The Ringer NBA Show - The Unfair Michael Jordan–Anthony Edwards Comparisons and Adam Silver’s Legacy as an NBA Commissioner | Real Ones

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Logan and Howard discuss Anthony Edwards’s improved game this season, the rampant Michael Jordan comparisons, and why there can never be another MJ (3:00). Next, they unpack NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s recent comments about the All-Star game, and what the state of those festivities says about his legacy (26:30). Finally, the guys close with Mailbag Monday (48:00). Email us questions for Mailbag Monday! [e-mail] The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out ringer.com/RG to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Logan Murdock and Howard Beck Producer: Jonathan Kermah Production Assistant: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Have you ever wondered about the meaning behind your favorite song lyric or why certain melodies make your skin tingle? I'm Cole Kushner and these are the kinds of questions I try to answer on Dissect, a podcast that dives deep into one album per season examining the music, lyrics, and meaning of one song per episode. I've dissected full albums by Kendrick Lamar, Radiohead, Tyro the Creator, Beyonce, Kanye, and more. Our latest season just launched all about MF Doom's Mad Villany. Listen to Dissect wherever you get your podcast because great art deserves more than a swipe. What's popping? Real ones. Monday.

Logan Murdoch here. Howard Beck here. Roger's still on the recruiting trail. So just me and Howard for motherfucking Mondays. How you doing, Howard? What's going on? I'm good. Do we miss Raja yet? And what is him being on the recruiting trail? Consist of exactly? Well, I think it, I don't know.

I think it's just, I guess something we got to ask him when he gets back. I'm really curious, too. It sounds important. Yeah. I don't know. But as kids got a lot of offers, I saw like Texas and all these things, all these places. So shout out to Raja. We miss you.

You come back, please. Anyways, we're here to talk about Howard today, at least in the first segment. We're going to talk about Anthony Edwards in the first segment. And then we're going to go ahead and talk a little out of silver. But first, we are here to talk about Howard Beck's story that came out on the ringer today. Anthony Edwards in the mindless quest to find the next Jordan. And I'm really glad you wrote this, Howard. I'm really glad.

It's been a long time coming. I think this season, for whatever reason, just the biggest names and the NBA in the basketball at large, as well as like some Vanity Fair profile writers, some anybody you ask, I feel like it's been a talking point, that Anthony Edwards reminds everyone about 1988, 89, Michael Jordan, which is a wild thing to,

to fathom at this point. Interesting for me, because when I see Anthony Edwards, I just see Anthony Edwards. I don't see anyone else, but it's been weird that this has become a talking point. And not only from, you know,

the NBA at large, but guys that played with Michael Jordan, like Kevin Garnett is saying that he looks like 88 Jordan. This is the guy that can, that can bring the, and I see the similarities, the marketing power, the can jump out of the gym, all those things. But I don't see necessarily like the mic comparison.

We've had a history of these, Howard, ever since Michael was, I'd say, in the mid-90s when we saw that Michael Jordan was towards the end of his career, we're trying to find new people. Now we've gotten like a. revamp of that with one guy. What is your take on all of these different things and how we've gotten from, okay, Jerry Stackhouse is not Michael Jordan. Ron Harper's not Michael Jordan. Kobe's not clearly going to be Michael Jordan. I thought it died when Kobe retired. And now it's kind of coming back into the fault hour. So that's the thing. Like I come to this and

thought about doing this piece, in part because of personal experience, two things, right? Obviously, I covered Kobe Bryant from, you know, 97 to 2004. So I was there during the period when Kobe was alternately like either embracing the comparisons and emulating Jordan outright and also pushing it away and saying, please stop doing this. Don't like, I'm just me. Like, we don't need to. So it bothered him at the time. So I lived through the Kobe as Jordan thing. Obviously, I was around during the Vince Carter years.

Was Vince going to be next Jordan? And Jerry Stackhouse, as you mentioned, on and on and on. high school players, people and other sports were being called this. And in the like mid-2010s, mid-2010s, I was working a bleach report, and I realized one day, it felt like it had all kind of stopped. So my two entry points for this whole discussion are having covered Kobe and having written a story in 2017 in which I said that this thing was finally dead. We were no longer doing next Michael things. There was no longer his ehranus, Air Jordan, H-E-I-R Jordan, next Jordan, who's going to replace him, who's going to be him, who looks like him, who plays like him, who dunks like him, who dunks like him,

who marks like him, who wags their tongue like him. We did this for so long, and it had finally, finally stopped. So yes, I have a personal investment in that I declared this thing dead in a story for Bleach Report in 2017, and you all brought it back. So I'm taking it a little personally. Did you not read my story, people? No, I mean, it's, I really thought it had died out, Logan. I really thought we had moved past this because, one, I think people finally realize, like, this is impossible.

There is no next. I think Sam Smith, the great Sam Smith, formerly the Chicago Tribune, even wrote a book called There Is No Next, because you just, it's an impossible aspiration. And then the other piece is like, we had LeBron going to the finals, eight straight years. And he's not, he doesn't have to be Jordan, but he, you. know, we had a standard bearer and we had Steph and he's a standard bearer. We had Kevin Durant. We had all these other stars. And maybe people finally realized we don't need to keep figuring out who the next Jordan is.

We could just enjoy the guys we've got. And also, there can't be another Jordan. It's impossible. So I truly thought it was dead until this last, especially this last year. In fairness, in fairness, there have been people on Twitter, NBA Twitter who have been kicking around Anthony Edwards as Michael Jordan for a few years now. but it really gained steam this season because he's taken leaps. The Timberwolves have taken leaves.

And you've got Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins and various others, Patrick Beverly, all talking about Anthony Edwards as Michael. And I thought, oh, man, all right, this is picked up a lot of steam. I think it's time to kind of resetter the discussion. So that's the piece I wrote on the ringer today. It's basically just saying we don't need to do this again. we shouldn't do this again. It's not fair to these guys.

It's not fair to Auntie Edwards. It wasn't fair to Jerry Stackhouse and Kobe and Penny Hardaway and Harold Minor and on and on and on. I've got a whole list that I had compiled seven years ago of all the people who were ever labeled next. And it's crazy. Vince Carter freaking hated this discussion. We talked about it for the story I did seven years ago.

So I just, Logan, I don't know. why we're here again. And I also, I love watching Anthony Edwards, but he's not Michael. And it's fine that he's not Michael. Nobody has to be Michael and nobody should have that put on him because it's an impossible standard. Why we do this as a society trying to find the next. And Kobe's a great example of this of, and I'm not saying that he shied away from it, just in the way that Anthony Edwards hasn't shied away from it, right? Like you told front of the show Malika Andrews, like, why would I deny that? Like, why would I, let me get the correct quote. How would I look denying it, but I don't want to be compared to somebody of such caliber. I mean, I haven't done

anything on this level yet, but I love it. I love that they got faith in me for sure. I mean, they got, they're not wrong, right? So like, he's kind of like teasing, like, oh, I'm, basically, I'm not Michael Jordan, but I like the fact that you guys keep telling me I can be Michael Jordan, right? Like, he's kind of just in the middle on that, on that way. Um, but it's interesting case study because we, we do this with the next generation of stars. Like, we don't let them be them. And I want to get back to where Kobe's the best case study, not to say, because like Anthony Edwards, he did it shy away from the comparisons of Jordan. In fact, he welcomed it with the demeanor, with the literal game, the side-by-side comparisons and all of these things.

But one of those things was it felt like towards the, I think the backstretch of his career, he finally graduated into being Kobe Bryant, right? And I feel like that's the, what we've been doing with these younger generations, right? They kind of have to graduate and to be in their own selves or either graduate or drop out it to be in their own self, right? Because I think early, even maybe 10 years ago, there was the influx of maybe the next LeBron, right? Ben Simmons is the poster child of that.

And it felt like it had to, Ben Simmons had to figure out how to be Ben Simmons. But for a stretch, it was like, is he the next LeBron? He's six eight. He can dribble. He could, you know, he could play multiple positions and guard multiple positions. Could he be that? Or the next step in Trey Young? Oh, he could shoot from 35 feet.

Is he the next guy? I don't get why we end up doing this. Because if I had to guess, it would be, you know, Michael Jordan put this huge imprint on the league. And let's be real, there's a lot of money at stake when you, when Michael Jordan leaves the game, when there isn't enough, you know, there isn't a face of the league like that. I mean, you could even see ratings when Michael Jordan retired, right? Like, you have the highest viewed finals of all time, and then you go into a lockout. There's extenuated circumstances, but the ratings dip. You want to make sure that you have ratings for the shows.

But I don't, I think we would be better served marketing these players as they are, as opposed to saying they are the next such and such. And the thing is, Logan, like, you're right. We've, we said, like, when Ben Simmons came in, oh, he's tall and he's tall. He's a tall point guard like LeBron, which is just like when LeBron came in, we compared him to magic quite a bit. But comparing a guy, which is something that we just do in sports, right? Who's this guy? He's new.

A lot of us haven't seen him yet. You know, so who does he remind you of? Oh, he's a little like this guy. Like, that's fine. We've compared some guys to LeBron. And you're right. We compared Trey Young to Steph. But we didn't put on Trey Young, you must be the next step.

And every time you fall short, we're. going to point it out or Ben Simmons, you must be LeBron. Ben Simmons has had all kinds of other stuff to deal with in the course of his career, but he's never had to live up to being the next LeBron in the way that all the guys we mentioned earlier had to live up to next MJ stuff. It's unique to Michael Jordan. It's unique to the NBA. Like even in other sports, again, like people might say, oh, this guy reminds me a little bit of like Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes or something eventually might maybe somebody will say that or they might say, you know, But no one's, no one's ever had the pressure of being like the next Wayne Gretzky.

Like, we just, we don't do this to athletes in other sports the way we do it in the NBA. It's unique to the NBA. I will say this to tell real quick. We also are doing this with Wimby too, right? Like, we talk about like the, in terms of marketing, we haven't seen anything like this since LeBron. And I get why they do it because like you should, there has to be a basis of comparison, right? There has to, again, marketing the game.

Hey, you've seen this guy we've never seen before? let's try to mount and put a name on him in that way. Yeah, no, we put the pressure on him, for sure. Like the amount of hype going into the Wembenyama machine heading into the draft was just off the charts. And I think that stuff's unfair too. But at least it's not, here comes this kid, Victor Wemba Jama. He's the best prospect since LeBron. And by the way, he's going to be the best player since Michael Jordan.

Or he's going to be better than Will Chamberlitt or whatever it is. like it stopped short of that. And I think it's one thing to live up to the hype of people saying you're immensely talented. You could be a transcendent player. You could be a multiple time MVP. Those things are all pressure too. But literally saying this guy is the new Michael Jordan, that is a whole other level of pressure, of unfair expectations.

It's just unrealistic. And, you know, it's funny. The next MJ thing took on several different kind of approaches. There was the guys who kind of like dunked like Michael, right? Like Jerry Stackhouse got compared because he jumped high and dunked hard. And he was in the right height range. And similar with Kobe, similar with Vince. But then like Grant Hill and Penny Hardaway, who played different positions than Michael.

But they came in as super talented and as potential faces of the league at a time when the NBA was saying, well, who is going to be the next face of the league? The guy who markets Gatorade and Nike and the All-Star game and everything else. And so some of this has been about style of game. Some of it has been about overall persona and marketability. You know, you know, could you sell product, basically? And sometimes it's been about everything all the above. But it really got out of control with the next Michael Jordan stuff. I did like, so there's a you'll know this, but the listeners may not. There's a service called Lexus Nexus.

It's this database search. And you can search like... It's a godsend, everybody. It's a godsend. Yeah. We need a subscription bosses. But you could research newspaper clips from decades and decades across the board. Small town papers all the way through the biggest newspapers and wire services, everything.

And so I did Nexus searches to find. next Michael Jordan's and next Michael Jordan references. Here's a partial list just for fun. This is what I found back in 2017 when I was doing this. Len Bias, 1986, Ron Harper in 1986, Harold Minor, Richard Dumas, Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, Glenn Robinson, Jerry Stackhouse, Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, Vince Carter, LeBron, James. That's just newspaper clippings that said this person could be or will be or whatever,

the next Jordan. So that's just some of the NBA figures or high college NBA figures that people might be familiar with. But then there were a bunch of guys who were still in high school, some of whom made the NBA and some of whom didn't. Anthony Peeler got Next Jordan when he was still at Missouri in 1990. Someone named Brian Reese, who was a high schooler in 1989, someone named Tony Mack, Keith Stalling, Jerome Harmon, Felipe Lopez, New York City legend, Wayne Turner, Roy Marble, LaBradford, Smaller, Curtis Hunter, Kendall Gill, Al Harrington. Then there was Derek Rose, because he played for the Bulls, he got tagged as potentially Next Jordan because he was all their hopes and dreams when they drafted him and from Chicago.

I found references to DeKembe Mutumbo, Shaq, and Larry Johnson based on their commercial or marketing appeal earlier in their careers. But again, these are all, the search was Next Michael Jordan or NextMJ, and these are the names that popped up. So again, some of them, it's not because they play. played like Michael. It's because they thought they could be ambassadors for the league. And then we had the international MJs. And I mentioned this in today's piece on the ringer. We had Tamir Goodman, who's American-Israeli. He was the Jewish Jordan. We had Hito Turcalu, who was the Turkish

Michael Jordan. We had McEl Petrus, the French Michael Jordan. Real quick, real quick. I read that part and I got a little fluffy inside because shout out to McEl Petrus. He used to give me tickets to Warriors games back in the day. Just ran. Are you shooting? Yeah. My pops used to work at Whole Foods over there on a end by the lake. And McHale will come through and they would strike up a friendship. And there was one time where I had to, where I just, Mackell said he would give me tickets.

And I was like, okay, I just showed up to the Coliseum. They said I didn't have no tickets. And they said they would talk to McHale. And as they're walking out, McCale's like, yeah,

give them some tickets. So I got two tickets to watch the Warriors play the Spurs one time. That was great because of him. So shout out to Michael Petrus. All right. Thank you, McHale Petrus. Good dude. Yeah.

But yeah, little did you know he was the French Michael Jordan. No, I knew. I knew. We know we knew. And he earned the title based on his generosity. So it's just, but you can see how far off the rails this thing got back in the day as like a rhetorical device. And of course, some of these were more serious than others. Some had more, you know, heft to them than others.

But it was just such a crutch and it was used so often. And yeah, obviously none of them lived up to it. Kobe came closest. But even when I mentioned that to Kobe for that story in 2017, Kobe said, yeah, but what the hell does that even mean that I came closest? And his whole thing was Kobe made this really interesting point about, one, our paths are different. Michael got where he did. I got where I did.

He got six rings. I got five. But we had different paths. We had different teammates, different eras, all this other stuff. But then Kobe brought it back to the basketball fundamentals, which is that the real important point. Isn't that we have another Michael or that somebody plays like Michael. Kobe's point to me then was it's really about the stuff you learn from watching and adapting, right? And he was talking about how Michael Jordan had stuff in his game that Michael took from Jerry West from decades before.

And then Kobe took that from Michael and from Jerry West. And Elgin Baylor, too. Elgin Baylor too. Yeah, and Elgin Baylor. And DeMarter Rosen came up on Kobe and was more of a, you know, a Kobe guy than an MJ guy, but DeMarre copied some of Kobe's moves that look like carbon copies, but they're really Michael's moves, which were really Jerry West moves, right? And so, Kobe's thing was more of like this history of the game and the legacy that you carry and learning from your predecessors and modeling your game after them, stealing from them, as he put it, adopting these things, and just kind of carrying it forward. So to Kobe, that was the really important part.

It's not trying to be Michael Jordan and all that he did, all that he accomplished, all that he represented. It's this dude played the game a certain way and had a certain precision to his footwork and a grace to his game and a variety of ways to beat you. I want to do what he did. And even if I don't do it at the same level he did, that's what's really honoring the model of Michael Jordan. So Kobe was really interesting for that story back in 2017. And I wonder, you know, obviously, I wonder this off frequently with things like this. I wonder what he would be telling us today if I had to, you know, get him on the phone again and say, hey, remember what we, you know, thought that whole next MJ thing was finally done and over with?

They're doing it to Anthony Edwards. I wonder what Kobe would say. I do. Yeah. It's interesting because just like Kobe, just like what Kobe was coming of age and there was the next, the phenomenon of the next Jordan of the late 90s, there was a reason by. because Jordan was about to leave. And now we're in, and me and you talk about the soft fare all the time

where we're in a similar time right now where the league is in another transition period in the way that it was in the late 90s and also, I guess maybe in the mid-2000s where Kevin Durant's not going to be here for seven more years, right? LeBron's might not be here for three more years. Steph is on the back end of his career. So I think we're trying to, we subconsciously and also, you know, all of the powers that be in terms of us, the media at large, the league partners are in this position where they're trying to find someone that they can, or at least predict who they can put as the face of the league.

Because before it was Anthony Edwards, it was John Morant, right? Like it was, and it was, you can go down the list of Luca Danshich. Now we're looking at Wimbunyama, right? We're having these crop of guys that could be the face of the league, but time will only tell that and give us that. But I think we're trying to hedge, right? I think this is a sign that we're trying to hedge to who are we going to pick for the next generation as the face of who we can get marketing dollars for,

who you can promote games around, all of these things. And I think that that's ultimately what Anthony Edwards is caught up in. Because, I mean, I've been watching. I've been having just, as we're talking right now, a 14-minute highlight package of Anthony Edwards on YouTube. And I don't really see much, Mike. I see a lot of Anthony Edwards right now. You know, I see a lot of just of his unique game.

And I think we should love that more than, and it's also funny, Howard, because two weeks ago, we were all shitting on Michael Jordan, who we played against, who he was, that he wasn't playing against great competition. It was just interesting. They. But right.

But it's just interesting because I always thought that people would be looking for the next Kobe based on the impact that he has brought on the game in the way that we have seen. But anyway, I think that this is an example of us as a basketball community, just trying to hedge our bets on what's next instead of just enjoying the ride. For sure, but I'll just say this. If we're separating the next MJ framework into two categories broadly, one is play like him and have to live up to all the stuff he does on the court. And the other category is face of the league,

the face of the league part is much easier to replace. Now, it wasn't that easy in the early 2000s when it was like, it's a little of Kobe and Shaq. It's a little bit of Iverson, but ooh, the league's not sure about Iverson. And some fans aren't sure about Iverson. He's really polarizing. And, you know, it's Tim Duncan's a real winner. but Tim Duncan's boring, right?

Like, we had these guys who were capable of, you know, carrying on the legacy of the NBA as all-time greats, but they weren't the perfect face of the league in terms of just overall pitchmen who had universal appeal. Even Kobe, people forget this because by the time Kobe left, I think he was embraced in a different way. And also he had, you know, all the hardware and everything else. But Kobe, and this is even before the sexual assault case and everything else,

Kobe was a polarizing player. Kobe in his prime, in his, you know, even the early, early prime, late 90s and early 2000s, when he and Shaq start winning a lot, Kobe was always polarizing. So even the guy who's quote unquote came closest to MJ, he didn't have that same universal cachet or appeal. But it is easier for us to find somebody to be face of the quote unquote face of the league, right? LeBron and Steff are doing a very good job of that right now.

And when they retire in the next three to five years, whenever it may be, and Kevin Durant will be going then too, and Westbrook and Hardin, that whole generation will all kind of move aside. Kauai Leonard. We will have Anthony Edwards and, you know, I think John Morant, and Zion's gotten himself together this season. So, you know, he was a guy who was looked at like that, explosive, fun, you know, easy going, you know, has some camera appeal.

Like there are plenty of guys who will turn to and say, the league is in fine shape. The league is okay. There are plenty of guys who can make great commercials and who are fun to watch. And Luca and Janice and Yokic and everybody else too. There's plenty of talent. But replacing Michael or trying to be Michael, the on the court stuff, that part just needs to go away forever. And so, and I get it. a lot of the people who have brought this up that I cited in the story today,

they're saying it more in terms of like the visuals, like, oh, I see a glimmer. And I don't think they're trying to do the whole next MJ pressure cooker like we had in the 90s and 2000s. But it inevitably inevitably leads there. The more you talk about it, the more you hype it up, the more you make those comparisons, the more it turns into an expectation. And then when the guy falls short, it's our fault, but we'll put it on the player. That's the part that, you know, makes me a little wary.

Yeah. It's not going to be a discussion that leaves us anytime soon, but we will have to table it for now. We'll say a quick break. Let's talk about Adam Silver. The NBA season is back and you can get in on all the buzzer beaters, ankle breakers, and Tomahawk jams with Fandul. America's number one sportsbook. Right now, new customers get $200 in bonus bets guaranteed when you place a $5 bet. All right.

Let's look at the slate tonight. We have the Hornets Cavs. You know what I'm doing. Over. Celtics Hawks. Over. Pistons, nicks. Over.

Nets Raptors over. Wizards Bulls over. Trailblazers rockets over. Suns spurs over. Grizzlies Nuggets over. Mavs jazz. Huh. That's interesting.

Should I switch it up on them? Nope. Over. 76ers Kings. Over. Pacers Clips. I'm going to take that over too. If you've been thinking about joining Fanduel,

there's no better time to get on on the action. The app is easy to use, and there are so many different ways to bet. The live same game parlays are fun. Find bets in the new Explorer tab. Dive into the parlay hub, the best way to find popular parlays and more. So visit Fanduil.com slash ringer NBA and tip off the NBA season right. Fanduel, official partner of the NBA. Must be 21 years and older in President of Select States.

First online real money wager only. $10 first deposit required. bonus issued as myvels, drawable bets that expire. Seven days after receipt, restrictions apply. You see terms at sportsbook. Fandual.com. And we are back. I want to talk a little Adam Silver and a little legacy talk, Howard.

Let's get this some legacy talk. This comes on the, I want to talk about Adam because it comes on the heels of an interview he did on King Charles, a show hosted by Gil King and none of the Charles Barkley. Charles loves being on TV, Howard. He just loves, he loves this life. We love having him on TV. Yeah, man. That works for everybody. It's great.

It's great. He's great. Anyways, he sat down with Gail King and Charles Barkley and was asked about the, the All-Star game and the All-Star format and was asked if he considered a Team-Bers-Team world format for the All-Star game. And he was not convinced at all, that any change will result in the All-Star play. players playing to the best of their abilities. Silver said, our feeling going into Indiana was that we had one more opportunity to go, in essence, back to basketball. He called out Larry Bird to be an honorary captain for the weekend,

who urged them to play your best at a legends brunch. There's an emphasis on making, there's been so many iterations of the All-Star weekend, specifically with Adam Silver, where he has done the teams. He has done different other incentives. He has gone back to the East-West format. And it hasn't, with this younger generation,

it hasn't gone out the way he has wanted it to, right? The younger generation led by Anthony Edwards has said, you know, man, this is just vibes. We're just here for a vacation, which, I mean, I guess I understand. But anyways, anything that Adam Silver has brought forth has not really worked in terms of All-Star Game reform. And he is talking about ditching the All-Star Game format altogether and maybe going towards an NFL route of making it more fun. NFL is now done flag football for its Pro Bowl over the last few years.

Where do we – when I think about Adam Silver, Howard, I think about a guy that has been – has gotten the league through treacherous circumstances that I don't know if a lot of people would have on one hand, right? I wouldn't talk about the bubble. You just talk about being a leader for a league after such a big figure of David Sert. He is a guy that crowdsources and gets everyone's opinion. But he's also a guy that loves to be innovative. We talk about the N-C's tournament, the play-in, all of these things, some to mixed results. when we think about Adam Silver and his time thus far,

what comes to mind for you? And how has this maybe All-Star failure kind of illustrate his tenure and how he approaches being a commissioner in this league? Yeah. No, that's a great question, though. It's a great way of putting it to, because there's like a bigger context to just,

this isn't just about, oh, are we tweaking the All-Star game again? I think in fairness to Adam, the broader framework for this whole discussion and we should just stipulate this part, which is that these are different times than what David Stern had, right? Like, you know, David Stern, you know, at the time David Stern takes over, it's like, oh, the NBA's on, the finals are on tape delay, blah, blah, blah. But they get into this kind of comfort zone where you've got network TV and the network and cable TV. And it's pretty stable for the longest time in terms of their distribution, their media rights. And now we've got cord cutting and streaming and people, you know, shorter attention spans and smartphones and people watching on various devices.

And now they don't want to watch games. I just want to watch highlights, whatever it may be. And people's attention spans are fractured. The market's fractured. Like it's a much different challenge. And so that's the backdrop. That's the backdrop for what Adam Silver is facing. And that's how we get to things like, well, you tried 17 different things to fix the All-Star Game or the last.

decade and nothing's worked. What are you going to do now? I give Adam credit, and I wrote something on the ringer a couple months ago, just about all the experiments that are some of the more prominent experiments of the Adam Silver era and how they all rated or worked out or didn't. He's been willing to try stuff. The thing I admire about the NBA in general and about Adam is that, you know, he loves this phrase, fresh look. It comes up at least like three times per press. Back when he first started, like it was 10 times per press conference. Everything was worth a fresh look.

And that's still kind of his approach. Someone's not working or there's a new idea. I will give it a fresh look. He's had to give a fresh look to the All-Star game, unfortunately, way too many times. Because nothing has worked. Like the Elam ending really worked well. The first year they did it and then hasn't worked since.

The player draft, it's not the game itself, right? it's before the game, but as another thing for us to enjoy and talk about as fans of the game, people loved the player draft. They loved it even more when they put it on live TV and had the players actually do it while we could watch in real time. But he killed the player draft, despite its popularity. He killed the Elam ending because it wasn't really working. The game itself still blows.

And there's different camps of people on this, right? There's older people like me who say, the game sucks and we need to find a way to get the guys to care enough to play competitively on some level the way that they did in the 80s and 90s and most of the 2000s. Like, can we get back to that? You can, by the way, quickly, to those people who are already like saying, like, oh, you know, it's just an exhibition game. You don't want them to get hurt.

Try to find me any list of examples of guys getting seriously injured to the All-Star game. They played hard enough. They didn't play game seven level. they played hard enough for it to seem competitive. They tried. They played defense. Scores weren't 200 to 198. And it was a much better product. And nobody got hurt.

So shut up. They can do it. They just don't want to anymore. And the challenge now is like, how does Adam Silver or anybody else convince this generation of players that this matters now that they've gotten used to the idea that it doesn't? And that they could just go out there and kind of like fuck around for four quarters. I have my own ideas about how to fix the All-Star game, not that the league wants to hear them.

Let's get it. Let's get it, Howard. All right. I'll just throw out my most ludicrous ones right off the top. First of all, it's not a real basketball game, so it doesn't have to be for 12-minute quarters. You could go like two 12-minute halves if you wanted to, or you could have a running clock, or you can make it 10-minute quarters and a running clock. Like, just keep the thing moving. I was listening to Frank Isola Mitch Lawrence on NBA radio this morning.

Frank and I spent a lot of time in press rooms together over the years to cover the Knicks. Frank was talking about just the idea that you could tell guys ahead of time because guys don't want to expend too much energy, right? LeBron, how much you want to play today? Anthony Edwards, how much you want to play? Just get it all. Do that. Then maybe you'll get everything they've got for the four minutes that they decided they wanted to play. So that's an interesting thought.

you could have you could break up instead of USA versus the world which is a fun gimmick that might bring out some pride competitively in guys but you could actually break it down even further than that you could do it by region of the world you could do it by oh generationally or whatever and instead of having one game make it a you know two three four games or whatever the way they're now doing with the rookie sophomore game on Friday night so that's shorter versions of of the It's not the old All-Star game. It's not one big event. It's let's do this region versus this region. And then the two others play. The winners face off. I don't know. There are plenty of ways to like kind of rearrange this.

Or maybe if everybody's too tired by Sunday night, either have them do less shit over the weekend because they're, they just got all the stuff piled on them, all these appearances, all these parties, all these. Also, that's not that's not necessarily the NBA's fault, though. That's not necessarily NBA's fault. Some of that's right. Everybody else has turned this into a four-day party slash promotional thing. And you're right.

Those are NBA partners, a lot of them, too, or the players' partners. So it's still the same ecosystem, but you're right. The NBA can't tell, you know, shoe company X or sock company Y to stop keeping the players out until 2 in the morning, the night before the All-Star game or later. Maybe put the All-Star game on Friday night instead. Maybe you just need to do it while they're still. fresh before they get wiped out over the weekend and make Sunday night the three-point shootout at the dunk contest, although the dunk contest itself probably needs to be scrapped. The only thing that still works, the only thing that's bulletproof of the entire NBA

All-Star weekend is the three-point contest. You cannot ruin the three-point contest. Everything else is, I would say, worth Adam Silver's quote-unquote fresh look. The NBA isn't an interesting time because of where we are as. a media society. And also, they are openly negotiating a media rights package in the most uncertain of times in media rights history, I believe. You know, with the cable bundle and then, you know, Apple, we talk about this on the pod all the time. The town is a great podcast to, if you want to learn more about it, go listen to the town. But Adam is having to weigh a lot of

different things because he has to figure out what's going to be palatable for this next generation of television or streaming viewers, right? And my thing is when I think about all the changes that he's made, I think about is, you're more, you can more advanced to me because you've been around the league longer, but why was there such a need for a change in the beginning a few years ago? Because even up until the 2010s, the All-Star was an event. Like, even when I first got into covering the league, the All-Star was an event that was fun. I think about the 22 All-Star game where there was competitive edge, the 2013 one also, right?

And I'm looking at, you know, the ratings of the All-Star game at this point, right? And they have been steadily going down as the changes have been made. So is there a point to Adam where, because when I think about Adam's tenure, there is a lot of, oh, we're going to make these tweaks. We're going to make these tweaks. At a certain point, the tweaks make the weekend unrecognizable. And the tweaks make all these things. So how much does he have to weigh the traditional aspect of this is what we've been doing for years? And it's been good.

This is a tit-pole event for us. and we still don't want to not make it a tent pole event. How did they make it to where it's still an event, but they're still contracting and pulling back on the events that are a part of the weekend? I mean, it's a tough needle to thread. But I mean, in terms of the history of it, Adam Silver and Chris Paul, this is like in 2017, 18, 19, somewhere in that range. They had another shitty All-Star game.

And Adam and Chris Paul, who was president of the players, Association at the time, and those two are pretty, pretty tight. They had a whole conversation. And Adam, it was actually at the Sloan Conference, the MIT Sloan Conference, that Adam was doing a presentation, and he mentioned how Chris Paul and he had talked, and they agreed. Chris Paul agreed on behalf of the players. Yeah, we're not playing as hard. The game sucks. We got to fix it. And that's what eventually led to, I think, the player draft and the Elamending and playing for charity and all this other stuff. But Chris is part of the older generation of NBA player. To him, it was actually worth trying to salvage this thing. But I think, like, I don't know what he would say, but I feel like it's gotten

away from him and the rest of, you know, Players Association leadership and then the older generation because the young guys just don't want to do it anymore or not at that level. So, you know, you can't force guys to play hard. You can't say we're going to play a 48-minute game with normal NBA rules at the end of this long weekend of sponsorships and appearances and parties and everything else and then expect you to play great. I guess they can't expect it because they're not doing it. But the consequence for it is ratings keep sinking. And every Monday after the All-Star game, we all talk about how much it sucked. And we don't talk about that like in other leagues, right?

don't talk about like how it's a problem right we don't talk about how the pro ball weekend sucks we don't talk about MLB sucks and the thing is for the part of the audience especially the younger part of the audience it always pushes back uh on these arguments who they say ah we don't care we just want to watch them throw lobs and and shoot 70 foot three pointers it's fine with us okay guys but you're not watching in enough of a volume to move the needle literally and so uh the NBA can't have the stigma, the embarrassment of this being an annual discussion of how much All-Star Weekend sucks and how much the All-Star game itself sucks. That's a problem. That's a problem. Even if you disagree, it's a problem. Even if you as a viewer think, I liked it, I enjoyed it, it's fine.

Guess what? The discussion every year now is just going to be this. And that discussion alone is reason to change. That plus the ratings, obviously. So I don't know what a new All-Star Weekend looks like, Logan. There are smarter people at NBA headquarters at Olympic Tower working on this, I'm sure, as we speak. But I do think they need to have like a complete reassessment. What would David Stern do, Howard? Knock some heads in. He'd go into the locker room pregame and yell at them all, play their, he'd go like, you know, Bobby Knight at them or something, throw some chairs. I don't know. Adam's the Kider Gentler Commissioner, so he's never going to like...

My thing is, though, how much is that like? Because that's when we talk about legacy, and when I watch the clip on Chuck and Gail's show, I was just, or the interview, not just a clip, the interview itself. That's one of the things that takes me aback with Adam Silver is that he is so, you know, and it's good for the players that there hasn't been an extended lockout underneath. There hasn't been any lockout underneath Adam Silver because he of that relationship he has with the players. Part of me is like, is there like if you're chummy, chummy with a guy, right? Like a lot of the players are like, yeah, yeah, Adam Silver, all these things, best commissioner.

Can't he, does he have the power to be able to be like, yo, you guys need to get in gear? You guys need, this is the reasons why. Because when you are nice in that way and don't have a little tyrant in you, I do feel like the players aren't going to listen, because outside looking in, the players haven't listened to what Adam is saying when it comes to, it's a lot of crowdsourcing, but when it comes to the All-Star game, they're not listening to him. And there's two-fold on that because I do believe, and I've said this in previous podcast, I do believe with this current crop of players, talking about the leaders of the new generation, none of them are like they're not figures in the way that Kobe and LeBron were to where guys will follow.

They're just not. Like I don't know. Is Jalen Brown going to say, hey, guys, we need to get our stuff together. Let's play hard. I don't think the other stars in the league are listening. When Anthony Edwards, maybe Anthony Edwards is the guy. Maybe that's a disappointment in that where people look to him and he's like, ah, whatever, fuck this weekend. And then everyone follows suit.

but I don't know who the unifying figure will be in the league of the young guys that will tell them, yo, let's get in gear, let's play hard for this because of these other ramifications that has both the game, the spotlight, and the level of respect from everyone else. Like, Adam can only do so much in that regard other than being a tyrant. One of Janus Anandakumbo's first All-Star games, or maybe his very first All-Star game, it was notable. You watched, he was playing at a different speed and intensity than everything. everyone else, and you could see everybody else was, they were annoyed.

Like, Janus tried to play hard because he was like, oh man, I'm an all-star game. This is awesome. This is great. When we go, go up and gets the best of the world, here we go. And the rest of the players were like visibly irritated that Janus was playing that hard. So like that to be is like one of the turning points in this whole thing. The Adam versus David thing, like, yeah, like Adam styled himself. And he's not to see, it's not like this was like an act.

Adam is just different than David Stern. So, yeah, he was going to be the kinder. gentler commissioner and the more player-friendly commissioner, and he had a really strong relationship with Chris Paul, and I think probably equally strong with C.J. McCollum, who's president of the union now. But it was funny. When I did the story on Draymond Green a few weeks back, and I talked to Charles Barclay about when David Stern called him into the principal's office, because Barclay was fucking up back in the day. And Barclay tells me the story. He says, David Stern told me to grow the fuck up and quit doing it. He says, you've got to make a decision. Do you want to be a great player?

You want to be a side show. So I really really. laid this to Draymond for that story. And Draymond laughed. He goes, I didn't get that. I said, you meet from Adam? He's like, no. I said, no, F. Bobsey said, no. Adam can bring those. I know it. I've heard it and I've heard it from other people. Like Adam has, he's got the dark side too. But it's not, that's not the way he has styled himself as a leader of this league. I don't, Logan, I don't think it's that Adam is the kind or gentler commissioner is the reason that the All-Star game has gone off the rails or that anything else has maybe stopped working. It's just the, the time we're living in, it's just a shift in the, you know, there's a generational shift with the

players. There's the money aspect of it. They make a gazillion dollars more than their predecessors did. Even if this is where David Sturred in his prime, reading them the riot act, I'm not sure it would make a difference. I do think, though, to your point, I think it's a really interesting point. If it was a Michael Jordan type who like the whole league respected and feared universally, and I don't think we have that now, like if the best player in the world right, now is, you know, everybody agrees is Yokic. Yokich isn't the one getting everybody on board for this. If the second best player is some version of, I don't know, M.B.

Tatum, Luca, you know, whoever, Shea. I mean, none of those guys strike me is, they're just, this is why we don't have a next Michael to bring this thing back to the beginning. Yeah. Yeah, Anthony. This is why you can't be the next Michael Jordan because you ain't getting these players in gear for All Star Weekend. It's your fault. Come on. No one else has that gravitasch.

Sorry. So I don't know. It's going to be something to keep an eye on. I just, I don't know what the alternative for an All Star weekend can, will be and can be at this moment. Is it just like we bring everybody for, because the thing is,

and the reason why we can't have All Star Game on Friday is because like, it's a buildup, right? Like we're building up to this crescendo of like this game with all these great players. And I think I, it's going to be tough to change it up because the All-Star game in basketball is, it's so much, I feel like it's so much more unique, the one of the more unique All-Star games in sports, right? Like, because it's seeped into the history of this game in a way that there's so many All-Star moments. It's such a tent pole event. it's for an individualistic sport that basketball could be you have all of these guys like if you watch go watch like the 88 all-star game and you see Jordan playing against kareem and all these players

like there's a different level of nostalgia that the NBA has towards its all-star game and it's going to be interesting to see what they will do with it if it if it goes away like that'll be that'll be sad like when the all-star game does go if or when it does go away, right? Or that's the way they're talking about it. And I don't think that necessarily the USA versus the world thing is going to make any difference. I don't think that there's, no one's going to care about pride for their country after being out till three in the morning. Well, so the last part. But if it's, U.S. versus the world, the only problem is it's like, that ain't the Olympics. It's not the Olympics. And are all the international players going like,

yeah, it's the pride of showing the U.S. players that we from our 12 different countries, potentially, like it's not national pride if it's 12 different countries on the world roster. So who's Juel M. B. going to play for? Is he'll play for Team USA? He's going to play for the world. It's going to have to be a negotiation. Joe Varden, get on it, man. Who's Joe for a U.S. versus the world? Let's get it, Joe. We did it, Joe. Oh, man.

All right. Okay. We've talked enough. Kerm, what's up, but it's time for our mailback series. Time for motherfucking mailbag. How you doing?

Kerm had audio or headphone difficulties, and he wasn't in the greatest mood to start this pod. I wonder if he's doing better. Are you doing okay, pal? It's still Monday morning, Logan. Kerm was able to actually reset his entire computer, we have not had a Kerm reset. Does Kerm have a reset button? It was funny because we were supposed to do this pot at 8 a.m. this morning because I had to do something for a story

that I'm working on. And Kerm was not amused nor happy. And then I put it at just like something killed through and we got to do it on our normal time. Kerm still not not happy. Just put like a thumbs up on the text. Like can we do it? Can we do 9 a.m? I guess so. Kerm is the Draymond green of this podcast, ladies and gentlemen. That's crazy. That's insane. Here's our heartbeat, yet he does not take any shit and might throw a bow. Oh, my God. Okay, first question from G-off, titles, scoring, Dr. Jay and ABA stats.

Longtime listener, I take you guys with me on our training runs. I grew up in the 80s in Philly watching Dr. J. Mo Cheeks and Andrew Tony and all their epic Celtics battles. It was a great time. and then Moses took them to the promised land at last. I still don't get why Dr. Jay lacks the stature of a Jordan, LeBron, Magic Bird, etc. I think it's the stats because his ABA championship and his ABA numbers would put him in, put him at three rings, four MVPs, and 30k points.

He was the ABA, the top star. He basically created the slam dunk, given the outbursts and scoring over the past few years, is the argument that ABA stats were inflated even serious anymore. In reality, Dr. Jay, was as good as all the NBA grades and really great in some other ways during his times. In my mind, I hear top ten conversations and I'm like KG over the doctor, Tim Duncan over the doctor. Jordan in my mind was Dr. Jay's direct highlight real descendant. Iverson changing the culture, basketball culture. How about Dr. Jay? I don't know. Dr. Jay deserves better. While I read

all that thinking like a hard question would come, but it didn't come. I understand. But That was great. Thoughts on Dr. Jay, not getting his love, guys. What do you think? Wait, real quick. You can tell him this dude for Philly because he said Dr. Jay 17 times and compared him to play. Anyways, shout out to the home. I will say Dr. Jay is a victim of just circumstance, man.

He came too early. You know, and we kind of see that a lot in our legends, right? Periodically with our legends. He came before he had his reign in a league that's no longer. here anymore. You could say at some points, ABA was, you know, it was a transformative league, but it wasn't

the NBA in that way. There was a reason why it folded into and they had to have a merger. And that happens. And then what also happens is he comes right before Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and this marketing just crescendo that

helps the NBA come out of the doldrums of like, if If Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and right after that Michael Jordan don't come into the league, there's a chance that this league goes bankrupt and is not here. That's a real thing. And I think because not as many eyes were on Dr. Jay during the – now, he did win titles, right? Like he won titles with the Sixers in the early 80s, but he wasn't Dr. Jay.

If he was Dr. Jay during the – if we had this grand television and all these things in the 70s, when he was doing what he was doing, I think he'd be a bigger star and a lot more respected. Now, he's respected amazingly in NBA circles. Everybody know about the doctor in NBA circles. But because we didn't have the mash push in media that we had during the Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan era, and he was a little older. I think he was last year, was in 84, 85 or something like that, as the league is just exploding to popularity, he would have had that maybe 10 years earlier. I think we'd have a lot different conversation about Dr. Jay in that respect. What do you think, Howard?

No, I mean, listen, shouts to the email writer, letter writer for his treaties, manifestos, more manifesto than question. But I mean, to the extent that there's a question about credit, I mean, yeah, I think Logan knew covered it. Dr. Jay just came along at the wrong time. But also, yeah, like, his peak was mostly in the ABA. and he's a multiple time MVP in the ABA. But we don't talk about the ABA. It's this kind of just forgotten chapter of professional basketball. And he does win a championship with the Sixers in 1983 in the NBA,

but it's his only NBA championship. And I think he's got just one MVP in the NBA also. So multiple time MVP, but again, ABA is a lot of that. It's just a disconnect. It's also, it's, you know, the time that he was living in and that's the time that we're living in. It's just we don't, you know, we know how this country is with history. We're really shitty at history in all respects and all genres, not just sports. Yeah.

I will say this. I'm on eBay right now looking at the Dr. J. Virginia's, Squires, jerseys. Listen. Listen. I see. You need to tap in. Anyways, what's the next question? Next question's from Jacob.

It's titled MFers on Twitter. Sorry. Okay. I'm sorry. All right. Hey, guys. When I was a kid and got my first gaming system, Nintendo Wii, I remember seeing Roger Bell in 2K11 and cutting him from my jazz franchise because he had a trash overall rating. It wasn't so like.

That's not fair. That's insane. That's not fair. I'll run this back for Rajah to hear it, but I'm going to finish the question. It wasn't until I got older and started watching Hoops for real, not just because, not just box scores and video games ratings that I realized those arbitrary numbers didn't mean as much as I thought. And Raja, along with others, were Hoopers. Fast forward 13 years, and I feel like a lot of the narrative about Hoops is super box score slash numbers driven social media accounts primarily on Twitter slash Insta, like, Hater Central. Hoop Report, et cetera, whose main content is dropping box scores and highlights without any other

contexts occasionally annoy me. So my question is, do you think that social media has rotted R the general public's brains when it comes to real NBA understanding due to people really only catching box scores and or highlights? And two, do you think the mainstream media has a part to play with this due to their content becoming super reactionary and hot take heavy? Thanks a bunch. Love the pod. Go Thunder. Jacob. Yeah, Jacob. Whoa. That was a lot. That was a lot. I respect it.

Go ahead, Howard. You can start this off. Dude, this is like a lot. This is going to be like this could be one of my three hour TED talks, which we don't have time for. No, yeah. Yeah, of course social media is completely fucked up the discourse and turned everything into a shit show. Yeah, like, no question. Does the media have a role to play in fixing that? We have a responsibility. We should do it better. We don't have to let social media drag us into a lot of this nonsense,

but a lot of media outlets do. And yeah, I say it all the time that our media ecosystem, and certainly our sports media ecosystem is broken. And it's not just social media. It's that everything, not everything. Too many sites only care about aggregation. clickbait, viral bullshit, and they think that that's their path to prosperity,

and it's not, and there are not enough places like our place, frankly. And I'm just going to say it. Like, we care about good stories. You're not, there's no, there's no aggregation on, on the ringer.com. There's no viral bullshit. There's, we're not just, we're not,

we're not, we're not, we're not, you know, I spent, I spent, you know, weeks on, uh, that Dremont piece. I spent several days on the Anthony Edwards piece. Logan, you spent weeks. You spent weeks of the Warriors piece. You were following the Warriors around. I know you're working on another deep dive feature right now. Shout out to Miran Fader, who does all kinds of wonderful stuff for us. We recently got a PBWA award for long form writing. Like this is the stuff that we care about. I'm sorry for

like a five minute fucking commercial, but like it's important that some media outlets actually still care about high quality writing and reporting and not just the clickbait. And I was not planning on this particular rant, but the reader did ask. So listen to the ringer.com on podcasts and make sure you go to the ringer.com for all our great written work, including from the great Howard Beck. Next question. I'm very ranty today, aren't I? Today. general life. Logan's heard much more. Like the Logan's heard the like three hour dinner and drinks version.

I heard the paywalled version. I probably got to hear the paywall version. I should charge. I should charge, frankly. Pay for rent. You should charge per dinner. Oh, your favorite restaurant. You should just charge.

There we go. If you want to, if you want to hour rant, come to Brooklyn and just go to my favorite restaurant. I don't even remember the name, but let's go. So see. Yes, sir. Well, we got, Kerr. All right. Last question is from someone also named Logan.

For all we know, it could be this Logan with the second email. Don't know. Don't know. Let's read it. What's up, Rowans? Big fan of the show. I'm a Spurth fan, but I've also been a- Logan.

Definitely not me. But I've also been a K.D. fan since he started at UT almost 20 years ago. And think he's on the short list of most unsubors. of most unstoppable offensive force in history. That being said, why does basketball media treat him and LeBron so differently? Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Katie criticized for going to a team with Stefan Clay. LeBron forced his way to a team with two All-Stars twice and recruited AD and Russ, etc. to L.A. Katie was eliminated in the first round of 2022. LeBron missed the playoffs in 2019 and 2022, even missed the play-in and got eliminated in the first round,

on 2021, KD is criticized for never doing anything hard as it's bad to make things look easy. LeBron, on the other hand, is viewed as putting the team on his back as if making things look hard, even when you have all stars on your team is a good thing. Lastly, when LeBron and AD and D.L.O. etc. make conference finals in 2023, it's amazing. But KD. losing the conference finals in seven, not being swept to the future champs in 2021, It's supposed to be bad for his legacy. Maybe I'm making this up, but it seems like a double standard. Anyways, y'all rock.

Wow. Keep up the good work. Hook him horns and go Spurs. Logan. Thanks, Lolo. Wow. I just, I'm wild to know that there's a, there's Katie stands. Like, there's a whole community of Katie Stans.

They're probably all in Austin. But that's an interesting question. And I'm going to talk this out as I think it through. So bear with me if I say some stupid shit. But I will say this. I think that LeBron James has done a great job and even a better job of cultivating the reasoning behind why he does all of his moves in a way that Kevin has not done a – Kevin doesn't have great propaganda around himself. I'm just going to be honest with you.

He didn't do it. He didn't do it in the way that LeBron did because LeBron always positioned himself, no matter what, during any one of those trades and all those things, it's him being the leader and putting together this team. You know, it was always, okay, I'm going to Cleveland. I'm doing these things. I'm making this trade. There was always the illusion that he was pulling the strings behind the scenes.

And he was a person and a figure that, was that held all the power. KD, for whatever reason, didn't have that. And also, I think LeBron just is a bigger star in that way. And he has a, I don't know, that's where I have. Just the fact that LeBron, I was curious to see your perspective, Howard. I think LeBron has at least just, at least in theory, exuded more power in the moves that he made and has not, has positioned himself in a different way

doing the same things that KD has done. What do you think, Howard? No, I think all that's fair, but I'm just going to, a quick kind of disclaimer on this one. I never want to have to do the thing where it's like, we have to explain or justify what other people.

Like, people are often out about what the national media say. When they say the national media, they usually meet a couple of specific talking heads on certain networks. And it's like, I'm not, I don't have to sit here and like explain other people. Also, Howard, I want to say something really quickly. I had to say that to answer the question.

I really don't care. Same. You know what I'm saying? I don't care about those things. Like, I don't care what he did. I'm not going to justify anybody else's takes or their disparate framing of LeBron versus Kevin Durant. What I will say, however, as a reporter who only cares about the facts, is this. Their careers are completely different and the circumstances of their moves are completely

different. Yeah, LeBron James has chased titles with other stars, but LeBron left Cleveland as a free agent, left Miami as a free agent to go back to Cleveland, left Cleveland as a free agent to go to L.A. He also then won championships with three different franchises. And because of that, yeah, sometimes the ends have been used to justify the means. We look at LeBron differently in part because those moves were validated by him winning titles every place he went. Whereas Kevin Durant, he did leave Oklahoma for Golden State initially as a a free agent. And he left the Warriors for Brooklyn

as a free agent. But he left a team that could have kept winning titles instead of staying with the team that could have kept winning titles. He partnered with Kyrie Irving, which was regrettable. And largely left Golden State off of because of the narrative just basically being on line too much,

because of the narrative that he wasn't good enough. And like that got to him. That's largely why he left. And if people, like again, I'm not, this was not my viewpoint of the people who like hated Kevin Durant for going there and thinking that he was bandwagon hopping all this shit. I don't I don't give a crap about any of that. If he'd stayed there, he'd already won two championships and two finals MVPs and who knows how many more

those guys could have tacked on. And eventually the stupidity, the stupidity dies down and it's just you've got all the hardware. But he didn't. He left and he partnered with the one of the flakiest stars he could have found. It all goes south in Brooklyn. What does Kevin Durant do? Forces a trade to Phoenix. and they're not looking like they're pretty, you know, all that viable as a contender either. So it's not, it's the way that these guys moved. It's the results based on those moves. It's all of it.

And so, again, I am not going to sit here and justify whatever nonsense the listener was railing against in terms of the way these guys have been treated by the media because I'm not the one saying that stuff about Kevin Durant. But are the fact patterns for the two players are just different. Ditto. Okay. I don't have anything else to say again like I tried to pull something out of my ass Howard it wasn't great you know like I tried I don't have anything so I just because again like who cares I mean doesn't change our job you don't mean like no listen I think the one thing I would say to like everybody who follows the NBA all fans everyone just enjoy your team

and the players you love and stop worrying so much like grievance culture is I've already done this rant but like grievance culture is infiltrated so much of sports discourse and certainly social media. Like, you don't have to spend your entire day worried about and pissed off about what this other person on Twitter or what this talking head on the network said about your guy. If you love your guy or you love your team, great, enjoy them. To stop worrying about if people are unfairly criticizing them or aren't giving them enough credit, who fucking cares?

Just enjoy your team. Who fucking cares? And that has been another edition of motherfucking Mondays. We're swearing out here. tapping with us every every Monday and Thursday. We broke Kerm. Kerm is done.

The do rags over. The head has exploded. All right. We'll see you guys on Thursday. Me and Raja, we're back, baby. I think. You never know.

We'll talk to you guys soon. Tap in. All the shits. Bye! Must be 21 plus and present in select states. Banduel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas

under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800 gambler or visit Fanduil.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and Vermont. Call 1-800- Next Step or text next step to 5334-2 in Arizona. 1-888-78-9-77-7-7-7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut.

1-8009 with it in Indiana, 1-800-5-22-470-0 or visit KSgamblinghelp.com in Kansas. 18777-7-7-70 stop in Louisiana. Visit MD-gamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Visit 1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia or call 1-800-522-4-7-0 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit GamblinghelplineMA.m.org or call 800-327-50-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 18778 Hope NY or text Hope NY in New York.