The Josh Innes Show - Who Is The Next Face Of The NBA?
Episode Date: June 20, 2025I 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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All right, let's see here kiddos on this Friday a headline reads a rising star coach
Will the NFL let him shine? Well, let's see what this story is about
And look, I understand that a lot of what I do on the podcast is just read USA Today and make fun of USA Today
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
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
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
team. We'll see. Let's play some commercials and we will continue.
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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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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.