No, no, come home.
Come on this episode of the Heat Check.
COVID.
Yes, COVID, it's everywhere. I have currently entered health and safety protocols.
I don't have COVID, but I'm just out. I'm just gonna be out for a few days.
Nobody is safe from COVID though, in the NBA or in the NFL, especially role players, but even even Lebron James. Games are being shut down. Star players are out. Teams are having to field like six seven, eight players.
I mean, what are we doing? And guess what? Like I don't think it's going away. I don't think. I think this is a.
New reality, a new frontier, as they say, a new hurdle to the game.
So go ahead, rock drop down on the beat.
O Marion, O Macron. I mean it's uh, it's here.
Uh.
O Marion is not he's somewhere. He's alive.
He's alive, O Marion, I've got an icebox where my heart he hold on.
Hold on one second. If only Omicron was as fun as Omarion. Not as fun.
Definitely spreading like wildfire, just like O Marion seed Uh. Omaron was fucking with a bunch of entertainers and he was I've.
Got an ice fox. Anyway, I'm just fucking around. I'm trying to make COVID funny. It's not easy. It's not easy.
Apologies for folks who recognize that I missed Monday's episode. I was too out with COVID, so I was out with the COVID booster. I got maderna mRNA. Apparently the FDA EPA DHA, whoever is saying CDC I think, is saying the mRNA booster is the best.
Why is it the best?
Well, it put me on my ass, and you can tell that means it's working. There's something in there. It's given you something. I don't know what it's doing in there, but it's like Omarion is in there with all kinds of screws and like like a needle nosed pliers handling my immune system, trying to make sure that the next.
O Marion that comes. My wife is like, hey, bitch, get out the way. I know who you are. I've seen you before.
So there's the actual protection of COVID, which is the O'mion booster.
Uh.
But maybe maybe we should have seen this outbreak coming. I mean, NBA has been clamping down on testing since Thanksgiving and Lebron has been the first domino to fall. I mean, they could not even find a way to protect This is how we know that the NBA doesn't know what they're doing with COVID is because they didn't even find.
The loophole for Lebron James.
Like they hadn't created they hadn't planned for Lebron James getting Omari on like they didn't know. You know, they're like hadn't found the Lebron James rule, Like Lebron James close contact. We all know we protect Lebron James at all costs. He hits a guy in the face, he's out one game, that's it. Like he gets COVID, You test him and test him and test him and test him some more, and then you test some other guy and then that's his test, Like right, like that's that's
what should have happened. But they didn't even know to do that. So to me, that proved that the NBA has no idea how to handle COVID. This's a new frontier for them because when it came to Broun did not only not get special treatment, I think he got royally fucked. I think actually, even if he was a role player, I'd feel bad for him.
And Braun is not used to getting.
Less than star treatment. So here's what happened. This is the first shoe to drop in the age of COVID. First and foremost, Lebron James is vaccinated. I don't know what his booster status is. Don't ask me, I don't know. But due to close contact on November thirtieth, Lebron James had to test for a breakthrough case. He tested negative at first, and then the second test came back positive, which then put him into the league's COVID protocol COVID protocol.
So this is what happened, and then all hell broke loose. So apparently Lebron James had to figure out a way to get back to LA from Sacramento himself that tuesday that he tested positive, and he wasn't allowed to have anyone travel with him either.
And then when he returned.
To LA he basically had to isolate himself away from his family as well. So had to find accommodations for his family, all the peeps, and find a way.
To isolate himself. And I know he's rich. I know he's a billionaire, but like that's annoying, Like that is stressful.
You're all of a sudden gone from the king to like a pariah in like an instant, you know, like you're a lepard.
Now, hey, you got COVID. Have you ever seen anyone that you know and you know.
Them personally and then they tell you they've got COVID? Like you, it changes how you see them for a while. Like I lived with someone who got COVID and they had to quarantine the basement while I was moving to DC.
And like she's young girls, twenty and I'm like, I.
Don't care that you've tested negative sixteen times.
Like you can't sleep anywhere near me?
Get off that couch, no, Like, uh, you stay over there, Like give me spray some light style.
That was Lebron James though, And this is what Lebron said. He was pissed. He was super pissed.
That's probably an understatement, actually, he said, Yo, it was a big time inconvenience. Usually when you have a positive test, I'll test you right away to make sure.
This was not that.
There was not a follow up test after my first positive. It was straight to isolation and then you go into protocol. That was the part that angered me. He never felt sick, never had any symptoms, he had already tested negative, and yet draconian COVID rules it was for the king. He was like, I will if it was like, oh, I had a positive COVID test, if what I had, by the way, it was a false positive, Like this was
a false positive. He had tested negative eight consecutive times, never really even had COVID, still had to go through the ringer, And he said, if what I had was a positive COVID test, then what are we even doing here?
Like what is this?
What are we even talking about? I thought they handled it extremely poorly, and like they did, they did. He did not have COVID at all, and he, like I said, was clear to play. Before he was clear to play, he had to test positive eight separate tests, eight separate times, which is why he got on Twitter and tweeted all those fishial emojis and the thinking emoji like something's fishy. And I was like, wow, Lebron James is a conspiracy theorist. No,
he literally had a false positive. Couldn't play in a game against Sacramento. If they did beat Sacramento without Lebron, but who knows, Like they could have lost that game, and that game was important.
And thank you to.
Lebron James for being one of the only people who are speaking out against what we think. I think as a collective is like, I don't even know what we're doing. I'm not sure what's right. I'm not sure what's wrong. I just know what you guys are doing is wrong. Like I know pretty much everything that you guys are doing is being handled poorly. If they can't handle Lebron jameson, how do you think they handle like someone like Wayne Ellington or Austin Reeves. Shout out to Austin Reeves, great shot,
and overtime they're calling him the new Crusoh. And then you add in then you yeah, then you add in the fact that you've got new omarion variant and you have a new testing protocol where people not only have to be vaccinated and now also have to be boostered. And the NBA is just in a tailspin, like they come back from Thanksgiving and everybody's got COVID, everybody's testing
positive for COVID. You've got omarion, which is the most literally the omicron variant is the most transmissible variant we've ever seen. It's mild, but it's transmissible as hell. Like like Omarion and Adam Silver said, he's a mild mannered guy.
Adam Silver said before the season he was.
Positive, he was confident they would not have to postpone games. He scheduled the entire season upfront, unlike last season where he only scheduled half and was like, we'll see how things are going with how many postponements and where we put everyone in.
The back half of the season.
I think this is probably a miscalculation on his part, like truthfully, because I don't know how they're going to deal with this at all moving forward, Like not even like you to leave. It's not even fully vaccinated. And now they're like, yo, you also need to have boosters. Like you not only need to be fully vaccinated, you need to also have boosters. Bulls have now lost two thirds of their team in three days. They've had to cancel their last two games, So I'd say that was
a miscalculation on Adam Silver's part. All of sports are having some trouble with this.
Currently.
As I walked into the studio, they've already moved a couple of NFL games around as well.
Kings.
Sacramento Kings, of course, hilariously are in full protocol, like all of them. Alvin Gentryes in protocol, like Daviondaron Fox, Marvin Bagley, like the bag.
Boy, the fans, the whole city.
I think actually Sacramento as a whole was in protocol. Like the Sacramento radio guy, Damien Barling, He's in protocol. I mean.
Nets also had to play with eight players. Just the other night. It was just Kadie and Patty Mills out there rocking out. It was just that was the only two that I knew.
Even when you've got guys like DeAndre Bembrie that are in protocol like everyone. You had a guy David Duke Junior playing on the Brooklyn Nets. Do you think right now in these times we want to be rolling out David Duke in Brooklyn. Not in these times or any times, black kid named David Duke.
No, No like that.
Kids at the end of the bench, Poor Dante Devencenzo rehabbed his high ankle sprain for six months, got cleared to play this week for the Bucks, and they need him, boy, because there's a bunch of other bucks that are in protocol.
And then boom dive Covid o Marion.
So I mean, the shit is having an impact, and I think it's gonna change who's gonna make.
It to the playoffs and who's not.
Because in this league right now, with a significant level of parody, one or two games in December, January February is the difference between four seed and a six or seven seed.
So this is Adam Silver's Nightmarre?
Is it not like we talked about how earlier this year how COVID almost derailed the finals. What do you think it's gonna do moving forward with new, more transmissible variants.
Are they just.
Gonna stop testing players because that's what happened earlier, Like they weren't testing players at all that were vaccinated in bunniers, vaccinated in bunniers.
Because we don't know, Like we don't really know.
We've got guys like Antonio Brown faking vaccine cards. My sister sending me text messages being like can I see your vaccination card? Like no, no, bitch, I do not need you pulling off a fella knee off.
Of your sisters.
This isn't like a fake ID when I used to drink when your ten years So this is not the same I've been ten years older. She's it's like, it is not the same as like I'm nineteen, Hey, sis, can I borrow your your driver's license?
It's like no, I could go to jail. You could go to jail, like for a very long time.
So I'm wondering this, are we going to get to a point where the NBA just stops testing all together? Because that's what was happening before. They weren't testing vaccinating vaccinated players because they didn't know really anything.
They didn't know that.
These breakthroughs were going to happen at mass and then guys who weren't vaccinated have like a higher quote unquote viral load, paging doctor Crik, like higher viral load, and then like, okay, what happens, Like now do fans need to sign waivers if you go into an arena and they're not testing players that are either not fully vaccinated or not fully boosted, or what if someone has COVID it's a breakthrough case and you're not vaccinated, you're wearing
a mask and you're on the sidelines right there on front, in the front row. What if you get COVID because you didn't know Marvin Bagley's bumb ass had COVID and he falls on you with this sweat and his breath and then all of a sudden you're on a ventilator. Like our guys, like, these are real realities we need to be calculating in our mind because this isn't just like a seatbelt law. This isn't like, oh my body,
my choice, I can go through the windshield. It's like, well, what if you could go through the windshield, And because you went through the windshield, like ten others also went through the windshield, it's.
Closer to that.
And that's where I think we're at is I'm not sure that the NBA knows how to really calculate how to move forward without possibly facing lawsuits. Maybe we're gonna get to the point where everyone just has to sign releases.
Hey if you get COVID.
If you get COVID and die, we are not at fault like that happens in America because we're so so happy as it is, like you have to sign releases for fucking everything. You go to six Flags, Hey, if you fall out of our rollercoaster and die. It's not our fault. Just want to let you know. You gotta say this in advance, like who knows? And this illustrates that what.
We know nothing?
No one knows anything. NBA doesn't know anything. I don't know anything. The scientific community they sure as hell don't know anything either, And that all trickles down because when the smartest people in the world don't know anything, and it's a developing situation, let me tell you this dumbass is like me.
No negative amounts of things like, that's where we're at.
They're now saying that omicron could have mutated in one single immunocompromised human being. So somebody with lupis or diabetes or oh, what's it not lupus, lime limes immunocompromisation, that's what I meant.
That person can now develop the crick variant, the crick variant, the love variant exactly. Yeah, get out of here, crick, stay out of here.
Trisk get So it seems impossible now to solve if one human, one random immunocompromised human anywhere in the world, can create a new variant inside of their body like a little uh, like a test tube. I mean I don't know what we're doing, and if that's the unknown, the one thing that we do know is that there's gonna be more things coming up, more variants.
Who knows what next?
R and B singer, I'll be joking around about what's coming next. And as I went to air this WOJ bomb, this is the bomb. Just as I suspected, the NBA is trying to skirt around and trying to change the rules cause they know what's up there. Like, as it stands, our rules are gonna fuck us from getting money. So the NBA and the NBPA are currently discussing modified COVID protocols.
The two had already agreed to start testing on testing vaccinated players without booster shots on Friday, but there are conversations around further testing in protocols with the uptick positive cases, and then he followed the next day with this. The increased testing will run December twenty sixth. The January eighth mask will be required for players, coaches and staff on the bench, in the locker, wait in training rooms, while traveling with teams.
Per memo share with.
The teams fun times, uh, just in time for All Star weekend. That's gonna be in one of the coldest, most miserable places in the country.
Cleveland, the land. Not Miami, where you can do everything outdoors.
Nope, in a place like Cleveland in the dead of winter, where you have to put yourself in a tiny, enclosed space with a bunch of fucking thoughts. Because that's what happens is a bunch of ratchet girls come to All Star weekend, probably to pull a Britney Runner or two and probably end up with Omicron. That's what we're gonna You go want a baby and some child support, end up with Omicron, and now our whole league is in fucking shambles. They're probably never gonna stop testing. They're like, oh,
we're gonna wait for a down tick. Let me just be very very clear, folks, I am a pessimist, but I am a realist. The Downtick's not coming.
That's all the.
Time that we have for this heat check. We will be back Monday, I know, optimism. We will be back Monday early Squirrely with a new episode talking about the most surprising team in the NBA not named the Cleveland Cavaliers. Do not forget to download, subscribe and tell all your friends follow US, at social on, at this heat Check, and at Tristo crik on Ticock.
Secure, Sam, I'm so.
Liveries.
This is cra easy shame. Not like girls like
Mm hmm