The Ringer NBA Show - NBA Festivus: The Airing of Grievances! | Group Chat

Episode Date: December 23, 2023

Justin, Rob, and Wos take the aluminum pole out of the crawl space, stretch for the Feats of Strength, and, of course, gather everyone for the Airing of Grievances to celebrate the most anticipated holiday of the season: NBA Festivus. The guys go full Frank Costanza and share their NBA-related gripes, including hanging-on-the-rim technical fouls (4:42), Adam Silver’s All-Star Weekend location choices (36:47), and more that truly make this day a Festivus for the rest of us. Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Wosny Lambre Producer: Brian H. Waters Additional Production Support: Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Galaxy Lights, Coachella, Lightning Bolt Necklaces. 20203 was the year of Scandival. On March 3rd, one cheating scandal launched a reality TV investigation that generated hundreds of conspiracy theories, thousands of podcast episodes, and millions of dollars in revenue. I'm Jody Walker, host of an American Scandival. One retrospective story told in three salacious parts. Listen, December 26th on the Ringer Reality Feast. feed.

Hello and welcome to group chat. I am Justin Verrier and joining me for this festive episode, Rob Mahoney, Big Was. Rob, are you feeling the spirit of Christmas coursing through this podcast? It's flowing through me, but I thought our exercise today was to bring the bitterness, to bring our inner scrooges out in the airing of grievances. So I don't know what energy you want me to bring to this pod, Justin. Why do you think I'm so excited? start this off here. This is the NBA Festivist. This is now an annual tradition we do before the

Christmas Day games throughout ESPN and ABC. I'm sure you guys who are listening will all take part in that. But I told these guys before we started the other day that I've been keeping a running list of my gripes for a few weeks now. I've been checking it twice. Yeah, I think most people, you know, they keep a running list of, you know, maybe movies they want to watch, maybe restaurants they want to check out. You, Justin Barrier, just scores to settle. A running list of NBA things that

pisses you off, like the stereotypical northeast agro bro that you are, Justin. This is true. We can only be ourselves. And for me, that is just being annoyed by the smallest of things that cross my path on an given night of NBA watching. I think a lot of these will probably say for the Patreon.

I don't know if those can really make it to... I'm sure a lot of people are also listening to this, maybe traveling for the holidays. Maybe they have kids in the back. So we don't want to go too spicy for them, but we've got some good stuff in store for you. Should we jump right into it? Yes.

I think you need to lead us off. I mean, this is just a season. I want to hear where you want to go first. Well, first of all, because this is Festivus, we have to get in the spirit. it. And so if you watch Seinfeld, which is what this is based off of, there is a pole, I guess, for this made-up holiday. An aluminum pole, some kind of metal pole. Of some kind. I did not have a pole handy, but I do have a broom. And to this broom,

I've affixed a black and white cutout of Vasily Michich. Because this is, this is the spirit that we're bringing to this show. Why is Happy holidays? Why is Meechich on the broom? Yeah, what are we doing with this prop? Like, please explain this. But I don't know.

I wanted to make it MBA related and so that seemed right to me at the time. Okay. I love that you have a printer in your home. Shouts to you for that. With no color, by the way. No color. And using it for

purposes of this pod, man. I hope that's in the prop budget. Yeah, but just to explain the depths of our, depravity with this visual bid. Justin held up this room with Vasily Mitchitch taped onto it. And I was squinting, wondering earnestly, is that Vasilimichich? Like, why? And is it a dated photo? Is that even a Thunder Media Day photo? I think it's a Serbian national team photo. Unfortunately, the thunder photo I found was too small. And so it was a little too pixelated. Because, again,

I do not have color on my printer, apparently. But, you know, it kind of looks like Toss Mellis. I keep saying to myself, so it's just like, you know, having a friend of us. I see it. I can see the crossover for sure. Maybe a promising career for, you know, task jumping in, tagging in, getting some occasional thunder rotation minutes. Okay. Well, hopefully this prop is doing well on TikTok.

Hopefully we're doing numbers off of this one. What do you want to say to the facility? You know, like, what do you want to aim at him as we get Festivus off started? Nothing at him because he's someone I do not have a gripe with. Okay. He's the good in this world, which is what I, assume the poll represents. I'm going to start slow here, okay?

Because my first gripe is for NBA officials, which I assume a lot of you guys might be on board with this one. The calling for technicals for hanging on the rim has just gotten absolutely off the rails here. Get it out of here. Guys are just like trying to avoid not stepping on somebody, and they're getting called for the text. And honestly, if guys want to hang on the rim, go forward. This is starting to cross into NFL, no funling.

We don't want guys to celebrate sort of territory. And we need to get this the fuck out of here. When you dunk, you should have three seconds to do literally whatever you want. Like if you want to punt the ball in the stands, if you want to taunt an opponent, if you want to rip your jersey off. I think you get two to three seconds to celebrate in whatever manner you deem appropriate. So the idea that we're preventing guys from, one, hanging on the rim as an act of celebration when objectively hanging on the rim is cool.

Or two, as an act of protection when the reality is often they're just like looking below them to make sure they don't land on anybody. It's ridiculous. Also, they're creating a disadvantage for their own team by hanging on the rim, right? And so like these two, while they're hanging on the rim, they're not getting back on defense against certain type of teams like the pace is immediately come to mind. Like, that'll kill you on defense. So, like, yeah, let these dudes do this. If they want to have fun at the expense of a defensive possession, I don't see why the refs should be trying to get in the way.

And like you guys said, it's not like these guys are hanging on forever. I remember when people used to do the hang, and then it would shake themselves on the rim and do all of that. They're not even doing that. They're not doing that. They're just hanging for, you know, longer than whatever the rules. rulebook says is allowed, you know, 0.5 seconds or whatever it is. Yeah, we need to get that out ASAP. I might even stretch this to say that technicals in general have been a little too

quick whistled going, like I was watching the game last night between the Lakers and the Timberwolves. And like, Nas Reid, I believe it was, just went to contest the shot accidentally it seemed hit Rui Hachamura in the face. And they called that a flagrant. I'm like, what are guys supposed to do at this point? Like, it's just, I think. you watch it on slow-mo and it seems so much more violent than it's intended to be. It's just, it's kind of gotten out of control. Yeah, especially so many of these games are extended dialogues between the officiating crews and usually like a couple of very vocal spokespeople on both teams who are

constantly lobbying, lobbying, lobbying, lobbying, and it can get annoying and it can get distracting. And to Waz's point about hanging on the rim, it can be a big problem in transition defense if you're constantly complaining to the officials. But then you see some refs who were just like one word in the first quarter technical. One wrong word in the first quarter

Nicola Yokic and you're ejected from this game. There's no place for any of that stuff. I think we have to have room for these guys to be people, for them to be frustrated, for them to be able to voice those frustrations. We all want to watch them play.

So there should be a pretty high barrier to actually throwing someone out of these games. So I don't know if that's just the second technical, if that's just the flagrant too. but we definitely don't need to be removing good players from the court for being a little pissed off. Also, the most hilarious thing about how technicals are adjudicated right now is that the most flagrant abusers get the most leeway. So, like, Draymond and Luca do the most ridiculous ref hounding that exists in the NBA, and they're allowed to take it so freaking far.

and then a dude who barely ever, you know, raises his voice at an official might say, hey, man, what was that? And he gets teed up immediately. It's just ridiculous how we do this right now. As far as the hanging on the rim specifically, I floated an idea about this earlier in the season. I genuinely think this would work.

If you hang on the rim and you break the basket, you have to pay for it. But that's the only punishment. It's not bad. No technical. just like it's basically amounts to a little bit of a fine if you break company property. Yeah, I feel like some people can file a grievance because it's skewed against some of our girthier NBA players, you know, it's discriminatory. That law is, you know, implicit bias, Rob.

Like, you don't think Austin Reeves is up there breaking a basket? I don't think so. I have seen them pull out the tape mediation. the like the what's the one with the little like floating dot and like that looks like a lava lamp in it like a like a level like a laser level yeah level i've seen them break that out way too much as well i wonder if the two things are related that like people are so finally manicured about how the rim looks and whatnot that it's trickling down into the hanging on the rim thing so yeah let's get the fuck out though i have another officiating grievance while we're on the refs sure referees need to

stop fixing the score in the middle of the game. This whole thing where you can go back and review a potential shot clock violation, whether a guy's foot was on the line. Call it in the moment. And if it gets challenged, then let's review it. But this, like, Sakakis is constantly checking every play, fact checking to make sure the refs are correct. It's getting a little ridiculous.

And a week or so ago, I saw one that was really bizarre. This was in the first quarter of the game between the Mavs and the Wall. Luca hit a step back three with like two minutes left in the first quarter of that game. It was ruled good. There was no clock issue. Nowhere near a buzzer. Three points go up on the board. End of the first quarter, those three points get pulled back because somebody in Saccoccus reviewed the possession and Luca had stepped on the sideline during his step back.

If every play that happens on an NBA court is subject to a constant internal review that you might. might have stepped out of bounds. Nothing productive is going to happen here. And why out of bounds but not checking for travels? Why out of bounds but not calling fouls for contact retroactively? Why is out of bounds the one thing we can apparently go back in time and reverse, even though the referees didn't call it in real time? Is this a police state?

What is going on here? This is what I'm saying, Justin. Yeah. This is the Patriot Act of NBA basketball. if we're being honest, because look, I know it was well-intentioned when football sort of pioneered this

replay thing, and I think baseball got involved with reviewing the homers, and then the NBA was like, well, we need to have our own replay, blah, blah, blah. And it's just, we've gone down the rabbit hole, and it's awful. It's only going to beget more and more

stoppages to review stuff. Empower these guys to make the calls on the floor, let's move on. I don't know that we'll ever get rid of instant replay and I think the challenges and stuff. I love that it's one challenge per game and if you

get it right, all right, cool, we'll give you, so you get two at the max, we don't need any more than that. But man, I don't think we need it at all. I think human error, human judgment should be a part of the game of what we're watching and we should entrust these people

to be competent enough to call what they see, man. And if it does happen. Dem B's the brakes. Yes. Sports are supposed to be a little bit messy. And the fact that you're coming out of a timeout now and the score has changed from when you went into the timeout because of a play that happened three minutes ago,

I'm out of it. Justin, you're spot on this. We don't want to live in the police state. This shit is like the red light camera of the NBA and I don't like it. Too much CCTV going on out there. Absolutely. I don't think the excessive amount

of challenges is for the fans, for the viewers. I think it's for the referees because you have people like Daryl Morey putting out 20-page book reports about all the calls that they get wrong and doing that in a very public way during the playoffs, and it looks so bad on the referees that they have to make sure that they get every fine detail, right?

Or else people are going to complain about this. Mark Cuban back in the day was kind of in the similar vein. And so I understand the input, from officials to want to make sure that they are right, but I do think we're crossing the threshold where it's like, right is sacrificing entertainment value, quite frankly. Here's my compromise.

You can do all of those measures to protect officials if officials are publicly available for interview and to answer for their calls. But so long as we're going to keep them behind the curtain, there's so many measures to protect officials from having to face any kind of public scrutiny. I don't think we also need to be auditing every call they make and changing them during the course of a game

unless it's an official challenge. Although, have you read some of those pool reports, especially the ones lately, which seem to be triggered way more often than I can ever imagine? We're reaching a peak of pool reports going on here. Apex Mountain of pool reports. They just don't say anything. They don't actually explain their thinking.

So it is kind of wrote and doesn't really help at all. And for the people at home, to my understanding, like media, people can request this like a foyer. You know what I mean? Like, be like, yo, we need the pool report for such and such call. It's like people are like literally asking the NBA for these stupid-ass breakdowns. Well, not just media members, but I saw a first, I think it was in this same game against the Timberwolves where Luka also got an early tech. in that game and requested to the court side media, please ask the officials in a pool report about that call. Yeah, that was ridiculous. That's crazy. So it's a brave new world. Can I go again

because Rob has just sparked something in me? The juices are flowing here. Let's go. Let's keep it rolling. We're like Dizzy Jones and Billy Dunn. We're just creating beautiful music with our rights. We have just as toxic a relationship, Justin, I can assure you. That's true. But it's beautiful. No spoilers. I was watching a football game the other day. I was watching my New York football giants just get absolutely trounced, I believe, on Sunday NFL football.

And the broadcast booth turned to the in-house official expert. And this was someone who wasn't currently employed by the league. And they actually criticize, not one, not. to, but a handful of the calls that were being made on the field. And I was like, holy shit, I didn't realize you could do this. Because the way that the NBA works, I believe, is they constantly turn to someone who is an active member of the Seacoccus cabal back in the control room where it has that real dark, almost Batman cave setting. And they turn to this person who, of course, is going to stick up for their fellow referee, who they ostensibly probably work with.

So we need to get away from that. We need the vision. We need objectivity from our broadcasts with the official expert. That's what I'll say. So you don't want to see Steve Javvy get thrown to during games? No, no more Steve Javvy. I want Wads. That's who I want to throw to.

Third parties. Who watches the watchman is what we're asking here on group chat? It's true. It's true. Yeah, the officials checking officials in the game does not work. Who's fact checking the fact checkers? people are wondering was on this note too we could also probably apply the same consideration to coaches who do in-game commentary either play-by-play or usually color talking about the decisions

that other coaches are making in which they are always correct and right and just it's okay to criticize someone in your profession it's okay to say like maybe that wasn't the right time to call a time out maybe that wasn't the right substitution maybe this wasn't the right defensive scheme for this game. I don't think there's anything wrong with that in the same way that it's okay to look at a human referee and say they blew that one. They really missed that call. And on a broadcast, it serves your audience to actually point those things out.

So what you're saying is we should actually do a bunch of media criticism on this podcast. Apparently. Wise, why don't you go with one of yours? Yeah, so, you know, I tried to keep it like outside of the box. a little bit. I didn't want to just come in here and be like, the Detroit Pistons offense is fucking garbage. And I'm sick and tired of it. And this is my gripe. I wanted to go a little bit outside the box. One serious, one not so serious. I want to start with my serious gripe here. And it's pointed towards the players union, honestly. And I don't like this idea that they're

seeding this ground to Adam Silver and giving him all. autonomy to do shit, like suspend people indefinitely. I don't think that's a good idea in the long term. I get it. Like, Adams done a good job of cultivating a great relationship with the players and the association. And he's been pretty nice to them or whatever. He's cultivated a less antagonistic relationship than his predecessor, David Stern, did. But, you know, think about the first job suspension last year, where it's this like, Lucy,

Goosey, figure it out, blah, blah, blah. Maybe he's in therapy. Maybe he's this. He's going to Florida, blah, blah, blah. And he's just like, whatever, Adam is cut in the league are just kind of figuring it out. There's no, okay, this is what the bylines of the collectively bargained agreement is. And this is what job falls under. So this would be his games.

Whoever doesn't like it, tough shit. This is what the union and the league negotiated. This side goes. Instead, it's just Adam doing his thing, going off a vibe. Same with this Draymond situation. Same with Miles Bridges, by the way, who was essentially declared unofficially suspended for last year. Nobody knew exactly what was going on.

And then he got his quote-unquote real suspension to start this season. And again, in these cases, especially with Bridges and Dreemont, where it's kind of like cut and dry, like these dudes did in Bridges' case criminal shit, fucked up shit. And it's like, yeah, we want to punish. And then Draymond is like, yo, this is obviously out of hand. However, what I would like the union to consider in their role here, in their quote-unquote partnership with the league,

is that Adam Silver is only nice to you guys in so much as it doesn't affect the people that pay his paychecks. So long as he doesn't have to go against ownership, he has no problem pretending to be the best friend of the fucking players union. But make no mistake, given this level of autonomy, When it's time to crush you on behalf of the owners, he will. And so watching the union, even Jai's 25 game suspension that they didn't challenge, I thought was ridiculous. I just thought it was over the top in how much they suspended Jha for the stupid shit he was doing on IG with guns.

And I just think it's a bad road to be going down. And yeah, that shit just gets on my nerves. A couple of thoughts here. As far as Jah and Dremon specifically, I think what you're seeing is an indefinite suspension for Dremont, an extensive suspension for Jha, based on them being repeat offenders, based on them doing these things several different times.

Jaws, as much as anything, felt like a bit of a makeup call for not really suspending him the first time around. And I think you can argue whether that's a fair approach or not. I'm with you, Waz. I would love to put a number of games on this. this. I would love for an actual determination to be made by the league

and the union to come to some kind of agreement or to make a ruling and have it challenged and let it play out. That's all fine. But the reason a lot of that stuff doesn't happen, in particular with cases like Miles Bridges, is because the league is dodging precedent. They don't want people to

say like, oh, Miles Bridges got this, but Player X got that. And then you're doing an equivalency game of intimate partner violence versus like, you know, punching a guy on a basketball court. DUI and any other thing that a player would be suspended for. And so it feels like to me, the league is trying to skirt that stuff as much as it can. And I think that's bullshit, frankly.

I think it's a pretty cowardly way to go about this process and really just trying to dodge accountability for how we suspend players for committing actual crimes. Yeah. And with the repeat offender thing again, I have no problem with, yo, this is what you get for this crime. um, Draymond, whatever, all of the nonsense he's done kicking people in the nuts, blah, blah, blah, blah.

This is what you get for the crime and because you're, you know, since we're doing three strikes type of shit, whatever, whatever. You know what? We add in this extra and it's based on such and such criteria. Like, these guys should actually have to come out

and explain why he's carrying out his job the way that he is, the league office. That's just my. opinion. And the players, and again, they might interpret Adams handling as of the Dremont situation as, you know, on the whole beneficial, the Dremont. Just know it doesn't always end up that way. Okay. Like, it's no different than, you know, I'm watching my, I'm watching a bunch of people online cry about like the cancellation shit. And I'm just like, yo, like, y'all was cool with the canceling shit when it's people you don't like. Now people you do like again canceled, right? Like,

eventually that paradigm is going to swing and the league office is going to use this power against you eventually. And that's why I think they should, you know, tread kind of carefully and how they let an Adam and them dictate this stuff. There's definitely a chilling effect. The lack of transparency is, I think, what all of us are kind of rubbing up against because it is weird when Dremont gets suspended and his path forward, as we're told, are these nebulous conditions and terms. And what the league is doing is they are leveraging the fact that nobody wants to come out in defense of what Miles Bridges or Kyrie Irving did. No one is standing for that. But if you try to ding the league, for instance, for the lack of transparency, it seems like you're supporting those

guys, which is not what you're doing, but that's what they're hoping because all they wanted to do is shut down the conversation totally. It's a PR defense that's just allowing Adam and the league to kind of do what they want. And I assume the players have gone along with it because it's been in their best interest. Like for instance, with Jemann, if you put a term to the number of games he's suspended, maybe that would be way longer than what he would get if he plays ball. And they just kind of shut this shit down. He goes away for a while. But I think you guys are right. I think it could get pretty dicey pretty quickly if something significant happens. And we don't know what's going on because it's all happening behind closed.

doors. Yeah, this is something you guys talked about a bit when Mike Pino was on, but the idea of the league using mental health language to create some of this ambiguity, it's clearly a smokescreen. It's clearly a curtain that avoids this sort of transparency that we're asking about. You know what that is, right, Rob? What's that? It's your Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi kneeling in Kentee cloth in the Congress. That's what the league is doing. with this mental, they're cloaking themselves in the kentay cloth of mental health jargon to protect themselves. It's not what comes first. No. And we know that shit to be true. It's also not their responsibility. I think this is where we've lost the plot with some of the

punishments for players going on right now. It is not the league's responsibility to facilitate Draymond Green's therapy. That's not what's happening here and that's not what he's being suspended for. The league needs to check damaging and destructive behavior, not the mental health behind that behavior. That's Raymond's job. And if he can't take care of that stuff on his own,

I don't know what to tell you, but it's... That's why... You give him a set number of games that he's suspended for a set action, for a definitive thing that happened. But if you make it an indefinite period of time, as he checks these boxes, as he works through these

therapeutic processes, We're just dragging a thing out that doesn't need to be drug out. We're dealing with a problem that's not the leagues to solve. I mean, I don't actually want to get too deep into media criticism here, but this is one case where I do feel like it's warranted because one of the critical aspects of media would be to be the watchdog in instances like that. You don't hear shit from media anymore about certain things like this. Like these type of conversations are just not happening.

And like I feel like even 20, 10 years ago when things were a little bit more, print-based and people were more prone to holding powerful people accountable in sports, has kind of gone by the wayside. And so I'm like, I feel like this type of stuff would, wouldn't happen maybe 20 years ago because people would be such an uproar about the fact that there wasn't sort of accountability. There weren't set terms. People would be asking Adam Silver about this type of stuff in press conferences, and that just doesn't exist anymore. I think a lot of It is frankly because certain reporters need certain access in order to keep their transactional game going.

It's a fair critique. See, we can do media criticism on this pod, Justin. We can. Let's just do a whole separate spin-off pod about that. I have a more lighthearted bit of media criticism while we're going into this lane. Let's go. This is much more basketball-oriented.

The phrase, the best two-way player in the league. This is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot of the NBA. The actual meaning is pretty obvious. You know, you're making a big impact on both sides of the ball. You're the best two-way player in the league. You know who the best two-way player in the league is? The best player in the league. Yeah.

Dylan Brooks. You know who are really good two-way players? Steph Curry. Luca Donchich. Tyreys Halliburton, Devin Booker, Damian Lillard. Damian Lillard is a better two-way player than Drew Holiday. Even though Drew Holiday is one of the best defenders in the world. So what are we doing with this?

I know sometimes we just make up stuff because we want more words to describe players, but why do we do this? So what you have is a semantics gripe. Yes. Yeah, I mean, I think people, which you already know, but just for the sake of laying it out there, is people want to note that they're actually incorporating defense here

more in the midst. It's virtue signaling. It's like, guys, I, I think the stuff that doesn't get you girls is important too. And I want to make sure everybody knows that I think that it's important. You know, even though I spend most of my time thinking about the dudes that get buckets, the dudes that facilitate offense, I spend most of my time thinking about that. But you defensive guys who can, you know, execute a dribble between your legs every now and again

and make a completely wide open corner to three, one-out-old. of every three times. We got to show you some love to. And so we're going to note that you're two ways. You go both ways. You go defense and you go offense to sometimes a little bit, kind of. Yeah, it's just a shame that those people are like 20 years too late in terms of defense mattering in that kind of way.

Like we live in an offensive league. And frankly, if you want to think about it on like a 10 point scale, if a guy is a nine out of 10 on offense and a three out of 10 on defense. that's a better player than a guy who's like a five out of ten on offense and an eight out of ten on defense. It's just a better player. You know what this is like? This is also in the conversation.

So like whenever we do MVP or any sort of awards or best team, you get through the first five to 10 to 15 to 20 people. And then you just want to acknowledge someone. And you're like, just shouting out. They're in the conversation. Even though we're not actually talking about them. we're actually just acknowledging them and almost affixing them to the actual conversation.

Yeah, they're not in the conversation. They're a bullet point at the end, a footnote to the conversation. But you're absolutely right. Really an addendum, when you really want to break it down. What it is ultimately, and this is another bit of media criticism,

a lack of imagination and how we talk about players, a lack of definition beyond, we can only put them into these certain buckets. It's like if we're not talking about a guy for MVP, then we can't talk about how great he is. Just talk about what he does well. Just talk about the impact he makes on the court. He doesn't have to be in the MVP conversation.

He can just be really freaking good. Yeah. And he's in the convo. Another one like this, face of the league, or face of the league. Face of the league. What does face of the league actually means?

I recognize that there are other aspects to basketball prominence amongst players that go outside of their actual ability. But I think people want to say celebrity, but for some reason they don't want to go that far. And so we say face of the league. And so it gets into this nebicke's conversation. Like, what are we actually talking about?

Because I think we would agree if we were to have this conversation, it would be LeBron. But when you break it down, it's like, oh, well, you know, he like talks about stuff sometimes that are important. And it's just, it doesn't make sense. It's not an actual thing.

I think it's a market. idea. It's like when the league sends their packet, their, what you will call it, their deck to Verizon and AT&T for potential partnership and dollars, who do they put on the front page of that pamphlet, right? That's who the face of the league is. To me, it's a marketing and commerce question than it is anything else. It's not like, you know, you get this face to the league tag and, you know, all of the freaking Uyghurs in China who are dying, they stick a mic in front of you and they go, China's a league partner. What do you think about the Uyghurs?

Like, that's not going to happen to the quote unquote face of the league. You know what I mean? It's literally just who they package this thing to when they're trying to sell it to potential buyers and partners. NBA Waz has checked out MBA Waz has checked in McKinsey light up our phones BCG let's go

All right I'll go again I can keep going here People People who refer to players On Twitter and their little standups doing their broadcasting

Stick by their nicknames Or by their numbers. Like, instead of saying, hey, Steph Curry playing, playing really well this season. It's like, 30's really got it going this year. I'm like, you are not actually part of the team. This is an extension of like when people say we when they're talking about their team. Like, I kind of don't mind that anymore. If only because like maybe we're at the ringer, we've been desensitized to do it at this point. But like, if you're just talking about Steph and you're calling him 30 casually on your nerd ass NBA podcast.

Like if I started to do this, like I would expect you guys to hold me economy. The Ben Cruz shots contend you at a ridiculous clip. I can't believe Ben Cruz is catching all of these trades. Justin, how do you feel about like QB1? How do you feel about QB1 in this discussion? Like for your Matt Saracen types.

I actually don't mind that because there seems to be a little tongue and cheek action. Okay. There's a complete lack of self-awareness where people, think are so deep into covering the league that they actually think they're part of the ecosystem when they are way removed from this entire thing that like they should not be talking as if they are one of them. Yeah, there's definitely a signaling of insider intimacy and knowledge and I am around this team and therefore I talk like this team. The one that jumped out to me when when it happens is people who refer to Kyrie Irving as Kai.

That's a little familiar. That's a little familiar, guys. I don't know about that. Kai is good. 30 is good because I've seen it all over the place. How do you feel about cat, for instance? Carl Anthony Towns. Cat's fine, right?

That's a nickname. Yeah, we're just saving syllables. Okay, so I shouldn't call Dorian Finney Smith Dodo. No. That's too much. And this is the difference is like you also can't call him DFS because it doesn't like roll off the tongue. But that's also daily fantasy. Well, true.

But I can't remember whether it's an acronym or an initialism. I think initialism is the phonetic one. So cat, like we can do cat, but we can't do DFS. We can't do THJ. I'm out on that. I like 30, though. I like when people refer to. I enjoy it.

It's like, because it reminds me of, you know, going to a high school football game, right? And you don't know every other kid on the team. And you're like, yo, 30 is going crazy right now. Like 30 is blowing up every single play. That's what it evokes for me, this idea of just like these guys out there. And we're just known by their numbers. It's not about the teams and the heritage. It's just that dude out there is just out there making a play.

And so that's what it evokes for me. So it's kind of hilarious hearing people. people say that, even though Steph Curry's one of the most famous athletes on the planet, we can just say his fucking name. But I'm amused by that. That's funny. Does it depend on the number? Like, does it have to?

Obviously, you can't say 23 for LeBron. That doesn't make any sense. Don't call Luca 7-7. Nah. 7-7 is weird. That would be weird. 15 for Nicole Yokic. See, it just doesn't work for basically anything but first.

if we're being honest and barely for 30. Wise, why don't you go ahead with one of yours? So I'm sitting here thinking about NBA things, some of our MBA obligations, and I'm reminded of, you know, nothing to announce yet, but the ringer might be putting together something for All-Star Week and something cool for people to be a part of, if possible. Nothing to be reminded of.

Sounds intriguing. Yeah. But then I remember that it's in Indianapolis. And Adam Silver's democratization of the All-Star Game is ridiculous. I'm sorry, we want a dictatorship of fun for All-Star Game Cities. Back to back to back. And let me just preface this. I was in Salt Lake last year.

I met a few locals. It was really cool talking to them and hearing them talk about, like, their city hosting this event and all of these people descending on Salt Lake and this cool thing that was happening. It gave them a sense of civic pride. And it was like a dope thing for the people of Salt Lake City. Like that was legitimately cool to hear like that gave me a warm feeling to hear people from Salt Lake talk about what was happening. You're talking about them and like they're on the planet of the apes. Like these people in Salt Lake City or extension. Listen, listen, listen, listen, I'm not trying to do this with these mid-tier NBA cities,

which the NBA has a lot of mid-tier cities, right? But I'm just saying Salt Lake, Cleveland, indie, back-to-back-to-back in the dead of winter in February for an NBA holiday event. It's just like, what are we doing? Stick to the basics. Keep us in LA, Phoenix, Miami, you know, sprinkle a little bit of New Orleans in there. I might even do the ATL because it's still even cold over there, but we can do some ATO. We talked about Houston being one of the black mecas. Stop doing this other shit.

I don't want to go to Memphis for All-Star Weekend, y'all. I got respect for Memphis as a city. It's a cultural land. I get it. You don't got to put my All-Star Week in there. Even New York is cold as shit. But it's a city that can host things in a way that if you don't get to go to the Kia Sportage Party that's being thrown or some electronic whatever party that's being thrown.

You can go somewhere in New York City with your friends, your colleagues, your whoever, and have a good time during All-Star weekend. Let's just please stick to the basics. We want a monopoly of fun with these All-Star Citi. I got respect for Nap Town. I got tons of respect for the mistake by the lake. But like, please, for the love of God, stop doing this to us, Adam Silver in the league office.

We don't need a democracy of All-Star destinations. I'm done. This is a big person in L.A. Just looked at flights to Indianapolis and doesn't want to take the red, I have the connection. I got to connect in Chicago. Like, yo, what? So correct me if I'm wrong. They put it in some of these places in large part because those cities or those teams have funded a stadium refurbishment or they have a new stadium or they put money toward improving things, right? That's typically how this works. It's like kind of a payoff for doing. There's a lot of

political factors involved in terms of trying to support certain cities, certain markets, trying to draw certain attention to certain places. But yes, teams that have invested in their infrastructure, I think, do get some prioritization, which maybe there's something to be worked there where if you accept X percentage of your new arena and public funding, maybe you don't get the all-star game. Maybe you need to privately finance your arena to get the right to host this thing and benefit from it as much as these teams will. Or maybe I'm thinking about that backwards. Maybe the idea of bringing the All-Star game to Indianapolis or Salt Lake City or Cleveland is such a boon for the entire city. Maybe there's some trade-off.

I'm with you, though, Wads. I feel like maybe we should have just a cast of six rotating cities. We don't need more than six. Mostly warm-weather places. And honestly, I'm open-minded as to the size of those cities. I don't even think they need to be enormous. But can we not be in the dead of winter? Listen, I would be fine.

I'm going to Orlando. Sure. I'm not completely against going to Orlando. We could have a great all-stop. Star Weekend in the city of Orlando. Like, it's, you know, thankfully we don't have a market in Jacksonville. It's not a Jacksonville. You know what I'm saying?

Like, obviously, it's not Miami. We get it. But, like, it's a perfectly fine, the whole city. The weather will be suitable. Everybody will be able to have a good time to celebrate the league, celebrate our best players, have a great time, right? Brough, don't send us to Detroit in February. Please.

For the love of God. Don't do it to us. That's all I'm asking. And that's a case where it's a big market city, right? Detroit's a big city, but not necessarily optimal for hosting an event like the All-Star Games. You need the infrastructure that some of the smaller NBA markets don't quite have in terms of hosting just like a sheer number of people. But then you also want an environment, and I mean like a literal climate that is amenable to being in in February. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Having said all that. Please come out to Indianapolis for All Star Week. Yeah, thanks. Thanks. Rob, do you want to go again? Yes. Actually, free throws are good. Hmm.

You know, there comes a point in every season where we, as a basketball society, decide we are too good for free throws. We want to get rid of the free throws. We want to get rid of them. Some star is getting a ton of them. This was a huge talking point earlier this week or late last week, I'm not fuzzling on the timing

when Joel Embed went off against the wolves, 17 free throws in that game, I believe. We need to stop shaming great scores for doing what the game incentivizes them to do. And I understand that watching collectively 70 free throws in a game is not a great product from an entertainment standpoint, but it's always been part of the game.

And the idea of devaluing someone like Embed or Janice or Jimmy Butler, whoever you want to think about as being like in the top of the free throws or free throw per minute kind of rankings because they do this when the game wants them to do this. What's the point?

If you're upset about this stuff, change the rules. And until we do that, relax and come to enjoy the grift as I have. Because it's honestly enjoyable to watch if it can be frustrating for the guys who are getting fouls called on them. I think like some of the other things we've talked about,

fouls have a PR problem. Because the way we talk about them now is that they're a way to griff the game. You manufacture fouls. You go and work the refs in order to get to the free throw line. It's just kind of the flip side of this Mori ball bullshit where, yes, it's efficient and it leads to productive basketball. But we've gotten to the point where guys are now basing a lot of what their game is around. And what we talk about is good basketball are guys ability to draw fouls whether or not they are warranted or not. Ben Matherin, for instance, draws a lot of fouls. When you can see clearly he's built a lot of

his game around that aspect and it leads to good efficient basketball. But it does get a little unseemly at a certain point where you're like, oh, these guys are kind of trying to work outside the bounds of the rulebook in order to get an edge. But I tend to agree with you. If it's there, guys should continue to go for it. Yeah, I don't even think it's outside. the bounds of the rulebook. I think it's in the rulebook. And we've seen changes over time, like with the rip-through, for example, when the league wants to weed out certain kinds of behavior, it's pretty successful in doing it on the court. So if it were really important to the league office or to the officials to take away some of the foul baiting that's been happening,

then it would happen or it would have already happened. But I agree with you, maybe it's on us. It's incumbent on us to embrace this marketing challenge. Because what is a foul drawer, Justin, but a job creator? someone who is giving time for the broadcast to read some ads, for the fans in the arena to go get a hot dog. We're moving money around. We're stimulating the economy every time we go to the free throw line. Yeah.

Reaganomics right there. I have a bias in this subject as somebody who, in my own very mediocre playing career, could not put the ball in the ocean from the Titanic. However, you know, I could get to the rack a little something, something draw some contact. I had some slasher to my game. Some might even compare me to a spree well.

You know, a, you know, a straight-down-hill type of attacker. Some might even say that. But so I'm all for that. If a guy gets to the rack and he's amongst the freaking trees and he gets raked on his forearm, I'm sorry, he earned that goddamn free throw. Yes. You know, and like he should like, yeah, and a dude that's living at the line because he's getting in the paint.

Hell yeah. I don't care how many, he can get 40 free throws. Watching a guy do that, I'll never get tired of that. Seeing, you know, the best athletes in the world not being able to stay in front of a dude. And so he's getting to the cup and they have no choice but to foul him. I'm all for that. Where it gets murky for me is the sort of Lou Williams type of foul drawing. Where it's like, it's in the mid-range.

And as soon as you feel anything on your rib, you just chuck something. thing up and you get two free throws. That's where I'm just like, I don't know if we should be rewarding that with free throws. You know what I mean? That's where it gets a little bit like, man, I'm willing to watch as many free throws as possible because it's like, yo, when Shaq will go to the line 25 times, it's because Arvita Sabonis couldn't do anything with him. You know what I mean? Scott Pollard couldn't do anything with him. They had to foul him. And so I never had a problem watching people go to the line for those reasons. And that's why Joel is such a lightning rod in these conversations because he's both of those things. He's both.

He's Shaq and Lou Williams. And so it's not surprising that he's at the top of the free throw attempts rankings right now. But as I was saying, like him, Janus, Jimmy Butler, those are guys you play inside a lot. And Tom Ziller pointed out in his newsletter something I thought which was important, which is even if you take away all the free throws this season, Joel moves from number one in scoring to number two in scoring. Like only Luca Donchich jumps over him if you take away all of his free throws. So Joel has been one of the best players.

in the league this season, maybe the MVP to date, incredibly impressive, incredibly productive for a very surprising team that we're having a negative conversation about him in December when he's been this dominant because he shot 17 free throws. I don't know. Seems pretty good to shoot 17 free throws.

Why is it happening then? It's the Yokish Truthers, my friend. You sound like a Yokic Truther in the other direction at this point. It's a different way. It's probably a backlash to, him winning it last year is probably just like the playoff stuff and whatnot.

No, but I think you bring up a good point. Guess what? The foul grifton doesn't work in the playoffs. It hasn't worked for Hardin, hasn't worked for Lou Will. When Joelle is getting filed, it's because he's getting filed to Shackway. It's not because he's doing this nonsense on the perimeter. So like,

have fun with it while you can, but you can't count on that stuff in the postseason. And the big guys doing it is a nice counterbalance to the way the league is kind of trending. because everything is moving out to the three-point arc and having guys being able to go inside and draw those files is a nice counterbalance there. It's like the big manisance

that we're kind of undergoing subtly in the league where teams are stacking up with big players is as much to do with big men coming into the league more skilled, more able to shoot. And so it's not about smaller guys who are shooting. It's just like it's kind of balanced out. Nature has readjusted to this new thing. But it's also because of guys like that

taking advantage of a spread-out court being able to pound guys into the post and draw fouls and get these buckets that way. Yeah. Ultimately, it's a skill. It's a different kind of skill. It's one that I agree with you, Justin, can feel unseemly in volume, but it's a skill that the rules encourage. And so long as that's the case,

I think we should treat it like any other skill. While we're on this, and it's related to this, this is something I noticed in-season tournament, And, you know, just watching Julius Randall have a field day against the bucks that this other game, it's like, they are just billy clubbing people with their forearm when they get to the paint at certain points. Like, and I'm not a block charge person. I hate that rule.

I think we should get rid of it. I think most of those shit should be no calls. If anything, they should just be regular files on the defense for not giving a normal fucking contest that we got taught. in preschool. But like Julius Randall and Janus and some other people, they get to the basket and they literally just hit people with their freaking off arm. It's craziness.

It's like sumo wrestling damn near, down there at times. And like that shit, they need to figure out something to do with that. These guys are strong enough to get into people's chest and rise and try to score and create some level of separation. but the separation they're generating by assaulting defenders is ridiculous. Yeah, there's a lot of off-arm combat. And in general, I think defenders should be allowed to do more. I think the rules and the refereeing style should permit more contact for defenders.

But I think we need to raise that line before we start pointing fingers at the players who are exploiting it. What do you think Draymond's trying to do? He's trying to take a stand for defenders by completely suplexing them into the heart. There is something to that, though, about, like, the space era of the NBA, now that offenses are so spread out, there's so much room to drive. It does lead to a lot more dangerous contact, like a lot more, whether it's off arms, like full-on shoves with a guy like Janus, for example, who can create the momentum he does.

Even if you're planning to stand there and take a charge, that is a hit. That is a different kind of hit because of the space that is allowed players in the modern NBA. And so you're getting either dangerous offensive contact where they're creating a lot of it or desperate defensive contact where guys are flying in from out of position to try to stop a layup or a dunk. Basically like horse-collaring guys. And I don't know what the solution for that is other than to allow a bit more contact on the perimeter to prevent some of these like clear blowbys. Because right now if you're a defender, you can't touch anybody at the three-point line because right now the grifters or the foul creators or the economic status. stimulators, they know how to exploit all those things. So you have to be extremely careful and it's

leading to a lot of dangerous contact on the backline. We should probably start wrapping this up here. Rob, do you have any more you want to get to before we shut it off? That's about as much negativity as I've got. Okay. Wow. You need to get those numbers up here. Need those Joel and B. Follow drawing numbers. I want to do one that's topical here, which is that Christmas Day jerseys have just completely disappeared from this earth. And now there were recent photos that were circling around the internet of how many bad decisions we've had

in recent years. And there was the one where they put, I think it was like their Twitter handles on the back of the jersey or the first names. There was definitely first names. I think the Twitter handle thing was something different. Bring back to Jesus Shuttle's worth. Please, something

different. Be more creative than the damn your at name. Come on. Promoting your Instagram. that's what we doing? Yeah, the first names where it was like Blake for Blake Griffin was really, really bad. We don't need to do that. We don't need the sleeves. But there were some like nice little little flourishments during the Christmas Day games where it was like,

oh, this like old school script that looks like it's from, it's a wonderful life or something like that. Like we have so many dumbass jerseys nowadays that, I mean, each team probably has four or five or six at this point. We can't come up with something special for the NBA's marquee event of the regular season in order to just, like, add a little bit more flavor to these games. Bring back the Christmas Day jerseys is what I say, God damn it. I like that. Don't bring back to Shurzies, though. Leave those in the past to die. Absolutely not.

Don't bring back to jerseys. Like, that wasn't that long ago. And I remember at the time, everyone's like, we're really doing this. And then we kept doing this for a couple of years. The point we're like, there were shooters like Steph and whatnot who were complaining like that they were too restricted. They were ripping the jersey. Like, LeBron is in the NBA finals like in those jerseys. I feel like there's photos of that.

It's wild to think about. But now all I can imagine in my head is a Steph Curry jersey with the number 30 that also has 30 written above it. 30. 30. In words. Or hashtag 3.0. Yeah. Let's do it.

Let's do it. I have another uniform related gripe. And I'm realizing that I'm just getting more, I'm just getting more dad vibes as I grow up. I don't even, I'm not even a dad. I don't have any kids, but I just get, I refuse to let a World War II content come on my Netflix or anything and not watch it. Like, I can't let that World War II in the front lines in color. I just finished that series.

I don't know why. I just, my hand just automatically said, play on that. I'm rewatching Band of Brothers. It's ridiculous. It's Ken Burns season was. The dad vibes are ridiculous. But, yo, why can't we just bring back the Home Whites? What's so bad about that?

What was so bad about that setup with the Home Whites? Now you just wear whatever the hell you want. You don't know who's at home. Who's not? I like the symmetry and the understanding of, yeah, that team is at home, blah, blah, blah. This is that. It's just like, what?

Why are we doing this? And another thing, they took away basically all restrictions from sneakers. And now guys can just wear, like, the most color clashing. It don't even have to make no damn sense. They can just wear it and, like, bring back the restrictions, y'all. We gave them the freedom. We gave them the rope. And they hung themselves.

I'm sorry, they look crazy. Get them out of here. Bring back my old rules. Bring back the home whites. Dad vibes. Let's go. this is the American disease was we say we love traditionalism but what we really love is churning out new shit and trying to like propagate growth and this circles back to what you were talking about justin with the christmas jerseys we kept trying to reinvent the wheel

that script font that was like perfectly candy cane normal team colors normal like design but just change the font for like a more festive occasion we nailed it we stop you did it that's the jersey From now going forward, stop. But we have to keep changing it. We have to keep reinventing until we run it into the ground so much and now we don't even want to do it anymore. And it's the same with all the jerseys we're rolling out now, all the variety to the point that like no team has any universal design scheme,

no sense of your right was by like who is home and who is road based on what they're wearing. Why do we get rid of these things? They worked so well. See, I don't really go that far with the home whites and whatnot. I actually love a car. color versus color clash is what it's typically called in the uny watch sphere of things. Like in college football, for instance, where it's like USC, UCLA and it's red versus that like powder blue.

Like that's good shit there. And like, honestly, we have such ostentatious court designs at this point. You kind of know where you are regardless. So like this whole argument like, oh, I don't know who's home and who's not like, who cares? You know? I care. Tradition. Justin, have some respect for it.

tradition. The silent majority will prevail in this country. I promise you. We need just culture across the heats of Jersey on Christmas Day, but in a fanciful, like, Christmas-y design. That's what we need. That's all we can ask for. All right.

I'm bringing Mitchits back in here because you sign off. I can't believe we get paid for this. All right. That is it for us. We'll be back. I believe next Wednesday. for kind of like a New Year's end-a-year wrap-up. Thank you to Ben Cruz.

Thank you to Brian Waters for filling in on production. Merry Christmas, everyone. Happy Chronica, happy Kwanza, every other thing that you guys are going to be celebrating over the next couple of days. We'll see you in a couple days.