The Josh Innes Show - Who Is The Next Face Of The NBA?

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

I started this segment planning to discuss some dopey story from USA Today. Instead, I went down the path of discussing the next face of the NBA. Is it possible there isn't a dude after LeBron? I...s the NBA the only sport that needs a face? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:02:19 I have a schtick. I have it. This is my niche This is what I've carved out for myself as I sit here in my bed at 10 o'clock this morning 10 o six to be exact as I sit here looking for things to talk about particularly in the time of year where there isn't a ton that I'm into a wide trunk there isn't a lot there's not a lot. There's not a lot of stuff to talk about this just not because I'm not going to go into a full on breakdown mode of the dog shit
Starting point is 00:02:46 NBA playoff game last night. That's the playoff game, a dog shit NBA finals game in which I lost the bet on the Oklahoma City team over and I lost the bet on both teams to score 20 in each quarter. It was a terrible basketball game. It was unwatchable. You want to talk about a nightmare for the NBA if you know the ratings of the league matter to you at all, which they shouldn't just watch what you want to watch. But if ratings are an interesting discussion to you, a game that's
Starting point is 00:03:12 a 30 point game in the third quarter of game six of the NBA finals ain't going to do them any favors. Terrible, terrible, terrible. So now they get a game seven Sunday nights, the first time I think since 2016. In fact that there's been a game seven in the NBA final. So if you're going to get numbers in this series Sunday night, nothing else going on game seven. The face quote unquote of the league, Shay Gildes Alexander or the the maybe the face of the league Shay Gildes Alexander versus the fun Indiana Pacers
Starting point is 00:03:47 team. We'll see. Let's play some commercials and we will continue. Get to Toronto's main venues like Budweiser Stage and the new Roger Stadium with Go Transit. Thanks to Go Transit special online e-ticket fairs, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday, anywhere along the Go network. And the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting at $30 for two people and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online Go pass ahead of the show at Gotransit.com slash tickets.
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Starting point is 00:04:48 Condition Supply. Visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to volvocars.ca for full details. No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. You know, I'm actually kind of intrigued by the discussion about the face of the league argument that people are making in the NBA. Now, obviously, there's been a run of obvious faces of the league, right? Because you've had like the Magic and Bird era that transitioned into the full on
Starting point is 00:05:26 Michael era, which transitioned into like the Kobe Shack era, which transitioned into the LeBron era. And you could argue, I guess, like Steph Curry has like there have been new members of the LeBron era, but this has been the LeBron era, like you'll put a guy, generally speaking, you will put one guy's name on the era. And then there are the other pieces that orbit around which are big pieces. For example, like in the Jordan era, you had Kobe come up towards the end of Jordan's career, Alan Iverson came up in there and
Starting point is 00:05:58 all that. But like, you know, there's guys who are members of that tree, like Tim Duncan is in the Kobe tree and you get what I'm saying but generally speaking there is that one dude or two dudes at some cases like Bird Magic that completely elevate the sport and more so than any other sport. Basketball is a blank era sport like nobody looks at baseball and goes well that was the blank era the Maguire era or the bondsonds era. They more so based it on dynasties and teams like when the Yankees were back in the mid 90s through
Starting point is 00:06:31 the early 2000s, it wasn't the Jeter era. It wasn't the Maguire Sosa era. It was just hey, the Yankees are really fucking good. This the Yankees dominated this like nobody is going to look back 25 years from now and go boy, we're in the Shohei Otani era. It just they don't do that in baseball. You don't hear that now you get that in football, but specifically for quarterbacks. So when you were in that golden age of quarterback play from the mid
Starting point is 00:06:56 2000s up till about the time not really the time Brady retired because Brady was kind of the last of the Elm Street children that played until he was 45. But if you circle like, I don't know, 2010 or something, you got Prime Brady, Prime Breeze, you got Rothlisberger, you got Phil Rivers, you got Eli Manning, Peyton Manning. Like that was kind of like the golden era of quarterback play, while you still felt the defenses could impact quarterback play. Now it's seven on seven, and we're in a great era of quarterback play while you still felt the defenses could impact quarterback play. Now it's seven on seven and we're in a great era
Starting point is 00:07:28 of quarterback play now but I think in the NFL when you talk about blank eras I think you look at teams and then you look at quarterbacks. In baseball I don't really think you look at players maybe because there's so many of them because there's 25 guys on each team on 30 teams. In basketball You've got about six dudes on a given night or seven dudes on a given night who are going to play basketball. That's a lot fewer guys are far fewer players. So it's easier to circle an era of guys like it's an obvious Caitlin Clark era in the WNBA as far as the NBA goes though.
Starting point is 00:08:01 You had magic and Bird you had Jordan you though, you had Magic and and and Bird, you had Jordan, you had Kobe, you had LeBron, and in the back half of the LeBron era, I throw Steph and the Warriors in there as well. Like Kevin Durant's a great player. Kevin Durant to me, it was never the face of the league and Kevin Durant never will be the face of the league obviously because he's almost out. Steph Curry, very close to face the league but it's been LeBron's league since LeBron came into the league and was anointed as the dude. It's basically been
Starting point is 00:08:30 LeBron's league. Particularly if you look at from say, you know, 0809 when Kobe was on the way kind of down and actually they won in 0809 more so like in the 1314 range. Kobe was there. LeBron kind of jumped into the middle of the Kobe. Either way, I'm going way deep into this. However, part of the discussion that people are having about the NBA is who is going to be the next guy? Who is the face of the NBA? And the weird thing is none of the players that
Starting point is 00:09:00 I watch, do I feel like our head and shoulders the dude like you knew that there were a lot of great players when Michael Jordan played, but maybe it's because of the marketing maybe it's because of the time it happened, you know, because it wasn't in the era of social media. So the the media could create superstars and hammer superstars right and winning a lot of championships didn't hurt. But for every team that had great players and you can go
Starting point is 00:09:25 to the New York Knicks who had Patrick Ewing you could go eventually to the 76ers who would go on to have Allen Iverson and you can go on to the Lakers who eventually had Kobe and Shaq you can go to the the Orlando Magic who had Shaq you could go down the list of teams that had awesome players that were big stars in the 1990s Charles Barkley was still big in the 90s. You knew that they were great players, but the dude, the face, the guy
Starting point is 00:09:53 was Michael Jordan. Everybody knew that. Like he was the sun and everything else orbited around him or whatever everything orbits around. That's him. It was Michael Jordan. There are some really good players in the league right now, although the league is dealing with kind of the image issue of just people criticizing the style of play too many threes, whatever. There are a lot of good fun players to watch in the NBA. I don't really enjoy watching Shagil just Alexander play because I do buy
Starting point is 00:10:20 the free throw merchant argument like his style of play doesn't interest me. I'm not into it. Like I think, like there are guys like Jalen Brunson who gets a lot of shit for being a free throw merchant. But in crunch time, that dude's gonna hit big shots. Like when he gets the ball in his hand, even if he's not going to get fouled, you feel like he's going to hit the big shot.
Starting point is 00:10:41 I feel like I don't get that same vibe from Shea Gilder's Alexander. I don't the look of him doesn't feel like a star just like I don't buy that the like a star is someone who transcends right? Grant my grandma once and I know that this is a weird argument because everybody makes the does your grandma know who this person is argument that makes them a star. But my grandma claims and I don't know this is true, she claims
Starting point is 00:11:05 that it probably didn't happen, but she said she was in the bus station in Chicago because somehow she ended up in Chicago before she... you're supposed to go to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she ends up in Chicago from Poplar Bluff, Missouri, don't make a lick of fucking sense, but grandma would always get on the wrong bus. So anyway, she claims that like she sees Michael Jordan in a bus station in Chicago and people are asking if he's going to retire. My guess is she conflated something or maybe she just confused black guys. I don't know, but she knew who Michael Jordan was. I had the poster on the wall when I lived with my grandma. I had a poster on the wall in the room that she and I hung out in the most and had Jordan Pippen and in the very front of it there was Dennis Rodman with his legs kind of a gape going up for
Starting point is 00:11:48 a rebound, right? She knew who Michael Jordan was, right? Your grandma knows that. Go ask your grandma. She knows who Shea Gilgis Alexander is and she's not going to have a fucking clue. I don't believe that Shea Gilgis Alexander is the face of the league. I don't care if he wins the MVP. Russ Westbrook won an MVP and he isn't the face of basketball, but I'd argue that Russ was probably closer than Shay. I would argue that Russ Westbrook at his closest to being the face of the league was closer to being the face of the league due to the triple doubles and everything than Shay
Starting point is 00:12:17 Gilder's Alexander, both of whom played in Oklahoma City. So the city isn't really a factor. You can be the face of the league playing in whatever the hell city you want to if you're big enough star. But I'd say Shay is not I'd say the guy that might have the most outgoing personality that could be that guy is Anthony Edwards. The problem is Anthony Edwards fell off a cliff in their playoff series. So he talked a lot of shit and he's fun. And he's got the and also the style of play matters
Starting point is 00:12:48 for being the face of the league, right? She guilds Alexander being get to the free throw line 10 times a game guy is not conducive to being the face of the league in the same way that being James Harden and getting to the free throw line 10 times a game is not James Harden was never going to be the face of the NBA, right? Same with Shea Gildes Alexander. Anthony Edwards has that possibility because he can play individual ball and he's not afraid to shoot it 50 times to make 10 of them. He is a volume shooter. He's got a big
Starting point is 00:13:17 personality. He talks some shit. Great smile. Great look about him. He could be. When I think of dudes in the league who I circle and say face the league. That's a guy who like is on every billboard. That mean he's the best player. Now usually, it means you're probably damn close to the best player and he's not far off. But you know, Michael clearly best player, Kobe best. So whatever. But if I look at if I look at Shay, I don't get that vibe. If I look at Brunson, even though Brunson is a baller
Starting point is 00:13:50 and he's in New York and he hits every big shot, I don't get that vibe. Luke, like for whatever reason, Luca, I don't get that vibe. Like to me, the guy that's got the legitimate chance of being the face of the NBA, if there is one, maybe we're just going to be in kind of a an era of the NBA where it's just a collective you know sometimes teams have a star player and sometimes they have five really good players if it's baseball sometimes you got to line up like when the
Starting point is 00:14:16 Cardinals had Jim Edmonds Scott Rowland and Albert Pujols each hitting 40 home runs and driving in 100 runs in the heart of a lineup. They called him MV3. I think they each finished in the top five maybe of the MVP race that year. I think that the year Albert wanted or did bonds in 05. I think Albert wanted in 05. But the point being some years you have those kind of teams. Some years you have an Astros lineup that's stacked. Other years you have that lineup
Starting point is 00:14:42 that went to the World Series where you're like, oh there's Lance Berkman and then who else think maybe Jeff Kent was on there but like it wasn't stacked they just kind of got there because the collective worked maybe the NBA and this current era is not meant to have that dude and maybe that's good for the league. Maybe it's bad. You know everybody talked about how they wanted some sort of parody in the league and you wanted to think that every
Starting point is 00:15:07 team has a chance to win the finals. There's probably 10, 12, 13 teams that you could look at and go, yeah, if the right thing happens for them, they got a shot that's far greater than it was 10 years ago, right? But now people are watching it less seemingly. So maybe they are dependent upon having a face of the league, like a villain, somebody that's being chased. Now it's just you got a bunch of good players.
Starting point is 00:15:32 You got some really good teams. And like all the people cried for for years and years. And we want more teams to have a shot. Well, your finals is Oklahoma City and Indianapolis. Teams that won playoff series were teams in Minnesota. Memphis was in a playoff series. I mean, you're getting Cleveland is in a playoff series. You know, you're talking about smaller cities that are having chances teams that probably shouldn't are and
Starting point is 00:15:58 people seem less interested at least television ratings wise if you care about those things. And maybe the face of the league is part of the problem. Who is that guy? You know, I don't believe there is one like LeBron until he doesn't play anymore is the biggest star in the NBA. He is the most famous person in the NBA. He is the most accomplished person in the NBA. It is still LeBron's league until he doesn't play. Doesn't mean he's the best player in
Starting point is 00:16:20 it, but it is still his league and he is still the face the brand. But when there's no more LeBron and you have to count on Anthony Edwards, you have to count on Shea Gildes. Like look, you can, like I'm watching that game last night. There is nothing about Shea Gildes Alexander that tells me he is a superstar in terms of the perception of him. Great player, 25, 30 a night, all that shit can be true. No one is turning on the NBA finals to watch Shay Gildes Alexander. He does not have the ability on a given night where
Starting point is 00:16:51 you're just hanging out. There's nothing else going on and there's a basketball game on you're like, Oh shit, Shay is on TV. Let me turn that shit on. It doesn't happen for that. Kobe you do it Michael you do it and maybe you just more into the league then too. That's not unfair to think people are less interested in the NBA in terms of television viewership at least than they used to be. So maybe there's something to that. I think a lot of it is people just bitch on the internet about it, but
Starting point is 00:17:12 you know, they're just never going to watch it anyway. But they lack those kind of dudes that you would just turn on the game and be like it's a Tuesday night. It's December. I got nothing else going on. Let's see what's going on. Oh, Shay is on TV. **** I gotta turn on Shay Gilders Alexander. Dude, like the Jokers won how many MVPs? Three. Is the Joker now a three-time or four-time MVP award winner? A dude that's won that many MVPs is not a dude that's gonna get people to
Starting point is 00:17:40 turn the TV on. He is not the face of the league. There is no face of the NBA. It is just and I don't think there is one, there's not one in the pipeline right now who has potential to do that. Anywho, I started that whole discussion about to talk about some story that I was going to rip in USA Today, but here we are. Maybe we'll do that next.

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