The Right Time with Bomani Jones - How the Celtics FAILED Brown & Tatum, Caitlin Clark Discourse Gets More Insane | Bomani Jones

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

Bomani Jones is joined by Howard Bryant for a loaded episode of The Right Time, starting with why the Boston Celtics failed the Jaylen Brown-Jayson Tatum era. Bo and Howard break down how Boston treated Brown like the expendable star, why the organization clearly picked Tatum as the face of the franchise, and what Tatum now has to prove coming off an Achilles injury. They also get into Brown’s move to Philadelphia, whether the basketball fit makes any sense next to Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey, and why the whole breakup felt colder than it needed to be. Later, Bo and Howard dive into the Caitlin Clark discourse and explain why the conversation around her has somehow gotten even louder, dumber, and more political since she got to the WNBA. They talk about Clark becoming a culture-war avatar, why the league’s player-driven culture was always going to push back, whether her actual game is getting overrated by the noise around her, and why the Larry Bird comparisons don’t really hold up. . Subscribe to Supercast for Ad-Free Episodes: https://righttime.supercast.com/ Buy 'The Right Time' merch: http://therighttimebomani.com/ Subscribe to The Right Time with Bomani Jones on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts and follow the show on Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok for all the best moments from the show. Download Full Podcast Here: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6N7fDvgNz2EPDIOm49aj7M?si=FCb5EzTyTYuIy9-fWs4rQA&nd=1&utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-right-time-with-bomani-jones/id982639043?utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social Follow The Right Time with Bomani Jones on Social Media: http://lnk.to/therighttime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wave. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the right time, a wave original. My name is Beaumani Jones. Thanks for listening where if you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube.

Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. It is that time of week, where we have a guest. Join us coming to us live from the great state of Massachusetts.

It's not the city of the always in his heart. Howard Bryan was going on. Now, man, how you doing, Bo? Hey, man. It ain't a bad time, man. We got a lot to talk about here. I know we've talked a lot about Jalen Brown on this show, but we got a real live, you know, Bostonian around here.

You know what I mean? Like, this is interesting. By the way, it's still going because Jalen Brown has scheduled the weirdest press tour. He's not doing any press with anybody that actually does sports, just people that letting him talk about whatever he wants to talk about. And I'm like, hey, I don't know if I wouldn't do that if I was him.

That's all I'm saying. But I feel like there's still basketball involved in it. And the big one is he and Jason Tatum were on that team together for nine years. You don't get many pairings that are together as long as they have been. Plenty more have been more accomplished than them. But they've been consistently in the discussion for nine straight years. They're not an iconic duo, but they are an important duo. And boom, not as over.

Well, think about it, right? I mean, if you're going to go that route, which I'm happy to go with you, give me a decade-long duo off the top of your head. I'm thinking West Baylor. Yeah. Jordan Pippen, Stockton Malone, Dumas, Thomas. I mean, there aren't that many guys who hold together for an extended length of time like that. I mean, and I'm talking, I'm not talking guys on the same team for any length of time. Right. Like, I mean, obviously the big three Celtics stayed together for a link, but I'm talking these two guys who are clearly the front of, you know, of the organization, you know, of where the organization is going. I mean, there are very few, you probably can't name 10 in the history of sport. And that's a lot, considering how many great teams have been out there.

And the thing about it that has always been interesting to me ever since it started to go down was it reminds me of the great line, the Robert Altman movie and the player. The rumors are always true. You should know that by now. Right. So I think about this, all the stuff about, why are you guys tearing the Js apart? The Jays have been tearing apart probably since they started. Right.

And then they finally exploded in some ways. And I think it's been sort of fascinating. to sort of watch how it all plays out because my first initial reaction to all of this is that nobody has screwed this up more than the Boston Celtics. I mean, organizationally, in terms of especially if you are a true Celtic, you know, from growing up from the beginnings of it all, you know, the Celtics weren't supposed to act like this, right? I don't know why anybody would think that they were any different than any other organization,

but the whole thing with red and the loyalty and, you know, The same thing with the Yankees and all those other dynasties. And you look at them and you go, they're just cold-ass businessman. And Jalen Brown found out that they were just cold-ass businessman. And even worse for him was all of this idea that they are 1A and 1B. And they are in terms of what they've accomplished together. I have no quarrel with that. But the organization clearly made a decision about who was 1A and who was 1B,

regardless of what was produced on the court. And the one is the guy coming off the Achilles chair. Which is even wilder. That's the part that's interesting because the guy that you would think need to be watching his back right now is the dude that's coming up a little bit gimpy. No. Who has never been, who's never been in the bullseye. I mean, I don't think I've ever heard, like from a ratio standpoint,

it's got to be three or four to one in terms of trade rumors, Brown to Tatum. I've never heard Tatum in a trade room. Me neither. I only brought out the one because I thought I might have missed one. Right. I mean, but Jalen Brown essentially has always been the guy we were going to get rid of if we had to get rid of. And I don't know why you had to get rid of a guy you just signed for $305 million and now suddenly you can't afford him. You gave him that contract. So to me, I think what's been really difficult up here from a Bostonian, you know, standpoint. One, it's the devastation of familiarity. This is the, this generation's group. Like the, 10-year-olds who came into Celtic fandom, came in through Brown and Tatum, and now that's gone. The trading of him to Philadelphia is one of the most cynical moves I've ever seen in the history of watching sports.

I mean, to them, after they just beat you, and it's Philly? I mean, it's not like he left and decided to, like, pull a Ray Allen or a Roger Clemens and go to the Blue Jays and stay in the division or go to the Yankees. you know, although he got traded to the Yankees, but this was you actively, purposely traded a 29-year-old to the Philadelphia 76ers? I mean, that to me told me that this team is either completely out of touch with who the Celtics are in reputation, or they have completely immersed themselves in today's nihilistic sports era where it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. it doesn't matter if we trade you to the Lakers.

It doesn't matter if we trade you to the Knicks. It does. And there's a cynicism there that I found really distasteful. And also the fact that that cynicism works both ways, that even as quickly as it was done, suddenly it was like, yeah, man, and Brad we trust. And suddenly Jalen Brown didn't exist anymore. I was like, well, this is why you dumb fans always get taken.

Now, I want to put a pin in the Sixers thing, because I think there hasn't been nearly as much discussion about what they've got going, which I think is kind of fascinating. But is Tatum under any sort of clock, right? Like they've won the championship, obviously. However, they made the call that he's going to be the guy. And for whatever it's worth, he has not demonstrated himself to be a clearly demonstrable number one that takes you to a championship.

When they did win the championship, the guy that got those trophies in those two series was Jalen Brown. Even if you argued that Tatum were a better player, okay. But now, coming off in Achilles' chair, and they're, They've made the call. This is all you. And I've always thought that he was an excellent player. Don't get me wrong.

But who likes to take really difficult shots and that I just never quite felt was that trustworthy. And by the way, as a pairing, they got walled down a few times. They blown. If Jimmy Butler hits that three in Miami, late in game seven, I think it's 20, the EMA year. So I guess 2022, that's the most embarrassing conference finals loss that there has ever been. Their tenure has been weird.

And now Tatum, it's all you, big dog. Yeah. No, that's right. And in addition to that, it's a historical. When was the last time you put one guy distinctively ahead of all the other guys and won a championship? You either, there's only two ways to win a championship, in my opinion, going over NBA history, especially modern NBA history. one is you have to have two to three legitimate Hall of Famers. You got to have, I mean, Weston Baylor went to the finals eight times together and didn't win.

So I don't even count them. That's just a freak thing that they, you know, I don't know how the Lakers didn't beat the Celtics at least once during the years, right? At least once you're supposed to get one. That to me is an anomaly. But you either have to have Doc and Moses. you know, you've got to have Bird Parish and Mikhail and DJ, and they had Hall of Famers all over that roster. You know, you've got to have Isaiah and Dumas.

You've got to have, you need somebody else to carry it. You need a Pippin to your Jordan, right? Or the other way you win the championship is if you have this wonderfully anomalous ensemble cast, like the 04 Pistons, where you look and you go, where you've got just this wonderful group of everybody's either a Hall of Famer or Borderline Hall of Famer. They're all excellent, excellent players. 2026 New York Knicks. I was going to say, were this year's Knicks.

I mean, maybe it will show up that, I mean, if Jaylen Brunson retired today is he a Hall of Famer, it doesn't play long enough, right? But they're all great players. Just look at them and go, they pulled the ensemble cast, which doesn't happen very often. What the Celtics are trying to do right now, they're trying to. to do, which is kind of funny because you're just talking about, you know, Jason Tatum and his idol, Kobe Bryant. They're trying to do with 2010 Lakers, trying to do with 2009 Lakers, where you've got one and some borderlines. I think Paul Gassal is a Hall of Famer, but he's never, you weren't

going to win a championship with him as your only number one or Lamar Odom or Derek Fisher. Well, yeah, they had two Hall of Fame talent underachievers, Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynel, but you got just enough out of both of them. That's right. For that. year. Or they're going to try to, or they think they're going to do 77 trailblazers where you've got the one guy and everybody. But Jason Tatum is not Bill Walt in 1977. He's not, he's not that. Let's not get, you know, let's not lose ourselves in, in comparisons here. And you're right. I mean, I think that one of the hardest things about a Tatum as a player is his shot difficulty. I mean, his, when he first came in a league in several years up until the last couple, I mean, I've always

said that I've never seen a superstar player with a higher degree, average degree of difficulty, with an higher average degree of difficulty than Jason Tatum shot selection. I mean, maybe Dame comes close because he's shooting from 40 feet out all the time, but generally speaking, it's very, very difficult to win that way. And I think that you brought up a really great point when it comes to the Celtics that people don't necessarily want to acknowledge. for everything that you talk about what the Js have accomplished. And they did accomplish a ton. And they accomplished a ton because of the thing

that nobody really also likes to talk about in Boston because it gets a little touchy. And that is Boston's not a free agent destination. You have to build through trades and the draft. So if you're going to get these generational talents, you've got a hit on your number three picks or your number two picks or whatever, as they had done. And now they broke that up, you know,

They don't want to acknowledge that because it's like, here we go back into Boston as the most racist city in America conversation, which nobody ever wants to have. And it's tired anyway. But the bottom line is that people, you know, free agent players are like, okay, where do I want to choose to have my prime years? They don't pick Boston. They pick L.A. and they pick Miami and they pick the other places. But the other thing about that, the flip side, before I went on this little tangent, was they've failed spectacularly. They have had spectacular failures, right?

They were up two games to one in the final at home for a game four and didn't win another game. They just got beat 3-1 by a 7 seed after blew a 3-1 lead, right? They were down 3-0 to Miami as a 1 seed and lost to an 8 seed. And somehow, this list of spectacular failures does not really. really land on anybody's resume, including Joe Missoula, and including Brad Stevens. These are chokes. And does that one championship mitigate those massive failures? To me, they don't. You know, especially now that we know underneath that maybe part of the reason why it didn't work

was because of these two guys, and by the way, in my opinion, just in my opinion, just in my opinion, I think that, you know, you got these two guys who are trying to establish themselves, and they play somewhat similar games in terms of their, you know, they're both forwards in a lot, you know, whether we want to call them that or not. And in any other market that really, really cared about basketball, we would be mentioning that. It's like, yeah, you got one title, but you guys also had some really, really, really big, big failures. Yeah.

And the organization has not taken the weight for that. The players have taken some of the weight. Jalen Brown takes a ton of the weight, but everybody else isn't taking anything. Also, the weight that Jalen Brown takes, to be fair to him, he ain't become that guy for them until, like,

fifth year in the league, like 2021. You got to remember, you had Kyrie, you had Isaiah Thomas. Like, he was, he was, he was a piece until very recently. The reason that we elevate him in the way that he did is that he was 19 years old. as a rookie playing in game seven in the Easter conference finals and he had been a guy that was going out there and getting buckets for them. Yeah, and he put 50 on a game seven, on Philly in a game seven.

He did. He did. I mean, so, I mean, 100%. And I, you know, and I look at this and I'm looking at this. And I, and I think that it, to me, it's an understanding people type of thing, right? Do you understand how to handle people? I think that one of the reasons why I use the word cynical is because I, I look at, you know, there's still labor. And let's not forget that, you know, Brad Stevens is upstairs because he couldn't relate to those players. Yep. Does he know how to relate to these black players?

Does he know how to relate especially to someone like Jalen Brown, who's not just a black player? He's a black man. Like, he's a black male, like very much aware of... Capital B. He's still using the capital B. Exactly. He is hard on the capital B. They would have said, you know, if he was, if he was born,

in the 30s of the 40s said he's a race man. He's a race man, right? He's a race man. And good. And this is one of the things that, you know, when people talk about when you try to equate money with power, Jalen Brown has a ton of money, but then they showed him he didn't have a lot of power. Right. And I look at his situation, and every time I looked at his situation, I would be like, okay,

I'm not in that locker room. I don't know those guys. However, why do you keep telling me I'm second to anybody on this team? Why is it important to you? Why is it so important to you that I accept being second? I'm not second to anybody. I'm not second to anybody on this team. I'm not second to anybody in this league.

I mean, and we all say that that's the mentality that we want these athletes to have. And then when they have it, we go, oh, he's a malcontent. Right? He wasn't a malcontent. He's a proud professional athlete who wants to be a great player and wants to be seen as a great player. Now, if that runs counter to the organizational philosophy or the organization's view of itself, like, okay, Jason's up here, Jalen's down here, then that's on you. That's not on him. So we're expecting him to defer. Why would you expect that of somebody who you want to be maximizing his ability? And I think that's a piece when it comes to the understanding of people that I think that they really,

really missed out on. I mean, and it's true. And then of course, if you want to, you know, start throwing our business in the street, which I really just don't like doing, you know, of course, the behind the scenes conversations are, well, you know, it's colorism and it's its personality. And it's politics and they don't like an intelligent black man being as forceful as he is and all. And these are all the things that if they're not true, then you as an organization have a responsibility

to your player to debunk. Why did you let this guy's name get trashed like that? We spent three weeks talking about a guy who was being traded for being smart. you know, like, and to the point where his intelligence sort of became an insult. Like it was such an anomaly that there was an intelligent black guy out there. You know, assuming that's the reason he got traded. Assuming that, exactly, right? And it probably isn't. And if it's so, you know, but maybe it is. Maybe it's all of the things. But if you're simply going to say that the numbers are not in our favor,

then get ahead of it, Bill Chisholm, the minute you buy the team and say the numbers aren't in our favor. Because I do believe that the fans are the ones being screwed by this new CBA. You know, the players are being screwed only from the standpoint of loyalty if they want to stay with an organization. But they're going to make their money no matter where they go. The league is making its money because it's got cost control. The owners are making their money because their valuations go up. But the fans are the ones watching their teams get torn apart for no good reason. Look at where the Celtics are after winning a championship.

Two years after winning a championship. They're unrecognizable. Right. You know, and so if that's the issue, then why can't you just do what Joe Lacob said and was like, look, we can't keep this team together financially? Just come out and say that. And then we don't have all this palace intrigue. And now you don't have Jalen Brown with his feelings hurt.

And then you don't have Tatum in this corner having to say something about, you know, his running mate for the last decade. You don't have to do any of that. But they didn't do any of that. You know, they let their star player get his name trashed in the mud. And you know what it was really reminding me of. It was like, it reminded me of Nomar back in 2003 after they lost the Aaron Boone game to the Yankees and they immediately tried to trade him, you know, for Alex Rodriguez.

And then the trade didn't go through. I'm like, how are you going to mend this? Like I was thinking the whole time, I'm like, okay, what if these trades don't go through? How on earth are you going to mend this relationship with Jalen Brown? You've allowed him to be, you let Colin Cowherd destroy him. You know, you're letting all these anonymous sources destroy him. And you're not saying anything. Nobody's saying anything.

And that's where I'm like, all right, look, we all know it's a business. You're making $57 million a year. People are saying, man, just nut up and take your money. But there is a human element to this. And I think that for the first time I can remember in a long time, obviously the Isaiah Thomas thing was not great in terms of him getting hurt and then not getting his money. But this was a very, very cold way of handling it. And it didn't show a great deal of understanding of people,

especially this one specific particular individual in Jalen Brown. And now he's going to Philadelphia where there's only one ball, guys. There's only one ball. Well, that's what's interesting about that is that for a guy who wants to be a number one. Right. He's going to a place where he's in number three. I mean, not his choice. But how is his outside of playing 82 games of rage, right?

Which is going to be very difficult to sustain. But who knows? How logistically is he going to say? satisfy his desire to be seen the way he wants to be seen when he actually just went down in the depth chart. Like, Maxi's ball dominant, Embedes ball dominant, Brown is ball dominant. Well, well, hold on. And Vijay Edgecombe is there. And Edgecombe is coming. Like to me, if I'm the Sixers, the reason I'm not so inclined to make that deal is I've got a, I can feel like I got an all-star here in Edgecombe, right? I'm not creating.

in a situation that's going to get him fewer shots. But you just did. And you just did, right? You just did. On top of, and I get the idea, maybe you felt like you need another upper echelon guy because you don't, can't count on MB in any way whatsoever. It's probably a numbers thing.

It's like, all right, it's, you know, maybe you look at it this way. You know, this is a great way to completely, to continue to destroy whatever chemistry is happening in the 617 area code. That's helpful to us. secondarily Jalen Brown is a great player and you know philosophically whenever you have a chance to get a Hall of Fame level player you get them right we'll just make it work nothing right for nothing exactly right

we'll do that not that Paul George is nothing but 36 years old you know I get it um and then maybe also you look at it and you go okay we're going to get Embed for 45 to 65 games we're going to need to make up those points and we're going to need to make up those points closer to the basket. And when we get to the playoffs, we'll continue to evolve and figure it out.

And maybe they just look at it as when you have a lot of great players, that's a better problem to have than not wondering where our points are going to come from. Yeah. One thing I got no problem with on any player. We talked about Jalen Brown. The guy that wants to be number one, right?

Being a number two, no matter the job is a different job and a different experience than being number one. And some people like to be number two. And say, that's exactly it. Some people enjoy it. I did a television show once

that was, and not one of the shows that I did as my job. I'm talking about what I did in appearance on. And I was there once, and the person hosting was the number two on the show. The number one was out for whatever reason. And that person that was number two was very clear.

Yeah, I prefer riding shot gun, right? Like there's a certain measure of responsibility and stuff that happens. Like, for example, I don't think I'm at all talking out of school. When I do this show with Dominique, Dominique appreciates, okay, cool, you're going to bring the ball up? Straight. I'll take, you know, that's not bad. I can sit over here spot up and shoot. Okay, I would prefer to do that.

Jalen Brown liked how it felt to be number one. He liked how it felt coming into hell huddle and saying bring it in and everybody's around his hand. he enjoyed that and there's nothing wrong with that that's not anything anybody needs to apologize for especially after you already got your ring right and after you won 56 games without the you know when when the number one was out and everybody was like yeah this is just a throw a year it's a lottery year you know nobody and i don't care what anybody says right i mean i live out here and i'm going to talk to a ton of people nobody thought when jason taiton went down that it was like oh they'll just pick up the slack and win 56 games next year nobody thought that nope right so you guys

You got to give Jalen Brown his respect for that. He made last season worth watching. He was willing to do it and not everybody is willing to do it, right? You got to give him that. And also one other thing, Beau, sorry about this. One other thing about that too is think about the win-win, lose-lose on this, right? If they had, you know, imagine if Jalen Brown had been like, yeah, I'm really happy deferring. They would have been like, yeah, he's not hungry enough. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? It's like, so what is this really? What is this really all about? Too hungry, not hungry enough, right? Wants to be a number one, which I can't believe is a demerit, or two, can't be counted on to be a number one. So essentially what you were really saying is we've created our dynamic of what this basketball team looks like. And it is created within the framework where you can't maximize what you're, you think your potential is.

Yep. That's a hell of a message. Mm-hmm. And while doing this, we will try to trade you for Anthony Davis. We will try to trade you for Kevin Durant, who loves being, you know, he doesn't defer to anybody either.

Right. He's not a leader personality-wise, but you think Kevin Durant's not getting his shots as alpha? Right? I mean, while we're doing this, while we're winning, while we have a duo, by the way, that the fans love and that the organization is succeeding with,

we're going to keep trying to move you, not break up the duo, move you. Yeah, let me tell you this, though. There are questions about the basketball fit in Philadelphia for Jalen Brown. But, you know, you not just are a former resident of Philadelphia as a college student. You went to Temple. and I say all that to say Jalen Brown is a fit for Philly in the way

that I don't think white people understand. He's right where he belongs. It is a matter of time before Jailen Brown go with that freeway beard. Man, what up? His Aki ass is right exactly where he need to be, boy, because for those of you who don't understand this about Philly,

Philly is Muslim as all get out, right? Them brothers got the beards working at the bank. His hockey ass is going to be down there right at home. I am terrified at some of the things that he might be putting on Instagram. Notty, he's down there amongst his people. His people. Exactly, man. Go, go up to 50 second in walnut and take your photo with that Paul Robeson, your old. Do it, brother. Paul Robeson, wait till he's out here, waiting, sitting outside Malefia Santhe's house, right? My old professor. Yes,

he about to be kentayed all the way down. Notty, he's getting up there. Did I ever tell you my professor Asante's story? No. Temple University freshman year in 1987, an African-American studies class. And he read looking in it. He's looking at all these little black faces, smiling at him and everything. And he's like, how many of you can name 10 African countries? And a whole bunch of hands went up. He said, how many of you can name 10 sub-Saharan African countries and their continents. Silence.

He said, sub-Saharan, not South Africa. How many can you name? The joint was silent. You want to talk about just being embarrassed in the first day class. Embarrassed. And he's like, look at each.

He said, look at each other. You don't even know who you are. You don't know who you are. You know? And then he like made it worse by going, you know, pointing at the map and looking at Paris and looking at, you know, Greece and looking at London. He's like, oh, you know those off the top of your head, don't you? And everybody was like trying to just skulk out of there. Please don't point at me. Don't pick on me 100%. And that was, but that's the beauty of Philly, right?

That's Philly for you. Let me tell you my best Asante story I've ever heard. For those you who don't know who Malephii is, the intellectual, I don't even know the right term, but Afro-Centrism is a, that is Malephae Asante, right? That's right. He is the, can he invent that word? Yes, yes. I mean, I was saying, I'm not, I don't want, discipline is too broad, but like the notion of Afro-Centrism is Malefay Asante, right? And by the way, it's an interesting path he takes with those things.

But anyway, Sante took some students on a trip to Egypt because, of course he would, right? And so they on a boat and they all in the Nile. And as one might, Malefic got caught up by the majesty, majesty of the Nile River, right, with his people. They ain't Kim it. They ain't Nubia. You know what I'm saying?

And he got caught up and was like, ah, it's the Nile. And I don't know if he used his hand or he didn't use the cup, but he got some water out of the Nile. No. It took a swig of it. and got dysentery. They said that boy they said that man was fucked up

for the rest of the trip. I heard this story from a pretty close source. Right? Like, I don't know if it didn't happen, but I hope it did because that is hilarious. Even if it didn't happen, it happens.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even if it didn't, it's what might argue, it's a metaphor. It's a lot of different things, right? Mm-hmm. But that did happen. Coming up next,

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All right, we are back with Howard Bryant. We are in, I don't even want to say year three of the Caitlin Clark experience, because we're really in like year five of it. Yeah, we're in year five. We're in year three of the WNBA, Caitlin Clark experience. It didn't really become a thing to talk about more broadly

until that game with Angel Reese. and then it went farther and farther. But I will say this part. It kind of reached its apex once she reached the WNBA. These three years, the conversations are the same except dumber and worse. It's like nothing has changed. Yeah, nothing has changed. Nobody has moved off their square in any way it appears.

It's just become, like, as somebody who's just kind of not invested in the whole thing, It's really tough to watch. I kind of wanted to get involved in this. And then I did it for a little bit. And I was like, man, y'all can. Yeah, I don't want to be part of this. I don't want to play anymore. Yeah, it's interesting.

And I would argue that it hasn't not moved. I would argue that it's intensified because now you've got the federal government getting involved. No! Right? I mean, so essentially what you have here is to me, Caitlin Clark was always an avatar. Right. And the reason why the WNBA piece of it intensified was, was because the avatar, like it's a fascinating story, right? It's a really fascinating story

in terms of the perfect storm when you think of all of the different things that are coming in at once. And to me, when I think about the Caitlin Clark origins, I immediately go to Steph Curry, right? Steph Curry to me is a central character in all of this because all people have done for their entire lives on the, on the male side of this is shit all over women's sports, especially women's basketball. And why? Because it's not a vertical game. It's not an aerial game, right? I mean, they all look at it. I remember being at ESPN and in the green room, or one of our, you know, morning meetings before we did first take or whatever show it was. And people in the room were just laughing at the WNBA, just laughing where the, you know,

college basketball because, you know, they're like, oh, this looks like, you know, this looks like, you know, to 11th grade basketball, because it's not an air. burial game. How do we view basketball? We view basketball by black men leaping through the air, right? That's basketball. That's the basketball that we recognize. And then Steph Curry comes along and he makes it a horizontal game. Now it's accessible without leaping through the air. And now women have somebody who is playing a horizontal game, which reduces the necessity of having, you know, a slam dunk contest. And she, embodies that. And by embodying that, now the dudes who never had anything but ridicule for

women's basketball, now it's accessible to them. Now it's like, oh, this looks like something we can talk about. And then, of course, you know, could it be any, I don't know if it's great or worse fortune that she's from Iowa? Right. So now you've got, you know, you're trying to recreate, which can't be recreated, but you're trying to recreate your bird magic moment. You know, you're trying to recreate the black versus the white. And it was toxic back then. You know, I mean, I'm a Bostonian. I remember when Larry Bird came in. That whole great white hope stuff was real. You know, and the fact that it was Boston, you know, again, which was the place was still stinging from busing and a lot of racial strife. You know, it had been three, four, five years ever since, you know, the desegregation stuff.

So a white player coming into Boston, you know, resurrecting a team that had not been very good for the last couple of years and had been blamed back then that it was on the black players, the Bob McAdoo's and the Sydney Wixes and the Curtis Rose. They were, you know, there's a saying in Boston, you know, back then that the black of the team, the worst, the record. That you only, like, seriously, when you look at Celtic great teams, they always had, you know, kind of a 50-50. You know, you had Collins and Havlicek, but you had Russell and Sam Jones and, you know, you had Jojo and Charlie Scott, but you had balance. And then when you look at those

black teams, you know, that were overwhelmingly black, they weren't very good. And the reason for that was obviously Red knew what sold. But anyway, so now you've got Caitlin Clark, and she's the avatar for all of the people who don't like this sport or now feel like they can talk about it or deep down have always had something negative to say. And also, let's not forget, when you're walking into the culture of a sport, you know, or a job or whatever, you know, the culture changes you before you change the culture. But the expectation is that, you know, college, women's college basketball is essentially, you know, at least half and half. It's a white girl ponytail sport. But the WNBA is a black queer sport. That's the culture of that sport. And I think a lot of

people thought they were going to, you know, Caitlin Clark was going to come in there and change the culture and now make it accessible. And then, of course, the money that she's going to bring in as well, that everybody was going to be on board with that. But people aren't always on board when you try to change their culture, especially overnight. Well, and then then go ahead. I was going to go on. The thing about, I think it holds a little tighter with basketball, but I think it is kind of broadly applicable to all sports,

though the NFL throws it off because it has such a, like, hold over his players. The culture of, yeah, but the culture of college basketball is the culture of colleges. And I think that part of why people can lean in on women's college basketball, in a different way than women's professional basketball is that, right? It is a way to,

I love this school so much. I even be watching the girls. You know, like that's what it is. The culture of professional sports leagues are cultures that are determined by the players themselves. Baseball is so interesting

because there has always been this kind of overarching attempt to maintain the culture and it's actually players they try to police it in that way. But in the end, the culture is the players and the players

that try to keep the culture stat, I mean, the attempt to keep the culture, Static in baseball are still coming from the inside the house. It's still the players. The NFL is able to tell them boys what to do in a bit of a different way. But still, the culture really is the players. And the WMBA culture is the players.

And the players are not like the players anywhere else. And so now all these conservative type folks who like Caitlin Clark showed up to this new league and are like, I don't like anything that I'm looking at. Right. And by the way, it is not recognizable. It is not recognizable. and I would note that many, many of the people from that culture of that league, they don't like the new girl that much either.

That's the part that we're not. I don't think we're that sincere. That's the part people who don't want to accept. Yeah, like don't get me wrong. Yes, new players always get tossed around. There's always some measure of this and that. But no, no, no, no, no. Just as Kate LaClock is an avatar to the people who like her.

She is also an avatar for a bunch of the people who don't like her. And then it all comes together to the point where you got Congress. people talking about we're going to get a DOJ in a time where all these people are trying to get rid of all investigations of discrimination. This is the one that they want to care about, is the idea that Caitlin Clark is being discriminated against by the mean black girls or the WMBA. And that Caitlin Clark is so fragile. Yes. And so important that she needs to be protected from a black girl putting a moving screen on her. Can you imagine how embarrassing that is for her?

And I imagine it is, right? It has to be. It has to be. You can't, you know, you can't handle this. This is Neiman's mama coming in and making Bodey give her boy a package. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And on top of that, when you're looking at the, you know, the dynamic of, okay, the league,

there's also one other thing here that we're not even, discussing, which is whenever you're new, you got to prove you can play. Yep. And she's shooting 32% from three. Yeah. Right? She's shooting 42% from the field. Are you that good? Are you, maybe are you a college phenomenon? Maybe you need to put on 10, 15 pounds of muscle so you can handle the pounding of being around grown women, playing basketball. And the idea that all of this is happening at a time, and I would add to you, the DOJ investigations also include making sure we protect the Christian white males from Pride Night. That's the other one, right? So we know that Caitlin Clark has been enlisted in this culture war. Whether she has asked to be enlisted or not,

it is now going to be incumbent upon her to decide how she wants to play it, because now they're using you as a pawn. And if you don't want to be a pawn, you've got to speak up. And if you don't, people are going to say, okay, well, you ride with this because they put your name on it, didn't do anything about it. But see, that's one of the interesting things is people are like, when did she go denounce the racism? Dude, she's done it like four or five times. It's just never lying. It could never be loud enough because those other people are so much louder. That's right. Well, but once again, denouncing, denouncing racism is very different from being accepted in her work culture. Yeah. And I argue that this is not a racial question.

I think people don't like her. I think she plays, she plays a game. It's almost like a little bit of hocus pocus, right? That she's a popular player, but not a particularly likable player because of her on court behavior, right? Like, how are you going to go out there

and make a whole bunch of threes and stick your tongue out and get up in people's faces and then cry about every trip down court? Yeah. You're either in it or you're not in it. Right? I mean, can you have it both ways? Can you look and scream at the ref?

That's a foul every time you have the ball, right? And then when you make a shot, like mean mug in somebody's face and not handle it, I mean, are you tough or are you not tough? Which one is it? Well, and I think a question this is coming down too. What if those players are fundamentally correct? And she's not that good. Exactly.

Like what if they keep trying to argue with you about what this is, But what it maybe comes down to is, what if maybe she's just not that good and they know it? And what if there's one other thing to that, right? Which I think is going to be interesting to her from a basketball standpoint. What if your best skill is actually passing the ball? Because she's an excellent passer. Like, what if the 30 footers is not really your game? I mean, you can make them, but not at anywhere near a high enough percentage that that's your A game.

maybe you are a really, really good point guard who gets other people involved and your game is not, you know, your game is not the A game. But, you know, I think that the tough part for her is that she is now, she is the polarizing one either way. And let's not forget the number of, you know, of black men and, you know, some of them being in, you know, ex-NBA players who really did place on her like, oh my God, if you, you know, if you breathe in her, you're fumbling the bag, right? This whole idea that these black women were, were actively trying to destroy not just her, but the league's financial future. I mean, she's not wrapped in, you know, and she's not in bubble wrap.

You know what I mean? Like, you got it will go out and play. That was also proof that those guys don't take this league seriously. Yeah. Right? Like, if you, they take basketball seriously in their own world. At no point. And complain the whole time that you couldn't breathe on Michael Jordan.

Yeah, yeah. But I say at no point where they're going to be like, yo, I don't even be foul on LeBron, man. I'm trying to get this money. No, no, they never would say that about the league, about something that they participated in. You say that when you believe that the only purpose for anything that you don't care about is to make money.

That's right. And that it's the only way for it to be compelling, is that for it to be somehow inauthentic. Rassling. Mm-hmm. No, that's right. That's right. And all of it is, to me at least, how much of the responsibility, like, where does the responsibility lie? If you're Caitlin Clark, do you just sit there and go, all right? I mean, she does have bigger problems, right? She has bigger issues, which is establishing herself as a reliable, great player in the league and not Tim Tebow, who's a huge name that when you started to really break down the analytics, wasn't that. good. Now, hold on to be fair, you ain't need no analytics to break it down on Tim T. You could just watch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I say, let, let, let be, let be feel. Mm-hmm. Was not that good. And there's plenty of people out there like that. The phenomenon

does not, the game does not measure up to the phenomenon. And Caitlin Clark is 100% a very good upper-level NBA player. There's no question about that. But, you know, my concern when I watch this and I watch, you know, it's how the sport is also sold. And this whole idea, like we're in an era right now, as much as people love to sit there and talk about, oh, yeah, let's go back to the 80s, you know, when basketball was basketball. You know, there's our social media digestion of these leagues and people crashing out at concerts and in public punching each other out, you see it in the game. like it really is emphasized like toughness is not toughness as much as it is sort of this weird

sort of fight club thing right and I just don't ever remember I mean obviously you remember the pistons and the Knicks and the Celtics and all those guys sort of going at each of but I don't I don't remember those years fondly for that element of it I was like this is fucked up I mean watching these guys fight basketball remember when basketball was supposed to be the non-contact sport? Right. Right? This is not that.

And like there's this sort of attitude like, okay, if every WNBA game is like on the verge of a brawl, like that's not something that the league wants to have either. Yeah. Now this is one day, one day this conversation will progress. One day. Can I ask you one last question about this though? What do you think about the Larry Bird comp? because one of the comps that I've always made on this

is that they tried to rope Bird into that Great White Hope stuff. He wasn't going for it. He wasn't going for it. He wasn't going for it. I mean, I think the first deviation from the Byrd thing is very important. I was actually looking at this this morning for unrelated reasons. Nine years in the league off the rip, Larry Bird was a top four MVP vote getter.

I think there was one four. and one three, three ones, and the rest were twos. And that's right. Like immediately and continuously, he was that guy. But I think an important difference between Byrd and Clark is that white politics weren't nearly as polarized at that time. And that was during Reagan. Right.

But like seeing a guy like Larry Bird, you didn't necessarily know if he was a Democrat or Republican. He might not have necessarily been a liberal. But there's a whole different world. I guess he's from Indiana, so maybe he'd be a little bit differently. But that guy right there could have worked at some factory in Indiana or somewhere like that in Illinois. And yeah, right. And this could have gone in either direction.

So it was not nearly as easy for people to pull him to one side if they had wanted to. But if they had, Byrd wasn't going for that. That's right. Bird wasn't going for that at all. The other part, too, Caitlin Clark seems to have an inclination to be kind of all things to all people. because she's in the era of athlete as pitch person. That's right. Larry Byrd was trying to destroy those Negroes.

Every one of them that he came across, right? Like, Caitlin Clark is not going to talk so much shit to Dr. Jay to Dr. Jay and Moses Malone and Charles Barkley come and beat him up, right? Like, that's 42 to 6. Maybe you should retire. Yes. 42 to 6. Time for you to retire.

Yeah, yeah, like that sort of thing. And it's interesting because I think Byrd then became more endearing because of his willingness to be that guy. He had to black folks out there. Terrified. Like, he earned it. He had to play. He was Jerry West. He had a play. The thing I loved about Byrd, and it was very, very difficult being a Celtics fan growing up during that time because everyone, you know, white people kept pushing all that racism in your face, right? They would say things. I remember being in high school and they would say things like, well, you know, yeah, and I would say to them, I would say, how do you watch the NBA and feel the way you feel about black people? It's an 80% league. And they would say, remember,

one player of my, you know, team out of my basketball team said this. It may be an 80% league, but the best player's white. You know, good, good thing we don't have any identity politics going on here, right? I mean, so the thing that I really respected about Byrd was that he was like, look, I want to prove I can play here. Right? And from a marketing standpoint, you know, we're in a very, very hostile time period. And I think it's important. And I don't know if she's getting this sort of advice or not or media training or whatever, but I don't think you can walk away from how nasty the world is right now. Yeah. I don't think you can just sort of dance away from that. And you are being used. Caitlin Clark is being used right now. And I don't think you can be neutral.

Larry Bird got up to you, you made the best point on this. Larry Bird got, you know, he got away with this without ever getting into his politics. You never looked at Byrd and go, oh yeah, you know, he was a social activist. He played ball. He wanted the respective of the league. He wanted the respect of his teammates. He wanted to win. And Caitlin Clark is being positioned as being above it or needing protection from it. And I don't know how long you can be silent when you're being positioned like that. Maybe you just figure, I'm just going to go do my thing. But I wonder, in today's world if it plays, if that, if that, if that is the best path for survival and success. And don't nobody, whether you should or shouldn't, hey man, go tell the people that apparently

love you the most that they tripping. Mm-hmm. Hey, nobody gets rich like that. That's right. No, that's right. And it's not, it's not fair to her, just like it wasn't fair to bird when he had to go through his stuff with Isaiah and Rodman after 87 because they got beat. But he didn't, he didn't go for it.

Yeah. You know, and that is how you gain the respective people around you. And you don't get the respective, you know, once again, the culture changes you before you change the culture. And I think that a lot of people, let's also not forget, we didn't talk about this, but also let's not forget that before Caitlin Clark came into the league, these women were out here caping for Raphael Warnock. And they were political.

After Caitlin Clark came in the league, they're silent. and the reason why they're silent is because of this idea that she represents money that that league has never had. That in of itself is a massive cultural shift of that league in just five years. That's no small thing. Hey man, Howard Bryant. I got it right here. Hold on. Let me make sure everybody get a look at it. Kangs and pawns. Kings and pawns if you're more articulate than yourself. still available at all fine bulls bookstores, a master class of book writing.

I believe you guys should check this out if you have not. My brother, I appreciate you. Thank you. My pleasure. All right, man, and ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on The Right Time. We do this a few times a week during the summer. Ryan Brumley handed things behind the scenes. Thank you, sir.

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