easier. But when you, and when you 15, 16 years old, everybody else is still in high school doing the same stuff they were doing before you left. And that seems fun. Like, you want to be a part of that. and you're going to meet a whole new group of people, and then you're not around people that, like,

your coaches or whatever, like, everybody around you is at work. Like, don't nobody really love you like that. And you're still a kid. So you kind of, you got to grow up a lot earlier, a lot sooner. I feel like that sounds like something that would kind of lead to you getting like a close relationship with the people you do that experience with. So do you feel now in the league, like a certain type of bond with the guys your teammates with there?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. That was my dog. I would even probably still say my senior year, the team we had there was probably like the closest that I've been with the team. Really? Just because we, like, we live together. We're going to tournaments together. But we all really liked each other.

We always was wrestling and playing and all day. Like, that was my dog. Who was the best restaurant out of the group? Me. No question. No question. You versus Scotty Barnes, one-on-one hell and a cell. You're coming out on top?

It was really, it would always be, it would always be like me, Kate. Scottie didn't really wrestle like that. But he would. He would. He would. But it would always be me, Scotty. No, no, no, me, Kate. Usually me and Kay versus Ryan and Caleb, Nimart, and Houston.

Yeah. No, he and, um, my, um, uh, uh, uh, the magic. Yeah, yeah, uh, but in the world, it would be me, Kaye, Dayron versus Ryan, Caleb, Derrick Whitehead. It, I don't know, we just, we just used to always wrestling. What kind of wrestling are we talking about? Are y'all either doing like, is it w-wee or jitzy? No, I don't know why I know.

Well, actually, actually, actually, it was funny. one time, my 11th grade year, Ryan and Kay, Ryan, no, Kay and Ryan, they did this whole little wrestling, they was wrestling for like an hour. And it was like mattresses and stuff. I don't know why they was in the room. Oh, you know, they were right. But Caleb, I mean, Kaye slamming them on the mattresses and everything. It was funny, though, because they're doing actual wrestling move.

But, no, we just was always fighting. So we slapboxing, chestboxing, wrestling, whatever it turned into it. That sounds like some lifelong friendship shit. That makes total sense. So how does it feel now? Cade's like, he's always been really good, but he's making that leap where the whole national media is understanding this guy's at an all-star level.

What's it been like seeing that for him? And how does it, what do you feel like there's a difference for him this year? Okay, he can hoot. So he, and he's smart. So I feel like the more he gets to, you know, he was hurt all second year. But the more he gets to like pay attention to stuff, pick up on Tennessee,

be in the same situation, how the ball in his hand, and he's going to get better just because he's so observant. And he knows how to play the game. When you first got to Malvert, was it, was it like very clear and obvious, like, okay, he's going to be like this level of a player? Yeah, yeah. Because he, because that's when he started playing a point guard for real. He didn't really play point guard before that.

I don't think. I don't, I ain't really watch him before he got there. But, yeah, just being a however tall he is, six, eight point guard and handle it and control stuff like you do. I can see it. Do you remember one specific moment or game where you looked over and you're like, that's a future star? Not one moment, but I mean, oh, I'll be around somebody for long enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Makes sense.

LeBron be having the things where you say like that one thing. Yeah. His memory's crazy. I don't expect you to have that encyclopedia in your head like he does. He's crazy. When you first went into Montrovert, you came into school with a left foot fracture, correct? How was a lot of people, when it comes to injuries, we see the player get injured, we see you in crutches or whatever, and then we see you come back?

How was the actual rehab process? because no one really knows that yeah yeah i was i was i ain't never been hurt i i ain't ever been hurt like that before in my career so i needed had no surgery or nothing but it was just a long time and i came back too early and then for me like i said prep school is not for everybody yeah i moved out here away from everybody to go to to play basketball and i can't even play basketball for like the first four months i'm there i'm going i got to go to practice every day i can't do rehab i can't do nothing i'm just sitting there on the side trying to stay awake while after school watching practice and stuff so it was tough but uh you know our rehab got right

got back together what does rehab look like are you like stretching and like taking your vitamins or whatever uh I mean all that stuff too but it's a lot of weights involved to it but uh like re reteaching muscles that's kind of falling asleep since you've been hurt or things you're not using as much because so many people get hurt and then they get better and come back and hurt they self again because now they've been limping on putting more weight on one side than the other or whatever that may be. So it's kind of just correcting everything and getting used to playing again. Speaking of rehab, I read that when Clay Thompson was doing his big rehab from the multiple injuries, you were often in charge when you returned to practice of doing one-on-one drills

with him. It seemed like when he came back that first couple weeks, he was getting a lot of bagged shit off where he looked like he was deep in the post, doing the stuff that we really seen do before. Was that what he was working on during that time against you? Were you just stuck in a one-on-one getting bagged up by Clay Thompson? It was different for sure because I'm coming in and I didn't know, like, what this is, because he's been out this whole time, he ain't even been able to be on the court. And now y'all telling me to go play with him,

I'm like, I ain't trying to be the one that hurt Clayton. Yeah. But then he come out, he's getting straight in his bag, getting the hooping, so we had some really good run. I have one last question for you about your school, Montvert. So there's been a notorious conversation about who y'all got Montverd or Blah, or Bluntford or Blah, and I want to run that with you.

So I'm going to ask you. question and I have a few NBA teams in line and I want to see if you guys would be superior to them. So who's better Montvirt or 2016 Tino Hills? The famous debate everyone talks about online. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to let online have the debates and all that, but I mean, we was a really good team. Do you think that team if you're in the NBA today together, how many wins did you guys get that same starting five in the NBA? Yeah. If us as NBA players as NBA players like today as you are in 2024 yeah so when we were in high school we not be no NBA but as NBA players we i think we'll have a really good team yeah could you imagine

like those five in the NBA big guys are today that's a lot of NBA players in that team versus like the Villanova nix you know they're all together now like that'd be a fun matcher if you guys would get that uh we could because i mean we all play complimentary compliment complimentary positions so it could have baked in chemistry too yeah yeah yeah so let me see We got Kay, me, Scotty, Dayron, Caleb, Rick, Derrick Whitehead. Yeah. And then Ryan doing his thing over there. Versus Jalen Brunson, DeVincenzo, Hart, McHill Bridges, Spellman.

Y'all taking y'all in that one? I'm going to take us with every matchup. I got a few more. What about Duke 2019? We got Trey Jones, Cam Reddish, R.J. Barrett, Zion, and Marquise Bolden. I'm going to go with that. It's just clean sweep? Yeah.

Okay. That's fun. which one of those players do you feel you have a better best like rivalry with now when you play against each other do you ever have like you're playing against the pistons or the raptors or the magic do you ever feel like you really want to like take on the experience of guarding them come on my teammates yeah your former teammates uh do you have a certain extra edge and a little extra goes into when you get to play against one of your i would think it's still a friend yeah it's always kind of like that you know it'd be weird when you see like players talk play against their

friends and people be thinking all they wouldn't play players hard because they're playing against their friend but that's people you want to beat the most and it's just fun being out there like knowing we was in high school together and then now we're in the NBA with all of these other things going along but y'all still out here together that part's our school and kate especially one of those because we was roommates for those two years that I was there so that's my dog what's what's some of the things because like obviously you're playing against your former teammates you're really competitive that's your friends you're here every single day with the same you know 12 to 15 guys they are your friends you're making these relationships but obviously like all of the

of you are very competitive players what are some of the things that you guys do around the facility where you might be like the best out like are you guys having like daily like daily card games and you are trying to make sure like you win all the time you're playing daily chess games like what what are the things that you guys do around this building oh you're talking about the warriors yeah uh a lot of people's on chess.com so you know on there you can play chess games but it's not like you don't you don't got to sit there and play right now it's like I can send the game I can send a make a move send it to you and you When you get free, you make a move and send it back to me.

So I still, I got a game with Clay. I've been going, we've been, we've been playing for like three years. Or however long. Three years on one game? Not one game. We got like running record, but we still play. It's a war. But it's a lot of guys on the team and staff and everybody kind of be playing that.

I feel like right now, especially like, we're seeing like chess get really, really popular in the NBA. And like, you know, Wemby was out in New York the other day playing chess with the people saying that there should be like an NBA. chess tournament if you were in that let's say like NCAA style 64 64 people where are you coming out i think it's levels to being good at chess like it's some people that just know how to play and then you can be good against everybody else that just knows how to play but then you know if you have like an opener then you better than all them people that just know how to play because you're gonna make it's just going to end up better for you but then but then if you didn't then it's like you can be actually know how to play the full game and oh eight a tool to this place

and then I'm a castle here and go and I'm not at that level you're not there so if you're talking about players just like that and I don't want no smoke in my range no yeah I'm good so on the scale of like one to 10 what would you say your ranges right now I know I got I know how to do an opener and I and I know how to like just make good moves within the game so got that's that's that's kind of it's good that's my level the same thing with ping pong I used to say that when I thought you was asking the question about my bird at first and I would have said pin pong because the whole team We used to always play there, play that. Because we get out of practice at like 6.37, and then they lights off at like 10.

So that whole time, you either, you're playing ping pong. And so, but it was like I could beat anybody in the school at ping pong unless you play tennis. If you play tennis, I don't want no smoke. They're different. Let's kill translates over? Yeah, 100%. I didn't even thought about that. That's funny.

Yeah, it's different. Are you a big NBA jersey guy? Nah, I'm from Arkansas. So we didn't have a team, so it wasn't like. So did you have a favorite team at all? The Warriors. Lovely answer. Well, since you came into the league,

I feel like the Warriors have one of the stronger jersey collections. You guys have every year the city jerseys, especially the throwbacks, have been really, really good. So I kind of want to get your opinion on some of the jerseys you've worn in the league. So what I'm gonna do is I have this iPad right here. I'm gonna show you some, and I just want you to tell me from one to 10, how would you rate it?

You know, there's some better than others, some you probably have personal attachments to. We'll start with, this is my favorite jersey in the NBA the past like five years. What about this throwback Warriors jersey? Yeah, yeah, I like that one a lot. I'm gonna give that one a, I get a 10. Yeah, that's an easy 10 to me.

The way the colors, that's, that's how you do throwback jerseys right. Yeah, I love that one. No, it's a 10 out of 10. It's a 10 out of 10. You can't deny it. Okay, well, let's do one that maybe isn't so, a little more controversial.

Did you like this one with the rose in the bottom? Yeah, a lot of people didn't like it, but I didn't, I didn't hate it. It was, I don't even really, see the rose but I'm looking at the jersey I just kind of see the and then that part is kind of tucked in anyways but yeah I give it seven yes and when it's tucked in when you guys are

fresh to start the game the tip off 9 out of 10 third quarter when it comes out a little bit I see that gradient it's a little stinky not great straight 10 out of 10 you're not a fan of black and yellow I'm not a fan of gradient flowers on a jersey I'm not a fan it looks like it's from Venice Beach you pay too much density detail that's all that tells me

black and yellow always saves me okay what about what about this year city jersey you like this one yeah I like that one a lot too And matter of fact, I'm going to get the last one. I'm going to bump it. I'll give it an eight and a half. Oh, the last one, really? Yeah.

I ain't not like it. A lot of people didn't, but I ain't not like it. Okay. That one, I like that too, especially because when we wear it, we bring out the, like the red sleeves and the head vans. And the court, the court is tough. The court brings a lot of aura points in the jersey. Yeah, I'm going to give it a nine and a half. Nine and a half.

Okay. Yeah, this one's a little controversial. Do you like this one? Yeah, I like the one. Honestly, like you said, I think that the Warriors have done a very, very good job with their jersey rotation outside of that rose one. I personally, I can't get behind that. But everything else is good. What do you like about that one? I'm not a fan of that. I mean, it just looks kind of like classic. Yeah, a little bit like classic. Yeah, a little bit like the opposite of classic. That like that, that like, that like, it makes it feel a little bit like the old school warriors jerseys. So that's why I like I can kind of get there with that. Okay. Let's talk about some more classic ones. How do you feel about the we believe era jersey? Yeah, yeah, that's cold. I'm gonna get out. I'm gonna get out. on the 10. This was undeniable. This is a fan favorite. Everyone loves this one. You almost got to wear it. They brought it back in 2020. So you were like 18 months too late from wearing it. Easy 10. So many memories attached to that in jersey too. You remember

third grade? Yeah. I remember vividly asked me by anything. I'll tell you what I hate that day. You're watching Jason Richardson highlights back then? Absolutely. In the lab every day. How do you feel about the sleeve jerseys? Nah. Nah. Nah. That kind of looked like the compression shirt you wear under the jersey. Yeah. This picture, they did it him so wrong. This picture makes us even more awkward. It's the yellow one we've given this. Get out of five. Five.

No, we got to go over. Those are easily the most, like, controversial jerseys in NBA. It's just the whole, like, sleeved era. And I, again, like, we have a friend. He gets so mad because LeBron, like, won a championship in the sleeve jersey and it's like all these iconic NBA moments. And you're wearing sleeves on a basketball court. But I ain't going to hold you.

When they were wearing them back when they had them, I liked them. Really? Yeah, I did. But now I don't like them. But, you know, it's trend. He grew up. He was in one of the style back then. Honestly, you were about 13, 14 when this happened, I think.

Yeah. You were supposed to like it. These were four 13, 14 year olds. Nowadays, as an adult, you're like, nah. Okay, the other one obviously sucks. What about the black one? The Chinese New Year one? Is that any better?

I like the logo and I like the color and I like the design on it. Mine is the sleeves and it's cool. You can't look past the sleeves? They need to bring it back. I give that one like a four. It's better than the one that the other one is, but it's still not great. Yeah, I'm with that. I actually, that's one of the main sleep jerseys that I like.

I'm actually, I'll go like a six and a half on that one. Generous. I feel like if you have a sleep, you're like, your cap is like a four or five. I'm being nice. All right, man. So outside of what we were talking about the past, some of the present a little bit. How do you feel like this season is going? How do you feel about, you know, the general, every season has ups and downs.

And, you know, fans when the season started, you guys were hot. Top five in offense, top five in defense going crazy. And obviously there's downsides that come with the natural season. What's it like in the locker room? when you have those ups and downs but your expectations and the attention given to you by the media really makes those downs

feel worse than they are. How do you guys kind of stay afloat and stay level-headed amongst all this? What's a message in the locker room? Different teams kind of react differently. This team in particular has been good just with the energy and the weight of the fields in the locker room

it's going to be hard to get out of the rut. We won yesterday, so that was a good, hard-fought win. But just stacking wins together. So doing what it's. takes make sure everybody locked in but it's been a cool I know Steve Kerr had a comment in the media other day where he was talking to the young guys in the team I think is a verbage used where he was talking about he's noticing a habit of playing outside the

offense he says something to along the lines of keep the ball movement it'll come back to you get the ball to step Kerr and yada yada and I know that wasn't necessarily directed at you but you're one of the young guys so you're going to take it with everybody else when he says that how do you guys take that in as a core of young guys you kind of just like hear it yourself individually do you guys ever talk about that is it addressed in the locker room. We didn't talk about it when he said it. Yeah, I don't really be watching the press conference like that. But yeah, I mean, I guess different people would take it different ways. So throughout your entire NBA career, usually people get frustrated, it's natural through

the ebbs and, like, flows of just life in general. So particularly through this season for you, I guess my question is, what do you do whenever you're like super frustrated through after a bad shooting game or bad practice or whatever it is? It's a good question. I kind of need to figure out a good way to deal with that type of stuff because I mean I'm kind of like I'm a resilient person so when I got a lot of times I can think my way out of stuff like and then I know everything's going to be better over time everything anything feels the worst right when it happened and then it's ever since then it gets better and better and then uh also thing I a lot of times I think about is that like there's nothing in the past that you've went through that you like man I'm I'm just as mad that I went through that. Like every time you go through something hard, it's always like, man, that's one of the best times. I learned the most from that time.

So whenever you end one of those moments, you can think about that and be like, man, I'm gonna learn from this and this moment is gonna feel a lot better in the future. That's a cool thing to think about. And then another one is, I can always, I read it in a book, the four agreements. One of them was saying, try your best.

It sounds cliche, simple concept, But if you went out there and you did exactly as hard as you can, you tried what you can, you did it, you took the shots, you made the, you was aggressive when you should have. If it didn't play out, it just didn't play out. You can't be mad at the self for that. So at that I can be cool with myself and the fact that I did it.

I took the shot. I missed it, I took it though. And it's comforted coming at. How is it, like you talked about the energy of this team, what's kind of the difference between the energy on this team versus teams in the past? And because at the same time, like, it's a new year, but you also have new guys that just kind of trade season.

People are coming in, going out. How is the energy right now in the locker room and how is it different than, you know, maybe last year or two years ago? Yeah, it would have to be each year so different. You know, it's a new group of guys, new energy, different journey, different season. But honestly, even to the, even every year around this time during the year,

like new year time uh i don't know you got a fact check me to be but every year it seems like we we kind of go in the drought around this time and then it's like uh it's your all-star you know trades and all that all that's happening and it's kind of similar how do y'all react to like hearing trade rumors and like just seeing other people with the outside world talk about it how does your mental like go ahead and digest that yeah well i can only speak for myself i don't know about everybody but me me like it's no point of being wound up about something that that guy to put up on Twitter yeah yeah yeah like saying like oh this would be a good trade whatever that is I don't even look I don't even really get on there and look at the stuff honestly but it's so many

different things that could happen it can't happen so many possibilities what's the point of being tripping about something that ain't happened yet yeah if it happened and it do if it don't and it didn't that that's fair and not not being on social media is that something that you did whenever you like first when you got into the league or have you just really like throughout your life not really been big on like even just like scrolling and not posting just not being on social media no i was on there a lot uh especially as a kid and then even my first couple years in the league i never i never really got on twitter but instagram i would always be on instagram but i don't even not get on there because of basketball i just realized that i'd be spending so much time scrolling

on my phone and two hours went by and i ain't do nothing and like i just like to be more present conversations and doing being productive because it's a productive time in your lifetime so you could be you can be picking up on some stuff picking up on game to get you somewhere so it's the time to do it rather than wasting time a big conversation right now out there on the internet that you may have heard may have not heard that a lot of people just complaining about the procta basketball blah blah can't shoot too many threes if you were commissioner for a day will be something that you would change or adjust in the NBA It's so much stuff to be like, I don't want to get and do their job because, you know, you change something and there's something else happening that you don't like and then everybody will be talking about that and you shouldn't have made the chain.

And out of respect for what they do and how hard their job is, then I wouldn't even want to impose on it. But it is, I would say that. It is like, you don't know what I want to watch everybody come down to shoot three is every possession. If you, if you're watching a good game in high school, you see a dudes getting their bag, step back, pulling up a mid-range. and it's not as productive of basketball but it's fun to watch and it's fun to play that way so I don't know what they'll do about it

yeah it's such a big topic that like so much of it is just based on like fans emotions and the type of like changes they want to see don't really make sense for the reasons you said because it creates a new issue but there's some validity to it I guess like you said some people if they find it boring they find it boring but there is still so much stylistic difference like the way you guys play

is nothing how the Lakers play it's nothing how the Kings play how the thunder play etc so do you feel like will still kind of underrate the amount of different styles there is in the game today? I mean, I think there is a lot of similarities to the way that all those teams play. Just, but everybody has their own superstar and that's who plays different and everybody else kind of plays around

them. But if you think about any position, anybody that's a superstar, everybody just says, oh, we need to put shooters around that guy no matter what they do. And that's the best way to win games. And if you're looking at analytics and looking at it on paper and numbers and all of that, then you're going to say, okay, well, this is the best way to play basketball.

Yeah. But if you're actually out there hooping and thinking about the art of the game and thinking about it that way, then you can probably, you'll probably have a more fun way to play and more fun way to watch. Yeah. So, I don't know what to do about it. Is that a conversation that happens a lot in, in this building? And then even with, you know, the people that you know, around the league happening in, you know, on teams around the league, just people coming to their players and saying,

okay, like we, you know, you got to play this way, you got to play that way. And then you come back and you talk to your people and it's like, hey, we're all getting told the same thing. I mean everybody like everybody enjoys winning so if you're trying to tell somebody how to enjoy basketball trying to make it trying to make the game fun well winning is fun so if you got to play this way to win then you'll have fun when you win yeah maybe not when you but I don't I don't know what to really say about the strategies and all of that like speaking of fun just a random question what is the most like what's your favorite moment that you've had to had personally on an NBA court. What's like your favorite play? It's got to be winning the championship,

but to have a better answer, I'll say. Besides the championship, you're doing it? Yeah, yeah. Hit someone with a nasty cross. I cross LeBron and then step back and hit a shot in the playoffs. I love LeBron coming up. I'm with Clayton. So, you know, that's just the guy that I look up to on the basketball court.

So being that, because he got drafted in 03. I was born in 02. So I've been watching him my whole life. So just be able to be out on the court and you get a move like that in the playoffs was cool. And it was my first second year. So second year. Do you have that picture hung up in your place? I got the picture blown up.

I ain't got that. He's ready. He's ready to get framed. I know you shot that. You were like so glad I didn't miss. The worst thing ever is when someone gets the cleanest cross, bricks the shot. Were you immediately like, thank God. Yeah, I mean, I feel felt good when they left my hand.

Yeah, you knew what's going in? So you said, you mentioned you, LeBron's your favorite player? Nah, growing up, Joe Johnson is my favorite player. Joe Johnson, that's a good. It's a little rock connection right there. Yeah, I love the, I love people have unique players. Everybody likes LeBron, everybody likes Kobe, all this stuff. What about Joe Johnson's game really drew you towards him?

He from Lurrock. That was the biggest part of it as a kid, but then I saw Joe. Yeah. And my cousin, then he played in Atlanta. My cousin moved to Atlanta. So, and then he would come back and do stuff. He put on like a three-on-three tournament in the neighborhood. And me and my brother, we won the whole tournament.

And he was two years older than me, so he usually couldn't play together. But it was like he put goals in a parking lot, big old parking lot with a whole bunch of basketball goals. And then, like, everybody age group, you got out there playing three-on-three and you got to win to get to the big court where he was playing that. Oh, that's dope. Yeah. So that was cool. But, you know, it's ISO Joe, so he got a fun game to watch.

Yeah. be like your all-time starting five of your favorite players growing up if you put joe johnson there put him with the three who else is around him a player that you really grew up really idolizing like as a kid i like the NBA i like watching the NBA i like i like i like the celtics with ray allen and all them that was my team yeah but when i was a kid i was watching like the high school kids in my city like that was the ones it was the professionals to me that so i'm watching kwan day day uh kalil my brother like i know y'all might not know these names and all that But these was the dudes, and I was coming up.

So my star and fire would have to probably be with a lot of them. Do you feel like Arkansas's basketball culture is kind of underrated? Because, like, all the guys that you named, and even throughout history, like, Scotty Pippins from Arkansas as well, like, there is low-key, like a lineage of really good basketball players from Arkansas. Yeah, yeah, it is. And it's like a lot of guys, they make it through whatever situation they're from wherever. Because, like, Malik, from Lepin to Arkansas, Austin Reeves.

I don't even know. I didn't know Austin Reed until he was at Oklahoma. But I ain't never heard of Lepinth, Arkansas, nothing to Malik. So like these guys make it from whatever situations they're from. And that's a cool thing in itself. But it is a lot of talent at Arkansas. What's a future project or a dream project that you want to do for your community? Maybe not now, but like 10, 15 years from now or whatever.

I got, I really want to make a difference. like it ain't as much as like i want to put on these big old events they get all of this publicity and it's cool that i did it like i really rather get like a group of kids like four to five kids that like we really got a connection that we talking that i'm talking to we dealing with working out specific problems and and making a difference so then they can do that for for other kids and all of that and kind of like making infrastructure rather than like a big event gotcha that's dope that's dope but then i want everybody to have fun too so you know i i i bring Clay came to Little Rock.

That was crazy. The summit, like I just said that I did, that was cool and impactful. The camps are always fun. I brought, Rich came down and did a talk for a lot of people, so that was cool. Cool. We're almost done here. Before we end it, is there one thing that you want to say that you're really focusing on the rest of the season?

Is there anything that you really have in tough minds and something you want to improve on and get better at as an individual? What's your main mindset going to 2025? Right now, we need to figure out ways to win. So, however, I can be beneficial to that. Figuring out my game, figuring out what I, different teams, I call for different things. So just figuring out what my team needs. Perfect, man.

We appreciate you coming through. It was a great, great time talking to you. Hope you have a good rest of your week, man. Yep. Welcome back to the regular TV3 content, post interview. What was y'all favorite part of that interview? Now that everyone else is done watching it, we can talk about a little bit. What was your favorite moments?

It was clearly the fact that he was not trying to snitch on Draymond for teaching him about illegal screens. Oh, yeah. Because you asked him that question and he was like, I mean, you know, we got you. We got you. We got you. I would love to hear Draymond talk about all the small stuff he can do when he's done retired, when he's already retired, done playing, and he can finally spill the beans a little bit.

I would love to hear more about that. I don't even know if he'll get to that point, though. He's so passionate on gems and jewels. I want a cut up of Draymond Green. Like, you know, in the last dance when Dennis Robbin was talking about. talking about rebounds and he was like click go there click go here click go there i want that but for jremont green just be like hip here hip there throcks here like punch here like it was also it was also lovely to hear about uh the wrestling sessions with scotty barnes kate guttingham and

andrew nemard he said they as he said they lined up mattresses everywhere and kade would be slamming people remember that clip of kate gunningham you ever seen that clip of back in their aAU of kade messing with jalen green he hit a bucket and he had a bucket and he had a bucket and and he was running back and Jayling Green was on the sidelines like waiting for his game and Kate like flicked his nose

and Jayling Green hated it they were like I'm sure they're friends of the fucking bully bro growing up absolutely he was to give him a fucking swirlies the straight head in the toilet As soon as I heard that story

I can just tell Kate was that like just always trolley immature kid that's always just messing with his friends I totally imagined I grew up in plenty of Kay cutting hands and it's always the ones who are like six inches taller

than everybody else exactly it made sense like you know you just like you're not going to beat him up he's six five whatever you know like you can't do anything they just get away with anything it seems like it must have been a hilarious teenager yeah yeah man on to the next segment this episode I want to talk about vibes today and I know we do that a lot but I want to talk about vibes around certain teams certain players because we're at the point of the season where you know the first 25 30 games happened we gained our initial view of players

of the initial view of teams how their season's going and now we're kind of entering that low of the season where some teams are getting hurt, some teams are falling off, some teams are rising up so I want to do a general vibe check across the league some of the teams that are very interesting right now and I kind of want you guys to tell me how you're feeling about them.

Not necessarily their on-court product entirely because like I said some teams are just injured or some teams have, you know, however the past couple weeks are going what are the vibes like what kind of momentum are they carrying the 2025? Yeah, there's a couple teams i've had by eye on now i'm sure we're going to talk about them today and so i think i think vibe check

is perfect because like it's not necessarily like a power rankings and you still like we're what like six weeks out from all-star from all-star weekend and that's kind of where like the final push is so i'm yeah i know where i feel about about some of the teams i'm very curious to see where you guys land on some of them okay let's talk about the first team that i've been dying to talk about because we had certain thoughts about them early in the season and things are not going super well right Now, what is the vibe check right now, 1 through 10, for the Phoenix Suns? God damn zero, bro. Not going to lie to you.

The vibes are distraught. Absolutely in the mud. When I watch this team, I feel like I'm watching a lottery team. I'm watching a smushed together rushed package, unfinished products. It's just a disgusting way to format a basketball team. It's just they don't have no chemistry. Guys are consistently going in and out. Evan Booker, the entirety of the year, hasn't been his normal self and hasn't, like,

stained a certain level of stardom. Defense, he's fucking ass as well this year for whatever reason. During the summer, everyone was like, oh, my God, bro, Devin Booker, he's the perfect co-star, blah, blah, blah, his defense, is amazing, off-ball defense is amazing. And he's just like... Nobody said his defense is amazing. We relax. It wasn't amazing.

During the Olympics, people were just OD-laz. It was good. It was good. And so... Yeah, he had a good Olympics. Right. Yeah. And so, like, seeing that does not carry on in the slightest. I think a lot of issues reside in him because if he's the normal, consistent Devin Booker giving you like 27, 28 a game, cool. But you're asking a 37-year-old Kevin Wright to be the best player on your team, the best defender in your team, the second, third best, like, facilitator on your team. Yusuf Nurkich is there. You have a back court that has, that relies on defense of Tyos Jones and also Devin Booker. Your defense is meant to be cooked, bro. This team is ass overall. Yeah, they, it's frustrating to me because, you know, all summer, I was very hot in Memphis Grizzlies. Ever since the draft, I was talking about, like, watch out of the Grizzlies are going to be that team next year.

Last second during the preseason when we did our power rankings, I put them below the suns because I bought in on the Mike Boonehouser hype that he would implement enough changes that would make enough of a difference that this team will kind of live up to the talent level that we all thought we'd see whenever they added these, you know, three star players together. And you mentioned up top of your statement that they have. haven't been able to stay on the court. That's the biggest thing. They've had very few minutes with their three stars together. They keep taking turns getting injured. The sad part is that's who they are. Bradley Bill gets hurt a lot. Kevin Durant for sure gets hurt a lot. So at this point, that's baked in. And part of my thinking of why I thought they'd have a really good regular season is because with these three guys, they can, and now with Tyos Jones and Montemortez here, who aren't amazing, but they're competent guards. With all these guys, I figured they could sustain

injuries and they wouldn't need all three guys to be able to take care of business on a regular regular season perspective that was wrong they have not been good without their three guys together and even when they do have the three guys together they played less than 150 minutes together but they are losing those minutes they have a minus 2.7 net rating with their three players all in the court together at once so even that hasn't been pretty I kind of just feel like Mike Wootenholzer the three point volume is high it's top 10 in the league they have a top 10 offense he's not a wizard he can't fix his defense man at the day they still are who they were last year. There's a couple things

that Josh said. Well, I think for most saying that like it looks like an unfinished product, that's probably the best way that I can describe the sons because it's just like, because everybody's always going in and out, you always feel like they are two pieces

away, right? You always watch them and you're like, okay, you probably need another score and you need another playmaker and need some more creation. And then just because like, you know, NARCHB out there, you're like, and then you need some like an actual rim defender you need somebody who could who could defend the rim guard the paint do all that stuff and then we've seen it in los angeles and something that like i'm not sure

what to call it yet i am workshopping it but you see the but you see the theory of like new coaches can come in and at the beginning of the year they can kind of catch people by surprise with all of their changes and yeah every and like the vibes are very high everybody's very optimistic at the beginning of the year. You get to January. Everybody has seen you play for 20, 25 games now. There's tape on it. And so now you're kind of capped out. So I don't know what type of like attribute boost or like what I want to call it at the beginning of the season. But that is exactly what happened with the Phoenix Suns. And Isaac, like you mentioned the lineups. And you mentioned the fact that, you know, they're never on the court together. Right now, the, the sons or the number one

lineup in the in the league is obviously like the the next starting lineup of hard bridges right shout out to two they've played work exactly according to to cleaning the glass they've played over 1100 possessions now the next the second team which is a normal NBA team who doesn't run their players into the ground during the regular season they have 800 you know about 800 lineups played the sons that starting lineup of ties Jones big three and nurkits they played like 230 It's so few minutes that I don't, I don't know what to think about this team and in like a playoff context. And right now, like, I think my vibe for them, and even as somebody who had them really

high in our first power rankings, it's probably about like two out of ten. I don't feel good about that. It's a good point with the coaching changes. You said you don't know how to workshop that would call it. I think it's just reality. Like, you have a new coach. You make changes. and you have priorities as a team

they clearly were emphasizing certain things getting to your point volume being up is chief among them right they knew they can't be this super mid-range heavy team to the same extent they have been in the past years you come into the year you focus on that and that's worked but as time goes on these players are who they are

and you can have these coaching objectives and you can try as hard as you can to do bud stuff when you have such a big sample size you see the talent as a talent and end of the day they still are just way too small they still are not good on the boards. Nurkich is still a shell of what he was in the past. They still play a 6-5 small forward in Bradley Biel.

You're never going to have good rotations under the rim at Huffside Defense. When you're only good defender in your starting lineup is Kevin fucking Durant, who is a good defender, shouldn't be your goddamn perimeter stopper plus your best weakside shot blocker. The talent is a talent. And eventually those things wear off.

And like you said, rival coaches make adjustments. And they know how to make your weaknesses come out. Yeah, 100% of good. It's so interesting looking at this team when you break it down through the stats. Like they defend the rim pretty well. They're not like terrible at it. They're not the greatest at it.

But it's like pinpoint. It's not a pinpoint weakness necessarily. When it comes to like, their three point statistics and what they allow their opponents to do and generally defend the three point line pretty well. Like what Mike Boonehouser is doing, the game plan is there. I just don't think he has the players like you guys. alluded to to execute it whatsoever. Exactly.

Now, when it comes to... They lose a possession battle every game. Their offensive rebounding is abysmal and they just do all the small stuff that they can't put it together. So even if they do have all these systems in place, it doesn't matter if your talent level isn't quite there. Yeah, exactly. That's why some of their stats I don't want to say is misleading.

I think they legitimately have the game plan, but they don't have the necessary things to execute it. It's tough, man. And vibes wise, like, yeah, the team isn't good right now. We know that. But, you know, it's a long season. season, they could get better. It's just tough because the vibes are,

anytime the Suns struggle, the vibes are going to be in the tank. Because when they struggle, it looks really ugly because their big suck. Their size sucks. These things around, their star players suck. So their losses look really horrible.

Their wins look fine because, you know, they win with this talent. They have their shot making, whatnot. But you get, you get reinforced to remember how terrible this roster is

around their best players when they lose. So it makes Suns fans go through like an existential crisis because they remember where they were a few years ago. So any small tumble down the standings, it's like, fuck, man, we used to have McHale Bridges, Chris Paul, Cam Johnson, Devon, Booker, DeAndre Aden. It was so nice. 2021 was so blissful. How do we get here? And it looks bad. And it looks bad whenever your star sucked

too. Like, Book came back last night after missing five games. He was four of 20. And so like, that's been, that's also been a theme. So I guess like, so if you guys, so right now, I'm looking at the standards right now, Phoenix is 15 and 17. They're a game behind the Warriors for the 10 spot in the play in. Right now, if you guys had to bet if they would make the playing or not, are you, what do you say? Yeah, yeah, they're going to make it. It's a long season.

They're going to make the plan. Yeah. I would be shocked. The four teams above them, you got the Lakers at 7, Minnesota at 8, San Antonio at 9, Warriors at 10. Who drops out if they're going to be? I would hope they can pass the Warriors and Spurs barring changes. They should. I would hope.

It's unbelievable. But then again, the biggest issue has been health. And we can't assume the team's going to get healthy. Booker, I mean, Beale got hurt again in his last game when they lost to the goddamn Memphis Grizzlies who were missing nine players. So that's probably keep happening. The Grizzies in that game didn't have Marcus Mart, Jammar, Rant, Salty Aldama, Zach E wasn't playing.

It was a Jaron-Zaxon-led team without any of his offensive weapons outside of, like, doesn't mean. They lost so many games like that. They lost the game that Nurkage got suspended from when he got in the fight with Naji. Luca got hurt in that game too Or Luca was out already So like it's it's those kinds of games Especially in the Western Conference

Where everybody is like a game A game and a half two games whatever Behind each other You have to get those games at home To stay competitive to stay afloat And they're not getting the ones that they should get Right now which is the one That's that's probably one of the more concerning things about them

And even if I do think they'll make the plan I think I wouldn't be shocked that they get to six like it's so close together we know this team has a gear like if you told me they over the next two months they've ridded the ship and ended up being the six or seven seed

I wouldn't be perplexed I'm not saying this team is cooked but vibes wise you just can't have good vibes when you know that this team is the team most teams that are struggling can look to the trade market and say we can mix some shit up

we can do this we can do that they are who they are they are in the second apron they have no cap space no control of their picks until 2031 their best player is old they are locked into what they have

in every single way imaginable and their young star is having the worst year of his prime for reasons that you can't write off to injury you can't write off to so-and-so he's just not making shots that's not encouraging so down year yeah

there's no there's not a lot of hope to latch onto and for that their vibes are in the toilet yeah yeah this is the worst efficiency this is the worst this is the third worst efficient year that Devin Booker's had

of his I guess pushing 10 year career to see that. And it's the worst since he's become a star. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And to see that, like you said, they don't have, they don't have any flexibility whatsoever when it comes to the roster construction and how their payroll breaks out to be. That's worth witnessing the Bradley Beal trader. Not to say that, like, he's a pinpoint issue because I think he's generally, like, led up to expectation, even surpass him when it comes to certain things. It feels like he's at it. He's definitely performed better than Devin Booker when it comes to fulfilling his role as well. But in terms of like what can we do to fix this team? What can we do to help, you know, make our team more versatile and break more pieces loose? He's the guy. But you can't do that because his contract is literally like locking you, putting you in a head. Yeah, it's not Bradley Bill's fault per se, but it's acquiring him was the issue.

It's like the Russell Westbrook thing where, listen, he didn't trade for himself. No one told, no one, no one, he didn't pick to go there. The team traded for him. And it was the wrong move in every imaginable way because of all the. fit and how it has a cascading effect down the roster the bradley bill trade was a mistake i've seen some people on twitter kind of like looking back in all these moves they made and saying was the kd trade a mistake too i'm not going that far because when kd wants to come you you fucking get kd but i had the real thing is why didn't why did they trade diondra aton for use of nirkage i hid it in

the moment and i know him and monte williams butted head so people kind of rationalized it because Aiton's PR was in the toilet that was so fucking stupid I cannot lie making yourself that old and going down the use of Nurkich well was so fucking stupid giving up on a young talent despite the issues he had with the coach

it's just so stupid yeah but that was that was interesting too because they had gotten rid of they made double changes like they got rid of money and they got rid of AIs and if like if you had asked me before everything went down

I was like okay you make your choice you either pick Monty or you pick Aiton and obviously it's always easier to pick how both you fuck off yeah it's always easier to pick the coach and so I think whenever it happened I was like yo that that's really really weird that that you would still send DeAndre Ayn which to me at that time with the way that their roster was constructed I was like oh they really don't like DeAndre Aiden in the in the locker like he has to be that much of a negative presence if you've already made these changes and they still they still they still sent him out of there.

It honestly felt like that the whole way, when they resigned him, they didn't want to resign him. Like they waited, they waited the maximum amount of time that they could give him the extension. They waited until Indiana gave him the offer sheet. And then they were like, okay, now, now we will match. But for a guy that they drafted, number one overall, for the last, you know, two years of his tenure there, they never seemed super committed to it. So that whole run, that's why, like, I'm with you, Isaac.

I'd never think that that KD move was a mistake because it did seem, you could see kind of the holes in what they were doing and kind of where their ceiling was. And especially if DeAndre wasn't happy and you're paying him $30 something million, it never seemed like it was going to fully work out in terms of getting back to the finals, getting, getting a chip doing all that stuff. So I'm, it's been a weird, weird, what, five years. for them and I don't I don't know where they go from here I'm still holding out hope this season turns around but it's not a bright future at all we'll say that fact sad sad stuff let's let's

flip gears out too much negativity what are the vibes right now for the Cleveland Cavaliers an NBA best 29 and 4 87% win percentage one of the top three win percentages in NBA history thus far into the season it's about eight out of 10 are all time high I'll give a 10 out of 10 I mean yeah 10 how could it be anything close to 10 out of 10 yeah you see yeah you see see guys like Evan Moble who's probably going to get his first all-star birth happening later happening next month there's gone is having a bounce back season he hasn't been hasn't had any knick-knack injuries averaging like 20 and 6 20 and 7 donovan michael having a slight down year but in terms of like shooting the fuck out of that ball he's doing that and then all the other guys

all around would it be tie jerome um sam merrill isa coro like they're just slowly and sure really like developing and improving and max rus is finally back too the vibes are at 10 it's time too much of this season has been oh shout out the calves having a great start yada yada i don't know what it means but good regular season cute story glad they didn't fall apart yada yada it's time to really take them seriously as you can put them as a title favorites i understand the celtics are the celtics and if you want to say that you still are going to pick the defending champs in a playoff series to do what they did to the calves in that regular season meeting a few weeks ago I understand.

This Cavs team is a juggernaut. And I get it. The NBA brain is like, I got a seat in the playoffs. Show me first. I understand how that works. It doesn't surprise me. I'm not saying you have to pick them as your number one favorite.

Everything evidence-wise, that's not based on that type of emotion, that again, that emotion is understandable. Everything evidence-wise on the court suggests that the Cavs are the best team in basketball and are fully capable of translating this to the playoffs. Nothing about it is unsustainable. They are an incredibly well-oiled machine on both sides of the court. and fixed every single issue we have with them in the past few years, there's no reason not to give them respect as arguably title favorite.

Yeah. Okay. I think that's why I disagree. Title favorite is a bit far from me. Dude, 29 and 4 is crazy. That's so impossible to do. Like, this is not just a hot start anymore. This is irregular.

Well, okay. So, like, I understand the hot start. but title favorite is still a bit far because I get it I get it because like I would still have Boston is like if we're just going off I would still have Boston as the title favorite if we are assuming that Chet is going to be healthy I would still have Oklahoma City above Cleveland and then I could put Cleveland there I think I think right now for them in the argument for them is can they push into that like tier one and but not like the favorite and so like I think like inside the building vibes are obviously 10 out 10 out of 10 for me it's probably about eight and a half out of 10 just because I still think that Boston is just like they are for a lot of teams I think that they are perfectly set up to go in and demolish what Cleveland has built this year and again I get it I'm not saying I didn't fully respect Boston I'm as high in Boston

as anybody right now yeah I don't know if I'd pick them to comes down to it but they need to be viewed 1A, 1B. Like, they have a real chance. It's not like, you can't write off and be like, yeah, but they can't be Boston, so it's whatever. They have a real chance. This team is the best in the league, just as good as Boston at creating threes.

They have two insanely skilled ball handlers that have finally connecting with each other. They're both fantastic on and off ball. Kenny Ackinson has put in a lot of really, really effective plays where they get them both moving off screens to make each other better when the other one has a ball. That's in the biggest difference this year between the guards.

Evan Moby's made a pretty real shooting leap He's not shooting a lot But he's shooting 40% from 3 on very small volume And that's something That's important, bro It's a real shooting leap No, that's big, that's big, that's big And that's, I think that's why

That's why I'm like, I feel confident Putting them into that tier 1 Where I'm like, yes, and like the phrase that we always use Is like, they can look the subtics in the eye In a playoff series, right? And I feel confident saying that However, if we were to play out, you know,

seven game series ten times i think boston wins seven times out of ten yeah that's that's that's why that's why that's why i feel about and more and also the calves wings are so good dean wade is so good and so important what they do his size defensively next to those two giant bigs is so helpful great shooter obviously if isa goro keros lavert looks great in this system yeah they don't have any flaws right now their offense is a machine and obviously they have those two bigs they hold you down defensively they are incredible and what's so like insane about this team is that their offense is a consistent machine like usually with all the elite teams you can think of it's like okay damn nikolio just off the court holy fuck this team

looks completely different and they their identity is just like absolutely in shambles this team this cast team specifically because of how they're set up by having double big walls having like double super ball dominant guards but you know what I mean double guards you guys hold a lot of responsibility and carry in offense you just allow the team to have no breaks in the second that these secondary third string players have to come in and have to hoop for 10, 15 minutes. Their mind is boggled, bro. Like, you get no breaks whatsoever.

Yeah. This team, to me, I remember when this, this Donovan Mitchell trade first happened, Isaac, you were like all in on them. And I said you were wrong at that point in time, which if your perspective is, you want to be like, yeah, you were wrong at that time. Cool. I'm going to go ahead and say, you were not wrong. We were just two years early.

That's all it was. And we've witnessed guys like Evan Mobley go ahead and evolve into like an actual top three pick that we like know that he can be by the stingery point range being that dude defensively. But often seeing him like push the push the ball here and there and not being timid and actually realizing, holy shit, like I'm 611. I got a little handle. I could shoot a little bit too, and I'm actually going to put the ball down your throat and stuff it in your face. He's been so aggressive. Big throat stuffer.

Yeah, exactly. He's been so aggressive. And I think he, what Kenny Atkinson has been doing to him and how he's been empowering him has, like, changed the entire look of this kind of offense. The defense is obviously ridiculous, too. Kenny Atkins' rotations are perfect, honestly. He's been deploying his talent so perfectly. You mentioned two years ago when they first made that trade, I was hiding them because

I said, I can't imagine the team having this duo. of talented ball handlers plus his duo of talented bigs that is such a rare combination that you can deploy in such versatile crazy ways together and separate it didn't quite come together because the offensive issues that came with the bigs not being able to shoot everyone who wasn't ready yet and then on top of that too they didn't have the guys so fill in the guards the guys that's the gaps and now they have that but also Kenny Atkinson is deploying them in such smart ways with how he staggers it where you know we talked early in the season how uh it's like 48 minutes, you have an elite room protector out there. And that's, that's just a crazy weapon to have

with those two bigs. But he's kind of discovered that pairing Garland and Jared Allen together for bench minutes is perfect. You can let Garland use that role man and kind of get into that 22 bag you had before Donovan Mitchell, where his playmaking is just ridiculous. And that really lets Garland do his thing with Donald Mitchell off the court. And then vice versa, you pair DeMitch and Mowgli together. They have a great two-man game because they don't necessarily need to operate in that traditional pick and roll sense. They're both really good at playing off each other in a more free-flowing way. It's just crazy dynamic, different looks that it's kind of like what we talked about,

OKC, that with those two bigs, they have versatile approaches that if your team is really good at defending them with just Chet on the floor, bet we'll go Hardinstein and Chet. If that doesn't work, we'll go just Hardinstein for some minutes. Like, you can go different looks based on what opponent's strengths are. The Cavs have that same exact thing. Yeah. I love that too because I think, and like, obviously I've been kind of, I've been, I guess like out of us three right now.

I am the most negative, but I think, like, that's the, that's the, the key for them and the major advantage. And I think the way that you can get, not only all the other teams in the league, but also Boston is that you can, like, when Boston turns it up and they start making threes, it feels like an avalanche. And, like, you know, you can just be playing the game and then all of a sudden, boom, boom, boom. They hit four threes in a row and you look up and you're like, oh, my God, we're down 13.

Like, we was just, it was just a one-point game. Like, what happened? The fact that having consistent pressure, there are not a lot of teams that can handle 48 minutes of, like, elite basketball. And that's the biggest thing to where if they, you know, if they made it to the conference finals, like, I think that they're sealing right now. And we'll see how much that they take off, you know, take their foot off the gas as we get further into the season. But like, are they going to win, you know, 65 games? Yes, I think you know, you know, like what, like how many, how many wins into the 60s? Because 60s should be, should be very, very reasonable.

Like, I think, I find it very hard to believe that this team is going to lose what, what would that be? 17 more games for the rest of the year. How many times do they see the Atlanta Hawks? I don't, I guess two. I guess two. I guess two. If they can split with the Hawks, they can get to, they can get to 67 wins, you know?

Like, that's the, that's the question is, like, how high on the, like, all. time regular season list can you get they have a real chance of doing that yeah yeah if you told me they hit 70 this rate like well shit that's crazy hope they can do in the playoffs but that doesn't surprise me and i think if boston's out their best i'll pick boston they're fully healthy fully clicking nobody's in a slump i'll go boston but boston better be at their goddamn best this is a real real threat that they didn't have to deal with last year yeah exactly like last year of course we saw them go through injuries jared allen wasn't there but it was clear as day outside of the Dallas Mavericks, obviously.

Although the series was a pretty much a gentleman sweep, the Boston Celtics had a tough time dealing with Evan Mobley empowered at center once that line, once that Jerry Allen injury happened. Now, of course, like, Darius Gron struggled the most, and I think he was like a huge, a huge, like, he's stuck out like a sore thumb when it comes to why they lost, but if he's able to, if the pressure around him is

be able to, like, be leaving in the game. is opened up by guys like kerosavert and the dean wades and all the other guys obviously don't minceal too i think he's a real like a real x-factor in my mind when you think about that boston matchup and how well he's able to sustain himself in front of these big wings yeah okay yeah we'll see how that goes but vibes are an all-time high for the calves this is the best vibes since the 2016 season at this rate this is an amazing season for them so literally bro so that's a cleveland next vibe check what is your current feeling on the vibes of the MVP race MVP discourse online how are you feeling that it's going is it does it feel civil does it feel like it's

it's good compared to previous years obviously not it's not it's not it's not it's not civil um i don't i honestly can't remember the last time that we had a civil MVP discourse like throughout the impossible throughout the year it's not like people latch on to the the MVP discourse always goes like this somebody has a crazy 20 games you find your guy in 20 games and that is the only spot that you have to to jump off the bank for whoever you thought was going to win it in the preseason 20 games happens we play four months of basketball that nobody cares about and then the last 20 games happen people have massive pushes and then you end up judging people off of whatever narratives form in the middle

and then two pushes at the front in the in the end and that's normally how it how it goes so like it's it's never once we once we get to like march so a lot of times it doesn't feel indicative of like what has happened throughout the entire season. You're not actually looking at a full body of work, a full, you know, 70 games of basketball. And so right now, honestly, it just sounds like a whole bunch of noise. Whenever we talk about the MVP discourse.

I think it's not too bad right now. She has real momentum. And it's so funny because there's like, just a weird contingency online that I've grown to hate Shea because there's been like a successful sci-off of haters convincing people that Shea is like a foul merchant. and like not fun to watch, which is so insane

because he's nowhere close to the biggest foul merchant or the highest free throw rates in the NBA, but he's become the face of it for some people, I guess because the vacuum that's been left with James Harden

not being in his prime, people just need a guard to hate and it's become Shay. He is having such an ethical season that, you know, early in the year, he's doing it in such the right way. His team is really good, but offensively,

he's the reason they're good. They have a top 10 offense despite having, no chet and not having their stretch five that really brings everything together and outside of jadub who at this rate after adding all this weight is not the greatest on ball creator they don't have any fucking creation on this roster it's a bunch of defensive goons hardinstein who shout out him his passing who's done wonders for them there's fucking 16 and once is adding him into the lineup my boy she makes his offensive go awesome all makes his offensive system go to such a rate that

he combined that with his individual production he's once again doing his normal 30 point per game stuff, having big performances, carrying the team that's missing their second best player, which matters, he has a real MVP case. And unless Yokic gets the top three seed, I think there's a good chance. She's going to get it. Yeah, I 110% agree, bro. Well, we've even seen what's Shea. OKC in general is such a talented team, but they have like actual flaws offensively. We all know like their three points, their three point shot throughout the entirety of the season hasn't been the best. They're not nearly as efficient than compared to last especially too obviously due to like injuries some guys like azare jill hasn't been having the

greatest three-point shooting season but through all that one thing that continues to persevere is the generational bucket getter that she is like in my mind the reason why i look at him as a top tier like tier s-tier NBA player in terms of just like who would i would rather have i think we had this conversation during the top 30 player rankings or whatever i think me and donovan leaned towards Shay and you lean towards Tatum because of his all-around game, which is understandable. I just saw what Shea is in terms of like his ability to get buckets

at insane, right in this pace is just sets everything up so beautifully. Like, if he isn't this S-tier generational type of like Michael Dan, Michael Dan near Jordan type of basketball God, when it comes to putting the ball on the basket, which is efficiency, I don't think this OKC team would be as unfuck-withable. But the,

Yeah, well, yeah. The offense is built around his skill set to do that. So that's why, like, if he was in Boston, it wouldn't be quite as necessary. It wouldn't feel as essential because their team wouldn't be built that way. But, you're right. And that's why I think is a real MVP case, because it's like the Nuggets where everything only works to the Yokic offensively. They're similar here. The offense only works when you have this downhill demon that can be the real driver of open shots for others. They don't have, like, they fully bought in on defensive talent and. off ball catching shoot talent around him like guys like casein wallace Isaiah joe wiggins they're going to stand out their hands up they're going to cut but they're not going to be doing things with the ball in their hands like that they'll do their screen setting stuff they'll be competent but it only works to a high level if shay is the engine and that is a real MVP case because without him they would be nowhere close to a top 10 offense yeah i think having having the one seed there's like there's certain levels of basketball watchers that all have different criteria for the MVP having the number one seat satisfies a large percentage of of a certain you know

population and then you have the like kind of kind of middle guys who are just like hey like who's out here you know like getting buckets at a high level stuff like that and for shee it's it's honestly very funny to me that a lot of people are starting to like turn on him be one part of it is that like one it happens to everybody but the other part is like everything that everybody says is like quote unquote wrong with the NBA. Shea doesn't do like she I know like she's taking 21 shots a game he does not take a majority or even like close to half of them from three like he gets his buckets in the pain he takes tough he takes tough middies he goes into the midrange gets into his bag like all of all of that stuff he's he's a two-way player right 30 36 and five whatever like he does

everything on a nightly basis he's so consistent rarely has like an off game and so it's very funny seeing people do the like the heel turn on them but like having having that level of efficiency on the on the top team and being a a legitimate like like like being a good defender right is he's like point guard kawai leonard in my mind with how okay come down with his midrange game is yeah that's what i mean offensively in terms of like how unstoppable with midranged game is and not being known as like i know i thought you were going with defense too i was like oh me too i was like chill the fuck out. No, I'm thinking about a straight offense in terms of like his limitations in terms of his

creativity and actual ability to pass. Yeah. I think, again, but Yokic is still, the debate is going to be Yokish for Shea, because despite all this, Yolkich is having an utterly ridiculous season. I said the stat lines that Shea has, like he just had 40 and 3 the other day, like a really efficient 40 points on the same night, Yokic had another 35 point triple double, 20 rebounds, as he's done a million times this season. he is still having the better individual production season

season. It's been ridiculous. There's been a lot of like focus on his defense because it's been worse because there's worse defensive talent around him and he's a type of player that needs good defenders. No one's saying he's a great defender you can't anchor your defense. You need Aaron Gore to be healthy. You need a KCP type perimeter defender to make his pick and roll life easier and they don't have that. So he's looked worse defensively because it's a worst environment and people are really nitpicking that. But as with

today the nuggets are up to the four seed. If they stay there and get higher and continue to be on a roll like they haven't as of late because Russell Westbrook and Nicole Yolkich are on the same page clicking going crazy man if he gets there's only two games out the second seed if the nuggets get higher it's going to be a real crazy debate at the end and it's going to get toxic she a real toxic she needs a 50 point game that's he needs in march he needs to have one of those moments where where she's just like unstoppable I'm getting I'm getting 50 tonight i'm putting on the full arsenal the full offensive arsenal and you can see everything that that i do and i can show you that i can go into this like upper echelon of score and that i'm not just

like kind of capped out at like 30 you know 31 to 39 points per game he he should or you know having having that that kind of performance would do a lot for him in my view you know what's so interesting are good right now yeah vibes are good right now because there's no fan base right now that's making themselves like the face of victim complex like we usually see like last year it was mav's fans that were losing their fucking minds because no cole yokech got it because he was the one seed or tied for it i guess he actually was the second seed we'll have an amazing season and luke had a great season but you know every year there's a fan mix like that that makes it seem like national media wants their favorite player to die because it'll make him MVP we're not seeing that right now

because lucas hurt and yannis fans bucks fans always had that victim complex because he played the small market and they think everybody hates them in the world that might become a thing when we get towards the end of the season but right now we're not seeing a big push for it because the buck's record is so much worse so that's why the vibes are good right now because we don't have an insane fan base making themselves the face of everything negative in the world guys i gotta get you out of these twitter like wormholes bro i understand like in order for us to it's literally our job to be in touch with these fans or whatever but like just paying attention to them would be insane like the other earlier last night i'll

I think I was in the Phoenix on subreddit. Folks were talking about trading Devon Booker and stuff like that. What the fuck are you talking about? You going on subredits is crazy. Team subredits are just like the depths of hell. Everybody there is in despair after every loss. Yeah, yeah. But one more thing that I wanted to touch on when it comes to Shay is you were mentioned

how he's just consistent, like, elevating his game and he's sharpening his knife and what he's good at, Donovan. And yes, I remember earlier in the season, though, maybe in the first 10, eight games or so whatever we all remember he was one of those players who just decided to say you know be like you know what I'm gonna go ahead and take like eight nine 10 threes a game and he was letting them bitches fly and along with that too

his efficiency and his efficiency wasn't the greatest and it threw off his whole like system as a player and he reverted back to what he knows and got even better at all the things that he's been doing when it comes to get him to the rim and the crazy where he's hitting all of his shots. I like the weariness. I think Nicole Yokitch should win MVP

because when Westbrook and Yokch share the floor, Russ has a 60% true shooting and Denver has a 126 offensive rating. A shot to Russ, man. When Russ plays without Yokch, he has a 47% true shooting and Denver has a one-on-one offensive rating.

Listen, man, don't use Russell like that. I think Nicole Yokch should be MVP because he's made Russ into a goon and it's so helpful to them to have that second guard that is this level. Russ looks like Wizard's Russ. He looks so good.

And Yolkish needs MVP because of that don't use brodie as a prop don't do that he's a person no but unironically no i know no no yokech makes him so much better it actually is wild how after it's been what like three years since he's been in wisconsin and we've seen the ups and downs of russ and now he gets to play with another all-time grade and it's like oh yeah this is how this is how you back for each other like the way that russ is so good at feeding yokuch on these cuts yokch is always a really good Cutter, but they don't have great passes around him to hit him on his dimes. Him and Russ share a brain right now.

Like, they are both just running up and down the floor, throwing dimes for each other. Like, the talking point on Twitter has been, look what happens when he plays with LeBron versus play somewhere else. And that's just missing the point that Yokic is just the perfect player for Russ. In any era of Russ's career, Yokish would have been like the ideal player all time to pair with him. Yeah, I agree. It's also like so interesting to see for Nicole Yokic too is that throughout the entirety

of his career, he never really played with many good passes. The best passive, I can probably think about the top of my head that he played with is who, Thaku Campazo and, you know, and Russell Westbro, if there's one thing that he's got to, he's, I'm not, no one's ever sent over here and saying he's like, one of the best passes that the league has ever seen or anything like that because the type of passes that he tends to get off or whatever, but in terms of just like, knowing the assignment and making the obvious plays and having the ability, capabilities to get the ball to a certain point with his entry passes and just like quick quick extensional passes

he's he's great at yeah and russell try it he'll try he'll try he'll try those those passes that not a lot of other people will and like that's that's that's that's a necessary skill that it takes to be a good above average passes you have to be able to like take risk and i'm not saying that he's out here throwing you know magic johns and he he passes but like it you need you need stuff to to click like you said and work quickly and that's what that's what rest is doing yeah Yeah, Russ has made his passing career off of dumpoffs on the interior. Remember back in those days of Stephen Adams where he'd get by his guy and dump it off to him down low. That and trailing threes.

He's really good at getting to the paint early and kicking out to the big man that's trailing from three. Who has amazing touchdown low for dump offs and can hit trailing threes? Nicole Yokic. Like, it's the perfect fit from talent and position. I agree. Wow. Man, could you imagine a prime Russ and prime Yokic duo? Oh, goddamn.

Pretty cool. Pretty pretty cool. Okay, that's the vibe check on the DP talks I think right now we're at a strong 8 out of 10 on that It'll get disgusting as the end of the season comes along But right now it's feeling civil What's the

What's the vibe check on the Timberwolves for y'all right now? Man oh man It depends on the day Sundays I'm just like you know They're starting to figure it out I see the defense creeping up They're better than they were defensively last year And they were the number one defense last year

But on offense It depends on what's up of my colony I'm getting, it depends on the mood of Julius Serrano, what type of basketball player that he wants to be on a certain day, you know? Yeah. It's 17 and 15 right now, 5 and 5 in the last 10, sitting at the 8C right now, half a game above the Spurs for the 9 seed.

It hasn't been as horrible as it was, but I'm going, for me, the vibes are really low, specifically in regards to Anthony Edwards. If I'm Anthony Edwards right now, the vibes are a goddamn zero. I'd be so mad if I was aunt right now. he's catching so much slander especially after this game where he played

versus Shea when they played the Thunder a few nights ago and the takeaway was like man he is not on Shay's level She had 40 and got nine shots off or 11 whatever it was the OKC guards blitzed him made him get off the ball early and just completely

shut him down and on Twitter all I'm seeing is I told y'all aunt's not that guy he's not who you want him to be he's not a superstar guard because in the minds of the average NBA fan every star guard just plays the same way is good at the same things. And if you can't do the same thing as another guy, you're simply not him. But this goddamn starting lineup that the Timberwolves to play right now is the

worst fitting lineup I could possibly imagine the paired aunt. It is a goddamn travesty, the support he has for his specific skill set. They're trying to make him play like a point guard. Like he needs to play like Damien Liller to succeed with his team. The worst spacing front court you can imagine in Randall and Gobert. That part's obvious. You get worse spacing. You have a cat. Mike Connolly can't create anything anymore. He's a spot-up shooter at this rate. He's washed is what it is. He's old.

That's fine. But that's a problem. Anthony Edwards needs to play with the point guard and spacing. Now he has neither. Jada McDaniels can't do anything with the ball in his hands. He has been so bad. It makes me so infuriated watching him try to create and passing the ball. And he's just freezes.

I was like, it's so, you continue to tell the truth about Jena McDaniels. And I'm so mad. And I'm never going to accuse you of telling a lie. it is just so funny how upset you get about how bad Jada McDaniels is I thought you were the one man I did I was so high on him but I'm just not even okay if he's not who I thought it was offensively that's fine that happens not every three indie wing develops in the mckell bridges offensively it's cool but just the way they surrounded aunt a rising star who needs to be empowered to take your team the next level especially if you're going to trade your other star you need to be in this situation

where aunt can take over but to surround him with the worst possible to talent you can imagine to the point where he's going to play poorly because how could he not he has no ability to get to the rim with space no ability to have any shots created for him he has to do all the creation of the ball in his hands create for others he's not a fucking point guard you're just setting him up to get slanted online and i know he feels that because his life is really difficult and people are recognizing that that's not a good way to empower your star who you need to keep him happy because you are on a small market team after all it's just bad vibes of my anthony Edwards.

They are, they are potent, the vibes are perpetually low. I think it's, unless they went on some magical run and got up to like the three seed, this entire season is going to have low vibes because you are coming off the heels of a Western conference finals trip with a different team and you traded away, you traded away a franchise piece, your number one pick who was there for almost a decade and everything finally clicked. And when you were at the highest point that you've, been in 20 years you said yeah let's let's blow it up there's not going to be there's not going to be

anything that the wolves can do to where on a nightly basis or when we look back on the season you are not instantly going to compare them to last year's version of the of the wolves and be like wow we had it so much better nine months ago yeah you see my thing is at this when this trade initially happened when we were on when we had that emergency live stream it was yeah we had that emergency live stream. I, out of the three of this, was trying to be, as usual, the most optimistic about the entire situation. Flexibility, this, flexibility of that. But as time has gone on, and I'm just seeing Bodega Cat doing this thing, thriving and all that, and thinking about how this, it's been a complete 180 in terms of, like, how the Timber Rules are viewed now and how

their future is set up. I'm just like, bro, like, to your point, Donovan, they've been in the mud for 20 years. They are one of those NBA teams that it just have been consistently pitiful. And the second that you do have, like, massive success with this new young star and your old star that you drafted back back in the day eight, nine years ago,

you just like dismantle all that. It's just, I'm glad you mentioned, I'm glad you mentioned Bodega Cat. Yeah. Dude, I don't drink. If I was a Timberwell's fan and I had to watch Bodega Cat get all this love in New York City, I'd be at the bottom of a motherfucking bottle.

I'd be losing my mind I would be having a terrible view Dude Before we came on Shams tweeted out The first wave Of fan Votes for the All-Star

So Anthony Edwards Is fifth among guards With 411,000 votes Carl Anthony Towns is third Among Front Court With over a million votes The complete heel turn Between what Anthony Edwards

was May when everyone's like, that's Michael Jordan. He's the new face of the league. The Tim Wolves are set up for the next decade. And Kat now being in New York and being one of the most beloved players in the league, like that's insane. And to go, like you guys are saying, to go off and watch him go somewhere else and continue to thrive and be embraced by another fan base like that.

That has to hurt if you're a wolf's fan. Kat is living his best life, hitting Soho, blowing bags, living the best life you can imagine. Ian Chop Jesus. Eating chopped cheese. eating it up, eating chop cheese, power of friendship. There was fucking veins. Smoking hookah. Dancing to Bacchata.

He's in Queens eating at Dominican spots. Matt is loving it. And Anthony Edwards is locked in hell in a cell, fighting God's toughest battles. Got to win this Julius Randall Isols consistently again. Fuck, bro. Rigo Bear's still there. Y'all started to play with Julius Randall tried Jalen Williams three straight times, just trying to throw his shoulder into him.

And they eventually got pickpocketed Yeah, I saw that and I was like That's tough That's tough and I bet you Anthony Edwards was just in the corner like all right bro Like come on like we're open I'm here and in his head did you see the Aaron Yeager meme from Attack on Titan

Just how to deal with it Yeah just upset Like I It's safe to say that the vibe are like Zero out of 10 to me Zero out of 10 2 out of 10 if you're a Timberwells fan Because you have to you can root for aunt

You got a little bit of vibes if you're Anthony Edwards zero out of ten these are the worst vibes you can imagine I feel bad because somebody's about to get fired somebody is going to get fire somebody's not going to have their job it is a bad basketball fit and it's a bad you know kind of locker room fit

just because of how you know Julius Raddle can get from time to time and so if it's not going all well now we're here now we're here and you guys are fighting into playing man oh man oh man it's not fun right now Okay, let's shift the other way again

One more time For one last story I want to talk about Get a vibe check What's your guys What's the vibe check right now On the Los Angeles Clippers It's reported

That Kawhi Leonard is close to a return Targeting this week I think it was January 8th Their matchup Or something like that Maybe it was a fifth I forget A Kaw Leonard return

Is around the corner Norm Powell is still averaging Over 20 points per game Giving you more production than Paul George did last year I'll say that He's as a score at least He's been better

The Paul George this year What you mean? Yeah well yeah obviously obviously I'm duh but uh we should we should talk about them we talk about the vibe check on the 76s but but that horse has been beaten dead but normal pal is still a star score for the clip hard's doing James hard and stuff yeah I'll say about like seven out of ten I actually feel pretty good about them considering that Kauai's coming back because like I just keep looking like every time you log on and you look at at the you look at the

stats and you see you know who's leading in offensive rating who's leading in defensive rating who's leading in defensive rating it's always just like wow the clippers are still up here at like the top of the league in defense and they're amazing they for them to do all of that they honestly like they've exceeded my expectations defensively offensively they are who i thought that they were going to be in terms of like when you look at them holistically right like you're a james hardin led team at this point in his career he's not super efficient this is kind of you know like what the ceiling is and even though that you're getting this amazing production from norm power your offense is led by a lot of James Harding

creation. You don't have a lot of creation outside of him. So it's going to be what it's going to be and it's not great. Like the 23rd in offense right now. Oh my God. But you put Kauai Leonard in there, somebody who can go get his own shot. Can you get to, if you have a top five offense, can you get to

14, right, by the end of the year on offensive rating? Maybe. And that specifically it's not going to make you a championship contender. It will make you dangerous. It will make you go into a playoff series where it's like, hey, we're not just going to beat this team in five games and be on our way. Like, we're actually going to have to

sit down, lock in, and fight. So I actually do feel good about the Clippers moving forward. The vibes are especially good right now because before the year they were in the goddamn toilet. The vibes were a zero out of ten. As soon as we saw Kauai's out again for another indefinite period of time after they just paid him an extension and let Paul George walk. They had a lawsuit. Like, they had a lawsuit for Paul, for Kau Islander's needs. being handled poorly which that went into thinner who knows what happens with that right dude the vibes were negative 12 it was like holy fuck we have no picks for a long time new arena owner wants to win how is he gonna win we're employing mobba the guy with the three-letter

let me leave mobamba alone we got that guy with a three-letter nickname who i won't say his name because it's a piece of shit we got a root for him yuck it was just gross and they the whole goal for it he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's Before the year, you had the hope that we could stay afloat before Kauai came back and just like, he's awful, man. Trash person, trash team. He sucks. I used to go to Rockets games down here and like obviously, you're like that.

That would be like fake basketball. I would leave the arena so frustrated every time. It would just meet me and my dad would leave every time we're like, this guy does not know how to play basketball. It's ridiculous. He can't keep his goddamn hands to himself. Terrible. The whole goal was, can you stay afloat?

and be good enough so when Kauai comes back, you can have a decent team. And they've done so much better than that. The fact that they're not even in the play in, they're a top 16 without Kauai, and they can have the hope to say, we're going to add a top 10 player in the world, get him back to speed.

He doesn't got to do too much to start because we have 3, 20 point per game scores that are cooking. We can let Zubach cook, let Powell cook, let Harden do his thing, ease Kauai in. That is so much hope for a team that's been devoid of that for the past calendar year.

The vibes are 12 now. We've been from negative 12 to 12. We've got a 24-point vibes swing in the span of two months. It's a good year to be a clipper fan. I don't know. You said 3.20-point for getting scores. I thought I was, I was like, oh my God, Zubbatch is putting, giving us 20, giving us 15, but I know what you mean. I was like, yeah, yeah. Any given night.

No, no, no, he's not going to 20. On any given night, you can give you 20. No, yeah, for sure, for so, yeah. The vives are 10 out of 10. I think we were on a TD3 stream on a Tuesday specifically, 6 p.m. Eastern tap in, if you know, you know. I think I said something along the lines of this Los Angeles Clippers team. is primed to fuck up someone's goals and dreams, whether it be for a playoff birth or push

or actually in the playoffs in the first round. They can definitely upset a team based off of the nature of who they are and they're like a defensive lead team led by James Harden and a lot of tough buckets from Norm Powell and, of course, James Hardin again. I don't think no one can look at them and take them serious as an actual like championship contender. But in terms of like them looking you in eyes and taking a series all the way to six, seven games, that's a very realistic thing. And I don't think no one will be happy and no one necessarily like rolling out of their bed, excited, jolted with energy to go into the Intuit dome and have to have to play them fucking four times in a row. Yeah.

And I'll say this too. Like for Clippers fans, do not get your, I'm saying this as like as a. a warning because I actually care about your well-being in this moment. Whenever Kauai comes back, do not get your hopes up because obviously we've seen in the past Kauai is his health and his needs are not something that you can rely on. So even if you do make a playoff push, like everything at this point in the season and in his career with Kauai Leonard in my eyes is gravy. It's just a cherry on top. I'm not I'm not looking at anything that Kauai can provide as like a foundational piece. And so like even if Kauai does end up going back out, you still should be able to look

at your team and look at the way that the Clippers have performed the season and still have really good vibes. Because again, you could be like the Sons and be in a similar position where you don't have, you don't have control of your picks for a majority of the decade. You are, you know, you have these old stars. It could be a lot worse and it's not. And I think that for the clippers right now it's at the top and like ty lu should be on the finalist ballot for coach of the year minimum minimum he should he should be one of the three final coaches on that whether or not you want to give it to them right whatever we kind of know the criteria for it but like they've been they've been good and if they especially if they finish outside of the play in if they're in that

top six oh yeah ty lu tyloo needs to be coach of the year candidate for sure easily i agree yeah Vibes 8 out of 10. Who would have thought coming to this season that we would say Clippers fans, life's going good for you. It's a good vibe season. And we care about your well-being. I've never cared about them. But I care about you now.

That's on you. I can't say I care too much, but I'm happy for you. I care about you now. But I will say if it does turn around, I will laugh. So I guess I can't claim to be that way. I can't be that much about. Listen, in the illustrious words of La Melle Ball, New Year, New Me, same either.

that being said that concludes our hour of NBA vibe check looked around the league the most interesting stories who we got to feel out the vibes we're done with that Mo what is the time for dude this is the first TikTok time of the year 2025 nothing but funny moments interesting segments I'm ready to eat on these new packet crayons bro term me up please let's hurry up and get to TikTok time 2025 let's do it let's wait games. Let's get goofy. Let's get some tomfoolery going on. Let's have some fun. Let's go to TikTok time. Woo! Welcome to TikTok time. Where once again, begin with the draft. This is

going to be a very fun draft. This is one that we've been looking forward to for a long time. It's really the definitive draft. You know, when you think about building NBA teams and putting together something that requires real discourse, requires real intellectualism, real analysis to the game. There's overall ball knowledge is this draft right here. This draft

is going to be a draft of fictional characters into NBA teams. We're going to draft point guard, shooting guards, small forward, power forward, center, full teams.

Only criteria, it's a fictional character. Do with what you want with that. All right. Let's do it. I got this. First pick, we got Donovan. Second pick,

Mo, third pick, me. So, Donovan, where are we going in the first pick of the fictional NBA or fictional basketball player draft. With the first pick, I would like to take Wiltz from the Foster's home. No, what? That was my pick. God damn.

Damn. That is the right one, one. We got a seven foot demon. You got it. Yeah. You know what? Damn. Okay, you got it. Go ahead. You got it. That was literally Scramboating your draft boards. Shit. Okay. I need something to counteract with that length and all I need. When I think about that. I need to get more size. With my first pick of the 2025, 2025 fictional players draft, Johnny Bravo, you are drafted as my center. Congratulations. Johnny Bravo. Nice. Yeah. I need someone to distract the ground, bro. I don't know how this guy slipped to me. Give me air bud at small forward. That's an obvious pick. Miss match. Airbud.

I need his intangibles, clearly. Is that a dog? Yeah. Yeah. It's a hoopery. Bozo. And then at shooting guard, I need a sharpshoeter. Give me Hawkeye.

Ah, that's good. I'm not missing. That was my pick. Airbra, driving kick. It's ridiculous. Those were my two shooter picks. Don't know where to go from here now. Well, where you going?

Okay. So, at my point guard, I need someone who can really slow things down and catch you off guard Give me meatwad You're meat ward? Meat ward Yeah, okay

Meatwad Listen, I don't know if you had the mobility you need from a point guard But go for it Listen, I'll throw you off, bro You look at him, you'll think he's the basketball But really you're holding him Technical foul

Two points on my side You're out of the game Lovely. Okay All right, at my point guard again your point guard has to run the team your point guard needs to be able to have vision creativity and that's why for me i'm taking phineas from phineas infirm oh an icon okay listen the brain's behind the operation that makes sense yes i like phineas and my point guard

and listen don't tell you're getting the duo don't tell you're getting the duo we let them full fall to you listen sometimes you need somebody who is just and actually i'm not i'm not going to do it i will break up the duel. It is okay. Phineas is undersized. I need somebody, big body, to defend. Give me Raphael the Ninja Turtle at my two guard. Oh, okay. Okay.

Big homie Raphael. That's athleticism. Yeah. I need somebody to make up for Phineas' shortcomings on the defensive end. He's the offensive engine. He's the defensive engine in the back court. Perfect tandem. Okay. Okay. I need someone who doesn't play any games

and is whose long has hella options and mobility give me Squidward from SpongeBob you don't play no bullshit bro

you got a drill sergeant on the court that is Julius Randall your vibes listen don't let y'all get down by 10 your vibes would be terrible okay I need a big man give me Hodor at center

from Game of Thrones Got you Never watched it Oh yeah Yeah Give me a little Big Body And

Point guard Give me Larry David Who This man is so uncultured Fucking crown eater Where is Larry David from Yeah where's he's from Hey

If you know you know Yeah It's fine It's fine Those who get to get it Yeah Not a view Do you even know

don't worry about me he doesn't know either don't don't worry about me don't worry about me mo your pick crickets anyways all right um

I just hope you know you're the problem in that not the crickets you're the uncultured crickets at my two guard I need a dog you said you got airbud fuck air bud

I got someone who actually I got someone who actually is a real dog Someone who will snitch on your ass Someone who protect what's important Give me courage a cowardly dog Someone who snuff out anything that's wrong When it comes to my defense Or my eyes dog

Fuck out of you We guys dog He's the best dog That you could ever imagine On your defense On your heart of your team bro He's not the goodest boy He's not the goodest boy

Get that, get that Get the fuck out of you I don't need somebody Who's the goodest boy I need someone's gonna do his job That's a thing is All right It's on me

These are my last two picks Yep At my power forward See, I have creativity at my one. I have wilt at my five. I have a defensive specialist at my two. And I just want another big body. I want somebody at my power forward who, whenever you see them coming, you get scared.

You know you are not running through that brick wall. Give me Groot at my four. Ooh, Groot's a great pin. Screen setter extraordinaire. His highlights, we are going to, that is a traditional power forward. boss man dilo is playing in his highlight team that is what i want he's at my four and at my three again a weird amalgamation of talent that i have on my team so you need somebody who can fit a whole bunch of stuff you need somebody who's flexible i need somebody who's versatile somebody who can

be anything that they want somebody who can transform into anything that my team needs give me bumblebee at my three you got a whole car he's not coming out of me or my three he can be anything he needs to be in this world that's funny oh my god bullshit all right so i got my last pick i have a pretty versatile flexible lineup but i do think i need more playmaking i need someone who can make plays for me and with that in mind

give me one of the best playmakers bag getters bag chasers in cartoon history ed from ed ed edinetti the small one i need him at my three because he's a great connectivity he's a schemer piece bro he is exactly he's always thinking okay yeah I'm not about to get out dog give me the goodest boy give me Clifford the big red dog of power forage who good boy no okay you a hell of dogs on your team okay my dog level's not getting beat fuck out of you all right all right all right all right the Larry him and group between listen that that's a that's a good matchup right there between Clifford and group the paint is not getting scored in I'm not I'm not going to

lie to you you will have to shoot from half court Hodor, that's a lot of fucking girt. I'm like, I just need to give that boy a belly rub and he'll be, he'll be like so distracted, bro. He's not playing no defense. That's a foul. You can't rub some by his tummy. It's not what happened to physicality?

It's not no foul. There's no, hand chicken. It's not hand chicken. It's pot checking. I'm going to have courage going to that. It's pot chicken. He's pot chicken.

Okay, that's the draft for the day. Let's get over to some basketball talk. specifically let's talk celebrities I'm going to show you guys an NBA player's celebrity look like and you got to guess who the player is talk to me

okay we've done this before I got a whole another round another 10 for you we did last time you guys did a decent job some of them gave you through you for a loop

I think Terry Cruz is Nas Reid through you guys for the biggest loop we'll see if you guys can do a better job this time nice all right bet so real simple which NBA player is this first off we got prints all right there's only one person

I can think of and there's only one person in the NBA who'd wear something light prints and you kind of see the hair a little bit is this the shade no what the fuck he looks nothing like shade it's literally he look-a-like it's not drip off eh all right that's my guess I've never been so lost in my entire life I have no idea who this is yeah you're I get this one you're cooked already I'll just give it to you immediately set the tone this is Andrew Nemhart oh okay Okay, okay, never, never seen that, never seen that's good. Andrew and Harbin gone for a minute.

He just came, he's just not coming back. He's been absent on my mind. And keep in mind, I didn't make any of these up. These are all pulled from Reddit. So they're not my lookalikes. If you guys disagree, take it up with Reddit. But apparently Andrew Namhart's Prince. Listen, I'll be in the show Reddits tonight because I,

I got, I see what, yeah, I got to see what they're talking about. I see. I can't believe you said, Shay Donovan. That's insane. Yes, it was horrible. Yes. Just because of ORA, like, ooh, aura, who can I, think of in the NBA.

Shake, say, say, say, shake. So I thought we were going with it. He's just light skin. Okay, next one. We got Bryce Young. Hmm. He looks like somebody, man. That's the point.

Somebody that I know and it's starting to brew in my head, but I can't spit it out. This one's not hard. This one should be one the easier ones. Not hard. Kind of looks like... Is this C.J. McCollum? No, it's not C.J. Martin? KJ. Martin's a good guess.

That's a great guess. That's pretty close. It's not who we're looking for, though. Shit, it might be better than the original one. I know. Depending on what these people are coming up with. Damn. Not bad at all.

You guys cooked? You got stuck at this today. Yeah. Unbelievable. This is Jordan Poole. Ah, yeah. It's the hand. It's the hand.

Jordan Poole was a froze. Especially, yeah, that is... Yeah, the mustache and the chin hair and the eyebrows, it's short and pool. Yeah, damn, okay. Over two, unbelievable. We got to turn out. We have to turn out.

We got locked in hard. We got Lil Nas X. Who is this player, bro? This picture is also just funny. He's staring into my soul. He's locked in. See, like the mewing reminds me of shade. The hair reminds me of jaw.

Uh, don't know where to... It's not Shay, but I saw somebody on Twitter on Reddit say he's Cheh. Bro, I have no idea where to go with this. Are we... Yo, we just cooked today? This has to be some young player. Some young player. Not an old player.

Yeah, no old player is doing this. I have... I'm lost. I'm completely lost. Oh my God. Over three. You guys have no thoughts on those heads. This is John Morantz.

All right, this is so... Okay, I should just go with it. This, they look nothing alike. He just set up his hair on top, bro. Targ-terable. Yeah, this is not right. This is not right. Ready targeted.

Take it up with Reddit. I mean, you see, you see, you see it. It's not. Yeah, I mean, I saw, I saw the hair and said shade, but I mean, it said job, but like, that was it. Reddit, y'all need to have more of a diverse friend group. That's all that tells me. Low key. This is crazy.

key in this picture, jaw looks more like Bryce Young than Lonaise. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Next one. Can we finally get one on the board?

Chris Brown. Oh, I know this. You know this? I'm all too familiar with this face. Please. Yeah. In my mind, when I see Chris Brown, I think I see Dezante Murray.

Oh my God. You guys suck at this today. No, it's not DesaSaintiff. What? what holy shit i'm gonna just go light game for licensing this kelly ubrey no no hell no it's not a current player oh he's not a current player oh okay then shannon brown yeah yeah yeah yeah i was gonna say this is this is a famous one come on get one right i thought we were just going off of current yeah okay no okay finally we're on the board who this has been a struggle this has been not good content

are they cousins for real or no I don't know. What did you get that from? Brown, brown. I don't know. Online. If I said it. Next one. Booker McFarlane.

Man, oh, man. We all know this. We all know this one. We all know this one. This is a fallen soldier. So we need to be towards the top of tippity top of the NBA world. He's not dead. Eh.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what I don't know. We can get. out the way. This is Isle Williamson. Yeah. This is Ayle Williamson. I had to do the classic in there. Get some easy ones for you guys. I figured you might struggle with the beginning.

Well, a little bounce back. I want you guys to see the ball go in the net. It's insane how the resemblance is an uncanny. Same exact face copy and pace, bro. Excuse me. Next one. We got Pousse from Orange is New Black. Hmm.

Bro, who are these players? This was actually really good. Poussay. Poussay, Washington. Never seen the show, by the way. Best character in the show. Who are these players? I can, like, if I squit, I feel like I'm kind of seeing it.

Once I tell you who this is, it's going to be hilarious. Is it a current day player? Is it kind of? I kind of see like DeMardarosen. No, it's not DeMarrozen. A little bit. I get it, but no. You can kind of.

See the Vision? Is it a man Thompson? Fuck no. Damn, bro. That's my guess. Donovan. It is DeLon Wright.

Wow. See, who'll be thinking about Delon right on a day-to-day basis? Nobody. Damn. Dude, I look into Pusei's face. I see DeLon right. This is a good one.

I have bigger fish to fry than DeLon Wright. Yeah. He's not in my fantasy team or any. No, I don't say about DeLan. This is a good one. This is crazy.

Okay. We got Pete Buttigieg. All right. This is pretty easy. He's white. Who's man? Who's man? It's one of y'all's.

Just a general man's. Yeah, that's Brad Stevens. This is some of these man's Brad Stevens. These guys are twins. They look so. I showed my girlfriend. She was like, wait, those are two from people? Yeah.

They look exactly the same. Yeah. And shout out to Pete for having the Celtics hat too. Yeah, he knows where it comes from. He know where home at. Next one. Chance the rapper. Oh, God.

He knows we're home at. Just said shivers down my spine. My phrases, uh. Stand up. Chance the rapper. Wow. wow wow wow another guy see i'm trying to give chance a second chance he doesn't want it he doesn't want he doesn't want that greatness who is this player man you guys have nothing

going for you today do no it's really head empty no thoughts oh my god this is oh no wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait a second thought you was a man over well not today bro I guess like it's 2025 of my den I'm like the universe is giving me a new calling card What is it yet? I don't know, but it's not knowing many anymore. It's not mad. This is Ken Baysmore.

Who the hell is thinking about Ken Baysmore? No, that's wrong. That's wrong. It is. I see it. I see it. It's accurate. First of all, if you're going to do anything with Chance the Rapper look alike, put a hat on,

on Kim Baysmore. That's the only way that you can look at Chance the Rapper. No, if you throw a hat on him, make him look down a little bit, it's there. That's what I need. I need a hat is. That is very accurate. that is very accurate we got

oh what's her name I forget fuck the actress oh why don't forget her name let me look at I got another name I don't even remember

her name at all Who is this? Who's on my screen right now You what is this person in my screen right now Help Help What's going on right now

Joey King Okay Is it? Isn't she Never mind Why? She was in bullet train She's in bullet train, yeah, Joey King

I saw a bullet train, I did not recognize him. She's the white girl, she's only one white girl, bullet train who's like put all the shit in motion. I guess I haven't seen it. I guess I haven't seen it in a watch. She's the antagonist. Okay, what NBA player is this? Is it, is it Yokic?

What the fuck? Hell no, what the hell are we talking about right now? Oh my God. I'm sorry, I don't know who this is. I'm, I've just a little bit into the bag. Just a little bit. Just a little bit into the back Didn't mean to

Someone who's playing right now I'm looking at a list of all the teams Is this how many hawkers What the fuck no is that worse than Yolkish? Yes Ha ha I don't have to lose to guess This is Grayson Allen

What the hell am I looking at right now See people already had They have too much time That's that's what it is Touch grass This is hilarious If you guys knew who Joey King was, this is hilarious. Physical activity.

Sorry. I don't mean this sound ridiculous, but. Last but not least, we got the rapper token. Oh, and I was. Tell me you know this one. Yeah, I know this one. You have a clue, Donovan? I mean, I have two options.

Yeah. Who is it? It's either Tyler Hero or Chad Holmgren. No. Oh, my God. Pick the white boys. He's just picking one. Look at his stance.

Look at the way that his hands are. He clearly feels some type of weird. That's what I was going off of. Oh, he just picks some of the most popular bright skin boys. Yes, this is bog. Yeah, this is bogged. This is bog. This is crazy.

They look the same. They look the same. Well, that was a generationally horrible performance, but you got to close it with a bang. You got one, right? Listen, we got to count the small wins when you can. We got three out of ten. God, damn. In baseball, in baseball, that's a good percentage.

It was freaking $100 million in baseball. Exactly. It's all about perspective. I love it. Oh, man, that was bad. Okay. Next thing we're going to do, let's talk about influence on the NBA world.

Let's talk about it. What I'm going to do is I'm going to show you two NBA players. You're going to tell me who has more influence on, you know, you can think about however you want. On court product, culture, the style of play VC today, the league at the time, whatever it is, however you view NBA player influence. You can tell me which player has more of it. Let's go.

Okay. Kyrie Irving or Kevin Durant. This is so hard. Katie has influence in terms of how, like, long, skinny kids want to play. Kyrie has influence. Yeah, there's so many. Look at Wendy. So many.

Katie has sons. Yes, but Katie's sons are, like, 0.5% of the population, because there's only a certain percent of the population that is, like, 610 and has crazy athleticism. everybody can relate to Kairi Irving Also Kairi's basketball shoes How's Kairi relatable to you?

I can't relate to Karii If you have never gone into your backyard onto the street Put a plastic bag on the basketball And tried to drill me You got me, you got me I did that

I did that when I was younger I'm gonna get him today I'm gonna get him at the right today That's Karee Okay This is close I think on the NBA, it's Kevin Durant, but on fans is Bobby Kyrie. How's it came to

around the NBA? Oh, in terms of... You got sons. You got sons. People want to play like him. Look at Michael Ford Jr. Look at Victor Woman Yamma. Look at all these big guys who shoot now. A lot of that's because of KD. Yeah. At a certain point in time, you'll be sought to believe this, Isaac, but Jamie Daniels is getting KD comparisons. It's great. High school basketball. Jabari Smith, Jr.

got a fucking drafted third overall because people were like, let's get a little bit of KD in there. If you are 610 and skinny You are Kevin Durant And if you have a little bit of wiggle Automatically Katie Not even you don't know But you probably shouldn't like a wiggle

If you shoot a little bit Then you're Kevin Durant If you just kind of shoot a little bit All right You had a little bit In Auburn Just a little bit Just a tad

All right Next one Classic Kobe or LeBron Kobe's definitely more Worldwide He's touching everywhere, bro.

Kobe's definitely more worldwide. Huh? Yeah. What? He's more worldwide. He definitely is more worldwide. If you think he's more influential fine, worldwide? I mean,

LeBron James. He's like the one of those famous people with the fucking last 50 years. Yeah, but like people in the streets are China are not like rocking with LeBron like how they are with Kobe. Well, that's for a reason. We don't know.

That's neither here nor there. Okay, this is different conversations. But even before that, they weren't rocking with. With, with, with, with, with, with LeBron like that over, over Kobe. I'll say, well, China's not a hear, no, there. I'll say, I'll say this. Kobe's play style, still to this day, whether right or wrong, is what people think superstars should look like in terms of like a two guard.

His basketball, because of him or because of Jordan? Listen, he also carried it on. Like, he's part of that. Two, his basketball shoes are just hands down better than LeBron's. That is true. Okay. And we make Kobe clones for sure. And three, if you are shooting trash into a trash can, nobody's ever saying LeBron.

You say Kobe. Exactly. In terms of like the actual NBA, we see so many players who thrive off of like having similar skill sets to LeBron. And that's like the new blueprint in terms of like, yeah, you need someone who's humongous can pass a little bit and just big down low. Shades of LeBron. And we see that all the fucking time. I think that's more influence in terms of like actual NBA stuff. And also, of course, we can talk about the player empowerment about blah, blah, blah, blah, shit.

That's the best argument for LeBron. Yeah, that's not Blasey, blah, blah. It's he's changed the fucking landscape of the NBA, how we view the league, how we empower the players, how stars are expected to carry themselves. Like his, we talk about the NBA rings are going to fall off a cliff when they lose him because he is that influential to how we view the league and how fans perceive the NBA. he is the face of the NBA to a degree that nobody besides Jordan was that is pretty influential In terms of the streets, it's Kobe

In terms of the NBA, it's LeBron Yeah, if you want to go get Listen, if you want to go get your PhD and business ethics and whatever, yeah All right, LeBron got it You don't have Mamba mentality like Kobe All right And Kobe showed the world

What Mamba mentality is about It's Kobe. Those Chinese eight-year-olds Screaming Kobe till the day they die That's different That's what I'm saying. I think I might lean Kobe with this one.

All right, man. Next one. Magic Johnson or Shaq? It's Magic Johnson. Really? Shaq is just such like a being and like a figure in himself. It's so hard. Like Shaq,

Shaq doesn't have any sons in the NBA because there's not, like people aren't seven, seven to X amount of pounds moving the way that he was, have the personality that he was. anybody who is six nine if you can't shoot but have a little bit of playmaking chops say hey listen maybe you know he's on that magic tree he's on that magic johnson's who the hell says that i've never heard anyone say that ever in my entire life ben simmons fair come on ben simpins he was he was right he was right there when i think of influence in this picture right here in the setup right here i think a shack in the in lights of like yo he knows how to make a dollar

He is a bag getter. Magic Johnson is with Starbucks. What do you talk about? No, Magic Johnson, if we're going there, if we're going there, I think, no, magic was the blueprint for Shaq to get a bag. Magic is the first one that was getting his face out there and all these commercials. He was wearing these, these designer, for coats, all this stuff. Yeah, magic started, but Shaq perfected it. Well, who influenced Shaq?

Did he? Let's go band for band right now. Who has more? Definitely, Shaq. It is not definitely Matt Johnson owns He's like part owners Part owner of the Dodgers

Of the Dodgers He's in the commanders now Matt Johnson's bredded Are we pocket watch it right now Hey we're going with the bucks We're going to Magic Johnson That's what we do What do you mean

Yeah do pocket watch What's you know here Okay It was in the handbook Larry Bird or Alan Iverson Well this is a two America situation Exactly It really depends on who you're walking up to when you ask somebody on the street.

I think what Alan Iverson did for young Donovan, Larry Bird probably did for young Dylan. It really depends on like where you are on the Mason-Dixon line. And if you are above that in a certain area, Larry Bird is your guy. But if you're below that. Yeah, like if you're below that or by the Atlantic Ocean, Alan Iverson is your guy. and he really changed your life. It's a simple, it's a simple, super simple conversation. Depends on, you know, it's all it is.

But also, but also overall, it is Alan Iverson. This man had a, like, they, they changed the rules because of him. So whether Timby likes it or not, it's Alan Iverson. You're going to be a lot of white kids out there. There's a lot of them. There's a lot of them in 1985. I don't know. I don't care what Chad thinks.

I know, that is true. But also there's, I know. I think there's a lot more white kids who try to be like Alan Iverson, i.e. Christop's proscenis, that man had a fucking AI jersey on put on braids when he was younger too. I don't know if there's many, you know, kids. I do. Yes, there is.

Like Larry Bird. Like Larry Bird? Larry Bird. In the 1980s? In the 1980s, Larry Bird had aura. He had soft. He had this fucking mullet with a mustache and he was, yeah, yeah. Those kids have mortgages and, like, are about to retire, you know?

But everybody has like cut up the sock and put it on as like a shooting sleep. Yeah. I might lean towards AI naturally. Of course. Okay.

J.R. Smith or Lance Stevenson? Who has the better meme? This is the real. Y'all don't know about Nick's tape is J.R. Smith hands down. Easily. Why is it easy? Tell me about it.

Listen, I can. I can't say, you know, particularly where his influence has come from on that side. But if we even talk about just a cap stint, the fact that he forgot the score and gave us the infamous LeBron meme, right off rip, that's J.R. Who gave us the better LeBron meme? Is it J.R. Smith or Lance Stevenson? Me personally, flowing in another girl man's ears. See, but that meme is more. But that meme is more about Lance Stevenson than it is about LeBron. With the LeBron. Exactly. Exactly. It's a losing combo. Yeah. It's a last That's where the conversation ends.

This is Lance Deemason influence, bro. What you just told me is Lance Stevenson, his iconist stands on its own more than J.R. Smith does compared to LeBron, Lance Devenson wins. You see how LeBron's greatness just permeates in every single conversation? You use LeBron and what he was able to do to uplift J.R. Smith in these conversations. This is what he does, bro. That's LeBron's influence. He makes better and we're witnessing it in non-batsball conversations.

This is LeBron. This is where both of their careers elevate the most. whenever they were close to LeBron. That's the most we've ever talked about them. So, yes, I'm going to bring him up in this combo. That's right. As long as you know, as long as you ever recognize.

Exactly. Recognize what? Greatness. Okay, he's great. Now what? What's the point? Correct. Next one.

Steph Curry or Michael Jordan. Damn. Probably two big influences in the league's history. We've said it before. I'll say. it again. Nobody has ever been beat up waiting in line for some curries. I'm going with Jordan. I'm going with Jordan. I mean, it's Jordan. It has to be. Jordan is probably one the most influential athletes to ever grace the goddamn earth. Yeah. If anybody can rival him is

Curry for this generation, though. He is close, especially the style of play stuff. Every little kid wants to play like him. Look at lamello ball. That doesn't happen without Curry. It's close to know. I need to know, I need to know the exact number of how many grown men, not adolescent men, grown men shave their headball because of Michael Jordan. Yeah, exactly. How many grown men looked at Michael Jordan and called him black Jesus? Probably like four. No, a lot.

No, this is a lot more important. That's a nickname. That's a lot. That's a nickname that one athlete said one time and everybody remembered. That wasn't a real nickname. I'm leaning towards Michael Jordan I'm going with Michael Jordan Yeah Okay

Paul George or Carmelo Anthony See you're trying to set me up And I see through your ways I've never seen an NBA team sit down Like oh my God he reminds me of Paul of Carmel Anthony He needs to draft him That blueprint does not exist

Shane team I'm trying to find the next mellow Yeah no one says that Every team wants the next Paul George. Yeah. Scalability. I would love the next Paul George on my team. Let's talk about it. Cam Reddish, we thought he was the next Paul George.

Let's talk about it. Donovan? See. Who the hell is walking mellows compared to PDs? Ew, I know. Melos are stinky. Ew. His local even back then?

Ew. I can't. P.U. I can't even say anything. Jordan Brand has some of the worst. sneakers of all times whoever their designers are should have been fired immediately i find i paul jors got it you said that's so dejected you just you feel like you like let the demon into your heart there ain't no demons in my heart we we cast those out

we cast those out yeah lebron's influence again there you are not not to do no not That's hilarious. We can even talk about the podcast game too if you want. Oh, and the- Who did the podcast first? Paul George, who followed? Mello. Exactly.

Chase and teaching parents how to get a bag outside of the court, bro. It's PG. You want to talk about getting a bag outside the court? Listen, we're pocket watching right now. We can talk about Mello right now. For pocket watching, Paul George wins that conversation. You don't know what Carmelo has.

You don't know what He's done in his post-basket Career You don't know what I'm saying You don't know shit about these Grown men who makes more money He got no money like him, man He's not bredded like him

Look at his watch Look at his car Last but at the police Kevin Garnett or Charles Barclay Oh my God I want to spit my water out This is a crazy It's easily Charles Barkley

this is the classic Isaac emo bro anytime I know you just did this last week I don't know what you're talking about I don't I don't see you yeah I don't see you walking around calling people Lord like Kevin Garnett but you will stuff some churals down your face

so I'm going to Charlie Parkley that's racist as fuck what are you talking about dude just eating churots I haven't had your own years cap that's targeted this is so racist somebody get him

oh there you he just has an itch it's bad bro churitis just love stuff and shit it's crazy he only put that just that he could do that on camera

Exactly. We didn't even ask you. Love the tables be turned. Go ahead. Go ahead. You won't get any pushback for me. Let's see. Let's see.

Next thing we're going to do. Let's talk about some jerseys. We've done a lot of jersey TikToks over the years. We did city jerseys as of late is the last one we did. Let's talk about some. forgotten jerseys some jerseys that history doesn't talk about enough and i'm going to have you wait them from one to ten okay all right let's do it so variety from over the years is ones that i think will be forgotten over time first off we got the chicago bulls throwback jersey from 2005 yeah

these should stay forgotten this looks like this is 100% like a-a-u-suff where you have your reversible jersey and he's like all right who we who we playing at one all right the inside out. Who we playing at three? Flip it inside out. I do not like this whatsoever. You don't respect the OGs. The origins, 1945, throwbacks. Garbage. They don't know what they were doing in 1945.

They were smoking crack back then. They got, they got cracked 30 years early. The Prohibition days. Yeah. Thanks. They're making their own crap. There's moonshine jerseys. Sorry, where we're going? Oh, I mean, it's a clear zero.

Two. But like. It can't be a zero because you can actually see yourself wearing these. These are convenient. No, as a uniform, it's a zero. As a jersey, it's probably like a two. Okay. We can go zero.

Next up, we have these yellow hawks throwbacks. I actually really like these. Oh, man, I miss these so much. Really? These are fire as hell. Yeah. Yeah, for like a Heinz mustard look. Stop it.

A nice little McDonald's collaboration. This encapsulates what an alternate jersey should be, right? We're not going to wear this. We're not going to wear this every night. We're not going to run it into the ground. But sometimes on special occasions, on just, you know, some fun Friday nights. We're going to pull these out. And it's going to be a different look.

This is what an alternate should be, man. Yeah. To me, this encapsulates a brand that sells cheese. Nah. And what's wrong with cheese? Baby Bell. And what's wrong with Baby Bell? You don't like your calcium?

That's all that tells me. You know what we gutin? That's not my fault. Munster? My bad. Okay. Well, okay. Listen, if you guys are team mustard, you can have it.

Palma Giroziano. Reggiano? I'll get this. Piccarino Romano? You don't mess with all that? The cheese bag is deep today. I know. Talk to me.

Poor at it then. Not rocking with it. No, it's eight. Don't like it. It's eight. Don't like it. You don't like fun. You don't like cheese.

What about these St. Patrick's Day Bulls jerseys? They stop doing this. Then you bring it back. They should. The only reason why I hate when teams completely veer away from their colors. But you don't respect the Irish origins of Chicago. You don't understand the heritage you. I heard they go ahead and they dye their little lake entirely green. That's cute. The little lake. For that I get like a five. What lakes and rivers are there in Atlanta? Y'all

got little lakes, little rivers. We got ponds. Don't ever disrespect the chatty-hoochee like that a day in your life, bro. The what? You ever shoot the hooch in your life? The chattahoochee? Yeah, Chattahoochee. Yeah, Chattahoochee. You ever? You ever shoot the hooch and a day in your life? Y'all like, country. Never. You know. I'm going to give these jerse is a solid eight and a half. I rock with it a lot.

It's classic. It's part of Bulls culture. I think they should do it every single year. Just like I said with the Hawks one, this is, this is what an alternate jersey should be. You have a special day. It's one time a year that we're going to put on these green jerseys. Yeah. Let's do it.

I don't know. I think, I think it's a varying too far away, too far away. I like, if it was a hinder green, I'd be like, yo, this is hard. But the entire jersey green, Oh, I'm hearing this cowardice. Do you scare to change? Come on, this is going to change. I think let's unpack this a little bit.

Let's unpack this a little bit. No, they're respecting their identity. Why are you scared to send off in the crowd? They need to know who they are. They need to stay 10 toes down. Yeah, St. Patrick's Day. Cool. You're still in Chicago.

You're not in Boston. Let that keep the green jersees to them. Terrible take. Be yourself. I don't like that. Tomato, tomato, tomato. I don't like that. Next one.

I also got... We got these Cleveland Cavaliers jerseys. I used to get pinched all the time during St. Patrick's Day, so that's why. We got these cabs jerseys. That's why. That's why. These are hard. These are hard.

And these are not like... They wore these the year after the LeBron left. So nobody knows about them. Damn. That's terrible timing, bro. The amount of ore pictures that LeBron would have had in these jerseys, man, oh, man. Wow. I'm sure there's got to be a photo shop out there somewhere.

Who is this player? That's Boobie Gibson, right? Sure. Or the TV. Was that too late? I don't know. Well, girl, this jersey is hard as fuck. I'm gonna give this a nine.

Yeah, if we could have saw LeBron in this, it's like that famous Navy one, but you got the black version. This is tough. I like it. It sucks. There's no history to it because it was the worst year

of Cleveland Cavaliers history, but it's a good jersey. Yeah, that is Daniel Booby Gibson. I believe you. I just didn't know. I did double check. Because again, nobody gave about the caps that you got.

This is the definition of a forgotten jersey because nobody was watching this year. I love it though This is a 10 out of 10 Oh 10, okay Next one We got the Nets earned jersey from 2020

The NBA stopped doing earned The NBA stopped doing earn jerseys But I love this concept If you make the playoffs You get a cool jersey next year This is disgusting I love the idea of the concept is cool But this actual product of the jersey

Discussing so Microsoft jersey Microsoft is like a tire company Yeah entire company is perfect You know it is they got that Motorola patch It looks like Motorola designed it It looks like it's to the T Motorola. Yeah.

Android ass, fucking phone. Android ass. Get this away from you. I don't like this. I kind of like it. I'll go five. I like the pattern. What's creative about this?

Yeah, if you had like a jersey design website, you would load it up and this would be the default jersey on there. Y'all don't respect the homage to the subway system? The street signs? Well, clearly Brooklyn didn't respect either because they changed their whole court doing that too. I don't like I don't like it. The street lines are always late in New York and Brooklyn anyway so it doesn't matter. They don't respect themselves. Bring back to earn jerseys that was a cool concept but apparently this isn't the coolest one. Definitely not. What about this

Pistons Thunderbolt jersey? This is hard. This was like a cartoon jersey. They wore this in their 2004 season when they won the championship. I like this a lot. There's definitely a cartoon jersey. This looks like the jersey you get a six flags a little bit but I was gonna say it looks like a screenshot from like Mike but that's okay because that that's a good movie and I like these jerseys I'm gonna get this is something that a team would do this looks at something that a team would do today is a city jersey trying to appeal to like nine year olds but it's cool because it's old and throwback so I like it but if it came out today I'm not sure I would no if it came out today I'll be kind of happy with it I'll be happy with it now are you calling me a nine year old maybe you are a known

crown eater that adds up i'll give it a good six though i get a seven this is very very possible i'll go and very very forgotten so it fits a theme yeah true next one we got the gold king's jerseys i think history should keep this one forgotten i'll say that it's these i will never forget these jerseys these jersees are entrenched into my brain for all the wrong reasons i used to get destroyed on 2k People will pick the kings Pick these jerseys Oh my goodness No I can't stand these jerseys

I hate them with a passion When I see this All I see is 20 point losses in 2K All I see is tacky bullshit All I see is Venice Beach All I see is the flea market All I see is Temu All I see is everything wrong with jerseys

I want to like this jersey So, so, so bad And just stand out But I can't even, I can't even troll right now. You can't even be different. genuinely like a one. Yeah, I'm going zero. I'm going zero.

It's a Sharpay Evans jersey. Don't disres. Yeah, this is trash. It's not too much of Sharpay. Okay. What about the first year of city jerseys for the cat? Oh, I hated these. Oh, I hated these so much.

Oh, these are so stupid. These are idiotic. I mentioned earlier, the Motorola sponsor, look how they designed it. Look at that good here sponsor. It looks like, good you design this this is a tire brand jersey if you had if you put sleeves on this this is what the pit crew would look like in a NASCAR race I'm not rocking with this at all and I'm going one out of 10 and if you say something about LeBron making it like a seven I'm going to be

upset he's not going to punch you hit a game runner in these uh I saw I'm saying he hit a game winner over Jimmy Butler in this jersey right here LeBron made Donovan that being says I'm not even going seven hammers I'm going Hey, fuck hammers you. Hammers. You know what's not me from glazing? Y'all don't need chainsaws, bro. This is the 10.

The hammers on the way. This sucks. It's so funny. This is the first year of city jerseys. So the Kaz fans started this whole series off on the worst low ever. And now they have some really good ones. So glad they learned from this. But this looks like an Indiana jersey.

Indiana Pacer jersey or something. This is everything wrong with 2010's jerseys. This is just so ugly, so angular, so futuristic. It's just gross. We're not rocking with it. Yeah. What about the green Mavs jerseys? Honestly, any jersey, yeah, any jersey that they have other than the ones that they have now,

shout out to y'all. You guys are just trying stuff. We need more things that stick because they do need a rebrand. And I like the green. It does kind of look like a bowling shirt, but I like it. Are you not a good bowler? I'm an average bowler at best. Okay, okay.

But listen, if I had this on a shirt over there, I mean, maybe that'll empower me. little bit you guys what i need yeah you can you can bowl a 180 in this and for that try i'm getting i'm giving i'm giving it like a eight i'll give it seven it's cool i like the idea green on the mav's jersees they should bring that concept back yeah i like the placement of the forty one two as well very cool okay next maves one the maves trash bag jersey come all this is copper petty come all guys see i just complimented them for trying stuff. I take that back. You can't do this. This is also a zero. Zero out of this jersey's forgotten because they wanted it to be. They wore it one time and Mark Cuban

said never again, throw that shit away. And you know what? It's actually not forgotten because we remember it when we think of the worst jersees of all time. So I think they'd like us to forget it more. Nope. No. Sometimes some things have consequences. And when you roll out an actual NBA team in these jerseys, you must be remembered for the rest of history. This jersey looks like it's been it's like aluminum foil left in the air fire for too long. Yeah, it's got that grease on there bacon on. Yeah.

Yeah, listen. Some people have places in history because they do great things. Some people have places in history because they're a disgrace to humanity and this is the latter. You wear this jersey and I'm automatically and I'm assuming you stink. Hammers. Yeah. You stink? Yeah. Smelly guy.

I'm pouring ox clean on you. It's a terrible allegation. I know. Stinker. Does Dirk? Does Dirk look like he smells good in this photo right here? No, he doesn't say he does. I really can't say he does. Yeah, exactly.

Point proven. Damn. Next one. We got these Knicks jerseys with the numbers on top for 1970. This is a hard throwback just in terms of like a fashion thing.

If the Knicks pulled this out today, I would be like, oh, this is disgusting. But understanding that it came from a certain era, you respect the history and the tradition of like what led to the jerseys now.

So I appreciate that. Numbers on top of the letters is crazy that's crazy work that is terrible if they just flipped it it would be cool they're pushing the boundaries though and i can appreciate that it's very different yeah listen for 1979 innovation today yeah but am i going to buy one of these online maybe maybe now the shorts the shorts are hard with that uh new york symbol that the yankees use now that's tough see if they put that symbol on that jersey and you got me sold

but I think I'm gonna give it's a 5-0-10 the numbers are so big like it looks crazy dude yeah like the number 40 just on your chest is so disgusting okay that's the end of that it's the last jersey we had

the next thing we're gonna do let's do a king of the court game we did this a few weeks ago actually about a month ago now where I listed a bunch of point guards in a 1v1 king of the court where I started with one and you know how it works

the winner of each one-v-one matchup keeps going until we see who wins at the end who is the king of the court we're going to do that again but we're going to do a big man this time okay let's do it so throw some bomb you need to be two players you tell me who would win a one-on-one game

not who's better five-on-five one-on-one who would win okay this is the straight back work okay pretty much size matters true and these are all big guys though yeah

okay first off one v-one king of the court boogie versus zion boogie destroying zion destroying boogie yeah prime listen second twenty 21 year old zion

when he was insanely fast and strong the speed might get to buggy in general but I think zion or bogey has a better chance of stopping zion than zon has a better chance to stopping i don't know about that this is that dude zion was stupid athletic

remember that game he gave rudy gobert like 38 points in a second year yeah but like like zon doesn't have the bag to do much like he's just going to the rim there's no versatility i think it's one-on-one when you can run straight real fast real strong and jump real high i think that's hard to stop well boogie can instantly just back up and just be like all right take the shot because like yeah you're just not gonna you're not gonna hit that whereas if boogie gets the ball first zion doesn't know what's about to happen because his game is unpredictable

yeah boogie can do a lot more things than zion can i'm gonna take boogie okay okay I voted. Okay, so now Boogie versus Mark Gassau. Is Boogie going on? Do you know? A deceptive postback? I think I'm going to Markisaw here. I think I think I was putting Boogie in a torture chamber.

Yeah. Markisaw is big, man. Like Prime Markisaw was a big dude. He can move his feet too. He's not getting dusted. If he wasn't as elite as he is in defense, then I would lean buggy, but the defense matters for this instance.

Yeah. And Mark and Schoop, too. They both got range. I don't know. Dude, I'm missing Marcosol in the NBA. He was nice. Okay, Mark Gossol versus Pao Gossol. I'm giving the nod to the older brother.

He knows. Who we're going, Mark? He. Oh, no, Pao's older. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm going, Powell. He knows him.

He raised him. He taught him all the things. Going back to the days in the backyard. There's a certain mental advantage that you can't look past. Exactly. Seniority, I'm with it. Let's do it. I would respect my name.

Paul Gassol versus Anthony Davis Anthony Davis is destroying Powell Gossol. I love five one. Sorry, pal, I'm sorry. I love Lakers legend. I'm sorry. Yeah, he's just, he's not equipped

for that athleticism. Yeah. Different animal has he and the same beast. One has he tween, he might tear both aces at once. All right, all right. Let's not disrespect, pal like that. He's coming down.

He's getting dusted. It'll be an easy way in, but I don't know if it's going to break any bones. Anthony Davis versus Joelle and Bede Hmm This is where this game Might end up putting on who you have

I'm not gonna lie Joel Mb might win this list Joelle and Bid is a perfect Yeah This is where this game ends probably Unless you have like Hakeem or something like that But I'm taking Joel and B Listen 36 point for game

Joel and B before you got hurt last year That's gonna be hard to beat Yeah DPLY level defense row 2 From time to time I think I'm willing to WB 7 foot 2

Shegildas Alexander I'm going with Joel Joel versus Nicole Yokic Yokic One-on-one I'm going Joel and B You know

I won't stop you from Glazing Yokic You know who gets ball first Who gets ball first The winner So Juel and Bede Alright that's kind of tough It's winning

Jewel and B's winning One of you won This is the one One time The one instance We'll say Joe B is better than Yokich And that's one-on-one

Yeah Exactly In a team game I'm gonna go Yokch for sure But It's never happening 5-on-5 A one-on-one you got it, Joe

Yeah, exactly Joelle and B versus Tim Duncan Locked up, Tim Duncan What? I'm going Joel and Bid in this I don't think I understand It sounds crazy

It sounds crazy I think Moe's right It's Joel and Bid Do you know why it sounds crazy Why? Because it is crazy I'm going to Duncan I'm going to

Duncan I don't think Tim has Tim Huck's scoring bag isn't necessarily equipped for 1V1. Yeah I love the bank shot But that's not enough

bro I think Jewell and Be can keep up defensively. What do you mean? It's not enough. It's unstoppable. So was the Joelle and Beade middy. See? Even even Kitty eagerie suit.

It's Dewelland Beed. You have no idea. How good Tim Thakian was this true. Left block, right block, right elbow, bank shots all day, running hooks. Tim Duncan has all the tools. He can score on Embed. It's not like, if they played a game to 11, what do you think, what do you think? But how much could he score on Joel Embedde, though, is the question.

Do you think, time about, if they played a game to 11, do you think that Embedde is winning like 115? I'm not going to say 115, maybe like 11, 7 or 11. Yeah, I'm not thinking about the margin, but I think Geraldine wins. Yeah. Tim Duncan just doesn't have the creativity, and I think you're underrating Joel and B. He doesn't need the, y'all going to give me to. He does it's one-on-one. He doesn't need the creativity.

You just don't like Joelle M. Bede is all it is. No. You couldn't wait to have an all-time greeting this. First of all. Donovan Bette's talking about Tim Duncan being top for the league. He can't bear to hear Joelle Bede's better at one-on-one. You, Tim Duncan can go and do anything that works.

If all I need to do is a drop step and a little baby hook, that's all that I need. I'll do that to you 10 times in a row. Tim Duncan has all the tools. to Tim Duncan went to toe to with Shaq. You think he's scared to Joelle and B?

He's never seen someone like Shaq is going to be real brave about it. I'm sure he won't be scared. I'm sure he'll be extremely brave.

Nevertheless, I'm going, Joelle and B in the close victory. It's so well. You're sorry. Y'all are tripping. Yeah,

and we'll end it there just because this is a hilarious point. That's hilarious, man. I know you have like David Robinson next or something like that. I know, we keep going.

Joel and Bid versus Janus. Oh shit, this is where it ends It's Janice I know Something I will say is that it does sound hypercritical To pick someone like Janice Even though his offensive game was limited

But there's only so much you can do With like seven foot running full strength At the at the rim bro like But he doesn't get ball from But he doesn't get good buffers Well he can stop Where are they starting from? Can you get a full head of steam

Or are they starting from the elbow Because of where are we playing this from? I think they start at the top Stop at the key if it's one-on-one and it's like two dribbles three dribbles there's no way yonis is winning i think yonis is doing all the dirty work though he's gonna can anybody stay in front of yonis for three dribbles

like is there anybody that can stop him from blowing by i'm going yonis like that length but jollumby's also long he has the length to like make it difficult but i don't think he has enough foot speed though i don't think the length is enough to recover plus Janice is getting on the ground for that ball bro

Janice is this is a really tough matchup I don't know like traditional one in one thought makes you think Joelle and beat the jumper is gonna win

you can't stop him the same reasons you can't stop KD but I feel like Yan's athleticism is a cheat code in one-on-on-one yeah exactly

it's what you thought about Zion Williamson and how his athleticism could like steer him to wins yeah exactly real life that And now he has also newfound mid-range game, too. I'm going to beat on this one.

You're going and beat. Then we'll go with Indeed. We'll let him beat have a victory. You win the one-on-one king of the court game. We've got to give him beat a small one-on-one. He would beat Janus in a one-on-one. I think, honestly, I loki think that maybe Kareem would beat him, but Joelle and Bid, if it's all-time bigs, has a good chance of winning.

He's built for one-on-one. That's crazy. I mean, we know. There's like, there's three guys that I've, probably like hands down is like the competition with him I would not pick him against Shaq I would not pick him against Akeem and I would not

pick him against Wilt I don't know I don't know to Wilt but yeah Shaq I don't 1 is three dribbles I mean That's not very mean if you're starting from Do we get to let Shaq start at the fucking bottom of the ring? If it's at the elbow then yeah like Shack would win but you can't that's not one on works

like top of the key If I'm starting to the three point line I'm not going to I'm going Shaq. I guarantee you I'm going to well I'm going to well honestly it's very big of you to say joel and be this top five at least so that's that's baby steps for you that's amazing well 2025 new year it's not the new you donovan it's not the same you donovan it's not that I'm not you're moving different I'm not doing this dude you love joel and bead this is awesome you really love him now he at there was there was a certain point like

2018 circuit 2018 I was a very big joel and b fan and he was like one of my favorite joel and performances. He scored 40 on the baby Lakers in L.A. That was amazing. I was, I was a, I was a, I was a very big fan. I think you might, you might have single handedly made me a Joelle and Bid fan. I think just like, dealing with the hatred and being like, what are we fucking talking about has made me a Joelle and Bede fan by proxy. Like, I've spent so much time defending him. I'm like, oh, yeah, he is the most underrated player of a generation. He does get hated too much. I think I love this guy. Generation? Oh, here we go. I pulled that on my ass, but probably, yeah, probably,

because of all the downsides. His upsides probably are super underrated. I'll see you guys next week, man. That's an episode. This has been a great episode. This has been a great time. Hope y'all enjoyed the conversation. If you were one defender, I'm still alive.

If you guys are still here, comment, you don't understand, right? And we will see you guys next week. Comment, I have no idea how good Tim Duncan was. All right, chow. And we'll see y'all next week.