The Ringer NBA Show - Ep. 67: Sam Amick on the LeBron-Barkley Beef

Episode Date: January 31, 2017

The Ringer's Chris Vernon is joined by USA Today's Sam Amick to discuss LeBron putting haters on blast (5:00), LeBron's business relationship with the Cavs (11:00), the Cavs' free-agent workout (15:00), Charles Barkley's status as a beloved figure (21:00), the biggest threat in the East (27:00), and the immigration executive order's impact on the NBA (33:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to The Ringer NBA show. I'm Chris Vernon. Typically on Tuesdays, Kevin O'Connor from The Ringer.com, joins us. He's going to join us on Friday this week, and we'll talk to him about his article, which I do want you to go check out at the Ringer.com about what the Lakers are doing and whether or not they should engage in the process that the Philadelphia 76ers once did. So Kevin's going to join us later this week. Today, an All-Star joining us, Sam Amick, from USA Today, is joining us on the line.

What's up, Sam? Mr. Vernon, good morning to you. How are you, sir? Well, I was not expecting what I woke up to this morning. But when I wake up and I do what everybody else does, right? I pull up Twitter and I'm seeing what's going on in the world, finding out what happened. I mean, I stayed up late watching the Grizzlies and the Suns last night, the last TNT game. And then I crashed. And then I woke up this morning.

I'm flipping through. And it says, LeBron says Charles Barkley is, quote, a hater and I was like oh this is going to be good and then I go and get your popcorn yeah get your popcorn indeed so I read the article LeBron rips Charles Barkley and for those of you that have not seen it which I can't imagine if you were listening to an NBA podcast you haven't um LeBron started by saying he's a hater he said after the calves lost to the Dallas Mavericks what makes what he says credible because he's on TV and then LeBron went up and to then really throw down the gauntlet.

I'm not going to let him disrespect my legacy. I'm not the one that threw somebody through a window. I never spit on a kid. I never had an unpaid dead in Vegas. I never said I'm not a role model. I never showed up to All-Star weekend on a Sunday because I was in Vegas all weekend partying. All I've done my entire career was represent the NBA the right way.

14 years, never got in trouble. Respected the game. Print that. Okay, I'm going to go through all of these different quotes that were printed by ESP. and Dave McMinneman last night. But let's start with that. It's funny that the little

subplot is that the Cavs lost to the Mavs, which is a despicable loss. I mean that's like that would be the big story, right, that the Caves lost to the Mavs. So LeBron did an unbelievable job of not making that the story. Let's start with the whole

him coming out flame throwing on Barclay immediately. I mean, it was wild. The part of me that it loved that when guys give us some candor, you know, I love the story. You know, props to Dave McMedeman for doing a great job. And that's one of those pieces that is a – to have a good enough rapport with LeBron that he catches him on the side and asks him about what Chuck had to say.

I'm torn on it a little bit. For one, I feel like the elephant in the room here is that the more the cabs scuffle, the more LeBron has been chirping about everything and anything and everything. And I don't love that because I feel like maybe it should be nose to the grindstone time and try to figure out your team instead of talking about how the roster is flawed and now taking shots at Barclay. But we should not be surprised at all that somebody, in this case,

LeBron, finally decided to tee off on Chuck. I mean, what I've learned over the years covering the league is that even though Chuck is obviously a member, you know, an esteemed member of the NBA fraternity, that he really doesn't have any relationships with very many superstars. And that's by design. He wants to give his two cents. And most of the time, guys ignore it.

Most of the time they fume privately. When you're LeBron, you don't have to keep your stuff private. You have such a voice that, you know, you can win a PR battle like this or at least, you know, infliction series damage. And, I mean, he did that. And the other side, Chris, is the guy getting lost in the shuffle and that Balmati Jones had pointed out on Twitter

was it like, oh, by the way, you know it's a kind of a similar thing like an anecdote about Phil Jackson ignoring LeBron James in a suite at a game last year and gets lost in the shuffle. I mean, that was kind of jammed in there as an aside and another guy that has had some critical things to say about LeBron. But it was something else, man. He was unplugged. Yeah, it was like he was just going to air.

everything out, right? Because I read the part about Phil Jackson. I was like, what the hell? I mean, what the hell? Like, I thought we were talking about Barclay, A, and B, why is Phil Jackson not even talking to him? Like, that's just bizarre. Yeah, I think that the headline obviously is just kind of, you know, haters, front and center,

haters on blast from LeBron. That's what we're looking at here. And the Phil thing is strange. I mean, I wrote one film in his infamous posh comment definitely was on the side that thought it was out of line and just kind of call it insensitive, call it, and advise you know, that was

serious and strange, and that's all another podcast. I don't get how Phil doesn't seem to care about the way he's perceived by the league best players. And yeah, now we're sitting here looking at it like and why in the world would he not say hello to somebody like LeBron and the suite? Who knows?

But in me right now it's just they're playing like garbage. And I don't know what the answer is. You can relate to this, Chris. So yesterday we had our podcast, and we had Kevin McAle on. And I was looking forward to talking to him. And it's one of those timing issues where you end up being a little bummed out because, like Kevin and I've talked about LeBron,

but now that puppy comes out, a podcast comes out this morning. And, you know, I wish I would have had a chance to get Kevin two cents on it. LeBron is making noise right now. Yeah. All right. Let's get to the other quote. Go watch the 93 finals when John Paxton hit that shot. Barclay and Jordan were laughing and joking with each other during one of the games

while somebody's shooting a free throw in the finals. But, oh, nobody were friends back then. I mean, I love all of this. This is great, right? Sure. So he's saying, like, go check out on ESPN Classic. When these old heads talk about how, you know, these guys are all friendly now, and they pat each other on the butts as they're coming out to the game,

they hug each other after the games. It didn't used to be like that. and LeBron's like, yo, I was watching. I went back and watched these games, and these guys are clowning with each other, so stop it already. I love that aspect of it. I mean, that one more than fine with, because to me it tells me a couple of things. For one, we've known for a long time that LeBron has got a great grasp of the history of the game.

You tell an anecdote like that, you just revealed that you go back and you study the body language of some of the greats from finals past. from games past. I love that because that's somebody, you know, I can't stand whether it's hoops or any other sport, athletes who are just in their own lane and all they pay attention to is their career and they don't kind of look up and smell the roses

and realize what they're a part of. LeBron does. And so he's calling the old dudes out, and I'll get him credit to, though, that he's insistent on this front. He has, every so often, have a few things to say about the old head and the revisionist history that goes on. I mean, I remember last year,

and I forget specifically, what was the story last year where somebody was going in on Steph Curry and essentially saying, you know, it was one of the old players saying, I think it might have been Oscar. It was Oscar Robertson. So I actually asked for Brock after a game that it was just he and I talking about Oscar and what he had had to say about Steph Curry. And he came to Steph's defense. He sat there and said that he was disappointed that some of these old had, you know, seemed to feel inclined. to throw a little bit of shade on what the current guys are doing.

I think, you know, what we're learning here is that LeBron feels like from himself on down. The guys in today's game, you know, they deserve more respect than their game. I guarantee you it insults him that Chuck, he didn't even bring this up, but, like, Chuck's the guy who came out and set out in the league's never been in a worse spot, which is ludicrous. You know, you've got to believe all that stuff comes into play. Okay, so let's get to the original, like, because I think this is going to get lost in it, Because the storyline is going to be.

LeBron goes after Barclay. Barclay's a hater. LeBron Etherd, Barclay, rest in peace, Charles Barclay. You know the way the Internet's going to handle this. The original criticism was that Barclay said that LeBron was being inappropriate and whiny and all the above. And what the hell does he want, basically? He's the best player in the world. Does he want to have all the good players?

He don't want to compete. He's an amazing player. They're the defending champs, right? And basically the idea of why is he coming out talking about how they need more on their roster? And LeBron, to that point, said the following. He said that he collects one check from this, talking about being a player. He said, I collect one paycheck from this. He said of his role with the Cavs, there's the owner, Griff's the GM, I'm the player, screw Charles Parkley.

So what about the original charge that LeBron is in the wrong for coming out consistently talking about we need an F-in playmaker, we need a point guard, like that he's consistently coming out in the media talking about what the Cavs don't have, and Barclay's original charge that that comes off is inappropriate and whiny? I'm probably deciding more with Chuck on this one, to be honest with you. I mean, you know, LeBron can do it once, especially in the context of that organization. Part of going home again means you got a pretty low leash. And so that is the case. But if you're just asking me, what do I think about, you know, style points and the best way to effectively, you know, impact change with your team, I don't think it's going through the press. And it feels for me right now like there's all a resentment, but Dan Gilbert call it a friction in that relationship.

I feel like there's something a little bit sour because, yes, LeBron came home. Yes, LeBron delivered a title to Cleveland. But if you talk to anybody, you know, who knows that situation, you know, it's not like you went home and he's having bear hugs with Dan Gilbert every time they see each other in the arena. It is a business relationship. And on the one side, you have associates leaking to Forbes magazine that they lost $40 million last year in a championship season. and that side of the story. And then you got LeBron saying,

I certainly hope that we still want to win the time. He's basically saying pony up, spend the money, keep cutting the checks. And there's a lot here, Chris, I don't want to get lost in the weeds, but the part of the reason that I think it's a little hypocritical is that, you know, from Tristan Thompson and Jared Smith, some of these guys that the cast has assigned to above market value deals, you know, largely because, you know, they're reps by Clutch Sports, which is LeBron's agency and Rich Paul, and he's got a ton of power. It just seems a little disingenuous to get some of your guys paid maybe a little more than it would have elsewhere,

and then come back on the back end and criticize your owner for not wanting to spend more. How about this? I mean, the craziest thing I think about all this, Sam, is like you go back and you say, all right, here's the comments of all these guys. So you got LeBron getting to the point where he's cursing in the post games and saying that they need a F& Playmaker, yada, yada. you've got Gilbert that comes, or I'm sorry, you got the Griffin that comes out and says, we got enough to win a championship, right?

He's kind of defending his role in all of this, like stop it already. Our roster's good enough. We've got three all stars on the team, and JR's been hurt, whatever. The most measured of all of them might have been Gilbert when I saw his quote two days ago when they asked him about the Cavs recent struggles, and his answer was simply, it's January, right? I mean, there's crazy stuff going on. There's crazy stuff going on all around the league. Like, of all of these people that have their, you know, that are amped up about all of this,

and clearly there's a lot of frustration boiled over, maybe the best quote of all of them was the goofy owner who says it's January. And are we going to look, what do you think, Sam? You think we're going to look back at this and say, hey, you know, we should have seen the warning signs, or are we going to look back and go, boy, they were effed up in January. So what are we surprised at now? I think, I mean, I think Dan said in the right tone where he's telling his troops to calm down because it's January. I think, and I'm always reticent to, you know, I don't want to say this here and take this stance and then look back and laugh at it months later when I'm wildly wrong. I feel like LeBron potentially is sending a negative message to his teammates.

It feels to me like, geez, man, when you're the defending champs, I mean, you shouldn't be out of swagger by January. You know what I mean? Like, you shouldn't be looking to the front office to save you by January. And by the way, as we sit here at chat in real time, Chris Haynes of ESPN just put a story up saying the calves are going to host a free agent workout. And the point of bringing this up is, you know, like, are any of these guys going to save the calves? Here's who, here's who they're working out. Mario Chalmers, Lance Stevenson, Kirk Heinrich. Like, what are we talking about here?

You know, the cab's problem is not an effing playmaker. The Cavs problem, and I'm stealing Kevin McCale's perspective on this, but he gave me yesterday, Calf problem is defense. They're not defending right now, and there's all this noise about them needing a playmaker, and if you look at these names that we're talking about, and it's ridiculous. Lance would be hysterical. I mean, listen, I covered both Chalmers and Lance last year. And truth be told, if Chalmers was okay coming back from the Achilles, the Grizzlies would have brought him back.

I mean, the kid blew out as Achilles. And obviously, we're seeing West Matthews kind of come back, but that injury sucks. I mean, I feel horrible for Rudy Gay. I feel horrible for Rudy Gay because the track record on 30-plus with an Achilles is it's not pretty. Dominique is kind of the only guy. If you're Rudy and these guys who have Achilles there, Dominique Wilkins, is kind of the only guy in NBA history that was actually, I don't know if you'd say he was better afterwards, but he had some really good years after he'd more of the Achilles.

But we saw with Kobe what happened and so many other guys. I mean, that's brutal. And listen, when Yogi Farrell is playmaking on you and him and Curry's little brother, like your problem ain't that you don't want to have playmakers. I mean, Yogi Farrell is busting your ass. You know, like, that's really? Like, your problem is you don't have playmakers? I mean, Yogi Farrell's busting your ass.

Although not the same topics, but man, how about Dallas, beating the Spurs and beating the cab? Not too shabby. I think this is the time of year. I mean, I actually, I harken back to the Gilbert quote, and I said this last week on a podcast, that I'm now, for this span of time until we reach the All-Star break, I'm going to attempt to not make any sweeping judgments or declarations on what is what.

Because it feels like we get to this time of year, every year the dog days and you just see some incredibly odd outcomes on a nightly basis. That being said, before all of this LeBron stuff came out, I was listening to Bill Simmons podcast with House from last weekend

and they were having a bit of a discussion and Simmons took more of the Barkley side whereas Joe House said he was totally on the other side and said, and one of the things he brought up, which I did find fascinating he said, it is a basketball crime. He said, go look at minutes per game and I did not realize this until he said it.

LeBron is leading the league in minutes per game. He is playing 37.5 minutes per game. Like, how is he leading? Yeah, for sure, for sure. I'm going to have you brought that out. I was going to say the one thing we can't lose here is to make folks think that we don't see the bigger picture because it's not about LeBron thinking

that an effing playmaker is going to take them to the next level. It is about fatigue and workload, and I think his anxiety, this is kind of the, you know, armchair psychiatry stuff. I think his anxiety is that he knows once the playoffs get there, he wants to still have that extra gear, he wants to be able to do what he did last season and take these guys back to the mountaintop, but if you get to mid-April and you're just absolutely exhausted because you didn't have anybody else helping you carry that load, even if it's a guy like something we're talking about. I think that's his concern.

I mean, these guys are, but they've taken so many hits. You lose Della, you know, JR goes down. You got some of these other things going on. I mean, I understand the fatigue aspect of it. You know, I just don't know about how he's going about trying to get that message across. LeBron capped off his comments by saying, I'm tired of biting my tongue. There's a new sheriff in town.

Like, I seriously hope this is the new LeBron, Sam. Now we know next year's Halloween party is going to look like. No. No. So what do you think? All right, let's try to predict. We flip on inside the NBA on Thursday night. What's Barclay's response?

I kind of think he's going to, I don't think he's going to come firing back. Like, I think he's going to talk about how amazing LeBron is and he's going to try to like, I don't know. I think he's going to try to chill it out, don't you? I don't know, though. But listen, I'll be watching. I can't miss it. Probably because, you know,

there's, LeBron's got more than enough kind of gravitas when it comes to his reputation. And so much of what he said was factfully accurate, what LeBron said, you know,

when he talks about the way he's represented the league, he's not wrong. And when he talks about some of Charles's transgressions, now that I'm not a role model thing, that was Chuck's choice. And I still think there's value

in the stance that he took at that time. I mean, his message, I feel like LeBron of this to put it there. And his message was, hey, mom and dad, you're the role models,

you know, not us. But some of the other stuff is real. You did throw a guy through a window. He did, you know,

he claimed to accidentally a kid. That stuff happened. So, LeBron has got a, a totally clean slate. You know,

he had a PR disaster of the decision that beyond that, you're talking about a guy who's been a lightning rod, even though he's not really gotten in trouble ever.

So I think Charles will be somewhat diplomatic about it. I think He'll explain his stance. And I don't think it's going to be like a warrior's situation where you always like, you feel like every time the warriors fire back at Charles, like he loves it and he can't wait

to take the whole thing up another notch. But I don't think that's going to happen here. Barkley is, I would say, generally beloved. Everybody, you know, amongst NBA fans and even non-MBA fans. I mean, he is a beloved character in sports media, which is a hard thing to pull off. Andy is also, he's interesting. And so people want to see him. And he is probably, I would say as popular an analyst as there is in any sport.

And I do wonder, you know, you're going to get the whole, you know, the way the Internet does this. It's almost like Drake and Meek Mill, right? It's going to be like, oh, LeBron trashed, you know, Charles Barkley. And then they're going to do the, you know, they're going to have the tombstones with Barclay's name on it and whatever, which I'm going to laugh at the whole time. but I do wonder who most people side with in this, right? That's what makes it a great feud. I don't know Barclay as near as many haters as LeBron, but LeBron may have way more fans, you know what I mean?

Like people that really love him. So it's an interesting, it's an interesting feud to say the least, right? They're both like, LeBron's got haters, but people that like love, love, love, love him. Whereas I think the general consensus, most people, I don't think there's, at least I don't run into them, a lot of people running around hating Charles Barkley. I mean, I think there's a fair about, I mean, he's always mixing it up with different fan bases, whether it's the Warriors one that I mentioned or, you know, off-color comments that he made about the San Antonio folks a few years back. I mean, over the years, I think that list has gotten longer of parts of the country, the NBA country, so to speak,

that are not big on Chuck. And beyond that, I mean, I think you already hit on the main thing here is that in terms of how big of a base each of these two guys have. I mean, LeBron's base, Trump's, you know, Porto's awards there. But it's much, much bigger than Chuck's. And, you know, like you said, I think he'll probably put some water on the fire, Chuck will, with the TNT execs. I'm sure Kellen will don't let this thing die too quickly because I'm sure they love it. I mean, this is why this is a commercial here, but I think what TNT does is so effective and so good,

and they've done so well for so long. When you have actual former players and not, you know, when you have these guys on your payroll and you convince them to actually share their opinion, inevitably, you're going to have dustups like this that as far as entertainment goes, it's fantastic. Okay, so the sidebar to all of this is that the Mavericks, did beat the Cavaliers.

Is it just January or is there a real problem with the calves, in your opinion? I mean, I'm big on, you know, you try to grab some substance from what's happening in the regular CET. And I think there is some substance here. Does that mean I think there's no way that they win the title? No, I'm not saying that. But, I mean, when they lost three in a row earlier back and looked at it and I think they had only, done that. He's either once or twice last year. Like if, once you start

rattling off stretches of kind of futility like we are seeing right now from them, you're not going to wave a white flag or reach for that panic, but it's something in between. They, you know, even Mo Williams, the guy we haven't mentioned. You know, they have all these guys

that contributed to their championship and Matthew Delvedova were going Milwaukee and things of that nature. This is still a team game. We are star-driven with the way we talked about the game. We talked about LeBron in superhuman terms, but he's not superhuman. There is a limit to what he can do.

Kari is very limited as a player. He's fantastic, but he's got his limit and don't have another guy who can carry the load and check nearly as many boxes as LeBron does. So, you know, I mean, I think they are very flawed, and the fact that the defense has gone from being mediocre to bad. I mean, it's never been good this entire season. It would bug me when people would talk like the Cavs had an elite defense. I don't think they've gotten any higher than maybe 14th or 13th defensive rating all season long.

And you can't win a title that way. So, I mean, I think there's some actual meat on this phone. With Toronto faltering, do you now view Boston as their biggest threat? I think so. Yeah, I think so, too. I enjoyed the conversation that you and Kevin O'Connor had about Isaiah Thomas in that piece that he had done at that interview. and getting a greater sense of the Celtics of where they're at. You know, they've got their flaws, too,

and Isaiah is carrying a heck of a load, just unbelievably playing his way into that MVP conversation. Dude, did you see that last night? Did you see the game last night? That fourth quarter, I mean, holy crap, he was unbelievable. It's unreal what he does. And that was, you know, one of the little tidbits I pulled from your guys' conversation that I thought was fascinating.

Actually, this was Isaiah talking to Kevin, was that mentality that he tries in the first three quarters to essentially set up his fourth quarter. And the game behind the game, that stuff was rich. It was really, really good. And, you know, as a guy who, as you know, I'm still living in Northern California, south of Sacramento. I've seen Isaiah from the days when he couldn't get past Jimmer Fredet on the depth charts to this. I mean, it's just unreal. but he is, in my years covering the league, if you ask me just who's got more fortitude and just willpower and just refusal to let anybody tell him what he can't do. I mean, Isaiah, if he's on the top of the list, he's on the short list.

Oh, I'm glad you brought that up. I'm glad you brought that up, Sam. Whose fault is it that Isaiah's not in sack? That that didn't happen? I think, I mean, like anything else, there's layers to it. But, I mean, listen, Isaiah's told me out of his own mouth that he felt like if DeMarcus wanted him back, he would have been back. That's the thing that gets lost on a lot of people is they didn't share the ball very nicely when they were playing together. And DeMarcus used to really get frustrated with, you know, he'd go get positioned in the post and the ball wouldn't be there waiting for him.

and as great as DeMarcus has been this season, last season, you know, the way they play, there's no mistaking anymore that, you know, when he's on the block. If you want the ball, you get in the ball. It's all there to do it. And when Isaiah was there, that wasn't the case. And it's too bad that they didn't work that out. I don't know what they could have been.

I mean, listen, they won 20-something games playing an entire season together. So it's not like this was some magical duo that never got spread its wings. but I think that played a big part and then, I mean, Pete D'Alessandro who at the time with the GM they just swung and missed bad when it comes to the idea

that Isaiah and this was something that they were, you know, that that management team was kind of putting out there behind the scenes that he was more a part of the problem than people realized from a personality standpoint and I think that was the wrong read

and then now all of a sudden I mean you couldn't look any worse. I mean, this guy. Speaking of Boogie, do we see playoff boogie for the first time? Right now, the Nuggets are a game and a half up on the Blazers, but you've got this teams, which is crazy.

I mean, think about this. After the Mavs won last night, they're four games out of eighth place, which is just insanity, right? I know. Can you believe? I mean, the Mavericks are four games out of the playoffs. So you've got Denver, Portland, Sack, New Orleans, Minnesota and Dallas.

Denver Portland, Sack, Minnesota. Dallas. Lakers in there somewhere? Well, there are three games. There are three games back from Dallas and seven games out of the eighth seed. So I'm discounting the Lakers and the Sons. All right.

Yeah, they've fallen off the cliff. I'm still probably riding with Portland. The Kings are inconsistent, and they've gotten better in some regards. But, you know, they're still scuffling way too often. The Blasers are too, but I'm a big proponent of experience mattering, and you still have several players on this team that I, sorry, Chris, I got a dump truck that decided to come travel up next to me here.

Maybe that tap or poe, as we sit here talking about the eight teams that is absolute garbage. They heard us. So the Blazers are a trip because they have the talent that certainly get that eight seat. You know, I've said this before, getting a Mimu back was big. It's been quite a while since he came back. I'll say, you know, the Blazers, though, they've got to figure out their late game offense. You know, Damien Lillard, they didn't come up with Lillard time for nothing. This guy has a late game closer, and what is puzzled he recently is that Terry Stops is going a different

direction. Slating games, I think that's probably ill-advised, not only if you're trying to win the game, but if you try to make sure a guy like Damien has been, you know, to keep him content, that's something like that. You know, but with Damien, CJ, I think they can get the AC. It's not going to be a real impressive A.C., but I think they'll probably get it. And that would make for at least a reasonably fun first-round series because Damien's had his moments against Golden State for sure.

It'll make for easy travel for us, West Coasters. It'll just jump up and down the West Coast. That's what it's all about. That's a problem I have with your backyard. I love the Grizzlies as an organization, and I love what they built, and I have such a guilty conscience because, my God, it's hard to get out there, and that's when, come playoff time, when we're going, you know, through Utah or through Denver and eight-hour flights to get out to Memphis.

It's the sad tragedy of NBA travel. It got the easiest. Come on. Central time zone is the superior time zone. Everybody knows this. Come on. When I was out in... The time is going to...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on. And that's the... I mean, when I was out in Los Angeles, I felt so... It was just so weird, man. Like, I just, I don't know. I guess I've just always lived in the central time zone. And so, and obviously I've traveled to the East Coast,

traveled to the West Coast. But I always forget that, like, when you wake up in the morning, Like, even if you wake up at, like, I don't know, like, even if you go and eat breakfast and you're done with stuff, like on the East Coast, if it's 9 o'clock, it's like noon. Right. I just feel like everything has already happened, right? Like, I just feel like I'm out of the mix. Like, everything's already happened. There's some of that.

Well, I'm your fittingly, literally like 30 seconds ago, I was kidding ignore on a phone call from my Washington, D.C. base editor. So he's sitting there at 1140 thinking, I got to talk to my guy yet out of the West Coast. So I hear you. I can go to the hell of that. All right. Let me take a quick break because then I want to come back and I want to ask you one more question about everything that's going on with the immigration policy

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free by going to ZipRecruiter.com backslash ringer. That's ZipRecruiter.com backslash ringer. One more time, try it for free. Go to ZipRecruiter.com backslash ringer. NBA show is also brought to you by Simply Safe. I think we can all agree that keeping our home safe is an extremely high priority, but it shouldn't come at the expense of signing your life away on a confusing long-term contract. Thankfully, there's a smart way to protect your home, simply safe home security. These are the guys I trust. With Simply Safe, there's no annual contracts, no middlemen, you get superior protection for less than half of what the traditional companies charge. Built by Harvard Educated Engineers to make you safer, Simply Safe,

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the way the sports world has been impacted by the immigration policy enacted by Donald Trump over the weekend. What's the sense of you have gotten? What have you gathered from talking to people about? It seems to be, nobody's saying, I agree with it, right? It's rather unpopular almost across the board. So it would stand to reason it's unpopular in the sports world. But it was one of those odd deals where people were talking about how it could affect the sports world. And importantly, the NBA, which has become a global game.

You've got a lot of players being very vocal. Ennis Cantor, I thought, really struck a nice cord. And Dennis, you know, grew up in Turkey and his mussels. and he tweeted, Make America Kind Again, you know, hashtag Muslim ban. You got Luaw Bang from the Congo talking about how proud he is to essentially be a refugee. Guys are outspoken. It's a global league. It take a lot of pride in that.

And, you know, thankfully so far, the biggest headlines in terms of players being impacted by it, you know, there was the, correct me where I'm wrong, because I'm, I'm, shady on the details, but it was the two players that I ran, I believe. They were playing professionally over there, and they had gotten stuck. So, I mean, it's a mess, and yet again, we are seeing in the NBA to an extent be, you know, a decent little pulse in our country. A lot of guys are outspoken about Black Lives Matter with the kind of unique perspective that I think is worth sharing and worth listening to from a certain

traction of society, and now we're seeing a different wrinkle of the same type of situation where because it's such a global league, this is not a case of a bunch of American born and bred football players from the ACC weighing in on the immigration policy. These are human beings who have, you know, come over here by various teams, and it's the American story told over and over again. And so, you know, again, I think it's worth sharing and worth listening to. So tough times in our country, I don't know how you feel. I mean, there's days where I get up, and I got to talk myself into really engage in the basketball front because of how probably some of those stuff is.

And then it's intertwining consistently with the league that we'll cover, again, because these are people. They're not just players. It's interesting that you bring up guys being willing to speak out because two of the most prominent coaches, Greg Popovich and Steve Kerr, have been. They kind of seem like the go-to guys. Reporters seem rather comfortable talking to them about social issues, and then those become headlines. They are willing to speak their mind.

And do you think that is something about the way the NBA is? Do you think it's because both of them are totally secure in their jobs and whatever they want to say they can say? And I know, like you're Stan Van Gundy, right, to speak his mind. I mean, there are other guys. But this is rather uncommon in the sports world, wouldn't you say? Like this week, you don't get to see any headlines about Dan Quinn and Bill Belichick, right, talking about what they think about Trump's immigration policy. And they're on literally the biggest stage ever.

No, absolutely. I mean, I think part of it is it's a safety still that, you know, you talk about, I don't know if there's a bad way of putting it, but your constituents. Steve Kerr's constituents, Greg Popovich's constituents, are a very diverse, large minority crowd. And so it's guys and human beings that I think, you know, are right to expect a certain, not necessarily a certain type of perspective. Everybody's allowed to have their own view,

but a certain type of sensibility and sensitivity. And so the crowd that they're speaking to is not just the public, if you're Steve and if you're pop. You know, I think there have been times when I felt like they were speaking to their own locker rooms through the media and trying to show support in that way. You know, Pop, you talk about job security, Pop's on a different level.

I mean, he was in Sacramento a while back when he was asked about the irony that he had been so outspoken against Donald Trump and his owner, he has known to be a big-time backer of Donald Trump. And I think the reporter had asked, in essence, you know, do you appreciate, I'm paraphrasing, but it was close to this.

Like, do you appreciate Mr. Holt, you know, being comfortable with you sharing your views like this? And he took exception to it and said, Mr. Holt's not giving me a green light to speak. I speak because I'm a human being out of a citizen. So Pops got the job security to, you know, handle it that way. And I think we're all better for it. And Steve, you know, the specifics thing, I mean, talking about an even more perspective than normal. You know, when your father was literally killed by terrorists, the professor over Lebanon, the University of Beirut, you know, this hits home for him.

What he's able to say, you know, as somebody who was a victim of terrorism, I don't agree with this approach to trying to handle the problem of terrorism. So I enjoy that, you know, I think a lot about the NFL media and whether or not some of the folks who cover that league may be privately or even publicly frustrated that, you know, their guys don't engage as much. And they seem to kind of be more focused on the all. almighty dollar and saying the right things and not

ticking off, you know, their fan base. I don't know how much of an incentive that is, but I'm glad the NBA is the way it is. Well said. Last thing. Who you got? Patriots and Falcons. I want to know. I'm terrible. It's really sad. The longer I cover the league,

the more out of touch I am with other sports. But I'll play along and I'll say any 39-year-old dude, who, by the way, I'm 39-2, good as Tom Brady is looking right now as far as how he's playing the game. I'm loving it. I mean, I saw a tweet the other day that it was just highlighting the obvious,

which is that we're usually asking at this point, you know, how much longer could a guy like Tom Brady have? It's unreal that you could be at the top of your game like he is at this stage of your career with all the miles and all the championships, all the seasons. So I'll go with the Patriots and all. Also because I'm a sucker for storylines. I mean, I love the idea that Roger Goodell is going to have to hand a trophy to that group after everything that happened with Flakegate and whatnot.

So, you know, we're all going to be missing out on some good – some more popcorn material, like we talked about at the beginning here. And entertainment-wise, that would be fantastic. My man, you can follow Sam Amick on Twitter at Sam underscore Amick. You can read them at the USA Today, and you can check out that podcast that you mentioned earlier. The one with Mikhail is up. NBA A to Z. You can find that on iTunes. Sam, you're the best.

Thanks for catching up today. You got it, Chris. Have a good day, brother. All right, brother. If you dig what you're hearing, go give us a rating and review on iTunes, and we will talk to you on Thursday.