The Ringer NBA Show - How Basketball Media Consumption And Discourse Has Changed Over The Years. Plus, Giannis’s Place In NBA History | Real Ones

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Logan, Raja, and Howard discuss how basketball (and basketball media) is consumed in the modern age, the current state of NBA discourse, and how it differs from other sports (4:09). Next, the guys talk about Giannis Antetokounmpo’s place amongst the league’s all-time players and if he has enough time to catch up to other NBA greats in terms of championships (38:16).  Finally, the guys close with Mailbag Monday (56:08). Email us questions for Mailbag Monday! [e-mail] The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout ringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Logan Murdock, Raja Bell, and Howard Beck Producer: Jonathan Kermah Production Assistant: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a world where coaches are still the main characters, the players are now legally chasing the ultimate bag, and the game of basketball is always the top priority. There was only one brand you can trust to help you wade through all the madness. Hey, I'm Tate Frazier from One Shiny Podcast, and you can join me twice a week as we navigate the always entertaining world of college basketball. Every Monday, the ringer's comment helps me make sense of the biggest stories from the weekend, and on Fridays we talk to our many friends of the program. We're locked in on the best postseason in sports. Make sure you follow One Shining Podcasts on Spotify for wherever you get your podcasts. What's popping?

Motherfucking Mondays, Roger Bell here, Logan Murdoch there. Howard Beck in the Cut. Man, it's been a great weekend, guys. Wow. How are you guys doing? What's going on? How's life? Things are good.

I'm just jumping in. Roger looks like he just, he just wants to hang back for another few seconds. I went straight from cold-ass Indianapolis to, not quite as warm as hoped, but much warmer Miami for a couple days with the family to thaw out

post All-Star. And you didn't even hit Roger. You didn't even hit Roger. See? Wow. Oh, God. Like dry snitching on himself. How were you? Howard? How was a little chilly here for real, though.

It was a, it was a... What is chilly in Miami, though? What is chilly in Miami? Like 66. Oh, yeah. Like, it was 55 this morning, taking the kids to school. Like, I mean, forgive us.

that people down here are in starter jackets. I mean, back when we were in starter jackets, I'm dating myself. But when I was in school, 55 and put you in a starter jacket, dog. Okay. 55 in New York in the middle of winter is shorts weather. Correct. By contrast. Now, we were in Miami Beach, not South Beach, not the crazy part.

Like, we were a little further north in the calmer chill part. And we spent a day down in Key Largo and went snorkeling. It was great. Oh, very cool. Got some stone crabs. Hadn't had stone crabs in a long time. Joe's? Joe's. Oh, yeah.

All right. Look at you guys. You're on your bag. Yeah, we should have just showed up on Raj's doorstep. That would have been funny. I don't know though. So, Rich, I don't know if you could have got to his doorstep. We'll be honest with you.

That's Kat. You could have tagged along to all of our stuff, bro. The more than Mary, we were at a seven-year-old soccer game yesterday. 4V4, small field, no goalies. And I want to say we were probably 23 deep. So, like, we, the more. the more than barrier, Howard. Let's go.

Orange slices. Were there orange slices? Orange slices. All of the young ladies had blue mouths in the second game. They were back-to-back games because there was a slushy machine over there. So everybody had blue faces, man. It was hilarious. That's awesome.

I love that. That's what I went to go see a hundred or three thousand in San Francisco. Wow. That man could play the flute. And it was like a fucking seahe-out. things we did not anticipate saying I mean I can play the flu two years ago

that dude is cold it was it was it was what to go see you just choke me up man he called he didn't rap at all he's doing it

it was like a five-per-de-seat venue at Bimbo's 365 and that's up it was solid it was solid it was a seance you know it was fine it was great

I don't I'm not involved enough to appreciate us a flute session. I'm just not. I don't want to tell you. I don't begrudge anyone else, but I am not involved enough. Not me.

Yeah, man, that's crazy. It was great art, as all I was say. It was a great. Shout out to everybody that pulled up. It was awesome. Anyways, wow, this got off to a wild start. So let's bring this back together. Okay.

So the other day, or last night, I'm thinking of segments to pursue on this podcast. And I'm like, fuck, what am I going to do? I'm going to Warriors Nuggets. Maybe I could get something off of that. Now, Yokets was great in that game. It was a phenomenal display. I think he had 32, 16 and 16, which is a 2K line. But we're not going to talk about that right now.

Before the game, Howard sent me a clip. Howard is like executive producer on the low right now of real ones. He's the new one. He's over. He hit me. He was like, can I humble? suggest a segment. I'm like, sure. Fucking Howard Beck, of course.

Just tell it like, yo, just fucking, you're here. Just hop in. Yeah, let's go. Let's go. So he sends me this tweet video of JJ Reddick basically talking, having a conversation with Stephen A. Smith

about how we consume sports, right? And I sent you guys a video in the prepod, basically talking about how, if he were to put a YouTube video up of him teaching the game, it would maybe get about 55,000 views. But if he's maybe going out a player or he is, you know, maybe stirring up some controversy, it gets a lot more views.

And that says a lot about the media consumption habits that we have as a society right now. And this conversation was also in reference to a overall bigger clip that we're not going to get into. But it was about just to give context about how Kevin Durant spends more time complaining that actually about like his circumstances, his what happened in past stops, then actually teaching us about the game. It was a very interesting discussion

that you guys should check out on the worldwide leader. But it got me and Howard thinking, Raj, I want to bring you into this discussion. It's just about how are viewing habits as sports fans, particularly basketball sports fans, and how we should maybe view the game and a lot of different ways. but I'll start with Raja on this.

Roger, when we are talking about the game on real ones or when you're going on radio hits or when you're talking to your partners and stuff like that, what have you seen as a former player that is the best practice of teaching and talking the game through with, you know, the consumer,

whoever you're talking to in the most entertaining way possible? Like, is there a balance that you have to walk or a line that you have to walk? Like, how do you approach, that. I only know how to approach things one way. I've only ever approached things one way. And that's to just say it how it is. And I don't try to make basketball entertainment when I talk it. To you, to our listener, to Howard, to my kids, to coaches. That's not, I don't find that to be my job.

My job is to talk basketball the way I know it, the way I lived it, the way I was privy to see it up close and personal, having played with some of the greatest to ever play and be coached by some of them. So I just try to call it how I see it. How it's received would depend on who I'm talking to, right? And their level of understanding, in a lot of cases, their level of experience doesn't necessarily have to have been them playing at a high level, but being exposed to the game in some capacity at a high level gives you another perspective on it than just being someone who sits there

and kind of watches it from, you know, time to time. So, you know, it's, I don't think this is just a basketball conversation. I think this is a, you know, it's just generally like a society conversation, how we consume many things. But, you know, I personally don't feel like it's my job to entertain anyone and walk a thin line between keeping them entertained and telling them what's actually happened and what's actually happening, you know, on the court. Like, I don't, I don't see it that way, personal. Howard, have you, how have you seen like how we have evolved? Because it was this, uh, there was a podcast the other day that I was listening to was Bill Simmons and Derek Thompson.

It was a really fascinating discussion on just the future of everything, right? And one of the discussions that they had was Derek was talking about how he consumes basketball in this time. And basically how the gist of it was he will basically read the headlines throughout the full season, maybe listen to ringer pods and won't actually watch the game until a, about April and May. And I do think that there was something to be said about that because I do think that that is how the consumer, especially for basketball, where that is going.

Where do you see it going? Do you agree with that sentiment? And what does that say about our league? And how do we educate in that while the landscape is changing around us? Because it's not the landscape that Raja played in. It's not the landscape that you covered to start your career or how I covered to start my career. Like how do we kind of bring all these things together?

and not make it so like, oh, it's just like such and such said this about such a such, ha, ha, ha, it's about more of the game. Going back to what JJ said, like, I want to be clear, like, I'm not going to, I'm not here to, like, criticize what JJ said, but there was something he said that kind of set me off or set off my thought patterns in a certain direction, which is why I flagged this and send it to you last night, Logan, because I feel like there is this, this tension that we've seen, and it plays out a lot on social media, but now it's playing out, it played out on first take last week and it plays out on podcast. There's this tension between like the hardcore nerdiest of

the nerd basketball fans, and I say that I use nerd with affection in this case, versus what people now refer to as the casuals, which is a ridiculous obnoxious pejorative, right? Real quick, casual fans, not the casuals using that word, but casual fans are the majority. The majority of it, not just NBA fans, the majority of NFL fans, majority of hockey fans, majority of baseball. When you see a surge in ratings for the NBA finals far and above any regular season game, guess who that is, folks? That's the casual fans. They have the ones that you've been dumping on saying, oh, the casuals don't understand the game. Without the casual fans, there is no game, or at least there is not the economic boom times that we see now. Casual fans are the

majority of the fan base. NBA Twitter and the nerds and the people who get into all these fun debates that a lot of us get into about this player versus that player, efficiency and breaking down, sideline out of bounds, plays, and all this. That is niche. That is very niche. It is a small percentage of the overall NBA fandom. So I just want to note that for the record here. So when JJ is lamenting that if he tries to teach the game on his podcast, do a video breakdown,

here's Zion, and Zion is playmaker of the last 10 games, and here's how that's worked or not for the Pelicans involved. And he laments the fact that doesn't get as much engagement as him strafing, absolutely, destroying taking down Doc Rivers. Yeah, that's sports discourse. So quick perspective to answer your question, Logan, 20 years ago. We're in year 2024, right? So 2004, there's no blogs yet. I don't think blogs had come out in 2004.

I think it's a couple of years later. We have basically like, so let's go back to the year 2000 or something, right? The year Cobian Shaq with their first championship, I'm covering the Lakers. There are no blogs. There is no social media. There's no YouTube channels devoted to basketball. I'm not sure if YouTube had even launched yet in 2000. There are no podcasts.

Podcasts didn't exist yet. There's no platform for X's and O's. There is no discussion of the X's and O's. All coverage, for the most part, newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, all coverage was basically what people now derisively refer to as the narratives. You know, ooh, the dreaded narratives. It was about the drama of the sport, the storylines of the games, the storylines of the finals. And yeah, that's drama and feuds and sometimes fights and signings, trades,

controversy. That is the sports ecosystem since the beginning of time. Most people are not breaking down the elevator doors play or split action. This is not the MBA discourse that has existed for all of time. It's only in this era that we live in now where we are, fortunate to have many more voices in the space, some of whom love to break that stuff down and educate all of us on it. We have second spectrum, and we have synergy, and we have tracking data, and we have all these tools and basketball reference. Basketball reference didn't exist in the year 2000. I don't think they came about until like the mid-2010s. There's a lot of stuff that we have now, a lot of resources and tools and voices, and that's all great. But I just want to note that for the best majority of the

MBA's existence and sports existence, the discussion has been about the human condition. Like that's what we watch sports for the drama and the human condition, right? Success and failure and adversity and resiliency and yeah, controversy and drama too. Like we, sports is entertainment. It's entertainment more than anything else. And so if you want to drill down and get into the needy-gritty and the X's and O's, I respect it. But if anyone's lamenting and doing all this obnoxious, I think,

gatekeeping about how to consume the sport as if there's a right in a wrong way, that's what drives me nuts, which is why I sarcastically responded to JJ's rant with me saying, this was me on Twitter. I had a great Venezuelan dinner last night, true story, great Venezuelan food in Miami. Enjoyed it very much, didn't need the chef to explain how he made it. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Point being, I can enjoy a great meal. a great movie, a great song,

great book, without thinking too hard about how it got made. And I think that that's broadly how we all consume most things that we don't understand how to do ourselves. Okay, there's the, thus ends my TED talk.

No, I think that's interesting. But like, I, Roger, you could probably attest this. You've been on the court, but I do feel like the way we consume NBA media now is a lot different than other sports, right? Like, I think about NFL. It's a lot.

It's not as fragmented as like, oh, man, you don't know what the hell you're talking about and this. It's like, especially on like Twitter and all these places. Like I also, I listen to, I want to give a quick shout out to the Stadio podcast with my guy, Mesa Kwanga, what they talk about, talk about soccer. And it's a lot more love of the game. Now, that doesn't mean that there's not criticism, but it feels like with NBA specifically, it's all about everybody is this huge community of just like we're just going to get takes off and we're going to shit talk and it doesn't seem like we talk about it seems like we talk about everything but the game in this instance right like we don't talk about like what i feel

like when i was growing up and a lot of that has to do with the fact that like to what i was talking about there weren't all these points of engagement when it comes to the player psyche and all of this this talk where do you think that that where that has gone raja where where we all, me and you talk about this all the time, where it's like, if you were in the league right now, Roger, you would be hell online, you'd probably be trying to be settling scores and things like that, right?

But what do you think that it does to this young kid's psyche when they see all of this right in their face? Well, it's like anybody else's psyche in this world we live in. I mean, I'm sure there's exponentially more anxiety from players. There's just too much information. you know, I'm sure attention spans and their ability to really lock in. It happens to me.

Like, I can barely sit through any kind of game or TV program now. I used to be a TV and movie junkie, like sit there for hours and just watch movies. I love them. Games too. I can't sit for 15, 20 minutes. Like, if there's a lull for one second, my mind drifts and I'm looking at the phone. I'm like, fuck, you just miss 10 minutes or whatever you were doing. So as a player, you know, I'm sure they struggle with all of that.

I think to some degree because it's all you know, they may be more callous to it than someone like me telling you that if I were trying to play through this, it would be frustrating for me because, you know, I didn't grow up in it. I wasn't used to hearing everything that everyone said about me either in a negative or a positive way. So therefore, you know, I'd have more of a reaction. Like, that's all my boys know. That's all that some of these young pros know.

So I do believe they may in some instances at least be more callous. Use like KD, for example, who's like a weird towards the last generation, you know, of a guy that came in right before I retired. Guys like him seem to have a little bit more of an engagement and it seems to bother them or trigger them in a way that it might not some of the younger players. It's just because when they came in, that wasn't what they had to deal with through high school and college. You know, that wasn't there. Look, I'm a casual fan.

You know? Like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm a casual fan. I'm not sitting there breaking down the PER of the third string point guard or how efficient he is and pick and roll going to his left hand. Like, I don't give a fuck. I don't, I don't watch basketball. That's a lot of work to do on Christmas Day when you're just trying to have a game on, you know? This is a lot of shit that you got to do when you got the fam over.

No, real talk. But I think you asked a question and you didn't pose it to me, but you kind of touched on, you know, why the basketball space is is more littered with that. I find that interest in. Like I'm sure that they're football, you know, guys like that too. I mean, they're out there. But like the basketball world just has so many, so many analytical, like, minds in it. And that's not just from like a fan or a media perspective.

That's within front offices and stuff like that where that's interesting to me. Like why we have it feels like a disproportionate amount in the basketball space. itself. I don't know. I don't have the answer to it. But, you know, I, it's very hard. Like, even, I would just say this, you can, you can know basketball. Just because you didn't play basketball doesn't mean you can't coach it. Doesn't mean you can't teach it. Doesn't mean you can't understand it. Doesn't mean you can't read the numbers of it. But there is a point where even if you call yourself an officiado in, let's say, this analytics work, world and you've got this platform that's got millions of followers and you're breaking down

games and you're preaching. You don't really know. You don't. You can't. Like, you, you are suspecting that you know. You are reading the numbers and you're telling people what they're looking at. But at some point, like, you got to get over yourself a little bit, right? Like, I don't only say that to say, like, don't take yourself too seriously.

I will say this, though, Rob. A lot of people, and I'm sure Howard can attest to this, too. a lot of people use that number shit as a crutch, you know, to make it seem like they know so much more. And it makes a lot, I'm not saying the grand majority, but there are a lot of people that make it, try to make themselves feel smarter by using the analytics and throwing it in your face, even if it's like, even if the analytics, like, you didn't have to tell me his PR for me to know that that person sucks. Or for me to, for, or to tell me his, I don't know, man, like, his defensive rating to tell me that he's a great defender.

Like I see it too, right? Like, I think some people just use it to just say the obvious to make themselves one seem smarter and then just to have numbers back it up. Like, I don't think it's always the fact that they know it and they're, I think it's to make them seem smarter as to actually them being smarter than that's fair. Look, that happens. I mean, in every walk of life, that's not just sports or just basketball, right? So that happens.

And I'm okay with that. And I'm not, and again, I'm not saying that you like, that, that you aren't great. at doing what you do, if that's what you do. I'm just saying at some point, you know, you too could be labeled as a casual by someone. So I'm kind of echoing in a way what Howard's saying, right? Like, even that guy who's saying that someone else is a casual because they don't break a game down like that. Well, someone like me could call you one. Can you dig what I'm saying?

Like, so get over yourself a little bit. Well, that's the problem with gatekeeping, right? There's always somebody else who can, who's got another car to play atop of yours. right like it's always a rajaboon who played in a league be like what the fuck are you talking about bro fuck out of here yeah and i don't even get down like that but i'm saying like if you if someone were to do that like you're right howard you got to be careful with that well and i just i would just say this and to to j jay's credit and jay jays just like it's funny because there's various versions of of j jay now right there's first take j j jay then there's like podcast jay

um um uh i love your work jay but but he's He comes back on the pod the next day to add some more context and in a little commerce state. Because he was going back at Stephen A. Stephen A was going after Kevin Durant. And he said something about how, you know, Kevin Durant, you're supposed to be the one to educate the fans. And so JJ's rant was partially, it was mostly about going back at Stephen A about the idea about players needing to inform the fans or educate the fans. So JJ says, quote, since when is it players jobs to educate people on basketball? When did that become a thing?

Isn't that our job? And he means our job as the media, not his job as a former player. And then he goes into the whole thing about how the sports ecosystem is screwed up and how the informative stuff doesn't get as many views or engagements as a Doc Rivers read. Before you get to that I do want to get to a point that we're talking about. This happened on a platform where people are arguing about sports, right? And that's also the new ecosystem that we're in that didn't exist once upon a time, right? We're like we're literally arguing a point where, let's be honest, not a lot of people are as like, I'm just saying this for the average just consumers. Not a lot of these people on television.

I'm not specifically talking about Stephen A. I'm not specifically talking about JJ Redick, but a lot of these people that you see on television aren't as educated on the sport that they are talking about as you think. Right? So, like, you're starting to see this. Yeah. And I'm not even saying, like, I'm not saying it like they don't watch the game.

They probably watch it probably less than you think that they do. And less that you do, less than you do on your every day, you're watching your team every single day. These people on television that you go to watch for analysis aren't watching your team as much as. you are. And so you got to take that into consideration because you physically can't. It's not a bad thing on Stephen A or whoever or Perk or whoever. They're not enough hours in the day, man. There's not enough hours in the day. And like you're telling people to go, like, it's like if you had

Roger go do seven podcasts a day and then expect him to watch seven NBA games at night, like it's hard, it's really hard work to do. I want to get back in on something you asked me about the players. And as you're talking, it's ringing true to me and it's bringing up. Because we live in that world, where we're going to debate everything, right? Then stances have to be like on either end of the spectrum. There's very little that can be in the middle because we're too close to each other. Like I remember going on first take. I was terrible.

I was terrible because I didn't fully understand that they want me to say the opposite of what he's saying and arguing. You can't be like, oh yeah, good point, Stephen. I ain't good point. But that's what I was doing. You can't say good point on those shows. You can never say, you know what? It's a great point. I was a young dummy.

And I was like, well, that is. is a good point and I could see your side of it. And so I'm trying to talk it out like and just completely missing the point that it's just for show and we got to argue. But because because it's there, like then you got to have these two at opposite end of the spectrum argument. And as it relates to what you asked me, Logan, about the player, we don't live in a world anymore where a dude has the ability to just not be playing great for a week and a half

and not be awful or washed or at the end of his career or sucks. or should be traded or they can't play. We don't live in that world anymore. We used to live in that world where, you know, if I scored 30, no one was talking about making me a signature sneaker. I wasn't the face of the NBA, right? But if I didn't score 30, I shouldn't be back in the CBA either. Like, you know, and we live in that world now.

And that's got to be hard for a player. And I'll just note, I noted all the other things that didn't exist 20 years ago, blogs and social media, 24-7 debate shows didn't exist. 25 years ago either. Like ESP had not completely become the Embraced Debate Network where every show was just people yelling at each other about something. So like the ecosystem

in a lot of ways right now is healthier and more diverse and richer because we have a ton of voices on podcasts and blogs and everything else. So you can get, if you want the really hardcore nerdy stuff, it's there. But all the debate stuff is there too and all the aggregated stuff and all the viral stuff and all the rumors stuff and all the

gossip stuff. There's just more of everything, including, of course, 24-7 debate shows that sometimes, like, I think, derail all these conversations or overshadow the basketball. But again, I don't know how much of there is to lament there. And I wanted to make sure I note this before I forget it. J.J. on his pod the next day did say the same thing that I was saying at the top of this pod, which is there are a bazillion ways to enjoy this game. There's not, there's no right or wrong one way. He may lament as somebody who does a lot of really intelligent deep dives on the game, that not enough people engage with that in the same way they engage with him strafing Doc Rivers.

But JJ obviously understands the sports ecosystem and that's just the way things are. Like I have the same issue. Like I don't, I've rarely in my career, especially in this era where you can know your traffic, I don't want to know my traffic. But I do know. I do know that my richly reported, you know, extensively researched 3,000 word deep dive on a player or a trend is not going to do as many numbers as somebody's power rankings. And no disrespect to power rankings.

Some people do them really, really well. But power rankings are cheap and easy. And it is almost the epitome of clickbait. And there's a lot of stuff out there. Get your shit off. Power. Get your shit off. Howard.

Yeah. It will get a lot more clicks. Then me or Logan doing like a one week trip where we spend thousands of dollars of company money to go track down some players and do a nice deeply reported feature. Like, that's the broken ecosystem we all operate in. And I lament that as much as JJ does. So I'm not disagreeing with him on either end of this. There's plenty there to actually lament, but we just can't get too carried away, I think, with it.

Like the ecosystem is what it is, unfortunately. I'm not sure any of us can fix it. So to be clear, for the 47-year-old who doesn't, like, interact online all that much, When you say no, my traffic, you mean the people that are going to look at your shit? Like, like literal clicks, Raja. Like when I was at Bleacher Report, when I first got there, thankfully, they eventually removed this. There was a public, like, counter there on every story where it would say, like, this story's got 3,000 reads. This one's got 500,000.

And not only did you know it as the writer, the whole world knew it because it was on the story. It was, yeah, the streets knew it. Eventually they got rid of the public one, and I could ask like, hey, How'd my, you know, story the other day do? To add to that from, like, if we're going to get on our, on our journalistic bag, like, I would, that would best suck. Because I remember when I first started at the Mercury News and I had access to, like, all of the traffic of my stories and other people's stories and all that stuff, right? And as a consequence, like, you would chart to write stories for the timeline, if that makes sense. I don't know how it is for like, well, it was for Howard, but you would start trying to, as a young reporter, trying to get on and trying to get to the next step.

You would write stories just like, not just to, but you would write stories to try to get noticed. And how would you get noticed and how would you get clicks? Try to get a quote. This is the difference between when you came up and I came up because there's like a good number of years between us. And this is really actually instructive for like the listener. So I start my career in the early 90s and I start covering the NBA in 97 in a newspaper at a complete. newspaper-oriented world where there is no real internet or it's the early days of the internet. There's like email. There's no websites. There's no anything. You don't know how many people read

your story. You don't know if people even if they did read your story. And when they pick up the newspaper the next day, did they read my Laker game story? Or did they pick it up to read about what's going on in Congress? Or did they pick it up to read about, they just pick it up for the classified ads or like the comics page. I don't know and I don't care. And we were better off as a an industry before we could actually quantify everything and measure all these. You didn't know if the Fresno B just picked up your story from the LA Daily News. You know what I'm saying? You didn't know that shit I knew.

Oh, you did? Okay. We're in a bag, Roger. We're in a bag. I know, but I feel like that. I love it because I feel like that way about basketball sometimes. We were better off when we couldn't quantify every single thing. Real talk.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's like, dude, I was, I would say this. Like, there are people, I don't think analytics has necessarily ruined the way we talk about basketball. I do think it has it has both enriched and cluttered the way we talk about it. I remember like an editor telling me like, yo, if you want to like say I wrote like a great

Durant story or something like that, right? Our editors will, it was like way back in the day, but like our editors would be like, can you write another Durant story tomorrow? Like, what the fuck, no? Like I just spent the week and a half. Right, they saw the number spike. And they'll be like, yo, go next. Right.

Just ask them any question. You know what I mean? So you have, that would be frustrating. You unfortunately, Logan, had that kind of, like, inherent pressure starting from the beginning of your career. Whereas for me, like, it's later in your career where all of a sudden, like, oh, now they can measure everything. And now we're in a world where, yeah, everybody just wants more LeBron, more Steph, more KD. I have always tried to do what I can to veer, right? Like, I did a big feature on Thon Maker when he was with the Bucks because I just thought he was fascinating and their choice of him was fascinating.

And that was not going to be some automatic click machine. but I wrote what I thought was a really good feature. Like, I just, my lament is that in an analytics-driven era on every front in our industry, has ruined our industry because too many places, including my most recent former employer, I will say, are just chasing clicks a lot of the time. By the way, my most recent former employer still does a lot of really great stuff too. But there was a lot of pressure before I left there to start just reacting to everything, to weigh in on everything that was being yelled about on Twitter or on ESPN.

Like that model has warped the media ecosystem. And I think in some weird way, that's kind of what JJ was inadvertently touching on last week. And obviously, that's why it struck a chord with me because clearly having rambled for quite a bit here, I have a lot of thoughts. It's fired up. We're the bag. As someone who can frequently get fired up, Howard, I can appreciate that. I rock with it. Rock with it.

Yeah, man. Shout out JJ Reddick being a friend of the. the fourth estate. You know what I mean? Shout on to the God. All right. All right, man. Any any last thoughts, Raja, on this discussion? I have a question for Raja, actually, if he doesn't. Go ahead, fire away. Stephen A kicked off this whole thing by saying Durant, instead of lamenting what the fans don't know, should educate them.

And J.J. came back with, hey, that's not our jobs. Raja, you're a former player. While you were playing or even now. Like, how much do you think it is on the players or coaches or whoever to educate us as you go. It doesn't mean you have to spend every day breaking down X as an O's with a chalkboard or a dry race board or iPad. But

like, do you did you ever feel that or do you feel that responsibility? Is that part of it? No, weirdly. I mean, and maybe not weirdly, but no, I never felt like it was my job to necessarily you know, explain to fans what was going on. I felt my job was to

answered the questions that Howard posed to me and Logan posed to me. And I felt like it was their job to explain what was going on. And so when they came in the locker room and they caught me at a media scrum to ask me a question that would take me to a place

where I could get into that a little bit. But I didn't feel like if I ever got a microphone in my face, my job was to be explaining where we were as a team and why we were there. Now, when I sat in an executive seat, Howard,

that was my job. My job is when I got in front of people to explain, hey, where we are as a team, what we have going on, how the coaching stuff is going on. But as a player, I never really felt like that, unless something happened personally with me, like the Kobe situation with me, like where it's a huge deal. Now I have to explain myself, right? Like that's, I, I had a few situations like that where in that space, I have to explain what happened, why it happened, give some context to it, but I didn't feel like my job as a player on broad scale was to be educating a fan. And I never met anyone else who did. And I've, you know, again, I was blessed to play with a lot of great players and we had some amazing conversations over meals and stuff

like that. And no one ever said to me, or did I see anyone ever act like it was their job every press conference to be educating fans? I just want, I just wish like we could just see Katie, like go full Mike Brown and just bring the laptop every time he comes to does a presser, you know? Just be like, this is what I did rare.

KD actually had a couple of those moments. If there was ever a player, like, also like, it's not there. I don't feel like it's y'all job to do it. Y'all job is the hoop and like in the fucking get your team to win a title, right? Like, that's just a lot of things next.

But like, I would say players by and large, when they have time, they do educate us. Like, even in the locker room scrums, they'll be like, yo, Howard. Yo, check this out. This is why I did such and such and such and such. Or I seen like, remember when CP was on The Thunder, there's this really great video on YouTube

and a film session with Chris Paul. Like, that was amazing. Or like, K.D. Or, no, LeBron. Like, if you catch LeBron sometimes, like just ask him a question in a scrum, he will go on like a two-minute whole thing about what happened on that play and that set.

Like, it happens. You know, what's interesting again is, Howard, you asked me the question. I answered that. And that's truly the way I felt when I played. But admittedly, I'm from a generation where that's how it worked, where I didn't have a voice. I couldn't create a podcast. So I was conditioned to be like, okay, you guys write the stories, right?

You guys are going to tell them what's happening. You're going to come to me to get some insight. I'm going to give you that. And since we've got this trust built up and so on and so forth, I can be honest with you. And you'll write a good story. Like it doesn't always have to paint me in a glowing light, but you'll write it the way it is, right? today's player could be a little different like they could be because they've just got things at their disposal that allow them. And so when you said, did I feel like it was my job? I never felt

like it was my job unless the Kobe situation happened or something else happened like that. And then it becomes a want. I want to explain to you what's going on. I want to educate you. I feel like there's a difference there between the two. Didn't feel like it was my job all the time unless I wanted to get something out there. And we quite frankly, just, didn't have the platform. By the way, what's funny about that, that platform exists now. And when you think about players or former players who have decided to use that platform, Pat Bev, Gilbert Arenas, Pearson, Garnett, everybody else, what are they talking about? They are talking about the same things that the rest of us casuals are, which is, who's the

goat? Is Doc Rivers a good coach or not? And all the other usual stuff. Like, it is, like, Pat Bev's not doing deep dives on sidelines out of bounds plays. So it's just, it's kind of funny. So the people who do know the game most intimately and are the true experts, I would never, ever, ever call myself an expert on the game of basketball. I cover basketball. I write about basketball. I'm not an expert.

Roger, you guys are the experts. My job is to talk to the experts and try to learn as much as I can so I can explain it to the reader. That's the job. But the true experts have these platforms now and are just are telling locker room stories. and like stirred up a lot of the same debates. So it's kind of fun. All right. Let's take a quick break.

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that expire seven days after receipt. See terms at sportsbook. Fandul.com. And we are back. Roger, Howard. We have gone Hollywood.

State Farm is here. Like a good neighbor? Like a good neighbor. You know, because today's real one of the week is presented by State Farm. When you get a new car or a new home, your first reaction might be to say things like,

oh yeah, or I can't believe it. But what you'd really want to say is that you're covered with the help you need. Like a good neighbor, state farm is there. And so, you know, this is... Shout out to Brooke and Robin Lopez for their state farm commercial. That one's my new favorite. So this is a Monday, right?

So I wanted to... And they want a segment. So what I wanted to do was kind of talk about somebody interesting. So we can keep the legacy of our Thursday ruin of the week. But I want to talk about somebody that I find that's really fascinating and make a segment around it. And the person that I really find really fascinating right now, is Yanis Adedekumbo, right? Who obviously is on the road to trying to win his second title.

He is currently 29 years of age. And it got me to thinking, right? Because for years, we have thought about Janus as this like this basketball, just, I don't know, alien unicorn is probably the better word. And this guy that with the talent that he has is something that we haven't seen before. and it's probably going to lend itself to a lot of titles. It felt like he was going to be the anointed one, probably take the baton from LeBron

and like this next generation would be the face of this. Now he's 29 years old, but like he only has one title, has two MVP's. So I did some research, guys. I looked up guys who have won, went on Stapmuse, child Stabmuse, when I looked up guys who have won two MVPs, one title with career averages of 23.6.

nine assists, four rebounds, or five rebounds, excuse me. And that's his, that's a Janus' career averages. And guys that have fit that mold in those things. So people on this list are 13 people, players on this list. There's Yokic, Janus, Steph, Duncan, Jordan, Magic, Malone, Bird, Kareem, Wilt, Russell, and Bob Pettit. Now, of those guys, Yokic and Yonis have one title. The other guys on that list, I'm seeing Kareem, five, Wilk, two, LeBron, four.

This is all before they hit 30, or this is all before they hit 30 in terms of championships. And I'm seeing that, and it makes me feel like Janus is on that list in terms of stats, but he's not on that list in terms of championships when it's all set it done. And he, and guys like Janice, when they hit 30, it's not like usually when you see like a Kobe who gets the second win and gets two more titles. Usually you're on the downturn. We're starting to see that, I think, with Joel Embed, and we're starting to see that with other guys. Like, I guess the question that I've been going on and emulating in my head is, does, and I'll start with, I'll start with Raja. Does Janus have enough time in terms of championships to reach his promise that we have all persistent?

showed on to him as like, this is the guy, this is the unicorn, this is the guy that is going to be the multiple title winning player of this generation. Does he still have time to do that? Yeah. Yeah, he still has time to do it. I mean, look, a lot of those, a lot of those names, let's say the Wilts and those dudes, the Kareem's, playing until an advanced age, although Kareem did, medicine didn't support it in the way it does now. Nutrition didn't support it. You know, technology within a,

within a locker room didn't support it. Shit, travel didn't support it. So, you know, he's already got advantages there. Let's move to the next generation of bigger player that made his living in and around the paint, let's say, right? To be fair. Well, you were taking a beating every night with the Patrick Ewan's and the Dale Davis's and the Rick Smiths and the DeKembe Matumbo's like you name it there was just a big multiple

big seven footers and so it was punitive in there not just from a statistical standpoint but from a statistical standpoint that wasn't conducive to playing long and having real longevity past a certain you know

expiration date I think he has both of those things in his favor like we'll just start there, right? Like, he's got advantages in both of those. And, and, you know, I haven't seen a decline in Janus's game yet. I haven't. Like, Janus, Janus at minimum, well, worst case scenario, you've seen him plateau at greatness. I personally think I still see him adding things to his game. You know, they might not translate into threes and, and what people want to see him do from a perimeter. But in terms of ability to play make and understand what's happening and create for others. And I still think I see growth there. So I don't think from a physical standpoint, it's fair to say that that window's

closed and he can't win championships. Now, what I don't know is what happens in Milwaukee. That's not just a singular thing sometimes. Like, he can be fantastic and not win championships. Like, I don't have the answer to what that's going to look like moving forward. But I don't think that it's fair to say that Janus is not going to have the opportunity to win more championships. There's still time. Yeah, of course there's time. He's 29. I don't think we're going to see him play to 39 the way that LeBron is.

Most guys don't do that. But he's got at least another, whatever, five, six, seven, eight years, something. A lot can happen in that time. But like, I don't even, I don't think about it in terms of like what Janice himself can do, will do, how much he can evolve. although those are all important things. Like it really is about like your your surroundings, right? It really is about like, okay, they went out and got Drew Holiday. He won a championship.

They went out and swapped out Drew for Damien Lillard. They've had kind of a wonky season, but they're still in the thick of things. They could still make a run. But Dame is going to be 34 in July. Guards don't generally age as gracefully as unicorns and big men. And Dame is already showing signs. of slippage. So not catastrophic signs, not dramatic, but

it's there. That's not an insult. That's, it happens. He's almost 34. So the question about, if we're going to judge Janus, and if we're going to do the count the rings thing, and he's got his one, and it's about, well, can he

add more? Of course he can't. He will always play at a level that puts his team in the running. The question is going to be, when Lillard really starts to decline, who's next? Do the Bucks have somebody else they can go get? Does Yannis force his way out? I know Bucks fans become apoplectic when you bring this up. Even when he signed this last extension, I wrote a column that day that was basically just a thought exercise. It was just about like, you can't assume anything in today's NBA where guys move around all the time,

championship or no championship, love for the city or no, whatever. Like, Dame said he was a blazer for life until he didn't. Like, I'm not predicting Janus will leave and I'm not saying he should. should or that I would want him to. I hope he stays the rest of his career in Milwaukee. He has planted, but Howard, he has planted seeds that he could leave, even over the summer, this last summer. Yeah, very, very emphatically so before they made the little trade and then before he signed his extension. But extensions don't guarantee anything in today's MBA anymore. And there's a really interesting what if moment here. That's funny actually as it happens when I was rewatching that JJ Stephen A segment from last week on that same show, Reddick,

made this observation about the Nets. And we always talk about this moment through the lens of the Nets, that the Nets were, quote, this is J.J. saying, a James Hardin injury, a Kyrie injury, and a toenail away, meaning KD's toenail, from winning the 2021 finals. I don't know if they were actually going to win it. KD himself has said that he would have been too gassed, whatever.

But let's just take that what if into consideration for a minute, even if the Nets didn't win the championship, if his, if Durant's toe isn't on the three point line and they beat the Bucks, the Bucks don't win the championship that year. I don't know if the Nets do, but we know the bucks in this scenario do not. Is Janus even still there? Right.

You know, Budenholzer was already under fire then. He could have been fired, you know, two years earlier than he was. A lot could have changed. A lot is different for the bucks. We always, again, we talk about that through the nets. A lot might have been different for Janus and the bucks if Durant's toe isn't on the line. And that's, again, that's not to asterisk anything or, you know, denigrate the achievement. but by the way though

Yonis's legacy is secure he can retire tomorrow the dude's on the 75th anniversary team he's a two-time regular season MVP a finals MVP eight time I think eight time all starts seven time all NBA five time all defense like Janus is good

no matter what happens but it seems like with this the reason why I even pose the question is because it seems like even when you watch him play he is on this other tier of all time great right like there's the tier of, and like, the names

that I just, that I just named are in the history books are in the, are littered in the Hall of Fame. You know, Will Chamberlain and Kareem, Abdul-Jabbar are both on that list, and LeBron and Jordan. Like, it is a very, he is in a rare class. And when you are

on that rare class, Howard, and like, whether it's, whether it's fair or not, you are judged by about the titles you get because of how great you are. And I think that That is what it's just not, it's not the fairest thing, but it is what it is. That's where we are when we get to this point. And so, like, I think what I'm afraid of, and I'm just seeing this new crop of new players coming in that are seem to be just as generational.

Like, Yokic is on that list. Yokic could win another. I saw him last night. He could go over and win another title this season. Like, the Nuggets are in prime position to do that. And when they start stacking things up, it's going to be interesting how he's viewed, Roger. That's all I'm saying. That's very fair.

And to your point, if we're talking about, you know, Will, Kareem, Mike, LeBron, like, I don't see his career trajectory right now at 29 unless he just starts winning them, like running them off, you know, two or three. Like, you're probably going to fall short of that particular very small list. But everybody will for the most part. I mean, those are, you know, you're talking about. you know like again yokch if yokch just starts stringing them together and you wind up with four um you know that's a different conversation but like if i you know i i don't know that i see the bucks

as currently constituted kind of to to howard's point like because it's way more than just yonis i don't know that i see that as like a as a as a as a as a as a as a damn dynasty right and so you know we'd be talking about something at least semi-dynastic if if we're saying that yonis over the course of the next seven years is going to get himself three to four more rings. Like I don't necessarily see that. It's tough. I watched the Bucks yesterday. And I know they beat the Sixers, but they don't have like a pet play at all.

Like it's just, it's tough to watch the Bucks play basketball on a nightly basis because it's just, yo, you get the ball. You get out and run. In theory, Dame should be doing pick and roll with Janus. Still not happening. It's just a weird. It's just a weird team right now, man. It doesn't seem like they have their shit together

and they have like a new coaching staff and all these things and all these things. It just seems like this, if he was going to reel off Howard, this, like Roger's point, it's just not going to, it's not going to happen with this team. And a lot of things can't happen, right?

There's a lot of variances, right? A lot of, they could have a great summer. I was going to say, do you mean this team, the, the Bucks franchise or just this version of the Bucks? This version of the Bucks. It's not going to happen. And usually when you have dynastic type run,

it's usually when you have a set group of a core. It's a set core that continues to win these championships. And so I think if this was the core going forward, it's not going to be this one that reels off the run. What doesn't get enough, like, credit or pointing to in what happened to them is the Chris Middleton piece. Yeah. Like Chris, Chris Middleton, and it was injuries and age,

it was a lot of things. But, man, when we were talking about them like that, when they clearly looked like they had an opportunity to win a championship for a long, he was a very, very good number two. And we'd had this debate, Logan, about when Janus goes out in a playoff game, he can step into the number one role and win a playoff game. Yep. Like, you know what I mean?

And so that doesn't get enough, you know, attention, I guess, in terms of what kind of happened to the butt. Like, that was a hard piece to have that type of, you know, decline that quickly. Yeah. And he never, you know, Janus never had the luxury of a, You know, we always, Scotty Pippins are like forever stand in for these kinds of discussions, but he never had his Pippin, right? Like, Middleton was as close as it was going to get. And Middleton is no Scotty Pippen, no disrespect to Chris Middleton. But like, I've talked about

this a lot where in today's MBA, it can be one great player in an ensemble, right? It's Yokic at an ensemble. It's not a super team. It was, it was Janus in an ensemble. It was Kauai in an ensemble in Toronto. And so it's fine, but there's more volatility that way, too, because you do have less to lean on. And that was part of the point of the exercise of bringing in Dame is that Dame, at least a version of Dame that existed in the past would have been the best co-star Yonis has ever had. Is this version of Dame what they hoped for? Is he better than the best version they have had of Middleton in the past or of Drew in the past? Like, so like that's the issue here, right? And you, when we talk dynasty, what's a dynasty? It's just consistency, right?

consistency at the very, very highest level. We didn't just win a championship. We won multiple in a short span. That consistency exists if you've got, as Logan noted, a core that you have been with for a while. And the buck's like the core of the core has been together for a bit. But usually it's also because you've got one other guy, you know, Michael and Scotty, Shaq and Kobe for as long as it lasted. LeBron and Dwayne Wade, it was only four years. But, you know, and that's not a dynasty. They won two.

but you know, Steph, Clay, Draymond, and for a while, KD, you've got to have a lot of talents for a, for a duration of time. And like, if it falls apart as it's, as it's been slowly eroding in Milwaukee, there's only two options.

Either they scramble and somehow fix it and find a way to get Janus a true number two or a bunch of, you know, high level role guys, or he leaves. And, you know, it's, way too early to have that discussion, by the way. But, like, that's, you know, that is often how these things go.

How important is it, with that being said, how important is this season for the Bucks and Yannis? Because there was so much volatility going on this season with the Doc Rivers move, with the initial move to part ways with Bud, to the trade. It seems like there's a lot of pressure on this season from the Bucks and beyond. Like, how much do you see that, Roger? Like how much pressure is on this team with everything that we just said for this team to actually make a deep run and ultimately a title? A huge amount of pressure. I mean, there's a huge amount of pressure on the on the bucks to be very formidable in the playoffs. You've got Janice chasing, you know, like all the names that we just talked about.

He's in the prime somewhere in that. That window is wide open. We talk about windows being wide open with guys like LeBron and whenever you get them, you're in championship now kind of mode. Yannis is in that conversation. You want to make sure that both he and Dame feel like this can work. And having some level of success or a high level of success, I'm sorry, in the playoffs, is going to be critical to that.

You don't want either one of those dudes coming towards the end of this season. Now, that's provided you think that's the answer, Janice and Dame, right? Like, that's provided that as a franchise, you're still looking at those two, like, they're going to get you home. Now, behind closed doors, you might already said, hey, this isn't working. I'm not behind those doors, so I don't know. But I think it's critical for them to have success in the playoffs. Now, I don't know that they have to absolutely win a championship, but this can't fall apart.

We talked about this last pod, Logan. If the wheels start falling off, this is a catastrophe. You know what I mean? Like there are not many places you could go at that point. You need stability and you need to play well in the playoffs for this team. Not saying that it has to be a championship, but it's critical that they play well. Okay. Well, today's ruin of the week was presented by State Farm.

State Farm is there to help answer insurance questions about your car, your home, and other things that matter to you, whether it's on the phone, online, or on the award-winning State Farm mobile app. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. And with that, before we get out of here, it's Monday. And we got Kai here. It's Monday mailbag time. Hello, Kai.

How you doing, bud? What's up, y'all? I'm good. I got a couple questions. First one's from Phil. Basketball is generally a big deal at all levels in Virginia up through D.C. and Maryland, except on the NBA level. He says, I think the Wizards have some promising pieces and that the homegrown route is the path that the new front office seems like it wants to take.

What needs to be done, not just to be good, but to become relevant? I ask that question to myself and to my homie Ava Wallace of the Washington Post every single time I go to D.C. Like, this is a great city. Why isn't this happening? Like, why are they doing it? And the reasoning I think, and I'll get your all questions. I'll get you to you guys in a second is, I mean, ownership has a lot to do with it. You know, like the, the, the, the, uh, wizard's ownership has not been great.

I don't know when Ted Leannis bought the team, but it hasn't been great since then. Just even the relationship with the Wizard's relationship with the DMV, you know, trying to leave, I don't know where there, but downtown DC, it has not been a good move down there, trying to move them down to Virginia. And just the give and take relationship with the taxpayers and, you know, Ted just taking public money just to say he's going to build a facility. and building, you know, underrepresented areas and not really following through on that. There's just a lot going on there that has eroded the team's relationship with the city. And I think that's a big reason why it hasn't been a great relationship between the city, the great basketball culture of D.C., and that's the reason why it hasn't translated to, in my opinion, to their professional franchise.

What do you think, Howard? I'm going to spin this forward, actually. Like, yeah, the past is what it is. Like, you know, Leon's has stuck too long with, you know, certain basketball ops, folks and everything. Like, all that stuff is true. And, like, they've just been in meandering. There's all kinds of shit has happened over the years, Gilbert arenas, all kinds of things.

But spinning it forward, I mean, I look at it this way. They made the right hire in Michael Winger, I think, who they plucked from the clippers. And I think what Michael Winger and his staff are doing right now, as painful as it is, is the right thing. And, yeah, I know, like, you know, the, the, multiple trades that happened where they end up with Jordan Poole. Like Jordan Poole is not exactly working out there right now. But that's not the point.

The point is at some point you just have to rip off the Band-Aid dealing Bradley Beal at a loss because of contracts signed by a previous administration. It was the right thing to do. You just had to start, you just had to pick a new direction. And true rebuilds like this are messy and they're long. And you don't usually bounce back as quickly as say the Thunder did when they blew it up trading out Westbrook and Paul George and got back Shea Gildjus Alexander and all those picks. Like most rebuilds are not that quick or that smooth.

So it's going to be a while, I hate to say, for the Wizards fan writing and for anybody else out there. But they're doing the right thing. Like you use your cap room creatively. You take in bad contracts so that you can get draft picks from teams. You stockpile assets, whether it's trade exceptions, draft picks, younger players, whatever. And you just start shuffling and reshuffling the deck. And then listen, like there's two recent examples of teams that did this, I think pretty effectively in major markets. And Washington's a big market.

The Nets and the Clippers in 2019, however badly it may have gone for either team since then. And the Clippers actually looked like a contender right now. But the Clippers and Nets were both teams that were in bad shape, used their cap room wisely, stockpiled assets, got a bunch of really good hard playing role players who over achieved, made them respectable, made them relevant. Kauai and Paul George picked the clippers. Katie and Kyrie picked the Nets and then Harden joined them eventually. And obviously things did not go so well. But there's a model there.

There's proof of concept that you can take a pretty bad situation, especially if you're at a large market where you should be able to attract high level talent. I know the Wizards haven't signed anybody of that level in a very long time. But guess what? Nets and the Clippers hadn't either until 2019. DC seems like a great place for our NBA player to live. Like it's fucking tight. Yeah, I love going to DC.

I say this about any franchise and I'll just keep it short. Like you just have to, you can't be stuck in the middle. And that's just basically what Howard said. You can't be stuck in the middle, man. And they were stuck in the middle for a very long time. All right. One last question. What we got, Kai?

Well, this one's from Dave. It's two-parter. First one is, is Joe Missoula underrated as a head coach, especially considering the conditions in which he got the job. the second part of the question is who are y'all's top hustle players I'm thinking about underrated guys like Bruce Brown who play with a motor

can we throw the Missoula question to another Ringer podcast? There's plenty of podcasts that can talk about is he underrated? I don't know. I don't think so. Look, I'll answer that.

I think he's properly right. Go ahead. Gary, thank you, Roger. Thank you. Yeah, I think he's probably. I mean, look, I didn't, before we came on air, I didn't look at, you know, a bunch of articles on where they've got him ranked as a NBA coach.

Yeah. But I would say this. I think he's fairly rated. Like, I don't hear people slamming him. I also don't think he's, you know, in the conversation with Eric Spolstra or, or, you know, any of the best coaches in the league right now. And I personally was very critical of some of the stuff that happened in the meltdown against the heat last year. I think there were things that you could point to. If you watch that tape, you know, there were multiple times where there was some schematic adjustment that needed to be made and it wasn't made.

If he seems to have gone back, the team is playing great right now. They're in position to do some things. And if he comes out and they get through these playoffs and we don't have those areas of deficiencies to point at in game, then we won't. But I don't think he's underrated or overrated. I think he's just what he is. He's a good young coach. There were some mistakes made like any coach. He's got to grow from them just like his players do.

And now you get another opportunity at it come this postseason. The only thing I'll add on Joe Missoula completely from a media standpoint and not from a coaching standpoint, dude, smile occasionally. Like just like loosen up a little bit on like what his interviews. And I don't mean just the end game stuff. He's really, he's wrapped really super tight during those in game. but like I wouldn't want to do those either if I were the coach. But just pregame post game stuff. Because like people up there tell me like they really like him a lot.

Like he's really great to do with one on one on one basis. Yeah. But like man, like he, that dude is basketball is life personified. Oh, oh, ball is life for Joe Missoula. Before every game, I don't know if you've been to Boston recently, Howard, but before every game,

this motherfucker is doing a five on five with all his coaching staff talking shit. Like if you, go get to the garden like four hours before the game he's out here on the garden poor shooting talking shit all the whole thing ball is all completely life for him it's all he thinks about good for you joe what was the second question that's took as a part two right top ten hustle players no who are y'all's favorite just in the league right now dylan dylan dylan die lon die lot die long talk to him rye No idea.

I think for me and Raja. I think for me and Raja. That's fantastic. All right. Howard, who are yours? I would be a Raja or have ours. You guys are operating on some other plane. I'll just start my own backyard.

Josh Hart. Josh, Nick's fans run hot and cold on him since he arrived because the three-point shooting isn't always there. But dude just bust his ass every night. one of the best rebounding guards in the league, always mixing it up with somebody, always ripping a ball away from somebody. He's a lot of fun. He's part of what gave the Knicks this kind of grittier personality that kind of makes

them like the ultimate, you know, Knicks team. Like the reason that people like love this next team aside from them winning, and it's been a little rough without some of their starters lately, but like this renaissance is because they got gritty dudes like Josh Hart in addition to obviously, you know, Jaylen Brunson, just filling it up every night. Does Alex Caruso still, does he still, is he still like a hustle guy? Let's go with him. What's, do it.

Let's go. No, I mean, like, I'm trying to, has he, has he, has he moved categories as a player? Sure. There we go. I think Brandon Prasimski is a good one, too. I saw him take a lot of charges last night. Took a lot of Raja charges. Roger-like charge.

All right, I think we've had enough, okay? That's good another edition of real ones, okay? motherfucking Mondays. Howard's going to the mothership next week so he will not be with us. Yeah, if you see him in Sweden, tell him to tell him he's a real one and tell him hello. All right, we'll see you guys Thursday.

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