Oh boy, So I love a coaching care ofself. It's one of my favorite things about the NBA is really that kind of level of chaos and happening before the carnival is even over yet. I'm not talking about em Udoka rumors to Houston either, which have him linked to Houston for the last couple of weeks. I am talking about one of the most respected names in the NBA, widely considered a top five coach in the league and
one of the best coaches in history. Probably what he did for the twenty nineteen Toronto Raptors with Kawhi Leonard pretty remarkable. Nick Nurse, this was a little bit of a shit show over year. We interviewed him before the season started. It was a lot of hearts and flowers. Well, everybody thought this team was gonna be pretty good. Pascal Siakam had a career year. Ojan Andobi was really good. Fred van Fleet was really good. Yeah, Gary Trent Junior
not so much. But listen, did anybody think that there would be this much dysfunction to the point where people are starting to check in on Nick's status for the following few years while he's sitting there under contract. No no, it went off the rails really before it ever started.
So they had a weak start.
You had injuries to Pascal Siakam, you had injuries to Scottie Barnes, you had injuries to og And Andobi, and that pretty much set them back and they've been scrambling ever since, hovering around the five hundred mark. As the struggles deepened, grumblings about unhappy players started to arise make their way out of Toronto, which is a very hush hush organization by the way, so when rumors start to
get out, you know it's not good. Ognnobi Siakam, Fred Van Fleet, even Scotty Barnes at times seemed to have tuned Nick Nurse out. After bad loss after bad loss started to stack up, and also what was going on in the trade deadline. Every player was rumored to be on the chopping block and for the first time ever after trading No One and trading for Yaka Bertle, Nick Nurse may possibly be on the hot seat, which some of these NBA insiders have predicted since the off season.
I might imagine shout out to Jake Fisher, who did see this coming for the first time in Nick Nurse's career as an NBA head coach, he's had to address these rumors. Let's just say, after hearing what he said last night, I'm not so sure he's going to be around.
There for a long Here's what he said.
I think when this season gets done, you know, we'll evaluate everything and even personally, like I'm going to take a few weeks to see where I'm at, you know, like you said, where's my head at, and just see how the relationship with the organization is and everything. It's been ten years for me now, which is a pretty good run. Right now, my head is to get this and make this as long as season as possible. This team needs playoff experience, right So that is where I'm
at right now. More, I thought that thank you for whatever the reason you might not be back here. No, I think that I'm concentrated on this job for sure and this game essentially. But I think that heaving ten years is a good time to sit back and reflect a little bit, right So, I think that's where we're going to do that all when the season ends.
Oh boy, does it sound like there's a possibility When you hear someone say ten years is a good time to sit back and reflect.
Oh, they're already reflecting me. They are already starting to get.
Their tickets to Cancun or Cabo or wherever they're gonna do some thinking, some deep thought, maybe a monastery in Quebec.
I don't know.
He has one year left on his deal, has not been offered an extension yet that we know about. And damn, it looks like his five years as Dwayne Casey's assistant in five years as head coach in Toronto just might be coming to a close. Eric Kareen of The Athletic some of the best when he wrote this, In no
way is Nurse the primary problem with the Raptors. However, when a coach calls out his team effort and energy as many times as he has this year and the results continue to be fairly poor, it's clear something is wrong.
Really, many things are wrong.
Barring a surprisingly positive end of this Raptor season, a coaching s change seems more likely than not.
God damn sheesh. I love some Nick Nurse. I do.
He's one of my all time favorite coaches and people in the league. Very insightful, as you can see even from his interview, very thoughtful. People have linked him to Houston. But I tell you what if you don't want to coach in Toronto because young guys are doing dumb shit and they're tuning you out, I promise you don't have the energy for Houston, my guy, No, you don't. You don't have any We talk about bad roads, six lane highways,
back to back traffic. You go from Toronto, Canada, one of the most progressive cities in the NBA, to a full blown red state with crazy traffic and young guys who just want to chuck all day like AAU players. Fuck No, absolutely, fucking not one thing is for sure. Sure if he wants to coach, he could coach. He's not gonna be out out of a job for long. Probably would win another chip. Again, Just not in Toronto, baby, just not in Toronto. Oh, let's move on to Lebron James.
There's a cute story. This is really sweet. I saw this and I said, we gotta talk about this on the show. Lebron James just opened a Starbucks. That's not really news in itself. I'm sure he has lots of businesses. I think he owns a Blaze Pizza in Los Angeles as well. He has a ton of fingers and a ton of businesses. Most of them are pretty damn successful. So why is this Starbucks story news? Because he opened
it in Akron, Ohio, his hometown. And not only did he open the Starbucks in Akron, it's being opened in a part of town where Starbucks never ever ever opened the hood.
You ever go to the hood and see a Starbucks? You ever go to the hood and see a Whole Foods? Fuck no, that's kind of like the correlating factor.
No Starbucks around, Get out, move on, Like if you're a newcomer, your tourist, don't be in that neighborhood. This is not a suburb, it's not a gentrified part of downtown. It is across the street from two boarded up buildings. So why did Lebron James open it here? If you have to ask, you probably don't know Lebron James well enough. The simple answer is because Lebron James wants to transform his hometown. The truth is the simple answer is that
he loves his hometown and he wants to build. The more complex answer is because Lebron James thinks that these people.
Deserve a Starbucks.
I'm not gonna make fun of the fact that it is like a very whitey like piece of luxury, like there's more important things probably to open up in the hood.
I remember I did a piece.
In Atlanta and they and I'm not banging on Lebron James for doing this. I think it's great and we'll get to it. But there's a side road I didn't anticipate. I remember I did a piece in Atlanta about gentrification near the Mercedes Benz Stadium, and they said, when when white people give their advice on how we fix our neighborhood, they always say a coffee shop, and really what we need is a laundromat and like a place where you can get money to be loan until your next paycheck.
So I didn't think it's like a little funny anyway.
That's just that's just honestly a side note, because there's more to it than the Starbucks. More importantly, it's two blocks down from where the I Promise school was that he opened, which if you don't know about that, we've done pieces on it. It's incredible job training, school training, job training for the parents of the kids who go
to the school. But there are forty six workers that are not being paid just an hourly salary, but at this Starbucks also earning valuable job trainingificates for the hospitality industry. So it's basically like a vocational technical credit for working at Starbucks. Who doesn't want to be a barista, get the fuck out of the hood, just go to another Starbucks somewhere else. Anyway, typical Lebron James, not looking to just create jobs but also create careers. You can make
fun of him first corny takes. You can make fun of him for lying incessively about things that are very easy to disprove. But I don't know if anyone in the league does more good with his money than Lebron. The building that houses the Starbucks is also going to become a complex by twenty twenty four, containing a sports bar, a wine room, even a Lebron James museum with a full sized recreation of his spring Hill apartment six oh two where he grew up in Akron with his mom.
It's going to have an ice cream shop, a clothing store, and a concert venue. And of course, because Lebron James loves himself some taco Tuesdays, there's always also going to be a taco shop only open on Tuesdays. Just kidding.
This is not groundbreaking news, especially.
You know, for people who see these sort of developments go up, But it is pretty groundbreaking if you live in Akron. These sort of multi use places being built in a neighborhood that's not really being shepherded or invested in is going to create long lasting change. Lebron James did this in parts of downtown Cleveland when he was a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Multiple juice bars that he opened, more white and more white tea things, really fitness studios.
But it worked. It worked.
Lots of players talk about giving back, which to most players means just hosting a basketball camp, giving away some t shirts, giving away some shoes. But he is literally rebuilding his town brick by brick. I would not be surprised if Lebron James opened up for Lebron James apartments, Lebron James Apartment complex. Lebron James already has a school, he's got a Starbucks, he's got an ice cream store, he's got a taco shop. We're gonna keep an eye
on this. One day down the road. I'm gonna have to come visit, all right, Let's move on to something that's not really news, but I want to talk about it anyway. Who, if you had to guess, is the least popular NBA coach of all time. If you give an answer to anyone other than George Carl.
You are wrong.
He has probably the most dislike coach in NBA history. That's not a hyperbole, that is fact. Do not take my word for it. Ask our guy JR. Smith.
This is what he had to say about his time playing in Denver. He said, how do I put this?
George Carl wasn't the coach I thought he was when I first got there.
I'm thinking he's a player's coach. I didn't even know him. By the time I was gone.
I was like, if I never see this dude again, I am good. There are certain people you vibe with and certain people you don't. I get that, But then there are certain people who just throw salt into the pot just because they want to, you know what I'm saying, just to see what the outcome is.
I don't like stuff like that.
I feel a lot of what DeMarcus and a lot of other players are saying.
He's not the easiest person to deal with.
There's many players other than Jerr Smith that have decided to come over the top rope on George Carl. DeMarcus Cousins, of course long running beef with George Carl. He tweeted out in response to Cousins taking shots at the King's organization by asking.
What DeMarcus Cousins ever did for them?
They paid you fifty million dollars and gave you the opportunity to play professional basketball, Sir, George Carl, do you know that that DeMarcus Cousins at one point was one of the most dominant big men in the game. Everyone wanted to Marcus Cousins. They didn't give him an opportunity to play fucking basketball. I hate to tell you, George Carl, a whole lot of other teams would have been happy to pay Boogie Cousins as well. Don't act like Sacramento
did some sort of favor to DeMarcus Cousins. He had seven coaches in seven years there, and of course DeMarcus Cousins, who was great.
I love him, Boogie.
He tweeted a snake emoji as his description of George Carl. So he seems to be beefing with everyone in George carl He said, also Doc Rivers, we talked about this before two weeks ago, that Doc Rivers had been anointed as a black coach, and now there's going to be four or five more anointments of the young Afro American coach. Don't say Afro American, please, don't. That's cringe.
Don't do that as if that's some sort of bad thing for coaches.
I don't know, to represent the players, the labor base they have that's largely.
Black and brown. I don't know.
This seems like former players kind of make sense to me. Yeah, he also took a lot of unrestsari shots at Nuggets players. He uh whatever, for whatever reason, decided to say that Kenyon Martin had all that money and no father's fucked up. Carmarlow's dad died when he was two years old. Kenyon was raised by his mom and sister, and he says that those two are his father figured. So I don't know Kenyon Martin. You already know he's not about this.
He said he was an awful and coward ass coach, a terrible person, selfish, unhappy, miserable, the worst coach that he ever played for.
Jesus.
I met Kenyon Martin in Cincinnati a couple weeks ago, and let me say that is probably the censored version of what he would say behind George Carl's back, without the media there to take note into record. It the list of former players who have zero good things to
say about George Carl. The list is long, Gary Payton, Sean Kemp, Chauncey Billups, numerous others, and George Carl still, for some reason, still tweeting about current players like John Morant nineteen fifties takes on drum morand if you know, you know, when you make a list of most or least popular NBA coaches, George Carl is literally the Kalisi of that list. No one is as unpopular as him, not a chance, and I don't think anybody will ever
make that list. Also, fun fact, George Carl accidentally spit on me in a basketball clinic. I was sitting front row and he just loogied all over me and didn't say a goddamn word.
So I personally don't like George Carl either,