The Josh Innes Show - USA! USA!

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

Tonight, we get USA v. Canada for all the marbles in this made up tournament. I had no interest in any of this until the Canadians booed..now I'm all in. My friend Matt brought up how you don't see this type of stuff in basketball. You know why? Basketball players and fans can't support America because it makes them look bad on twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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So the reason I brought that up was because I went to the site and I typed in all my info to register. Well, on the registration site, you put in your social and everything. But when you type in your password, it blacks out your password. It doesn't give you the option to hit the little eyeball that shows you what your password is. So I'm assuming that both of my passwords I typed in matched because they approved the account. But then when I went to log in to the website, it says I have the wrong username and password. So I have no clue what to do. Like what universe do they, they have you type in a password and not give you the option to see what the

fucking password is before you hit. Okay. So either my password is wrong or my username is wrong, but now I can't even log into the unemployment site anyway. So now what? So now I got a call. Nobody wants to talk on the phone to some jamoke. You're already kind of embarrassed that you're calling the unemployment place anyway, and you're like, hello, yes. Hello, unemployment lady.

I'd like my money for being a bum, please. Like, what's your name? I'm like, well, I have an account then they'll have to go through a whole thing about the account and like I won't be able to log in it's gonna be a whole goddamn thing so that's what I have to do today while I'm driving around waiting to bet on Yugoslavian table tennis or on tonight's hockey game which I will be taking the USA because I'm not a traitor I'm not a traitor. I'm not a communist. I love America. I was on a radio show yesterday with my friend Matt, his show on

Baton Rouge, and he was doing a topic about how New Orleans has a chance to get an NHL team, which I'm like, why the fuck do they need an NHL team in New Orleans? They're half interested in the basketball team. Like why? You want to be like Atlanta, lose a couple of hockey teams while you're at it? But apparently, and I didn't know this, but Tillman Fertitta is interested in buying the Pelicans and the Saints from Gail Benson whenever she dies. So if that were the case, you know that Tillman's been a big advocate of getting a hockey team in Houston. Maybe he would do it in New Orleans. I don't think that's a sustainable business. In fact, I think it's a stupid idea to put hockey in New Orleans. Stick with the two teams you have. I saw someone comment, well, we should get baseball. You ain't getting baseball,

Chief. I'd say you're very low on the list. You can't even keep a minor league baseball team. I don't think an MLB team is going to work in New Orleans. Tennessee is going to get one. Nashville will get one. You'll have other cities, Charlotte. I would put a baseball team in Charlotte in a second before I put a baseball team in the hot, humid, terrible climate of South Louisiana in August. No, thank you, sir. And I know you can put a roof on it and all that bullshit. New Orleans ain't going to support a baseball team. They barely support the basketball team. So whatever. But I was on there talking with him about hockey and about the game that's going to happen tonight. Really, the topic was about the old hockey team, the Baton Rouge Kingfish that were in Baton Rouge. It was essentially just a

bit to kind of make fun of the fact that I used to really be into minor league hockey when I was 14 years old and it was wacky and wild and ha ha. But we were talking about whether or not the USA is going to win and what the reaction is going to be. And I said, listen, I didn't give two shits about this until I heard those Canadian putzes were booing the national anthem. And then it gave it a little bit of juice. Then you had the two teams squaring off and punching each other in the dick right out of the shoot. And I'm like, now we're playing hockey and now I support America and this is great. And, uh, and Matt brings up something about the NBA and like you never hear people like, you know, you never hear the American people like booing O Canada or whatever.

I'm like, yeah, because people at basketball games are apathetic, hipster douches. That's why. Not to get super political on you, but the people that attend basketball games and the people who are diehard basketball people wear very skinny jeans and really were into Green Day before Green Day was popular. They're hipsters. That's what they are. You know why the reason why? As a matter of fact, I bet if Canadian people were booing the national anthem at a basketball game, the fucking American people at the basketball game would fucking join them. The players would join them. That's the NBA. Not to get super

political, but the NHL isn't super political. These are just dudes that want to go out and beat the shit out of each other and they have some level of patriotism and they take pride in beating the shit out of another country. That's what hockey is. That's what hockey fans are. That's why fucking Freebird is the goddamn goal song for the USA team. I don't think Freebird has ever played in a basketball arena. Can you imagine a situation. Where you're at like a Lakers game. Lakers are playing the Cavaliers or something. It's a Tuesday night.

At whatever they call crypto.com currency arena. And like they go to a timeout. And timeout on the floor. And instead of hearing moany moany. You just hear. Wait a second, hold on. I think I was, no, that was not Free Bird. That was actually Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton, which would also be an interesting one.

Like, wow, those kind of sound similar at the beginning, don't they? Who ripped off who? Now let me see if I can think of how to do Free Bird. But like in my mind, it sounds like that. But then when I'm saying it, it sounds like fucking Clapton. It's late in the evening. She's wondering what the hell. She puts on her makeup.

Brushes her long, long hair. Boom, boom, boom. And when she asked me. Tell me that doesn't sound like Freebird. In your mind right now, I'm trying to visualize the beginning of Freebird, although they don't play the beginning of Freebird. I don't believe in the goal song. They just play the intense, like, Ginny is about to drunkenly dive off this balcony in Forrest Gump part of Freebird. But let me play a couple commercials while I ponder this. All right, if you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs,

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Voidware prohibited. one per new customer bonus award it is non-withdrawable pick six credits that expire in 14 days limited time offer see terms at pick six dot draft kings dot com slash promos but i like okay hold on god damn it hold on. God damn it. Hold on. Let me go to my phone here. I'm going to jank this and put my phone up to the microphone here. All right, we're going to go with Freebird. Let's hear the beginning of Freebird. See what I'm saying, though? Like... See what I'm saying though Like God that's a fucking jam

And you got the Not yet it's coming though hold on And then tell me When you do it to yourself it sounds just like Wonderful Tonight Maybe they should play Wonderful Tonight for the goal song. Let's see here. Or they should just play the Will the Power version.

Will the Power version. Okay, so that's the beginning of Free Bird. Okay, so when I think of that, I'm thinking like... Right? So that's Free Bird. And then you go to Wonderful Tonight, which is a boring-ass song. Here we go. It's Free Bird! The fucking It's Freebird. The fucking song's Freebird.

It's like a slower version of Freebird about a dude that's taking his lady out. It's fucking Freebird. I think it's Freebird. I think now I can't unhear it. It's late in the evening. She's wondering what clothes to wear. She puts on her makeup. Brushes her long, brown hair.

And when she asks me do i look all right and i say hurry the fuck up we gotta get to applebee's anyway same fucking song and now i can't unhear it and now anyway point being in all of this is we're here to celebrate america And I can guarantee you that ain't nobody in an NBA arena gives a shit about the outcome of this hockey match tonight. Because most basketball people just don't. They have to play anti-America role because that's what's trendy about their dying league. Right. That's what they have to do. So now, to be fair, I'm being completely honest here. I wouldn't have given two shits about the outcome of this tournament.

Wouldn't have cared. So, really, you know who we have to thank for this? We should thank Canada. We should thank Canada and all the people of Canada, the ones who are still alive, like Alanis Morissette, the ones who have departed us, like the great Mr. Alan Thicke, Dr. Jason Seaver on a show called Growing Pain. Show me that smile again. We should thank them for booing

America because what they have done is they have gotten us engaged. There's a great video that I've seen on Instagram that's going around where they put together a highlight package with courtesy of the red, white, and blue. Fucking intense, baby. It's killer. Good shit. So what I would advocate for you guys is to search that out. Seek it out on your Instagram or your mobile phone device because it'll get you pumped up for tonight's game against Canada. And we're taking the money line tonight on USA. Don't give a shit. I don't know who's better, who's worse. I don't follow hockey enough to know.

But I'm here to support America. And that's the kind of thing that the NBA can never generate. Like, I saw some dumb shit from Stephen A. Smith because Stephen A. Smith always has these inane opinions about why sports are unpopular in America. Like, Shohei Ohtani doesn't speak English, and that's why people don't watch baseball. You know, and you're like, well, I'm, you know,

last time I checked, Sammy Sosa barely fucking spoke English. And when he was in front of Congress, he spoke no English. So, like, that ain't it, Oos. Sorry, not the case. Well, Jeff, we can't have a successful sport if we ain't got a brother that. Sorry. Not the case. Well, Jeff, we can't have a successful sport if we ain't got a brother that's the face of the sport. Well, that's not the case.

But about basketball, I said, it's an American sport and we need Americans. I can assure you that basketball can be successful with Luka Doncic. I'm sure that basketball can be successful with the Joker. People just don't give a shit. Mind you, still the biggest stars in the game are American-born black dudes. LeBron is still the biggest name in the NBA. Kevin Durant, Steph Curry,

these are all black dudes, brother. They're black. Go down the list of all the best players and the most popular players in the NBA, and the vast majority of them are black, and the vast majority of them are American. The problem I have is these people try to create all of these reasons why the NBA is struggling, because they don't want to acknowledge that people just don't give a shit, and they may not like your guys. And maybe your five years of telling Americans they're racist and terrible finally kind of caught up to you and they just don't give a shit. And your product's not very good.

Now, I hear a bunch of dumb reasons too from people like people don't like to watch all them three pointers. Like, great. Go watch them run the flex offense. Let's run the picket fence at them. Four corners, guys. Like, it ain't because they're shooting too many fucking threes. People just don't care.

The regular season games don't matter. None of it matters. The players admit they don't care. So it doesn't matter if you've got the most popular player in the world, and he's an American-born player, which you already do have, by the way. If that guy sits out every other game and doesn't give a shit, then people aren't going to care. And you know how I feel.

I think we're at a point where unless you're football in America, you're second. Like it's basically football, college and pro and everybody else. And there's nothing you can do to improve. There's no miracle elixir. There's no wonder player that's going to show up and save the NBA, right? Like you've had LeBron for 20 something years. LeBron may go down as the greatest player. And look, Jordan is the most important basketball player to ever walk the face of the earth. No question about it. LeBron James is a better overall basketball player than Michael. I'm not going to get into a Michael versus thing. But the greatest specimen to ever play with a balanced type of game is LeBron. That is just physically he is. Michael's the most important. Michael's the most famous. Michael was the dude. If there were a new logo of the NBA, it's Michael Jordan, right? Which there should be, because who the fuck cares about Jerry West? But anyway, if you do that, that's great.

You've got the biggest star since Michael Jordan that's been here for 20 years. And the interest has continued to wane. So the idea that we're sitting here in a world where well if we had an american this is an american sport and americans need to dominate the sport no that ain't it chief americans still do dominate the sport you know who usually wins in the olympics the american players if you lined up and played an all-star game versus you know the slovenians versus the american players, the American players probably end up winning. It's not about where they're from or if they speak English or whatever. It's nothing

to do with that. Like hockey, you can have the, like hockey's got great talented dudes. Some of them are American born. It ain't getting people to watch hockey. I just think we're at a point in society where people have other shit to do, and investing their time and sitting down every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday to watch an NBA game for their team doesn't really interest them because they know the players really don't care, and they don't care. If you're not going to invest and tell me that you give a shit every night, then why should I invest?

People have other shit to do, and that's why I applaud commissioners who try to do something different. I saw that they wanted to have a one-on-one tournament at the All-Star game. Tell me what big time player is going to run the risk of getting embarrassed by playing in a one-on-one tournament. Do you think that Ja Morant is going to want to line up against Kevin Durant and play a one-on-one game? Fuck no. Because if you lose that or you get shook, you're embarrassed for life and it's only you out there. You can't hide it. You can't hide getting crossed over. You can't hide getting dunked on. You can't hide getting your shit thrown.

So of course they're not going to do that. If the NBA put in a one-on-one tournament in the All-Star weekend, you know what would happen? You'd get more fucking Mack McClungs that you've never heard of. Some slapdick that is down in the g league right now playing for the delaware 98ers or whatever the fuck they're called and he'll come up and play one-on-one against another dude from you know the memphis hustle and that's what'll happen nobody that has anything that they could lose that's the biggest problem that you run into that Hockey dudes don't have that level of like, pride isn't the word because they have tons of pride. But hockey dudes don't possess like, they don't have a shame quotient. They're not out there worried about how bad they're going to look most of the time, right?

Whereas NBA players are big time concerned about that. They're worried about what the culture is going to say I'm about on the internet. They're going to, they're worried about being on a poster. They don't want to be Sean Bradley with someone's fucking dick in their face on a yam, right? They don't want that. So they'd rather go out there and just play it cool and be like, man, people would love to have us out here, man. I'd love to do it. They don't want to, because they don't want to get embarrassed. That's why they don't try in the all-star game because they don't want to get embarrassed by the other dudes. So it's kind of like an exhibition fight. It's a spar.

You go out there and you don't want to hurt each other. Get in a couple of blows, put on a show for people, don't hurt somebody. It's wrestling, but it's a pointless house match where you're just out there trying to do a little dance and entertain the people a little bit, but don't embarrass yourself. And that's essentially what the NBA All-Star Game is. NBA players do not possess the level of pride that the players in the NHL do. It's reality. And part of it's because they don't have to. Because many of them, this era of dudes, many of them have come up in this era

where they're super important from the time they're eight years old. The whole world's got their eyes on them. Colleges are recruiting them when they're 10 like there's no real grind that's involved in a lot of their lives i'm not saying that they came that all of them came from money or anything i'm sure some of them came up poor but my point is like you're you're you got guaranteed contracts so you know like look at the nba versus the nfl con or the uh well nfl does a great job with it but look at the NHL versus the contracts of basketball, which are all guaranteed, right? So you guarantee these dudes this money. Once

they've got it, they know they've got it. So you're going to lose a little bit of your edge anyway, the second you get a $100 million deal. But look at the numbers on these deals. Look at a hockey player, even the best hockey players in the world, their contract is like 12 years, a hundred million dollars. And that's considered a huge deal. Like I'll listen to the radio in St. Louis and listen to the dweebs break down hockey contracts. And they're like, I just don't know if it's possible for this team to swing 2 million to get this guy. I'm like, holy shit. Like the ball boy makes $2 million for the Lakers. Like what the fuck are we doing you know but like that's how it is so these nhl guys even when they get a big contract their big contracts are nowhere near

the big contracts of nba guys and just naturally it's hard to have that same edge whenever you get this bag of cash and you're not at risk of losing it so all that said tonight it's the USA, the good old US of A. And I'm watching that thing tonight. I'm betting on the United States to win it because I'm patriotic. I love America. I hope you love America too. I hope that they go. You know what I hope happens?

I hope those sons of bitches. You know, I'm trying to think of what would be the right move because it's in Boston and they'll do. Oh, Canada. Honestly, I would like when, Oh, Canada plays, I think I'd fuck with them and actually just give a loud ovation. When Oh, Canada plays, don't boo it.

Now it'd be fun, but like, then you're just returning the favor to them. Like fuck with their heads a little bit and just get everybody cheering for the Oh, Canada. Then just get even louder for the U S of a whatever, or just go nuts during the national anthem for America.

Bring out a high. You know what I want? I want a Toby Keith hologram out there. louder for the us of a whatever or just go nuts during the national anthem for america bring out a you know what i want i want a toby keith hologram out there and i want the national anthem followed by a hologram version of courtesy of the red white and blue and then followed by american soldier by toby keith and then i want the great lee greenwood to rappel from the ceiling with Trump riding in like a baby. No, I want Trump to rappel and I want Lee Greenwood in a baby Bjorn. And I want them to rappel from the ceiling doing God bless the USA. Then we need the YMCA from the village people because it's Trump and he's there and he needs to dance. And then we win.

We're playing for tariffs, baby. Pink slips. Tariffs. Let's go. That should be exciting tonight. Anyway, more to come.