The Ringer NBA Show - Do League Rules Hamstring Defenders? Plus, James Harden Trade Rumors. | Real Ones

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

You can always count on Raja to give you 25 minutes on why a hard foul is not a dirty play—it’s the gift that keeps on giving. Logan and Raja discuss the play that earned Grayson Allen a one-game suspension without pay and sent Caruso to the X-ray machine with a broken wrist (0:30). Then they discuss the smoke plumes rising from Barclays Center as rumors of a James Harden trade heat up around the upcoming trade deadline (26:50) and each award their Real One of the Week (42:30). Hosts: Logan Murdock and Raja Bell Associate Producer: Sasha Ashall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, I'm Juliet Littman. And I am Joe House. Welcome to Ringer Food, the ringer's new hub for all your food-related content. You may have known this feed as House of Carbs, and don't worry, that's not totally going away. We will be launching two new shows on the feed, and the first is Food News with me and David Chacobi. You may remember us from our days at Grantland while Jacoby and I are back to go over the news, sample snacks, share some personal tales of food news, some global tales of food news. knows what else is to come. And House, what are you going to be doing? Oh, my taste buds, my hungry homies, my culinary comrades. We are back. We've done it here to tell you that we are

reigniting House of Carms with a whole new slate of tasty episodes throughout the year. We are starting with a football fracas, a gridiron gobble fest. We're doing NFL playoff potluck featuring taste tests of the iconic food item or items of every playoff city to determine which city reigns supreme. Ringer Food is starting up this Wednesday, January 12th. That's so soon. So be sure to subscribe on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. What's popping? Real ones. Logan Murdoch here.

Roger Bill there. It's good to be back, Logan. It's good to be back, bud. It's good to be back. It's good to have you back, man. It's good to see your face. It's good to see. And I appreciate that.

Now, we got in the pre-pod meter, Doug, and, you know, we're going over topics and stuff. And there was something that you really had your mind on to start this. It was a hard foul from Grayson Allen on Alice Caruso, a friend of Jemey. And you were saying, you've been about this. And I know you don't like going down this route when it comes to referees. But you had some shit on your mind. You had to go. I want to give you the floor is yours, because I have some takes that you have,

but I want to hear what you got to say. What's going on? What do you have? Well, I mean, it's less about referees and more about kind of the state of the way basketball is played. It sucks that Alex Caruso is hurt, and I feel awful for him. I feel awful for the Bulls. I'd feel bad for anybody who got injured like that and would have to miss extensive period of time. But I also think, like, and when you're playing a sport like that,

there are some things that are just, you know, inherent risks. And anyone coming at the rim full speed, if you played, you know, going off of one foot, you put yourself in a precarious situation. Because any little hit, and I've been on the receiving end of this, causes you to lose balance, your feet get out in front of your body, and you're falling backwards hard. Now, as far as the actual play is concerned, As a defender, I'm not letting you don't for them.

Now, the play, what happened was the Crusoe went up for a layup. Grayson read him at the room. I think we have a different take on what happened, but... There are multiple parts to this. Let me just... At the end of the day, he fractured his wrist. At the end of the day, Crucible fractured. Go ahead.

Again, I feel awful for that. Yeah. Now, let's just start with your coming down the lane trying to dunk on me. And I am there trying to win a game going off a two feet. I'm in a more stable position and you're launching yourself with one arm. Grayson Allen went for the ball initially, initially didn't get it, got his arm, right? That in and of itself is going to make you fall the way Alex Caruso did. Grayson Allen then did extra, and that's why he's suspended, by following through with the other arm to make sure he didn't get the ball up.

I'm not saying that that's okay. I'm not saying that I don't think Grayson Allen should be suspended. But what I'm saying is the initial foul of you're in the air going up strong, one leg, one hand, if someone comes through there and tries to block that shot or not allow you to make that layup, and it causes that off-balance bad fall that can have, I broke my wrist doing that, they can have real injury ramifications. I don't see that as an inherently dirty play. Now, Grayson Allen's play, specifically the second part of the play with which he followed

through with the other arm. And his history suggests that there was some dirtiness to the end of that. But I'm talking about that play in the larger scope, not that play particularly. That's not a dirty basketball play when someone comes through the lane on one foot trying to dunk on you. It's my job, my paycheck. I'm not trying to get dunked on. I'm going up to block it and I get your arm and you fall down. That's not dirty. So I go back and forth on this, right? Because I'd imagine what you grew up in, you grew up in the 80s era where they were,

you know, they were foul fools and there were hard fouls and that's what they was, right? It was hard fouls. I grew up in the 90s where, you know,

we had Chris Herring on the other, the other week and we're talking about the Knicks. And, you know, how that, you know, how that style of basketball, you know,

you could also talk about Detroit Pistons. I think the spirit of it is, I understand why, people play hard and do all those things and they do that. But I also see the other side from a league perspective not wanting to get guys hurt. And I think you brought up a good point with Grayson Allen in terms of reputation. Because I think, because I looked at the play before we got on, and I think that was a reputation.

That was more of a reputation foul or a reputation call. We talked about another instance that happened. very recently with Boogie Cousins and him getting ejected. Now, I looked at that this morning, but we can go back into that. That was definitely a reputation called with Boogie. It was just that there was no way he should have gotten to tech. But how do you balance that where all you have is your rep as Grayson Allen or Boogie Cousins? And how do you balance that as a referee?

What would you want to see as a player or as a former player or as someone that watches the game, more than anybody that loves the game, what would you want to see from that, Rob? I think that Grace and Allen under the rules now with the flagrance, the levels of flagrants, the ability to go back and look at it, and what I've seen in other games be deemed to flagrant too, he does have to get ejected on that play. Yeah. Right? I'm not saying that he doesn't have to be ejected. I don't think the rest necessarily got that wrong. I'm not even saying that the league shouldn't have suspended him for the two games. They often, they often go ahead and levy fines based on their perceived intent.

So that's nothing new for me. It's happened to me. I'm simply saying overall picture, I don't believe that we should take the game to a place where you can't challenge someone trying to dunk on you for fear that they're going to be hurt. It renders the defender absolutely like helpless in that scenario. So that's all I'm saying about that. The boogie situation is unfortunate.

Because he can't win. No, he should have been teched. I mean, he should have been tech. Like, you take the ball, you slam it on the floor, you do that. Like, you should have been teched. I do believe you should have been tech. But I've seen the refs and the way they deal with Boogie. And there is just zero, zero room for him to be demonstrative in any way, shape, or form.

And I've always said this about refs. I don't understand why it can't be consistent in that regard. I don't understand why let's just throw a name out there Devin Booker let's say I like D-Book I'm just using his name because I saw them play last night

why he would be allowed to vent and be more demonstrative just because he doesn't have a track record that doesn't make sense to me it doesn't make sense to me like if you're not going to let it doesn't make sense to me like if you're if Boogie's going to slam a ball

and get a tech then when Devin Booker slams a ball he gets a tech cut and dry I would like to see officials to the best of their ability, take their emotions and their preconceived notions and predetermined, like, idea of who a player is and how he's going to react out of the equation, right? And start with a blank slate every night. I always appreciated that as a player, you know, as one who had a reputation himself that was hard to live down when dealing with the league. I always thought it was really unfair. And it's always going to have a, it's always going to have a sore spot with me. It's okay. It is what it is. But I've told this story before. There was a play in Toronto where I got knocked down, like ran over, like a train, Andrea Bargiani, huge. Ooh, oh, boom, ran me over. And so I slammed. Was it a screen or was it?

What is it? No. He was running the lane like big men should do. Hope any of my big men that play for me, listen to this. But he saw something in front of him that was little. It was me. And he was going to bury me under the rim. So I decided to catch him at the free throw line and just stand in front of him, right? Try to take a charge.

So he ran me over. But it put me in a situation where I fell down on my back. he's kind of over me and my feet kind of come up into the air. So the next morning we get home, I get a call around 12 as I'm getting up to go in for shoot around or whatever. And it's the league saying that I tried to kick Andrea Barney and his balls. And I'm like, what? I'm like, what are you talking about?

And they're like, yeah, there was a play at X, Y, and Z minute of said quarter. And it appears that you tried to kick Andrea. I said, well, what did Andrea say? And they said, Andrea said, you did it. I said, well, I did it. And if I wanted to kick him in his balls, I would have kicked him his balls. I was like, I didn't kick him. Well, we'll have to, we'll have to dig into this a little further.

So 45 minutes later, they call him suspend me. I mean, that's a lot of bread for me, right? It's suspended. And the explanation was, we couldn't be sure that you did not try to kick him. And so, therefore, you're going to be suspended. And so fast forward to that playoff run, Bruce Bowen, as Amari Stademeyer goes by him, in our opinion, as a son's team, tried to kick Amari's heel out from under him to stop him from laying it up. Clear his day on film.

They chose not to suspend Bruce, and their explanation for that was, we couldn't be 100% sure that he did try to kick Amari Stademeyer. And so for that reason, we cannot suspend Bruce Bowen. Like, you tell me, you tell me how that makes sense. So as a guy with a reputation, I would always hope that you just judge people from night to night and not carry that over all the time. Did you get the feeling that, and I'm asking this,

because I do feel like this, that these two players that we just reference Boogie and Grayson, you know, they're, I don't know, I don't know how to say this, right?

Because on one hand, you call targeting, on another hand, like, dude, Grayson Allen has a rent for a reason all the way back to college. Sure.

Boogie has been through his shit for a long time, right? Mm-hmm. So I don't want to all, all the way, say targeting. But when you build a reputation that happens, my question to you, though,

Ra, is when you see guys like this and when you see that, It brings you back to your career. Do you feel like when you were at the peak of your career and you were in the week of your career, you may have gotten, you had the feeling that some players were just treated better

just because of who they were and what they, and what team they might have played for or how they did it. And how do you navigate that as a player if you're a journeyman like Boogie or Grayson Allen? And honestly, they're just trying to get paid right now. Boogie's on 10 days.

And Grayson isn't, Grayson isn't a superstar caliber player that's just set for the rest of his life, right? So how do you, how did you feel during that time? And like, how do they, how do they mitigate that? How do they go through that? And they're just, at these point, these two guys are just trying to get checks. So how do you, how do you do that? Well, number one, you have a Players Association.

So you do whatever you can and you take whatever legal channels you can to get to, to try to appeal and get whatever part of that bread you could get back, right? whatever's at your disposal to do legally. You never really worry. I didn't worry about that. That wasn't something that I wore on my sleeve coming in from game to game. I wasn't going into games, worrying about whether or not my reputation was preceding me. And if I was going to be refed, you know, one way or another, like, you can't worry about that.

You have a job to do. You go out there and you focus on your job. And then, but every now and again, there will be some sort of judgment or you'll get the short end of the stick on whether or not you get the tech and stuff like that that'll bring you back to reality that yes you are judged like that and you're not going to be able to get away with it um but you can i mean there's nothing you can do logan and you can't and you can't really worry about it and while both of those guys have reputations and i'm not i'm not a i'm not a defender of grace and allen i don't i don't mean to be but i think both things can be true like he he can have a reputation for good reason and have made like a

a dirty secondary play on that play. And the first part of that play that I'm referencing still not be dirty, which is I'm not letting you dunk on me when you come through here with one leg. And you'll never get me to say that's dirty for Grayson or anyone else. If you come in here off of one leg trying to pipe on me

and I'm going for the ball. And I athletically just can't get it and I wind up on your forearm. And you fall. That's not dirty. You've taken that risk. You've launched yourself. The game is the game.

It is what it is. And I feel terrible, you know, again, like for Alice Crusoe. Like, I'm not, but it is the game. Like, again, it's happened to me. Like, what I look like trying to dunk on you, like, you get my forearm when I try to bang on you. And I come down and land on my wrist, bro. Like, hey, bro. Yeah, it's funny because you ask somebody, like, it's funny.

There's still OGs around the league, you know, there's always going to be OGs around the league. And when I see people a little older to me, I always make sure I peep game and they always talk about like how the league is getting soft, right, how it's getting softer and softer, you know, every year. And I think there's some truth to that for sure. I mean, I don't, I don't discount it. Even during my time covering a league, there's always a rule to make sure you have, you know, the offensive player gets all the love and, you know, they get a clean look.

There's no hand checking. There's all these things. And you get these, you know I'm going off on a tangent here and you get these high-scoring games that quite honestly are pretty boring. People like the theater of basketball. They like, people like hard fouls. I don't know if, I don't think, I don't know if people realize that from a consumer perspective, but like, yo, people like hard fouls. They like hard-nosed games. But my question, when did you see a change? When did you start seeing things? Because it was a gradual change from the 80s to the 90s to the 2000s to now. Like, when did you see your iteration of that change? And you? You know,

changed to where it's like, oh, I don't know if we can have, these are too hard fouls. This is too much for the game. I don't know that I have an exact moment in time. I think when the generation, when I left the league, there were still guys in that were subscribing to like no layups. If we cannot allow them to lay it up, we're not going to allow it up. You know, you have your Kevin Garnett's at a world, even, you know, chanting fries, Dudes that were, you know, even names that you wouldn't ordinarily think of that were not going to just let you come in there and lay it in their face and take it out of the, take it out of the net.

You had the Tony Allen's of the world defensively, you know, that were they were getting down. And I don't know, man, when that generation kind of phased out with all the offense that came in, it did become. But okay, when I really, really knew something had changed, is when I started watching more youth basketball as I transitioned in my post. Yeah. Post-N-B-A kind of life. And I started watching these elite camps. And, you know, my sons would show me when they were younger. And it'd be the best two players in said class at this camp.

And they'd be going at it. And I'd be watching, and it would be all offense. And what the game would devolve into at these camps, which I could never understand because everyone at the camp is paid to be there. But what it's devolved into now is, Logan gets the ball and he gets to try to cook Raja because Logan's number one in the class and Raja's number two in the class.

Boom, ball goes through the net. No one else touches it. Now Raja comes down and he just tries the ISO and cook Logan. None of them, no one's playing any defense. No one else is touching the ball. And that's just what this is going to be. And so at that point I said, oh, okay, like that is, that's it, right?

We're just, you know, the game has changed in that regard. And I'm going to take it a step further. And I know this isn't a football pod, but if you see seven-on-seven, and this is what really bugs me out because my kids play seven-on-seven football. These kids get what they call like moster blurred now,

and like someone will catch a touchdown pass on them. You know, you did your job as a corner or whatever, and the kid made a good play. And now the entire opposing team will run over, throw their hands in the air around you, and start like dancing over you. Hey, but no one fights. No one fights, Logan.

No one fights. And so I said that my sons, I'm like, yo, if that happened to me, I will punch his ass right in the mouth. And both of my sons were like, oh, dad, oh, no, man, nobody does that. And I said, well, I tell you like this, if it happens to one of y'all and you don't fight his ass, you won't have to fight me. So just know that. Hey, check this out, man.

I'm saying this because I'm aligned with you. Yeah, I'm just saying this because I'm, I'm, I'm, you're speaking to the guy. Yeah, no, I, listen. But what I, because you do bring up an interesting point though, which is the, when you bring up the youth sports, a lot of these guys are commodities now versus like at such an early age. They're getting, we're talking about offline about kids getting, you know, offers at like 12, 13, bro.

Like I don't even, we know regular 12, 13 year olds. They ain't really like they're not, they don't know what the fuck is. going on. They don't know. They don't have a even general understanding of what they want to

do in life. You feel me? But I say, all that to say, like, when they are commodities at such

a young age, you have, what you got to do? You got to protect that bag, right? So that means, and you're, like,

you know, you got the, you got the, overtime and you got the, the, all these other, you got, back when I was growing up, it was a area's finest.

You got all these people trying to now make money off of youth athletes. And what does that mean, Ra? That means, you know, what's better to get views on YouTube? It's this one-on-one matchup. That's what we've seen.

We've seen Lamello Ball since he was 14 years old. What do we see all those times? It wasn't no fundamentals. It was like, no, bro, I'm going to pull up from half court. Right. And then I'm going to look at your face and I'm going to laugh at you. But, you know, what we don't hear about is that, you know, his team didn't win the state title. But that's another thing.

But what I'm saying, though, is when you have these guys that are being commodities at such a young age, the other side of it is, one, you don't know the fundamentals. And two men, you've got to get mental toughness on the floor. And that means getting your shit blocked, playing a team game, and doing all the things. I think fundamentals and all that stuff has eroded as a result. And I know we want on a big tangent, but that's kind of where that's gotten me. it has 1,000% and just to piggyback off of it, social media

has definitely changed the landscape of sport. You know, we were in a gym last night playing the team and one of my kids, you know, kids are scared to play defense now. They're stared to strap up and get up and guard the shit out of their man. You know why they're afraid to do it? They're afraid to get embarrassed.

They don't want to get crossed. Right? And my conversation with my kids every night is, man, that's great. What are you doing, man? And, like, everyone who ever strapped up and played Real D got crossed. There's no shame in that. Like, you got to get up and guard.

But they're afraid to get crossed. My Jordan got crossed. Got dunked on. Yeah. So last night, like, we're guarding, you know, kid gets crossed. Whole gym. Ooh, the kid bricks the shot. I'm like, bro, the kid's looking at me.

I'm like, my man, play ball. Don't worry about that. They're afraid to get dunked on, right? Like, there's all of that. And the other part that really that's lost me. And I had this conversation with people the other day because a kid came out of a game. his mom, our team beat them. His mom came over to me asking about coaching

and whether the kid could come over and stuff like that and the kid was crying and, you know, a dad came over and told him, hey, man, don't worry about that, man. You don't need to be, you know, we got another one. There's too many games. It's desensitized kids to winning. The winning isn't important. It's about the stats.

So I see all these kids posting all their stats. I had 25. Well, did you win? No, I didn't. Oh, okay. Like, don't post no damn stat line if you didn't win the fucking game. Like, nobody cares that you had 23 if your team got drilled by 35. But it's desensitized kids to what's really important, which is the competition, you know. Look, I get that when you're a commodity, you want to be out there.

You want your views. You don't want somebody up under your feet. You don't want somebody being physical and guarding you. But me as the other guy on the other end of that, I don't have no views. Nobody's following me. I want a scholarship. My job is to come out here and be tough as nails if I can be and make your job really hard. And if you don't respect that, you ain't built like you think you are.

Yeah. No, and I think that especially like we've just anointed people just way too soon in general, right? And that comes with, you know, as we're trying to now have this high school, high schooler now, high schoolers now are pros, at least in the NBA, right? And I don't mean in the game-wise, but like I know more about high school players than I do some bench players on the team. You get what I'm saying? For sure. And they come in the NBA and get humbled, Ra.

They get humbled, dude. You know, and I just, we're in this, this error of just instant gratification. And there's no more like, yo, man, there's no more paying your dues. It doesn't seem like, right? Because everybody's like, oh, we need this guy. He's the next one. This kid is the next one. This kid.

There's always the next one. And sometimes it's like, yo, man, there's roles on a team. You ain't got to be the franchise savior, dog. Just go play some defense. We don't have that anymore. We don't. And I think that in a roundabout way takes out the toughness in the league because everybody is getting, like you said, they're dubs.

We don't know. We don't care about losing no more. We don't care about what that is. We don't care about the lessons you get from losing. It's like, ah, now I'm going to take you off the team. We're going to go to this other team. Yeah, no, competition is, is something that we are losing. we are losing our grassbone.

I spoke to a guy yesterday, you know, a really good coach and a really good program. And he said something like, yo, man, I really enjoyed watching you play. And I say, hey, man, all I could do was compete, man. And he said to me, man, at the end of the day, that's all you got. And that rang true with me. It's the way I've, you know, it's what it is. Like my son went in a basketball game last night, high level three division one kids on the other team. Like he's playing varsity.

for me just because he has to, like out of necessity. And I threw him in the game and he missed an assignment. And I called him over. I said, yo, my man, I said, you're in there for one reason. That's to give your body up and take that damn charge. If you can't handle that, then I got to get you out of the game. And that's my own son because that was his role last night. And if you can't embrace that, I firmly believe you shouldn't be in the game.

Because that's what you can do to help us compete. And we've lost sight of that, the competition part. You know, and this, it's good that we got here because as it pertains to what we originally started talking about, the Alex Caruso foul or Grayson Allen, was the foul, was the extra part of the foul dirty? I'm not going to argue with you. Yes, he shouldn't have followed through with that secondhand. But the original part, which is you're not going to dunk on me, and I'm going to challenge that is competition, man. And it's unfortunate that the injury happened, but you can't be cool with getting dunked on. No, and I think there's this, you see this now. We talk about how we watch NBA games now where just dudes just go free through the lane. Just free through the lane. Like, where it's, I'm just saying from a viewing experience,

that's not fun to watch. Then we're the Harlem Globetrotters at that point. Why are we, like, what are we doing? That's what I'm saying. And then it's, that's, I think, the biggest frustrating part for me is that we're so quick tech. Just these petty finds, you cursed in an interview. you did all these things.

It's like, yo, man. Like, it's, it's just, it's, and at the end of the day, it's entertainment. So you don't want to water down your entertainment,

man. It's all, I think that's all, it's all I'm saying. I think that's what we're both getting to, right? Is because, man,

he got a broken wrist. That sucks for Caruso. It really does suck. It really does suck for Caruso. But like, I'm also tired of seeing people to just dunking and people just looking at, just from a basketball looking perspective.

If I was a fan of a team and I constantly seen dudes just, just dunking all over my my my by the dude i watch playing and you know we we talk about the fan stuff and things like that but no from a sheer perspective you want to see competitive basketball you want to see competitiveness you want to see that you want to see if somebody goes around your kid and does the little circle circle you want to see your kid be like no fuck you no you no you ain't gonna do me like that no hell no that should bother you losing should hurt it's what i told that kid It should hurt you, bro. Don't let that man tell you it shouldn't hurt you.

It should hurt you. Great life lessons here. But I get what you're saying. Let's take a quick break. I want to talk about, I want to go back east. Talk about some stuff back east. All right, Ra, we are back. I wanted to talk about the Brooklyn Nets.

So I'm going to go see on Saturday, actually, there in the Bay Area. So get to see Steve, get to, you know, kind of just get to see Steve Nass, kind of just check them to get them on the pod. There we go. Hashtag, hashtag, get Steve. Steve Nash with a pod. Hashtag real one, Steve Nash. I don't know.

Anyway, one of the, since Brooklyn's coming, it got me thinking, you know, I'm reading a lot more about Brooklyn and just seeing his overall their space. And there's a, there's some smoke over there in Brooklyn, man. Um, specifically not with who you think it is, not with Kev, not with Kyrie. But with the guy that I feel like it's forgotten on that roster, James Hardin, you know, there have been some rumors about, you know, him and the six. Sixers. And I just, it's something that I've been hearing for months now, just for months.

I got to say, like, it's just like, at least just there's an infatuation between him and Darrylmore is, I guess, what I can say about that, right? And I think there's frustrations, you know, and this is just something in general. There's just frustrations with that team for everything that we've talked about throughout the season. But, man, how do you feel if you're James Hardin on this team where, again, again, you're, Again, it's like you come over, you're going to, hey, you come to a team where there's a KD, there's a KRI, and you're James Harden, an MVP candidate year in and year out.

And they're telling you you have to sacrifice your role. And you have to be a third banana, you know, or have to basically sacrifice your role. And it's on a team where, you know, Kevin, as brilliant as he is, isn't in the fall. and he's really the center of that Brooklyn universe. So he's a clear cut number one, right? That's fine. Then you have a guy like Kyrie, who is only there for half of

the games at best, right? And so you find yourself, you left the Houston Rockets where you had to carry a lot of the offensive burden, going to Brooklyn where you wanted to be a teammate and collaborate with these other superstar talents.

Let's not get it twisted. And you find yourself in a lot ways in the same dysfunctional BS that if not same dysfunctional stuff as you were in Brooklyn I mean in Houston which is it's it's disconcerning so I could see why these rumors are coming up what do you think about these rumors Rob I don't I mean I could see why Darrell Mori and James Hardin would would be connected I mean best best times for both of them um together right like I could I could understand that. I don't really know about the rumors. I do know that the question was posed early in the experiment about whether or not Kyrie should be traded. Bear with me for a second.

And my answer to that was yeah, because I thought if using Kyrie at that time as the asset could get you enough quality supporting cast members that James Hardin and Kevin Durant would be enough to get over the hump. Right? Right? You'd be giving up the third person in the big three

who has to sacrifice so much of himself that he can't be himself. Well, take that and spread it out over two dudes instead of one that can be the best version of themselves giving you four people playing at maximum volume rather than two playing at max volume and one playing at like a three-quarter, you know what I'm saying?

Like you got to give up too much of yourself in the third role. Get two great role players. So I think the same applies to James Hardin for me. So if Kyrie's not the piece, right, in a perfect world, and he's not going to be able to be moved. And let's say he's there full-time in this stuff with the vaccine and everything's not taking place. And you said, well, in James Hardin's current, like, role with the Nets,

would you sign off on moving him if you could get too damn, good role players to put around Kyrie and Kevin Durant. I would say yes. But I don't know who they would be. I'm just saying in a vacuum. I'm not, I'm just saying because you, I still think James Hardin is a great

basketball player. You've taken six shots off of his plate. You've taken ball handling responsibilities off of his plate. And I'd make the argument that I do all the time for Russ being cast in this new role that James had the ball in his hands even more than rusted. And so asking him to come in and take that much less of a role offensively

has got to be like really, really frustrating. Even if you're buying in, really frustrating and confusing. And it's just not everyone can reinvent themselves that quickly or that effectively, you know, in a new environment like that. And I'm not throwing shade at James. I think that's fair to James. Yeah. And the thing is, I mean, we don't know, we don't know the full extent of, you know, the, what's going on. But there is, I will say, there is an infatuation between Mari and Hardin. And he has said, you know, and I think Nash was posed a question of, you know, if James is happy in Brooklyn. And of course, what is, what is Steve going to say? He said, of course, he's happy. What is it, what else is he going to say? But it's, you brought up an interesting point just about trading Kyrie and trading one of those. big three, two.

It's like addition by subtraction is essentially what you're saying. Only two of them. There's one that will not be traded. Oh, there's one that will not be traded. We know there's one that will not be traded. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know that. But my, my, uh, the problem that, that, just, I think they should have trade, if they were going to trade anyone, they should have traded them a year ago when you

and Perk said that they should trade them. Like it should have been then. Like now at this point, all you can do is trade Hardin. because you can't, Kyrie is like probably the most untradable player in the league right now because no one wants to take that on, dog. No one, who would want to take that on?

Just you got to pay that much money for a guy that was more untradable, Kyrie or Russ? Ooh. I think Kyrie. I'm going to say Kyrie. I say Kyrie. Okay. Because of least it at expirate or so.

Who would you say? No, I don't know. It's a phenomenal question. That's a phenomenal question. That's why they pay me the big bucks. I know, right? Yeah. I agree.

I think Kyrie, just for the simple fact that like you, like at least with Rush, you know he's going to play hard. You know he's going to, you know he's going to be there. You know he's going to be there. Wow. That's where we're at. What's the best ability? What's the best ability, Rob?

Availability, baby. Right. So we at least know Russ is going to be there day at and day out. He's going to be there. He's going to throw up some bullshit, but he's going to be there. He's going to be there. of care. Not to say Kyrie doesn't care, but he doesn't, he's not there. So, but the overall point is that's why they're in the, it's, I, I don't envy anybody in Brooklyn right now. It's, it's, it's,

I don't envy anybody. Because it seems like every time they go on a good run, something, some BS pops up. Every time they find a, they find a good, a good situation going, something, and like, Kevin's injury who, we can't, we can't, we couldn't predict that happening, right? But the sheer reason

why they brought Kyrie back into the fold is because their roster was just decimated by COVID. But they can't, they can't rely on him. We talked about this a few weeks ago. They can't rely on him.

And then so that leads me back to James Hardin. Why would he want to stay? Why would he want to like, why would he, why would he want to stay long term? Especially if they lose, if they have another lose and flame out, he's had hamstring issues for a minute.

He had hamstrings issues in the last postseason. He doesn't necessarily, I don't know. I haven't seen him up close, but he doesn't look like he's in the best shape, right? But he's trying to play, he's trying to hold this team down, but he keep getting these injuries, and he doesn't have a team around him

that can help him and help carry him and help carry the load. Would you want to stay, Rajah? Yeah, that's a really good question. And I don't want to just spit something out. It's a really nuanced question. So here's what I say. He's playing his most minutes per game right now since 2015, 2016.

That's not ideal as you continue to age. You know, kind of LeBronish. And James Hardin isn't in the class with LeBron in terms of maintaining your body. Let's be clear. So you don't want to, you know, he's going to get hurt. They're going to be injuries that start to mount up. Those miles will add up. And if I'm James Harden, because before I was looking at it from a Brooklyn point of view,

if I'm looking at it through James Hardin's lens, if I perceive this to be dysfunctional, I'm not saying he does, I'm not saying they are. I'm just, this is, if I'm looking around and I'm like, well, I don't trust that we're going to win a championship, it's kind of, messy. I don't feel like all parties are really bought into this. I have to give up a lot of myself. I was killing the league. I was leading the league. I was a perennial All-Star MVP two years ago. And I didn't forget how to do it. I can find this again. This isn't a problem for me. I just give me the ball again. If I say all of that, then yeah, maybe it's time to move on.

Let me get back cast in the light and in the role that I'm most accustomed to. and let me rock. And if he chose to do that because he made that assessment of the situation he was in, I'd have no beef with him. Like, hey, you got to, you know,

you gotta do what you got to do. But again, I don't know any of those things to be true. James Hardin got up in front of the mic and said, hey, if you don't hear it from me, it's just rumors.

And I got to respect that and take him at his word. Yeah. So, you know, I don't know that any of that's true, but if you posed a question to me, like you did,

if I were James and I looked at it like that and I'm like, man, this is a mess. I don't know if we're going to win here and you're asking me to give up so much of myself. And, you know, if you're going to ask me to give up all of that, all parties better be bought in. Don't come to me telling me Kyrie's not here.

Don't, I don't know, don't come to me with that bullshit. And I'm not saying, and I'm not saying this is somebody that's like all the way locked in. I'm saying this from what we've seen. What have we seen? What have we seen with our own two eyes?

We've seen, we've seen this dysfunction. It is seeped out of that locker room so many times. It's not something that's like, oh, my, they're keeping this under wraps. Da, man. Every presser is.

There's something going on. Something going on. I texted Steve the other day. We were texting just on a humble. We were texting about D. As a matter of fact, I sent him a video. And, you know,

I said to him what I say on here, hey, bro, it's always, hey man, you always got some shit to deal with up there, bro, I feel bad. He didn't say nothing back to me. He really didn't.

Like, because I never really get into that with Steve because I respect the relationship and I don't want him to feel like I'm hitting him for anything like that. But I did tell him that, and I say it on the pot all the time. It is,

you are correct. It's always some shit. Like, even when they feel like they're getting it together and it's going to be smoothed out, then boom, something else. And so,

yeah, I was looking at a... If they were New York's team, if they were New York's team, if this ain't even like, if this was the next dog and this was happening? Yeah.

Oh, wow. So, yes. The answer is, the answer is, man. Like, you ask someone to give up

the tail end of his prime while he's still doing what he was doing in, in Houston. And you ask him to make the sacrifice to come to you guys to win the chips. And you can't get

everyone on board and they can't get everyone on board. You can't. Yeah, I know it was like a global pandemic and these are unforeseen, but the bottom line is you don't have everyone on board. And it is relatively dysfunctional. If I'm that player and I look around and see all of that and I don't know that we're winning the chip, yeah, shit, put me back on. Let me, let me get back in my normal role somewhere. Hey, man, people forget how good James Harden is. They forget how good he is, man. And how much sacrifice he had to put going on to that team. Now, we can, Yes. Now, but we could talk about what he, like, what, I mean, there are, there, it's a deeper conversation, right?

Because, you know, you forced your way there, right? Yeah. We can't, we can't forget that. Like, you did force your way there. And so, in fairness, there's some culpability on James Hardens. It wasn't like this just fucking happened to him. There's another conversation in that, though, Rob, which is, and that goes back to our last segment of just trying to get gratification. and also, like, how do you do that?

Because he wanted it. He's like, I got to win now. I got to win now. I'm done in Houston. I can't do this anymore. Can't do this anymore. And then, because this is the other argument to be had. You couldn't do it in Houston.

Now it's happening in Brooklyn. On paper, you got two all-stars. On paper, you got two all-stars. And now, you know, there's even rumors that, you know, because I'm going to be real. There's talk around the league. It's been like that for a minute that, yo, he might be up out of there.

you know, he might. It is what it is. What do you say to the argument that, hey, man, like James, you chose this? How do you, how do you, and do you stick it out? Do you tell him to stick it out? Because he had his own franchise where he was balling and could do everything. And then, you know, he forced his way to go play with his friends. That's what it was.

No, I'm not saying that because he chose to do that and wanted to try to win a championship. And, and again, trying to be fair to everyone. Like, Houston was that way. He wasn't trying to go through no rebuild. And nobody trying to go through a rebuild. Aaron Rogers just told you that. I ain't trying to go through no rebuild. Just because it didn't work in Brooklyn doesn't mean you got to stick that out.

Like if it winds up not working, it may work. They might win a championship and everybody's happy. But if it doesn't work, I don't think you have to, you got to stick it to him or he's stuck there because it didn't work. Like we gave it a run. And if I'm the organization, I'm, this isn't really about James Hardin. It's about us trying to win a championship. So, you know, if that piece gets us the pieces that make us the hole that can win the championship, I at least have to explore those conversations, you know?

And I imagine that Sean Marks and company are. They don't have to want to trade someone to explore what that asset would get you, you know? Yeah. And, you know, I think, you know, we were on the prepod, Sasha Mac had a great point. You know, his value is at a point now where some trades didn't make sense when he was in Houston. at an MVP level. Some players that were, you know,

rumored to have been in a deal to get James Harden, like it didn't add up. But now with the numbers and the situation and the shape and all of that, you know, you start to get to a closer point

where those numbers start to make sense. Like those players start to be, maybe. And so you've got to just explore that if you're Brooklyn. But it's not a punishment thing. Hey, bro. Yeah,

he forced his way out of Houston, got himself in a situation where at least so far hasn't all the way panned out. But I'm not holding that against you when it comes time to either make you stay here or move you on. I'm doing what's best for my team.

For sure. It's time for our next segment. A little thing we like to call, ruin of the week, what you do every Thursdays. When we shout out a person and entity or an idea or something, the one the week.

I'm going to go first, Ron, then you can go ahead. I'm going with D-Book, man. D-Book went up in Utah. It's bawled out. I just, I love, I've made no, I've made no secret about this. D-Book is one of my favorite players in the league to watch on a day and day-night. Whenever he's in town, I got to be there.

I got to see him play. He's really good. That's all I had to say, man, ruined a week is Devin Booker. I'm glad, I'm glad to. Oh, also, also, shout out to your man's J-Joops, getting an extension. J-whoops. J-hoops. Yeah.

Um, shout-out. There's so many shout-outs. I could give so many, so many real ones in the week. start with my young buck Dea Bell got asked to go throw for a pre pre draft workout for Chris Alave, David Bell, Jalen Tolbert, all of those guys are like top 15 receivers in this year's draft I thought he was going to be nervous to shit

I pulled him out of a midterm like right out of the midterm he got in the car changing the car got no warm-up throws and just went to work throwing the ball so he was a real one for that I'm going to give a shout out to my own to my own there but the real real one of the week for me in a losing effort was that damn Josh Allen. My young buck Ty Bell calls him Joshy now because we sat on the couch and watched that boy deal

the other night. Oh my God. Oh my God. He just stepped into the, I mean, not that he was already there for most people who know. But I'm a Patrick Mahomes fan. I'm not apologized. Almost like Russ.

Like you can't, there's no slander allowed for P. Mahomes. P. Holmes is my dude. Okay. But Joshy stood up in. the paint. Yeah. He stood up in the paint and he threw them hands with P. Holmes. And if it weren't for some questionable play calling defensively, they would have got the dub. But he's a real one for that in my book. For sure, for sure. Also, another honorable mention, we're back, baby. Chuck

Rhodes. Chuck Rhodes is back. I don't know if you saw millions. But Chuck Rhodes is not fucking around. Don't spoil it. I haven't spoil it. I haven't seen it yet. Don't spoil it. Hey, Chuck Rose, hey, what the fuck shit? Okay, he is headed a neighborhood watch. She is not bullshit. Fucking Chuck Rhodes. You come at Chuck Rhodes. You come at the best, okay?

Also, just want y'all to know, Bridgerson's coming back so you know what that means. Bridgerton boys. Bridgerton boys will be back real soon. Bridgerton boys. All right. We're just plugging all these shows, man. All right, before we get out of here. Let's just plug all these shows where we get up out of here, man.

We got upside high with J-Com Man and Jonathan Charks. We got weekends with Waz. We got The Void. We got the Void. With KOC every Wednesday. We have The Answer with Sirot Sohi and Chris Ryan. We got group chat. We got the mismatch.

You know what else we got, huh? You know what we got? We got. We took an episode off. Shouted this out. But we got Black Girl's songbooked with Who, Rosabel? Town legend, Danielle Smith. We got to keep the propaganda going, man.

I missed you last week. or last our last episode. Keep it going. We got R2T2, R2C2, R2C2. I, I, I with who, Roger Bell? Town legend. Vallejo's finest. The Cresside clown Cici Sabathia.

It's good to have you in the motherfucker building, Ross. Good to have you back, baby. We'll see you on Monday. We're a total.