The Press Box - L.A. Protests and the NBA’s Storytelling Problem. Plus: Logan Murdock on Gen Z Hoopers.

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and Joel tackle some leftover 'The Simpsons' vs. 'The Cosby Show' thoughts in today's J-School (0:47), before they are joined by Logan Murdock to discuss The Athletic's anonymous players survey, why the NBA keeps finding itself in the crosshairs of criticism, and ESPN's biggest mistake while broadcasting the Finals. Then they talk about Logan's new article for The Ringer, "How the Gen Z Takeover Is Changing the NBA" (10:18). Finally, Bryan and Joel discuss the Los Angeles protests, some big-picture questions, the ambiguous relationship between the press and law enforcement, and more (55:56). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel AndersonGuest: Logan MurdockProducer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Folks, it's Jay Kyle Mann from The Ringer, and as always, basketball is so freaking, freaking good. It's so good, in fact, that the Ringer's NBA draft show is finally back just in time for a ramp up to June. We've got you covered every week as we take an in-depth look at who's got next for the NBA's future. We'll talk the rising and falling stocks of the best and the brightest prospects in the 2025 NBA draft class. From Cooper Flag to Dylan Harper to BJ Edgecom and more. tap in with me on the Ringer NBA draft show every Wednesday and make sure that you follow, subscribe, and hit us with those five-star ratings. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox.

You got Brian Curtis. You've got Joel Anderson. You got producer Kyle Kreidon. Coming up on the podcast, we're going to have our friend Logan Murdoch in to talk about the NBA finals, the Tyrese Halliburton discourse, missing woge. Plus, Joel and I talk about the Los Angeles protests and the NBA. media battle to define them. But first, let me take you to a place where they never remove logos from the floor. Let me take you to J-School. Still got this old Foss, Lama Jam, pin it in here that it needs to go up, Brian. So no, we're not taking anything down.

Can I admit something about your EPS-related era on last Thursday's episode? Uh-oh. So as a reminder to our audience, we were talking about who ESPN might spotlight as homegrown celebrities when the NBA finals moves to Indianapolis for games three and four. And Brian name check Omar Epps is one of those people. Omar Epps, not from Indianapolis. He's from Brooklyn and a very fine actor. Brian obviously meant to say Mike Epps, Nap Town Native and one of my very favorite comedic actors.

And Brian, when you said O'Barr Epps, I immediately knew you were wrong, okay? But first of all, I didn't want to correct you. And I had this real time thought. I was like, man, the moment is past. I should let it go. And also, I didn't think anybody in our audience would notice anyway. So I apologize to Brian in our audience for not giving them enough credit for knowing who the difference between Omar and bike ups. How were you alerted to the fact that you got your EPSS is mixed up? I believe two posts on Blue Sky. Really?

Yeah, said, hey, Brian, you got this wrong. And I was incredibly embarrassed. Well, it's okay. I don't want people to think that I didn't know the differences between the EPS either. Wait, so this is really just about you? Well, kind of giving yourself air cover here. Look, man, I know the differences between the EPSS, okay? But I just was like, hey, nobody's going to know the difference anyway.

So I tweeted me, not Joel. That's the takeaway here. I need to give our audience more credit. So I appreciate that. Also, and I just have to say, it was just really so fun to hear you talk with Alan on Monday about his great new book, Stupid TV, Be More Funny, which is about The Simpsons. And your conversation really took me back to this very precious time in my life. It was just a little past me being the fastest 10-year-old in the country in 1988.

I was a huge fan of the Cosby Show, and I was a huge fan of The Simpsons, and those two shows took up an awful lot of my time through high school. But I thought back a little bit more on that time when Fox decided to move the Simpsons into the same primetime slot as the Cosby Show on Thursdays in 1990. on that first night of direct competition, the Cosby Show and The Simpsons finished in a tie. They each pulled in 29% of the viewers. Wow.

Yeah, it's crazy, right? And though I never put it all together until looking it up this week. That was really the beginning at the end of the Cosby show. If you weren't alive for this at the time, that was an incredible upset for the Simpsons and Fox. It was even more impressive

considering that Fox wasn't even available in about a tenth of the country at the time. Like it wasn't fully available in the way that it is now. It was a very much an upstart network at that point. Yeah, a high number, by the way, to Channel 33 in Dallas-Fort Worth. Oh, yeah, see? Yeah. Did you, so at that, were you a Cosby show fan at any point? Absolutely a Cosby Show fan.

That was part of what was so funny about the competition is I felt I was part of the hand-up. Yeah. Love the Cosby Show and then The Simpsons game. It's like, oh, actually, I love The Simpsons. You kind of defected, okay, we see that you were not alone. You were not alone. And so the thing about it, though, is for people that don't remember, and we're probably

speaking to people that are of the age that would remember. But the Cosby Show had been to runaway ratings champion of its time slot for seven years in a row. And it had been the most watch program in the country from 85 to 89. And it went to second place in 89, 90, that season. But at its most popular and influential, there were nights when more than half. Half of the TVs in America were tuned into the Cosby show, okay? But the Simpsons were ascendant, and it was quite this contrast, right?

Like the Cosby Show was praised for its portrayal of this affluent, respectable, stable black family. And the Simpsons were like this irreverable, irreverent, crass, yellow folks, right? You know, middle class, family or whatever. And you talked about it with Alan Bryan, like the Bart Simpson catchphrases. They were a huge part of the culture, eat my shorts, get bent. I'm Bart Simpson, who the hell are you? so on and so forth, right?

So anyway, the Simpsons kept picking off viewers, young men and children, just like you, Brian. You know, you're part of that cohort. And the Cosby Show kept sliding down the ratings. It finished fifth in the ratings that first season that they had to compete with the Simpsons. The next year, it dropped all the way to 17th place. Bill Cosby seized the writing on the wall.

Maybe was it the bathroom wall, or was it the classroom chalkboard maybe? Who knows? And he decides to wrap up the show after that 91-92 season, man. Wow. Did you know that, did you know? Bad news for Cousin Pam, who came in right at the end.

Oh, man, cousin Pam and Lance, you know, that it didn't. That, man, that was a, that was a funny season. And they'd even tried the baby and Lisa Boat, bringing Lisa Boat back. They did a lot. Yeah, they read the opening songs. It was a little more 90s. It was very, very funny. Very transparent.

Didn't work. Didn't work. And so Bill Cosby didn't like leave TV. He just moved on to a syndicated version of You Bet Your Life, that old Groucho Mark show. But, you know, the Cosby show went on to make millions and millions in syndication. And so they asked Bill Cosby what he thought about this in an article. And he said, when Bart first came out, USA Today had a story with somebody who said, I don't want to watch Cosby because I learned too much.

And I said, bravo. I know I've lost that person, but by the same token, obviously, that person has gotten the message. So anyway, it was a very very. direct line from the Simpsons moving on Thursdays to the Cosby show going off the air. But in this sort of half-cocked way last week, I mentioned that at least some black people wondered if the Simpsons were smuggled into that time slot as a racist plot to destroy the most successful TV show featuring black people of all time. And I know it was at least debated on Magic 102 in Houston, okay, on the morning show that I'd listen to on the way to school. But, and it was, that in

of itself was ironic because Bill Cosby was famously reticent to address racism on his show. He didn't want to offend white viewers, and you can look it up. He said it in an interview after interview, and I found a quote, Tom Dorsey, at the time, the media critic of the Courier Journal in Louisville. Louisville had a real critic. Yeah. He wrote at the time, quote, people tuned in to laugh, not be lectured. I assume I don't need to bring everyone up to speed on what happened to Bill Cosby and his reputation is the icon of Black fatherhood. Fast forward a few years. Fast forward a few years.

My friend Adam Surway has also encouraged me to write for years about how I actually found Cliff Huxable to be a terrible dad, but that's neither here nor there. There was another fascinating turn in the Cosby Simpsons rivalry that I wanted to touch on. Around that time, as the Simpsons are becoming this national pop phenomenon, they're moving millions of dollars in official and licensed Simpson merchandise. There was this massive market for bootleg Simpsons merchandise. Brian, are you familiar with Black Bart Simpson? Absolutely. I'm familiar with Black Bart Simpson.

Yeah. So for people there are not, there were these Black Bart Simpson T-shirts that you could buy gas stations, record shops, flea markets, swap meets. I particularly want to shout out One, Two, Three World on old FM 2234 Missouri City, which was right next to my barbershop. So I would go in there. If I was waiting in line, I'd go give me a Black Bart Simpson shirt. But the shirts had a black Bart Simpson on them with different catchphrases. And I had a couple of them. One said BWA, black with an attitude. It's a black thing you wouldn't understand. There was a know-year history with Black Bart dressed up as the character

bugging out from the movie Do the Right Thing. And there was also a black bart with gold teeth, wearing a gold medallion with Africa on it over the African National Congress flag saying, I got the power. I mean, that was a big song at the time called I Got the Power by a guy named Snap. You had to have been there. It was a big deal. It was stuff like that.

And my friends and I bought a shitload of them. It was this really cool cultural mashup. The kind of thing that was more possible in the monoculture of our youth. So anyway, I was reading this blog post on this by Nathan Rabin. And he called it a form of culture jamming, which there were mashups of combining familiar icons of white pop culture with black clothes and stuff like that, and black attitudes, black skin, whatever. And so anyway, I don't know if that's how black folks eventually came around on The Simpsons, but I eventually got curious and became a huge fan of the show.

So, anyway, read Allen's book. I can't wait to do it myself. And I won't spoil it, but he does address the Black Bart phenomenon in the book and interviews an executive, former executive of Def Jam Records about this very phenomenon. Get out of here. Oh, I can't wait. Buy the book, folks.

All right. And now let's bring in Logan Murdoch. All right, Joel, here's where I want to start, because the paces are now up two games to one in the NBA finals after Tyrese Halliburton and Benedict Matherin went off last night. Here to help us sort through finals takes is one of our favorites. He is a ringer staff writer. He is a host of the Real Ones podcast.

He owns a Bay Area locker room like no one else. Logan Murdoch, welcome to the press box. Oh, my goodness. It's such an honor to be here. I was very much gushing over the show before in the prepod talk. I'm really happy to be here, man. I listen to every episode. And I'm not saying that just to like suck her up.

Like I really like, I'm here for the 25 for 25s. I'm here for Joel's rants and his follow-ups. I'm here for Brian's voice. I'm here every episode. I'm listening. I'm locked in. So it's an honor to be on the program. That's all.

I say all that to say that. You're very nice to say that. You're much for being the first person to say, I'm here for Brian's voice. Yeah. It's a very professional cultured voice. It's like three levels above NPR, bro. Like it's just like you're locked in as soon as you hear. And now on the press box.

You know, like it's great. Well, and now, Logan, I want to start with Tyrese Halliburton takes because I feel we've had a different legacy conversation after every single game of this finals. where are we now on the Tyrese Halliburton discourse? I think I could just only speak for me because I'm like kind of on blue sky just to follow Joel and like I'm not really on the twit like that as much

so I can only go on what I feel about where he is right now in the Logan sphere which is I think he's just a special player that's kind of figuring it out in front of the world and coming into his own in the way that he does, right? Like, I don't think that he is the, the traditional superstar in the sense that, like, he's going to, you know, put up 35 shots and get you 10 rebounds and 15 assists. So it gets you to 10 rebounds and 15 assists, but it's not going to be in the way that you historically think it should be, right?

And he is a guy that, I think in the Magic Johnson, ilk, where he, he does. dominates the game by doing every other thing but scoring the basketball. I heard, I think Raja compared him to Rondo the other day. And I think that's an app comparison, but I think he's better than what Rondo is. He hits shots. You can count on him to hit shots down the stretch.

He hit a really big shot in the fourth quarter to kind of get the, get the Pacers going in a game that, like, I thought the thunder were in control throughout the entire game. And I think they're still going to win this series. But I think that they were in control until Tyrese kind of settled them down. And I think he is, I think in light, and I was talking to, I was talking to our producer, Cliff Augustine, the great Cliff Augustine yesterday, just texting. And we were talking about the discourse around Tyrese Halliburton and how it's kind of just a matter, just kind of a mirror to the discourse in sports and by. extension of the world right now because if you don't fit into a specific box of what we think you

should be like we kind of we we kind of admonish you and I like I think that Tyrese Halliburton is a superstar but I don't think he is it into the traditional sense I don't think that he's going to be like LeBron James I just don't I think he's going to be his version of what that is and I think you're seeing that right now and you're seeing a weird backlash to that for whatever reason I don't know yet. But the fact is they're up to one right now, and I think that's really the stat that matters here. And he's been really coming into his own and his playoffs in his own way.

And I think that's what's most important. It really doesn't matter what the discourse is. As long as what is happening in the locker room is what's happening in the locker room, and the winds are coming. And that's what's happening for Halliburton and the Pacers right now. Logan, what gives you the confidence to think that the thunder are going to win still? And what are the Pacers doing? Because the most generous prediction that I heard going into this series was Thunder and Six.

Like that was the most generous version of it. And now, I mean, obviously it has to go a minimum of six at this point. But, well, I guess it could go five if the Pacers run off two more wins, right? Very well good. And see, I'm already doing that. I'm already thinking, okay, the Thunder are going to win, but whatever. But like, what are they doing and why do you, like, why do you still have confidence that the Thunder can pull this out? And I just think that they played really terribly last game, all game long.

And I think they were still in the game, right? And I think that even in the last minute and a half, I was like, oh, the Thunder could win this game. There was a lot of misfree throws. But there was a very much in, I think we're going to get into this later in the program, but there was very much an aura that they had their shit together throughout the game, even when they were doing bad. And it was a general vibe that I got, right? I think they were, you know, I think Chet was playing really well.

I think that, you know, Shea made some mistakes down the stretch. But they just seemed to be in control. And there seemed to be, you know, a lot of games, a lot of times when you see a game between, you know, I wouldn't say too evenly matched teams, but two unevenly matched teams, you see who's, calm under certain situations and you see kind of where the game is taking you. And it just felt like even when Indiana was taking their best punch or giving their best punch, I would look at the score and I'd be like, oh, it's tied. You would think that it's supposed to be, they're supposed to be up 20, right?

And that happened at least 10 times last night where I'm like, oh, they've just got Indiana's best punch. Oh, but the game is still within reach, right? And I think that, you know, OKC has been through certain things like this before against better teams. I think about Denver, right, where they kind of had to figure the way through a series. Sometimes, like, and I've seen this a lot covering the Warriors, like, where, you know, another team that's probably not as good as them get up on a 2-1 lead. And it's like, oh, okay, we kind of figured something out and we're just going to win the rest of the series and take control of it. I just get that sense right now with OKC that they're going to

put a dominant stretch of basketball together. And I think that even when they get Indiana's best punch, throughout the series, they've been the better team, even in the two and one, right? Like, even in the first game, they were the better team. The second game, they were the better team.

I think they play bad, but I still think they're the better team in this series. And they walked up the floor feeling like they're the better team in this series. And I don't, I have no reason to believe that they're not. One of the most unkillable pieces of content, Logan, in the NBA finals, has been this athletic player survey where a group of anonymous players declared that Tyrese Halliburton was the most overrated player in the NBA. How many players were in that survey? Because I keep getting at, like, conflicting reports on that.

Yeah. Wasn't it like 97? I think it was 90. 90 players voted in the most overrated category. Okay. And 13 of those players. So 14.4% said that Halliburton was the most overrated player in the NBA. Those are the numbers we're dealing with.

You know, that reminds me of this in Sacramento. Vivek Ranevay is the owner of the Sacramento Kings, but he's the owner on like by less than 20% of the team. And it's like, yeah, he is the owner and he does have majority. But like, how much does he really own, right? Like even on this one, right? But I'm sorry, I just messed up your whole question, man. I messed up your whole vibe.

But it doesn't feel like I think that this is taking up a life of its own in a weird way, right? Like, you know, you got Mac if you're putting it on a shirt. You got a whole city galvanized by this. But like, if I'm the athletic, I'm really, really excited about this. I'm really giddy about this poll because it's just taken on a life of its own. It's, they're doing a great job with it. So, but it's, it's been, you do that with a player like Halliburton who, you know, go back to the beginning of our conversation, like, what is he in the discourse around him? And then you do that.

And he happens to play for the Pacers in a state that definitely takes ownership of basketball in a unique way, but also always feels like an eternal underdog. And it was just a lot of things coming together. to make a great story about this, a great, you know, rallying cry. So, I mean, I think that's great for their city to have that. For the record, number two on the list, Rudy Gobert, okay, Trey Young number three, and Jimmy Butler was number four. Most of overrated players in the NBA.

I can agree with at least a couple of those. You know, another sort of unkillable story that comes out of this is how the NBA finals is covered, right? you know, and that's what we care about here at the show. I mean, Brian is like, I mean, he'll be recalling play by play of something that happened in the third quarter. I'm like, how were you watching the game that closely? But anyway, but anyway, but, you know, a lot of the talk is about how ESPN is covering

the finals. Are they making it a big deal? Are they not making it a big deal? You know, all that sort of stuff. So, like, what do you, well, actually, we have a piece of sound here, right, that we want to play? We do. So the ESPN pregame crew had Adam Silver at the desk before the game started.

Malika Andrews asked a question to Silver and watching on TV, I'm like, I'm sorry, did I totally misunderstand the nature of that question? Here it is Malika Andrews talking to Adam Silk. I'm going to start here because I know this is my favorite time of year. I know this is your favorite time of year when we get to be here watching teams compete for a championship. There's been a lot of conversation about how we can recapture maybe. some of the magic that we get in the NBA Cup to match to the level that players put into this, maybe on-court decals,

things like that. Is there any plans to reincorporate it? Just to review, how can the NBA finals recapture the magic of the NBA Cup? Logan, what do you make of the way these finals are being covered? It's interesting. Me and me and Raj and Howard talked about this on last real ones and just the presentation.

I don't know whose fault it is right now, I feel like the NBA tends to get itself into these narrow discussions that no other league gets itself into. Right. And they're also not really meeting the moment, right? And also kind of just the NBA seems out of touch with a lot of these things and don't really seem in lockstep with what the fans want at this point. Right. Like they think of it as just like, oh, it's just a decal. Who cares, right?

Oh, it's just a jersey. Right. Like it's just, it's, it's, yeah, it's like, you know, with the Nike contract, right, where, you know, you have all these jerseys and you have all of these, you know, you took away home in a way and you don't really have any uniformity with your uniforms or the NBA Cup, for instance, like changing days. And now you, in the All Star format, right? Like, you just have all of these issues where the NBA seemed to be on top of these things. and it just seems like so many unforested errors. Like, dog, make your event an event, right? Like, if you're going to, if you're at the NBA finals, make it the NBA finals, right?

And that was something that I think me and you, Brian, have talked on offline about, which is, it doesn't seem like the NBA cares about what it needs to care about in these moments, right? And it seems like, and this is like, you know, for this, this is just, this is, this, this is, this could be all across sports, but in some ways it seems like the league just doesn't want to be covered, right? It's just, or covered in a way where,

um, you know, the casual fan wants to, um, watch it. Like, one thing that I get annoyed with an NBA discourse is like, even just the term casuals,

right? Like we just, when someone calls you, oh, you're just a casual. You're not a real fan, right? It's just like you kind of need the casuals to have a successful product.

Um, and you have, and you need casuals to watch. the game to have a casual, to have a wide-ranging product. And I think that, you know, right now, the NBA just is kind of fighting a lot of online battles when it just should be leading the conversation in a lot of ways. It wants to be the NFL in terms of parity. But NFL makes its events events. It also has players that are on television not actively bashing the game in real time, right it also has um you know an overall team aspect of whatever you want to call it but

when they say you know we're going to do it for the shield we're going to do it for an NFL thing they actually mean that it feels like a family as opposed to the NBA it's just like just people bashing each other um there was another quote i think that you quote quote quote blue or quote blue skyed or blue sky brian just about um talking about how ESPN is just for the hardcore fan Adam Silver said he quoted, he said that as a quote, basically just like dissing Turner when, and I don't know if he was just trying to curry favor with ESPN, but it really kind of turned me off considering like, you know, inside has been holding it down. It's been Mutsfi TV for the last few decades. And to curry favorable, what's now going to be seems like the number two team on ESPN

to kind of like kick in what your best product is, what seemed kind of off-putting. And so Adam Silver has done a lot. He's put a lot of money in the owner's pockets, which is like a good thing if you're an owner and a league partner. But there's been way too many of these missteps. And not just with the logo, because that's a small thing. But it's just a whole bunch of unforced errors that has been happening under his watch. And like, just make your game a presentation.

And even like, you know, going into this series, And I was really curious about this, but I'm glad the opposite has happened. But like, even in the name of parody, the last few finals have been pretty terrible, right? Like before this one. And there's a lot to figure out, you know, with this, with Adam Silver in the presentation. But the biggest thing is there's been a lot of enforced errors. And there's also been, it haven't really been leading discussions. They've been reacting to a lot of discussions.

And I don't think that that's what you want when you're a major league, like in the way that they are. This is a big problem and a small problem, and maybe it will also lead us into your great piece on Gen Z Hoopers. What if this final is involved LeBron James and Luke Godentridge versus whoever else out of the East, do you think we're all having the same conversation, though? You know what I mean? Like about presentation and everything else, because then the stakes are apparent. He's going for number five that ties him with Kobe or whoever else, right? And we're scripting out more about his legacy.

see in the league or whatever. But now it's like, you know, I mean, leagues always kind of go through this. As a changing other guard, not very many people are familiar with the people on the Indiana Pacers. Not very many people are familiar with the people on Oklahoma City Thunder. And so I feel like the obsessive focus on what the NBA is doing wrong or ESPN is doing wrong is like, I feel like a lot of that would be irrelevant if LeBron was in the finals. Don't you think, or if stuff was in the finals? And all of a sudden, a lot of that stuff doesn't matter. Yeah, but I think that like When you say that, sure, but I was listening to the episode,

I think it was with Brian and Shoemaker, where you guys brought up the point, it might have been you too, Joe, but when you guys bring up the point where like they're not even doing player intros. Like they're not even, if they're not introducing us and doing the requisite storytelling. I don't know if that's the ESPN thing or NBA thing, right? But there isn't that storytelling aspect from any powers that be, right? Like, we're not telling the story of the NBA.

So, like, if they're, okay, you don't have Stefan LeBron in the finals. Okay, now what do you do? How do you sell your game? And I don't think that the NBA has done a good job of selling its game, even with the NBA Cup or even like with the All-Star game, right? Like, I think there's just, it's always tinkering and tinkering and tinkering, but it's not like they're just selling for the most part of the NBA. They're selling transactions now.

That's pretty much what it is. Like they're selling, oh, this person might get traded. This person might get traded. They're talking about everything but the game. Every, like, we make a joke now all the time about how this is such as, such as legacy game, right? Not because, like, it is their legacy game or not, but that's how this is going to be described as, right? Like, this Tuesday in January is a legacy game for LeBron James, right? But it just feels it's the take of vacation of sports.

I think it's really affected the NBA, right? Because I think that like a lot of people aren't giving nuanced talk about what the NBA is and how great of a game it is. Like it's legitimately exciting to watch this finals and see this new crop of guys. But it doesn't seem like the NBA is invested in educating us on who these new guys are, right? Like, why isn't there like a package to start the finals on like Nimhart? or like NBC does a great job of fluff, right? I was reading Dick Ebersaw's book last year, and it was all about the storytelling element of the Olympics

and just every one of their properties that they've ever had. And it all comes down to storytelling. There's no fluff pieces on these players. And I'm saying this as a journalist, right? I'm just saying this like, we can, me, Joel and Brian, And we can write like the critical angle. I'm talking about from a league partner. There is no fluff.

It's like, do you care? Meanwhile, I turn on these same programs to watch the NFL. And it is all fluff, you know, from the league partners. And it helps you out. Like, I didn't know Jaden Daniels that well going into this NFL season. I learned so much about him just on the pregame show, whether it's Amazon, whether it's NFL countdown. We just don't have that right now. We don't have that care on the NBA side.

And it's really frustrating because by, because like I find myself now like pressing mute on the halftime and the pregame show because all it's going to be is this. This player is, is terrible. Or his legacy is at stake for this. And it's not like really telling me about them. So I'm just like, I'm just going to watch the games. But that's where we've gotten with the NBA. We're not in a great place.

And I do hope that with the next NBA, with the next NBA deal coming in the focus that we have a bit more at that storytelling and the NBA sells itself a lot more as opposed to trying to put out these little fires that become big fire. I agree 100%. And to that Adam Silver quote you mentioned, the problem with ESPN's presentation is that it's not for the quote unquote hardcore basketball fan. It's that it's somewhere in the middle between show business on Turner, a show that is

incredibly watchable. And actual hardcore study of the NBA. It's just in this no man's land in between. And I'm watching the pregame show yesterday, Logan. And the topic they came up with was, okay, SGA will probably be the leading score tonight. Who do you think will score the second most points? I'm like, somebody got paid to come up with that as an angle.

And they did a whole segment out where they're arguing about who's going to score the second most points. And I'm like, that's not interesting to anybody. then you get to the actual game and Mike Breen, God bless him, is doing storytelling about T.J. McConnell and his dad. And I'm like,

T.J. McConnell looks like Gary Payton in his prime tonight. We're going to tell the fluffiest of fluffy stories, which is a guy in his dad coach. That works. That is absolutely works in the moment. Like,

where is that for every other player in the series? As you say, before the game, teach us who these people are and where they came from. Like we might know about Halliburton. We might know about SGA, but we don't know anything else. So my concern was that, and because I agree with what you all are saying here, like,

where are the soft focus features, right? But I was like, are they showing that on NBA TV? And maybe I just don't know. Right, you know what I'm saying? Nobody does if it's on NBA TV. Well, right. But I'm like, is there a possibility that that package is being produced somewhere else? Because, I mean, I feel like on NBA TV, there's a lot of time to fill.

And there are a lot of, you know, old games. and old documentaries showing on there. And I'm like, maybe they're putting it there and for whatever reason they have not prioritized putting it on the main broadcast, which is a bit poor decision. I think we all would agree. But that was why I was sort of reluctant

to criticize them on that because, well, it could be that that's airing somewhere that we're just not watching. I think it's up to ESPN to do their own programming. I mean, even if it's airing on the league partner TV station, they bought the finals. They paid for the finals.

This is the whole point. And again, it just is like a very funny, again, I don't, I'm not one of those people's like, people shouldn't argue or you shouldn't call people out or you shouldn't like make points about Tyrese Halliburton after the way he played most of game two, which by the way, how funny was it last night to hear besides making the winning shot in game one comma before every take about Tyrese Halliburton's like, oh, that kind of seems important that he made the winning shot in game one. Logan, let me take you somewhere else because I saw a Yonis tweet yesterday. that just made me smile.

Janice was wondering where Woge is or was asking if anyone is missing Woge, which I guess came after like the Knicks called every single working coach in the United States and asked for permission to talk to them. What do you make of Wojstalgia? And are you feeling it yourself?

No, I'm not not really feeling. It's just, it is interesting that like that Woj is like kind of having this I don't know, man. went through it as well, right? Like it just felt like this softening of this image, right? Because like, at least when I was coming up, it was a lot different, you know, his reputation.

And, you know, he was like, you know, it was a shark trying to get information, right? Like, and that's putting it lightly. And even the stuff that he wrote about, like, LeBron, when he, when he was, not when he was coming up because he was, you know, he was a long time writer for, actually the Fresno B when I was growing up. but you know him coming uh it's the fault into like the national prominent is just like just bashing lebron right and then lebron coming to his defense like 10 years later like where's wodes and how's he doing i think it was during the uh COVID bubble but just feel like there's this softening um of the relationship with woes to the general public and it just feels like a lot of other stuff is kind of forgotten and that's that's the most interesting part whether it's like

the bag dealing with the players or it's the uh or just a number of things that you know we've I'm sure you guys have discussed on your program but it's just it's uh weird but like I I'm I don't feel that I don't feel that at all quite frankly I was I was saying this to Brian I was like is that it's not a shot at Shams but I think it's just sort of the realization that is not the journalist that Wozge was, right? Like, like, yeah, yeah, I mean, say what you want about Woz. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, I referenced the B, like, he was a real columnist, right? Like, he was, and also, I said to stuff about LeBron, like, he would also, stuff that he would write at Yahoo! He was really fucking good. Like, it would just come in the middle of the night. He's a great writer.

He's a great writer. Amazing writer. Honestly, I think Yahoo! I think Yahoo! Yahoo! Roads was way better than, in terms of, like, the stuff that he got to write. Like, I was, one thing that I was kind of sad about, I would say was that I didn't really get to see him write that much towards his end of his time at ESPN other than newsers, but like, you know,

I remember being like in college and stuff and like at 10 p.m. Pacific, you get like, oh, there's a new world story. Oh, snap. And like in the dead of night and he would, his pros would be awesome. But like I think, you know, I don't know because I don't really, I'll be quite honest, I don't really watch ESPN that much other than the game. So I can't really tell you like, why they're of the difference you know i i i um but i there i would say i guess there is a difference

between shams and wolds but i just i can't tell you because i don't really watch them day to day online like i'm like i'm sure we're going to get it to in the gen z piece but like i'm very much online with it with the clips and stuff like that i don't really watch their programming like especially their mba programming not because necessarily i feel any way about it but i don't know if you guys ever see like stuff that you watch on tv that kind of hits a little too close to home and you're like, I need a little separation from it, that's kind of how I feel with the ESPN coverage. All right. Let's talk about Gen Z Hoopers, because you identified in the ringer.

People need to go read this right now at the ringer.com in your new piece. This moment, which came after Halliburton's game tying, it turned out, shot against the Knicks. Of course, the Pacers go on to win the game. He gives us press conference. And what is the new era, Logan, that we were inaugurating with that moment? the aura farming era. Are you guys familiar with or farming?

Were you guys familiar with that phrase before he said it? I guessed what it was, but I had not heard it in quite that way until I read your piece now. No, same here. Brian, did you know like back that ass up

by juvenile more? Or did you know what aura farming was more? That's a good one, man. I feel like now I'm being double-teamed Like SGO was all night last night. I appreciate. I've been told, I'm not going to do it as much anymore.

I felt bad. I don't want to put brought in. I love it. Come on. Let's go. People don't be coming to asking about Bruce Springsteen. Or Hall & Oates, which is a great band. Well, I got a couple of Hall of Oats joints, though.

So, yeah. I can't rock with that is one of my joints. But no, I can't go for that. Excuse me. But no, I think that we were, in time, have a show laid this out really well on Yahoo before I wrote my piece. But we're kind of coming into this new era that Joel talked about earlier in this program, which is, you know, the younger guys are kind of it now. And this is the first, I think this is the first finals where the leading

scores are both of Gen Z, right? And like, this was the first story where I kind of felt a little, like, I didn't feel old, but I was like, I'm getting like, you know, I'm not old dude in a club yet, but I'm just getting there. I'm walking over to the wall right now. Like, I'm not quite at the wall just like looking weird, but I'm like, yeah, I'm walking over there. But you kind of see just these two stars on both of these teams. And not only the, the two stars on the team in Halliburton and Shea Goose Alexander, but also the ancillary pieces on Oklahoma City in Chet Holmgren and J-Dub. They're really speaking a different language to this younger crop of NBA fan, right, where you talk about the aura farming. And then you talk about also, you know, the tweet that

Halliburton says about how, you know, he won a, when he won a gold medal, it looks like, you know, he was the guy that did the least amount of work on a group project and still got an A, right? And, but the thing about this generation is, you know, they're speaking directly to their fan base and to their consumer base as opposed to, you know, in the 80s and in the 90s, when, you know, Jordan would do a commercial and it would just be all over everywhere and that was how we was able to communicate it right but there would still be kind of a barrier right there would still be kind of a arms length distance between the consumer and jordan and that was okay at this point now that barrier is kind of um gone now because you know you with the advent of social media

you can really there's a lot of paris social relationships with these types of players right and you see it not only on you know instagram X and in a blue sky. It's also like on Pinterest, right? These guys are like mood boards to young kids and how they dress and how they live their life. And that's one side of the coin.

On the other side of the coin, these people that are doing the influence in Halliburton and Shea and Jason Tatum. They're also the guys that are getting influenced by clips on YouTube from Kobe Bryant or Steph Curry. because we're in a very much a YouTube algorithmic life where you see something on Instagram,

it's going to go to your YouTube feed and you're going to see a clip or your TikTok or your reels where you see like these different little moments like, you know, he's not in vogue right now. But Kanye West saying at the 2004 Grammys, you know, I wonder what would have happened if I didn't win this? I guess we'll never know. You see that like a Jason Tatum copying that verbatim.

copying that verbatim. And I think that that start, those are these examples are adding up to this new language that all these players are speaking to each other, not dissimilar to, you know, an Allen Iverson with Generation X where, you know, he was getting bas for what he did or how he lived his life. But the consumer that he was speaking to knew who he was and was buying his products. It's kind of the same thing in evolution with Gen Z, except there's not that barrier between the player and the consumer anymore. They're talking to each other.

They're liking pictures. Like Palliburton can like your comment that you said to him on his feed. Or he can see what you're saying about him in real time as opposed to having to go search for it in the newspaper. So it's a bit more of a organic relationship between Gen Z players and Gen Z generation as a whole now. and you're starting to see that coming to the big stage because these guys are now good enough to get to the finals

as opposed to just, you know, be in first round exits. Real quick, circling back to the Nike thing. Because I do think that Nike did a lot of work for people that they don't get credit for now. Because, like, I mean, if you remember those early Michael Jordan commercials, he didn't do a lot of talking. They didn't want him talking in a lot of those ads. I mean, he still kind of had his like North Carolina country twang.

And he had, you know, he wasn't. polished. Like, he was still a young guy. And so Nike, and I think it was Wheaton Kennedy, you know, the advertising agency, the legendary. They did a lot of polishing and a lot of smoothing. And so a lot of what they created in terms of what we think is cool or like, you know, the

image of Michael Jordan. They did a lot of work on that. But I want to kind of to pivot off of that. Because in the piece you quote this cat, he's a CEO of a social media marketing agency, David Brickley. And he talks about like the key for players connecting with young fans is

authenticity, but I'm just wondering, because everything you just said, like, you know, Tyrese Halliborne can like your comment on his post. Is that not just the illusion of connection in a lot of ways? Because especially if it comes through social media, like social media sort of gives off the illusion of connection with people, right? That, you know, because that could, Tyrese Halliburton could be liking that comment. It could also be his rep. You know what I mean? And so I just wonder, like, do you really think that like this generation has done a job is special or unique in this way in terms of connection with people? Like, do you really think that they're doing it differently than the previous generation? Or do you think that like it's just cultivated in a sort of different way?

Well, I think it's cultivated in a different way, right? Because like I'm millennial. And are you Gen X, Joel? Yeah, I'm Gen X, man. So we both, I mean, we're different, but we're the same and that we know a life without social media. and we know a life without phones. And we remember at least more for you than me, but I do remember like having a landline.

Computer class. We had computer class. I remember computer class, you know. So, but when you talk about the illusion and all those things in the perception, perception and illusions are kind of reality in this new day and age, right? Like, especially post-pandemic where, you know, we're of the Zoom generation where, you know, I've only met, I don't think I've ever met you, Joe. Like, I don't think I've ever met you in real life.

In real life. I think I've only seen you through Zoom calls and Riverside calls. Brian, I've met you once, but before that, I only knew you through my headphones and maybe a couple Zoom calls, right? But that is the reality that we're in today, right? So, like, if you like something, it really feels like you like something, right? Like, we're definitely of the friend request era. Like, I remember when Facebook first dropped, there were a lot of people that I were friends with. I never met before. This is you just adding friends as a kid, right? And,

um, but I think that that really speaks to that, the, this generation after me, um, that that's all they know is the, is that type of connection and through phones and through liking. So like, I like to us, we might be a little bit more skeptical, but a like to them, that might be their whole world. And it's a bit, it's just a bit different in how, um, they see it versus how we see it. Now, there's truth in both of them. Like, I do think that, like, I do think that, Like, you know, I still love the generation. Like, y'all need to go out and play. I need to go out, see the world and get up off your phones.

But also, like, I'm on my phone all the time, too, right? But I just know a life without it. And I know a life of going to the park and kicking it. But, like, this pandemic is weird. The pandemic is, like, five years away from us now, right? And, you know, it's just, it's a coming of age. And, you know, we might see it differently. But yeah, like those parasycial relationships are really real in this day and age.

And it really speaks to, you know, it's funny, it didn't make the piece. But I was talking to a streamer. His name was, I think I believe it was Jesse R. And I was asking him, who are the people that Gen Z really relates to as basketball players? And one of the surprising things that, surprising names that he put out was LeBron James. And I was like, well, LeBron was born in 1984. is he's not really he's not even close to gen z and they said because he actually takes the time to speak to us whether it's with the memes whether it's with always posting on instagram

commenting um even as an older i believe i don't know if he's gen x or millennial but is i i don't know up to that point um but he is somebody that really speaks to this makes an effort to speak to us and i thought that was really interesting And, you know, Gen C really, you know, you're seeing this right now. There was a story in the Washington Post about the memification of Gavin Newsom and how he's really taking advantage of this news cycle with Trump because he's on TikTok. And he's speaking to the younger generation.

Now, that might be because he's trying to get into a presidential run and he's votes from all sectors of the population. But he's really speaking to this generation. and you're seeing that with how LeBron James speaks to it and how, I mean, quite honestly, how Trump has spoke to this generation, right? They actually go to where they are as opposed to, you know, kind of staying in their, you know, there's boxes. But the bigger thing that I was going to say, that was a long-winded way to say that it's parissocial relationships are realer than you think with this new crop of kids. Well, you know, Brian, before we let, you know, our esteemed guest go, we got to put. through the lightning round. You can't come on the show

and not get a lightning round. So, Logan, you're going to get your own lightning round. Okay, brother. Welcome to the lightning round, a Jill Anderson special. Oh, so I'm so happy for this, man. Yes.

Okay, what's going on? MBA writer you idolized growing up? Twofold. One was Ralph Riley. That's like who I wanted to be. Mm-hmm. And, Yeah, so him, because I would like always,

I don't know this is like a real long winded question to a lightning round, but he was somebody that like I always, like I wrote his, I read his Rock and Ishmael story like on vacation. Like every time I go on vacation, I'm just, it's basically just an excuse to read Sibault. But I remember reading his stuff and then Kobe to infinity,

a piece that he wrote on G in GQ that like just was like, if I could like even harness 10% of that talent, I'll be in good shape. But Ralph Wiley's one. And on a local level, and he noticed, and I'm going to just say this on this esteemed platform, Marcus Thompson on a local level was somebody that I really like idolized. But also, like, it was the Iverson versus Jordan thing. Like, I wanted to kick his ass and still want to kick his ass all the time.

So those two will probably be like the writing idols. Ralph, like, who I want to be and like Marcus, who I read growing up. And I got a lot of respect for him, but also I want to kick his ass. love it. The most millennial NBA star. That's so interesting. I think, I think, Steph. Okay. I think he just, I think that he's the one that resonates with this, with our generation and also Gen Z. Like, he has the game that's perfect to watch for the attention spans or lack of attention spans that we have because he is one of the rare players that can just capture

your imagination whenever, like, he's the person that like when you're, um, on the timeline, He's somebody is actively saying going to go to a television and watch him play. And his high and like, I don't know if you guys ever seen him watch and play, but like it's really captivating. Even just just he, I think his game speaks to all the values of millennials and also all the values of what Gen Z is right now. So I would say Steph. New question I started asking people that cover the NBA is your favorite NBA city, by which I mean, you go to the town. You know what I'm saying? The hotel is right.

The restaurants are dope. And then the scene at the game is nice. It's like a, you know, a town that people probably, anybody can go to New York, right? And you can say New York, if that's your answer, but your favorite NBA city. You just ask you because you know I want to say Houston. I love Houston as an NBA town. But it's two of them. I got two of them.

Houston because the hotels are right downtown and it's walkable, which is weird because Houston is very not a walkable city. But the downtown getting to Toyota Center. is walkable, although it is so humid when I go out there. I typically just Uber. It's not like, I remember when I was first, when I was first covering the Warriors, I started covering them in 2017 until 2020. And so Houston was like a second home. And we would always go out there around May. And I would, that was back when I was wearing suits and stuff. And I didn't want to sweat out my suit before I got there. So I would just take a like a $5 Uber to the game. Because it was so hot.

But everything is close by, has a pop of those, which I love. And Toyota Center has great people watching. Like, it's just a great people watching a place. Houston is great people watching in general. But specifically, Houston, Rockets games, has great people watching. And it's just such a diverse city and such a diverse crowd. And the food is great. All my love to Houston.

But my favorite, though, is Toronto, bar none. Wow. Okay. Toronto is a great city. I've only been there once for the finals, but they really, like, the fans are great, the food is great.

The city is just amazing, especially when we went in June, it was like, it was perfect. I didn't want to leave. So Toronto was great. Houston's great, too. So twofold. Man, two of my favorite North American cities.

Look at that, man. You winning some favor here. Last one. Chase Center. Or the Oracle. I mean, Chase Center is great, but I mean,

the nostalgic reasons is Oracle, man. Like, I've been, it takes on a different meaning to me because it wasn't just, the warriors were great, but I didn't even grow up a Warriors fan. So, like, it wasn't,

that wasn't the reason why I loved it so much. It was, it was just, especially back then, Oakland was the eternal underdog. We felt like that, you know, and that was our Madison Square Garden. You know, that was where you could see Jordan play. Michael Jordan played in East Oakland, right?

Kobe Bryant played in East Oakland. I got to see some of my favorite moments and some of my favorite people at Oracle. I remember a couple years ago because I hadn't gone a while after the Warriors left. And I got to go. Kendrick Lamar was coming to the Bay. And he was at Oracle. And there's something about a concert there that just is just crazy. The acoustics are terrible, which makes it even better, which makes the show better weirdly.

And it's an older building. You see the columns. You see just that they don't make buildings like that anymore. And, you know, so many of my, like, you know, my great early sports moments were in that building, not just watching basketball, but that's where the North Coast. title championship of North Coast section championship was held, right? Where, you know, you'll go see McCleiman's play. And I was also where like tournament of champions was back in the day

when my high school at Berkeley High would dominate in the 80s, right? Like, it was, it was just, it is and was a special place. And so it's, it's got to be Oracle. Chase is like, it's fine, but it's very much, Brian's been there. It's very much tells the story of what the Bay Area is now, which is like, you know, it's capitalism has gotten to the Bay Area in a way that like, you know, few, few places have gotten it, right? Like, it's a place for tech people.

It's a place for them to mingle. There's this thing called like lower level suites, which is a weird concept. But like the whole lower bowl is empty because it's full of like, you know, tech people at half time. So like when you go into the second half, like you don't really see that many people. It's empty because it's where like millionaires are sitting. and so they don't come into like midway through. And like the real people of the Bay Area are stuck way at the top. And, you know, when I was at Oracle, when I was growing up at Oracle, like you could at least

sneak down and get to like a better seat, right? There's no way you could do that in Chase, right? Like one of the cool things about like being broke in Oakland is that like you can at least sneak down and like those, you know, make a deal with one of the ushers. And like, because you knew them for this. Like you can't even do that now at no point. Like it's a very segregated place. It's beautiful, but it's segregated.

And it's showing like kind of where the bay is at right now and where it's going. And, yeah, I will take Oracle. All I just say, I'll take Oracle. All right, Logan Murdoch, you're going to listen to him on the real ones. You are going to read his new piece, how the Gen Z takeover is changing the NBA. Logan, we can't wait to talk to you next time. Thanks for coming on the press box. Man, it was an honor, man.

Thanks so much, man. I really appreciate it. Seriously. All right, Joel, the other big topic I wanted to discuss today is the protests here in Los Angeles. Yeah, that's a big sobering deal going on out there. Are you okay? I am indeed okay. We'll talk about in a second how much of Los Angeles is affected by this, which is one of the bigger questions we've seen on Twitter. This is day seven. These protests started in response to the Trump administration's immigration raids. according to the LA Times, there have been raids everywhere from car washes in L.A. County and Orange County

to farm fields in the Central Coast and San Joaquin Valley. What's so striking to me about this story is as much as it is a battle over immigration policy or how we treat immigrants in this country, it is also a battle taking place in the media over what is actually happening in the streets of Los Angeles. Yeah. Would you agree? Oh, I agree. I mean, this is an old, not an old story, but it's an old story in that, you know, I'm a veteran of Ferguson and Baltimore, right? So that's the Michael Brown and Freddie Gray protest, for instance.

And it was very much kind of similar to the same thing, although I would say we're in a much more bifurcated media environment, right? Where's a lot less that we agree on in terms of the reality of the situation. But yeah, I mean, you know, you've got official, you know, you've got the institutions, you know, the police department, you know, the federal government response, the governor, the city. They've got their versions of what they say is going on and what they're putting out to people. And then, you know, you've got people that are in the media, right, that are there covering

it. And you've also got people that are basically citizen journalists or people on social media that are also sort of, and they have even more of a voice now. It's kind of almost tougher to determine, like, wait, how credible is this person? How credible is this source or whatever? Because a lot of people are all out there and they're all walking away with different interpretations of what's going on on those streets. Absolutely. And here's a clip. Oh, this just happened. Oh, wait a second. This happened seven years ago, somewhere else, not in Los Angeles. the usual kind of stuff we have to sort through when you have stories like this.

And just to think of some of the questions that are being litigated now, both through videos, snapshots, actual reporting. Number one, I'd say, are the protests peaceful or are the protests not peaceful? Yeah.

I mean, again, that is a huge thing. It's sort of interesting too, right? Because they only, and I should say they, in the media, mainstream media, and certainly in official accounts, violence is only tallied if it comes from people that are protesting. They don't really tally up what the police do. And again, I was in Ferguson, I was at Baltimore.

I understand that it is a very chaotic environment and that people are having to make all sorts of split-second decisions. And a lot of people are scared. Like, I can't over-exploit. I can't over-explain to you people, like, how scary it can be to be in this middle of the situation like that. But the thing, the question that I always have is, does police violence count? You know what I mean? Like, if they're beating up people or pulling them down or shooting less lethal rounds at you or coordinating off people or, you know, arresting them, you know, sort of seemingly out of nowhere, like, I don't, that is always the violence that was most salient to me when I was out there.

And I say that as a journalist because, right, I, you know, I'm not on the other side of that rope. But yeah, I don't, are the protests peaceful or not? Well, it depends on what you think of what the law enforcement response is often my thought on that, I think. Totally correct. And I'll give you another slot here. What if 95% of the protesters are peaceful? Yep. And 5% are people that showed up who don't want to be peaceful, who are people that may have a completely different agenda than the other 95%.

How in the world do you adjudicate that? Because as you know, from covering these things, a protest is not like, you know, a place where you go buy a ticket on seat yeat to get into, right? Anybody can show up. So what does that distinction practically mean? It is a quote unquote peaceful protest or a not peaceful protest. So there's a scene outside of the Diddy trial early on. And they were like, there's a guy as a Diddy protester and he's using racial epitents and harassing people.

And what it really appeared to be was one guy who you may be an unhoused going through some sort of mental struggle and he was acting out. And I was like, I don't like he did say some vaguely pro ditty things, but I don't think that guy is necessarily like the example of the pro ditty crowd. But like, and it reminds me of the same sort of similar thing. Like we don't know. We can't really attest to everybody that's using the opportunity of the protest to fuck shit up. and maybe not in the name of protesting what ICE is doing to in terms of rounding up immigrants. Here's another question I've seen litigated. What does it mean when a protester waves a Mexican flag?

Because we've seen the Trump administration point at that, right? Look at all the foreign flags. This is quoting Stephen Miller. Los Angeles is occupied territory. Of course, if you send reporters in to talk to protesters and saying, why are you waving a Mexican flag? You'll get all kinds of answers from, I'm celebrating. my Mexican heritage. I am doing this because of solidarity with immigrants. Or perhaps the answer,

I live in the city of Los Angeles. Have you ever been here? Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Yeah, have you ever been a sporting event, a parking lot? And you will see Mexican flags as a matter of your daily life in Los Angeles. That is not something you know, this is unique to these protests. Absolutely. And I, you know, again, I would, I know people might get upset for me saying this, But that is never a question asked of people who are holding up Confederate flags at rallies or counter-protests or things like that. Like, nobody ever, oh, this is occupied territory. The Confederacy is rising again. Like, nobody ever asks that.

They'll do it for the Mexican flag. And nobody ever tries to, like, undercut your claim to America by throwing up a rebel flag, right? But it happens. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, Stephen Miller has his own interest in portraying it that way, right? So absolutely does. And by the way, I was going through Stephen Miller's Twitter feed for the first time in Brian Curtis history. Do you need a shower? Yeah.

Therapy. Kind of a harrowing moment. Yeah. But it was, you know, tweets about the protests, about immigrants over and over again. And then he took a break to retweet a Phil Mickelson chip from a live golf tournament. I'm just throwing that out there. Because you're wondering about Stephen Miller's feed. Here's another question.

And this is an interesting and complicated one to me. Maybe not the top line question, but the layers here. Has L.A. gone to hell or not? Because if you read Donald Trump's true social posts, that's the kind of thing he's saying, right? He says, this is a couple of days ago. We made a great decision in setting the National Guard to deal with the violent, instigated riots in California. If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated. Oh, man.

Post-Trim today says, without the military. Los Angeles would be a crime scene like we haven't seen in years. So you get a bunch of people who are not Trump fans going up on Twitter, I think, and rightfully saying, look, Los Angeles is a gigantic city. So however you characterize the protest, and I'm not for one second taking Trump's characterization of the protest at face value, but however you characterize it, you can drive around in Los Angeles all day and not see this happening at all. Right.

It's a big city. Completely mischaracterizing the city. Yeah. But then I would say there's another turn to that where you say, well, wait a second. Part of the reason these protests are happening at all is people are saying these immigration raids are creating a climate of fear of militarization in the streets of Los Angeles that are changing the nature of life in this city. Oh, for sure. I mean, they're creating chaos. I mean, you know, trying to conduct raids outside of school, graduation.

outside of restaurants, places where people are, you know, trying to go about the course of their normal life. And people are, you know, they're sort of taking preemptive action to protect against that, for one. But yeah, so I think that's a big piece of it. You know, and it's kind of funny, and I don't mean to make light of this. If you're asking me, has L.A. gone to hell or not? And we could talk about, like, what's happened to the city in the last decade or so. before you need of this started and I'd be like, well, I don't know, man.

It's an open question. I mean, it's changed a lot, right? But, you know, I think that it's fair to say that the response of the people in L.A. is more likely a reaction to the military presence, the fear that these immigrants have

and the way that they have to respond to it. And so, yeah, like, that is a sort of hell. That's a sort of chaos that people are sort of of living in and trying to navigate around. And it is upsetting the course of normal life. And I guess, you know, some people think that that's the way that it should happen and others don't. I mean, I'm one of the people that think that, you know, it seems like it was a little bit

more settled before I started showing up and rounding up folks, but we can agree to disagree, I guess. A lot of journalists out in the streets covering these protests and a lot of journalists facing the police directly. This is CNN's Jason Carroll, who was, did. while he was on camera. Fires and posters saying, CNN?

It's time to escalate. Wait, one second, John. Hold on. I want to, go ahead. Jason? What's going on? I hear you. Am I seeing Jason Carroll being...

What happened, Jason? I'm being detained. I'm being detained, Laura. I'm not being arrested. Correct officers? Did you hear what you told you? No. We're letting you go.

We can't come back. Okay. Then if you come back then, you go. Okay. Then there's Lauren Tommaso, Joel, of nine news in Australia. She was reporting on police firing rubber bullets, and then she felt rubber bullets. After hours of standing off this situation,

has now rapidly deteriorated, the LAPD moving in on horseback, firing rubber bullets at protesters, moving them on through the heart of L.A. You just shut the crap. You're okay? I'm not familiar with the domestic political climate in Australia, but can you just imagine people in, like, Sydney or Brisbane, looking at what's happening on the streets of America and thinking, what the hell is happening in that place?

Oh, my goodness. I mean, you know, I think probably the wildfires, there was at least a vocabulary for that in Australia. I'm not sure this exactly. You know, we always talk about the media peering at Los Angeles from the East Coast, which is something here. People are very, very sensitive to here and probably does affect coverage of moments like this. But, man, yeah. Sydney or Brissy or Melbourne, I would definitely say people are like,

wait, what is going on in the United States? The other thing that I would say about this, again, sort of referring back, because if people remember, I mean, one of the ways, you know, to bring up an old name on this show, Wesley Lowry and Ryan Riley, came to national fame was that they got detained and arrested by police while sitting in a McDonald's at Ferguson. And so it seems to me that we still have not quite worked out like the rules of engagement, law enforcement with press. Because I've been in these situations before and like you think that there's one set of rules when you get out there and then as

things devolve, right, or as the light gets later and there's a more aggressive brain, random protest are out there, the law enforcement tactics will shift. And often they will shift on the fly and you may not know what the rules are. And so you can just see this sort of thing where people are getting a little bit, it feels like over the last decade or so that there's this more aggressive approach to dealing with reporters and journalists in this situation. That is really worrying. I mean, right now it's rubber bullets. You know what I mean? Right now. But who's to say that it will stop at that? I don't know. So, This leads perfectly into our new segment here at the press box, weekend blurbs,

when Joel and I each recommend something we saw, something we read, even perhaps a Twitter account for you this weekend. And Joel, I haven't told you this, but I'm going to propose this feature going forward to be a no log rolling feature. Oh, okay. We have to recommend a person that we do not know personally. I can agree to that. We can sprinkle the other wrecks throughout the body of the show.

But I just find whenever I'm reading media recommendations, it's almost always people's friends. It's always the friend of a friend. It's all this stuff. And by the way, I love, I'm pro-frenship. That is cool. You would have to tie me down not to get me to recommend Alan Siegel's new book about The Simpsons. I'm all good with that. But that just becomes like all of media recommending at some point.

So I want us to go find people we don't know and recommend them on this second. I violated that rule last week. That's fine. It was straighten my shit up. That was not a sub-tweet. I'm just saying. No, I know. I'm just saying, but I'm going to get my shit together.

Okay, we're going to do it right this week. I would like to partially violate this rule because I actually met this guy one time at a bar watching a mix game here in L.A. I was going to ask you, how have you not met this person? I'm going to go ahead. James Quilly is a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He's also a crime novelist who's written three novels, so which I would like to engage with before too long. But I've been enjoying his coverage of the protests here in Long. Los Angeles, both his writing.

He's filed more than a dozen pieces over the last week and his Twitter account because there's a lot of clarifying, you know, that reporters can do on Twitter that's almost easier to do there than it is in the body of a print story. For instance, he was tweeting today or yesterday about LA's new DA charging some of the protesters who allegedly committed crimes in the course of the protests. And then he tweeted this. He says, I see your replies about why no charges for questionable slash troubling uses of force by the LAPD. Truth is, those cases almost always take months, sometimes years of review if they were to ever get filed.

LAPD Force Investigation Division will do its thing before DA ever takes a look. Wherever you come down on that question, that is interesting to know. When does one thing get adjudicated? When does the other thing get adjudicated? also enjoyed this tweet he says in these dark times i'm willing to make sacrifices for journalism risk injury give up time with my family run myself to exhaustion but shaving my beard for a gas mass fitting is too far he can't what kind of beard does he have man it just looks like a normal beard but i think just you know shaving it off it's been a little bit of a little bit of time on

there so he doesn't quite know what's under there anyway okay have everyone out there in the field James Quilly. Have you ever won a gas mask before, Brian? I never have. Okay. All right. Well, there's still time. I mean, you are in L.A.

You don't go out there and don't have to wear a gas mask, Brian. I'm going to name somebody here that I've not met, but I wish I had. Some people may have heard that Ananda Lewis, who I remember most as co-hosts of VET's Teen Summit, but it's almost certainly more known for having been a former MTVVJ. she died this week at the age of 52. She'd had stage 4 breast cancer and talked pretty openly about her fight against the disease and her choice of treatment, which some folks might have called non-traditional. And so it was last October she revealed that her cancer progressed in stage 4.

And yesterday I started getting all these text messages. And I was like, wow, it's really over, right? Like Ananda passed away. But rather than talking about her death, I'd love to talk about when she most seemed most alive, which was when she was the host of Teen Summit from 93 to 97. And Teen Summit was a staple of that channel's programming. Like it ran for over a decade and mostly aired on Saturday mornings. But it was really the Ananda era that I remember most.

And look, I can admit I'm a red-blooded dude. You know what I'm saying? I thought she was attractive. So that's why I started tuning in. But the thing about the show is that it was a real serious attempt at gauging black teens on the serious issues of the day. you know, sex education, gang violence, things of that nature. And it was sometimes, you know, very heavy stuff.

But sometimes there was also like the lighthearted stuff with, you know, live performances, like Beyonce and Destiny's Child were on there. Like Bernie Mac did a set on there, which is, you know, I don't know how familiar people are with the comedy stylings of Bernie Mac or, you know, the music of Mob Deep. But it seemed like a poor fit for a teen show, but they still managed to pull it off. So there was room for everybody. Anyway, I went down a rabbit hole of some of these Teen Summit clips on YouTube.

And I really hope people just, if, you know, if you would be the kind of person that were moved in any way by Ananda Lewis and her work or whatever or Teen Summit of that era. Like, it was really fun to sort of revisit that time in the 90s when people would, the thing that I was thinking about as I was watching this is like, man, they really tried to engage teenagers in a way that I don't quite see. anymore. Like, they were people to be taking seriously. Like, they just weren't consumers or, like, babies with peach fuzz. You know what I mean? So, anyway, I had a lot of fun going over and looking at that stuff. And I hope maybe some of you guys might take some time to check it out, too. So, and it's funny, an old friend of mine who I haven't spoken to in years texted me a link to her obit last night and was like, man, RIP because we used to both, you know, commiserate over how attractive we thought Ananda was. And so it was good to hear from him. So anyway, you know,

Rest in power to Ananda Lewis and many, many thanks for her contributions to culture and media. She won't soon be forgotten. All right, that is the press box. He's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. But I'm too badging by Kyle Crichton. I got some press box buttons. Logan Murdoch already has his new press box button.

Does Joel Anderson have one? I'm still working on it. Okay. I got to, this is me actually walking down to the post office mail. I don't know how that goes. There's no infrastructure here at the press box. box. But if you want one, send us an excellent idea,

brian.curtis at the ringer.com, and I may pick you and put a package in the mail. Coming up Monday on the show, we're going to get you ready for game five of the NBA finals that night. Joel, we've got Juneteenth holiday next Thursday, so I will see you a day early next Wednesday with more lukewarm takes about the meeting. Can't wait, man.