On this episode of This League, the NBA has a flopping problem on both sides of the ball, Marcus Smart fans are big fucking mad at me in my dms, in my comments, pretty much everywhere that they can find me. They've crossed platforms from TikTok to Twitter to Instagram to my dms. I'm surprised they don't have my phone number already. Uh why the Sixers will never win it all with Ben Simmons and Kadie gets petty with the NBA after all that COVID drama. I feel like this has been
bubbling for a while now. Coaches don't like it, players don't like it, no fans like it none, but.
Everyone seems to still be doing it everyone.
The defense says that they're doing it because without that, the offense has an unfair advantage. And then the offense says that they do it because they're not getting calls without an exaggerating it unless they flop. So it's that famous who's really responsible?
Chicken or the egg? Is the reps?
Is it?
The league is at the offense is at the defense?
I don't know, And nothing really personifies how bad it's gotten. Then our very favorite Jimmy Buckets, one of the hard rocks of the league, pretending that he was.
Mauled in the eye.
It became a famous meme on the internet where he pokes his eye and looks up to try to draw a flagrant foul to get an advantage down the stretch. Right, that's not a guy that you would expect to lay down, And I mean this is a guy that was homeless. This is a guy who's a hard rock and he's laying down to try to get an oscar when he wasn't even.
Hitting the eye.
Yeah, it goes against plenty of things you would think he stands for. Yeah, correct.
So obviously this is now a trend.
This is now the thing that you must do in order to have any level of parody as a competitor. And it all started getting national attention back in the beginning of the season in December. I don't know if you remember, but the Hawks were playing the nets and Trey Young goes around a screen and he stops short and then boom, foul the defender. Obviously, when someone's just like in traffic, when someone slams on the brakes and you're expecting to go through a green light. That was Trey Young.
He slammed on his brakes around a screen.
And the defender was forced to run into him.
Yet, yeah, he didn't know, well obviously what was coming. And you can't just like be starting and stopping as a defender against a guy like Trey Young, because all of a sudden he's at the bucket, right, So you're in a no win spot. And Steve Nash looks at the ref and says, that's not basketball. That's just not basketball. And the problem is, right now, that is basketball. That's that's the big problem.
Yeah. No, it really stinks, honestly because there's such judgment calls. And because it's such a judgment call, that's why I think these guys whind so much, because they're doing everything they can to get that call, give those revs like a reason to make that call. So you're seeing the game slow down in so many different ways.
Yeah, it's actually atrocious to watch. Another instance happened with Luca against the Warriors. I don't know if you saw that, but Luca got this phantom lean in call. Literally he throws his body against the defender and then goes up and Wiggins gets the foul. This is in late in the game, and Steve Kerr after the game was pissed, really pissed. Even though he doesn't care about winning games, he still is pissed about it. He says, I don't
fault the officials. I really fault the league. They basically are gifting those calls to all of the players. Our guys get him too, But to me, this is not a basketball play. If you jump three feet forward, I don't think you deserve a foul when all you're doing is looking for said foul. We've now gotten out of control just gifting offensive players the ability to deceive refs.
We have to give the defensive player some benefit of the doubt, but the officials have to call it because that's the way that the league is dictating that they call it. Yeah, no, it's bullshit. It's bullshit. And then later later I think this was a couple of days ago, Lebron the Lakers are playing the Grizzlies, and Lebron pretends that Dylan Brooks he's under the rim and they're going up to get a rebound, and Lebron pretends that Dylan
Brooks took his arm and hooked him backwards. So Lebron then flies, He literally explodes into the ground and flies backwards like three feet y tough one to try to get that loose ball call. Uh, and he got it. He went to the free throw line. Uh. And this is I mean, obviously Twitter went crazy, Yeah, what is this? The Memphis Grizzlies broadcasters went and sane, this is out of control, blah blah blah. But no, like, this is just Lebron doing what everyone else is doing, and the
spotlight is brighter on Lebron James, right. This is just the way that the NBA is right now, which is actually very funny that Lebron did it against Dylan Brooks because Dylan Brooks, I don't know if you remember, but is famous for maybe the most egregious flop in basketball history when he was playing at Oreon he flopped against Utah. He did a double bunny hop flop, like one bounce into another, bounce into the ground.
No, I don't recall this one.
Well you gotta, yeah, you gotta look that up. It is tremendous. And I get it like I get that after Kawhi Leonard. Because the rules have changed a lot over time, like they slowly surely changed and gotten more. We'll call it friendly to the offense. You saw what happened when Kawhi Leonard got his landing space encroached by Zaza Pachulia in the playoffs and then it ended ended multiple years of his career in his prime, that sent him down into a death spiral of that quad injury,
the foot injury. And now coaches around the league say, yes, that obviously is necessary these rule changes so that people don't get injured. Are stars, Our money isn't messed up with. But this is out of hand. Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau also said the same thing and basically said that the trend all started with James Harden. He said, he said, James Harden did that, he gained the system, and now the league is protecting it shooters. And it's interesting having
coached internationally in FOEBA because they won't give players those calls. Wow, yep, yes, folks, everything is James Harden's fault. Everything. He is the sacrificial lamb of everything that's wrong with the NBA. The A million dribbles, like the shooting three seconds into the shot clock from forty, the traveling seven steps like getting to the line a million times. But actually this is James Harden's fault. This is one hundred percent James Harden's fault.
He is ground zero for these egregious flops. He learned to gain the system like any good offensive player would, and then every shooter was like, yo, James Harden can do that, Like I could do that.
Yeah, just move my feet a little bit.
Yeah, I just body into the defender, just ripped through into a shock quote unquote phantom shot that you were never intending to take, so that you can go to the line and like a cancer. Then it's spread of the defense. They were like, this is insane. So if this is happening on this side of the ball, then we have to figure out something on the defensive side of the ball. So let's look at Marcus Smart.
Uh oh, that's your boy, that's my guy.
One of the best defenders in the league. So yeah, he's an elite defender. He doesn't need to flop, but he is not we'll call it adverse to flopping. He's considered maybe the greatest flopper in the NBA. So he gets a five thousand dollars fine for flopping, and he just decides like, I am gonna own up to it, and he laughs about it. He's like, yeah, I deserved everything that came my way after that. I flop on defense, yes, but by the way, heads up your favorite players, they
flop on offense. So I'm just doing what I have to do. And especially in a game where the offense has nothing but the advantage, the defense has to do something to get the advantage back. Wow, that is the most truth telling an NBA player has been about these flops.
Yeah, buy that completely.
Yeah, it's a flopping arms race. It's like I'm flopping and then you're flopping because I'm flopping. The more the offense flops, the more the defense feels that they have to flop. And that that's how you get Jimmy Buckets pretending that he lost an eye. So this is this is my stance. This shit is ridiculous and it needs to stop right this second.
No, no more.
I think it's time that we re evaluate what a foul is. Go back to the old school. No more lean in fouls, No more jumping three feet in the air forward to make your landing space like as much as a helicopter can come in. Now, I don't like that. No more stopping short tree young, No more rip through fowls where the defenders in your space and you rip down and that's a foul just because they're playing good defense. We say we want to see players d up, get
all up in your grill, be a lockdown defender. And then what does an offensive player do. They just rip the ball through and they go to the free throw line. Right, that's insane, no wonder. Lucas said. Yeah, it's a lot easier to score in the NBA than it is in Europe because these ticki tag fouls get me points, they get me buckets. I don't really need to even do much. Just throw my body into someone and cry and points for us.
He does plenty of that.
He does plenty of that. Just watch watch any game. For all the folks that say that I don't watch any games, this happens fifteen times a night at least. It's gross. So the whole point, no more intentionally drawing contact. Stop doing that. Just go and get yourself a bucket. And if someone fouls you in the process, so be it. If you're caught doing it shoving your body, I hate,
that's the one that I hate. The most shoving your body forward, creating contact and then shooting offensive foul for you, every single time rip through, someone's playing good defense. Rip through foul, stop short offensive owl. You can't do that. So the hardened effect is what I call this, and I think it's changed the game tremendously to the point where it's almost hard to watch now. The three pointer
is king why Because defenders can't close out. They legitimately can't even get near you in order to defend because if you jump and you're there, if they jump and you're there, that's a foul. So now you have to like kind of stay three feet away from them, but your arms have to be so long that you can still put a hand in their face in order for you to play good defense. That's why wings are so important in this NBA, like Jason Tatum, because his reach
and his wingspan is so long. Yeah, because no one can actually no six foot one guard can actually play real defense anymore or they're gonna foul out of the game. It's fucked. Of Course, I want my stars protected. Of course I don't want to see people get injured. But I think it's time for the NBA to say I think this is getting a little out of hand, and
maybe we need to make some changes. As an aside, if Okse would have paid Harden to begin with, maybe he never would have been this Marquis star, and maybe he would have continued to be a six man, and maybe this would have never happened to begin with. But I digress. Change it, the NBA, change it, this league.
What's that?
How many people are so emotionally invested in Marcus Smart?
Yeah, people were not too pleased with you.
Oh my god, I had no idea how emotionally connected that fans are to him. It was like I made some comments about Marcus Smart. I didn't even think it was a crazy take about how the Celtics should move on from him, like it's time two time defensive player. But I think maybe he's not helping your team get to where you need them to be. People acted like I should on their mom. Like people were coming furiously at me, like I was saying their wife was ugly.
The mob. The mob came came for me. I mean, I'm talking about like you don't deserve to live anymore. One person told me to put a bullet in my head because of this basketball take. This is how bad it is? How dare you come at the heart and the soul of the culture of the Boston Celtics. You know nothing, You know nothing about basketball, think that Marcus Smart should be moved. That's how you know it's time to move on from Marcus Smart. That right there is
how you know. You're too close. You are too close to him. You can't see the forest through the trees. You you're just in love, I think, dare I say, Boston Celtics fans, you're blind. Your love has made you blind. And I get it. I get that because me as a Blazer fan, I'm in love too. I've been there. I have been forced to make really take a hard look at myself because I'm in love with the player who is is never gonna win us a championship, and
I stand for him and I protect him. People shit talk how we can't win with Damian Lillard and c J McCollum, And I block those people who told me that CJ and Dame or a duo, that they cannot be split up. They are best friends. Small market players came up from the dirt shooters. They can get a bucket at any time. One of the most potent backcourts in the league. But where has that gotten us? Really? We went to the Western Conference Finals once after we
barely beat the Denver Nuggets in seven. It was a fun run and then we got destroyed by the Warriors, destroyed. It wasn't even competitive. And the truth is, We're never gonna win this way, never. Never. I hate saying that CJ McCollum and Damian Lillard are not They're not a recipe for a championship, just like Marcus Smart is not a recipe for the Boston Celtics to win a championship. Probably Kimba Walker too, and definitely Daniel Tyson Thompson. Not
a solution, not a recipe for winning. And so I feel sad. I feel sad for you guys Celtics fans who are so enraged because you can't see how he's holding you back and you have a piece that's integral to your culture, a piece who is very very clearly a part of your defensive identity. This Celtics team is just not trying anymore without Marcus hard Rock Smart on the floor to whip the team into shape. But it does not solve the problem is of who's gonna guard
Joel Embiid is Marcus Smart? Point to no, It does not gloss over the fact that Smart will shoot eighteen shots in a game and thirteen of them will be three pointers. He took thirteen shots from three in games one and seven against the Miami Heat and the playoffs, and it is a good time to mind people. Hey people, Marcus Smart shoots thirty seven percent from the floor in his career and thirty two percent from three.
WHOA, I love him so much.
If you're a thirty two percent three point shooter over the course of your career, you should never shoot thirteen threes in a game, let alone in the playoffs. Never. Brad Stevens, I tell you what. I'm not a part of the Boston Celtics play calling, but I promise you, but Brad Stevens is not drawing up plays for Marcus Smart to shoot thirteen threes in a game. That is
not his plan. That is definitely Marcus Smart's plan. There are games where it's very clear he's like green light on for me, and it doesn't matter if he goes two for thirteen, which sometimes he does.
There was that game in the Bubble, though, where he had like nine.
Yeah, and there was also it was fun that game. That was a fun game. That's the problem. He is feast or famine with a lot of famine.
Yeah, and.
He just should not be doing that. He shouldn't be shooting double digit threes in an extended practice, let alone in five playoff games against Toronto and Miami when he shot over nine threes every single game. Let's please stop for a second evaluate Celtics fans. In what world should Marcus Smart shoot more three pointers than Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown. None? And he does it a lot. So let's just look at Marcus Smart a little closer for those who think that I don't have a read on him,
because I do. He can't hit open threes or catch and shoot threes. He's good at setting up Jayleen Brown and some of the shooting bigs. Great perimeter defender, but a terrible interior defender. He's had a negative impact on the Celtics net rating, especially against good teams, and he drags the team's pace down, which when you have two running gun guys like Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum, that is a big time problem. So he probably needs to
be moved. Sorry, probably would be a better fit on a team like the Clippers or Milwaukee or Denver or Utah, not your team. The time has come to move on. Can we just say to the Boston Celtics fans who are just dragging me on the internet, who are in love, passionately and thoroughly with Marcus Smart, that maybe you really don't want him shooting that many threes on your team and he will not ever stop. This is not something that's changing. He has gone on the record and said, no,
I don't care. I mean, you have to see that. You have to see that Marcus Smart is going to continue to shoot even if he shoots ten percent from three in a game. If you don't see that, if you can't get that through your skull, maybe maybe you're in love and maybe love is blind for you and Marcus Smart. But you know who's not blind. Danny fucking Ainge is not blind. He's been trying to make a move on Marcus Smart for like two years. Recently, David
Aldridge said, yeah, Marcus Smart is not ungettable. So apparently he is not the heart and soul of the Celtics because he can be moved. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm not the only one who doesn't have love blinders on the rest of the league seems to have that same opinion as me, and I get it. I get it, but the doing the same thing over and over again is the definition of insanity when you expect the same a different result from the exact same move. Like I said,
Marcus Smart will never change. He recently said this, Marcus Smart doesn't care if you think he shoots too much. Can you please tell me what he said to CBS four, the local Boston affiliate, about the world thinking he shoots too much?
Yeah, this is a crazy article. Okay, so the quote is been doing the same thing I've been doing. I just continue to shoot the ball and shoot with confidence and not given f what people say. I get crap a lot, but who cares. Just go out and continue to do it. My teammates trust me, and I know what I can do.
He literally said, I know that I get shit. I know that I get shipped because I shoot too much. I know that I'm not a good shooter and I shoot way more than I should. But I don't care. I'm going to continue to shoot twelve threes whenever I fucking feel like it, and you know what, there is nothing you motherfuckers can do because I am the heart and soul of this team. I am integral to the defense. I don't like that. I'm sorry, I don't like that.
And Celtics fans are going to continue to love him, and you know what that is why you're going to continue to fucking lose. How about that? How about that truth? Doing the same thing over and over with the same result. Please trade Marcus Smart, even if it breaks your heart. I have different expectations for my Canada goose jacket that I paid twenty four hundred dollars for than I do for a two hundred and fifty dollars ll bean jacket
that I bought on vacation when it just started snowing randomly. Right, If I pay a lot for something, I expect it to work exactly how I thought it would work, consistently every single time. I don't want that coat to only work in forty degree weather. I want it to work in sub zero weather as well. What's that have to do with basketball? Has everything to do with my man, Ben Simmons, what you've paid for him, what you expect from him, and what he ends up doing.
Right.
Yeah, he gets paid thirty five million dollars a year. He is a point guard. Point guard should shoot, he does not shoot. It is time to have a heart to heart about Ben Simmons. It's time. It's been brewing, it's been coming. The world absolutely stands for him, probably more than they do Marcus Smart. I think, actually that's the person that said I should put a bullet in my head when I said that I would take like fifteen other guards over Ben Simmons. People are big mad.
Yeah.
People are fiercely loyal in Philly. People are fiercely loyal in Boston. And I get that. That's fine. So it's been coming. I've been wanting to talk about Ben Simmons for a while and I have kind of like, sort of So the Sixers are the best team in the East, right, and be's legit MVP candidate. Yeah, Tobias Harris coming along right.
Yeah, playing good in the new system.
Playing great in the new system. They've been doing things that we would hope from them. They got Danny Green, they got Seth Curry. They need shooters, and they got that. They are a matchup problem for pretty much everyone in the East, So what's wrong? Why are we talking about this? Then? What's wrong is that they just went west and they got fucking dog walked dog walked And that was not
a fluke, that was just more of the same. That was a consequence of glittering issues with the roster construction, and if you look closely, it was there all along. Right, Let's look at who they've lost to so far this season. Calves, Nets, Hawks, Nuggets, Pistons, Blazers once without Dame and CJ once without CJ, Sons, Grizzlies. What do all these teams have in common?
Uh, some pretty good guard play on those rosters.
Right, Yeah, dynamic backcourts and potent scoring sex Land Nets, Big Three, Trey Young, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter junior, Dame and Gary Trent Junior or even mellow book and CP three. The other teams that beat the Sixers they play without Joel and beat so they don't matter.
Yeah, each one more cooked Philly too.
Each one more cooked Philly. I mean that's a big time problem. I think. Also, your boy what's his face from Detroit also cooked Philly. Josh Jackson, Josh Jackson and Wayne Ellington also. Yeah, So there are glaring issues right that are hiding in plain sight. No one's talking about them. Let's be honest. Because the East, they're number one in the East, and everyone thinks that that just means you're a world beater. But the truth is that the East has had very hobbled guard play due to COVID due
to injuries. So what makes you look better than you really are? Philly is like a boyfriend with two phones, just super suss sus enough and enough for me to give the confidence to say, you know, it's gonna be really sad when Philly gets bounced early in the playoffs and no one sees it coming. And I bask in the sun of being right, just like I love to do. I just take get a nice little tan, get nice tan lines from how right I am with how warm that sun is. That is the best case scenario. Eastern
Conference finals is the best case scenario for Philly. They will not not go to the finals, they will not win it all, and that all that trouble, I would say, revolves around our boy, Ben Simmons, our man, our man Ben Simmons. Why let's just talk about what he does well?
Okay?
Six eleven point guard. That's insane, right, six eleven point guard an anomaly in itself. Right. He can pass, he can playmake, he can lead the break in transition. He's bullying guards, posting them up, gets in the lane very easily, great crafty around the rim. He's a fucking monster. But he's getting thirty five million dollars a year because he's a lock, lockdown, lockdown defense. Yeah.
It might be one of the best in the league one, Yeah, is one of the best, might be the best.
Yeah, considers himself the best defender in the NBA. That's he's supposed to take the pressure off the rest of the defense in a bunch of different ways because they have either glaring issues on the perimeter or Joe l Embid really doesn't want to defend that much because he has obviously he's injury prone. Yeah. See, folks, I do watch Sixers games. You know, I do watch basketball, So
what's the problem. Even though Ben Simmons is probably gonna win Defensive Player of the Year, he's definitely gonna make first team All Defense defense, when you look closely, he's actually not that good defending guards. He's phenomenal guarding forward. Don't get me wrong. But when he's matched up against guards, they shoot a staggering forty two percent against him from three point range. They're getting he's getting cooked. He's getting cooked.
That seems actually impossible since he's six inches taller than most of the guards that he's defending. But that's the that's the league for you, I guess now, unstoppable guard play. So yeah, that's that's a fucking problem. Yes, he leads the break, he's good at that getting out in transition, but the facts are that the pace of play actually goes down when he's on the floor.
Yeah. Uh, the paces dropped from one hundred and five point seven percent in December to one hundred point seven three percent in February.
Yikes. Yeah, yeah, yes, he can facilitate, but he actually averages three turnovers a game, which is some of the worst for a point guard. The biggest issue, that's not even these are just little issues. The biggest issue is our man in a league where three pointers are king, which we just talked about a couple of segments ago and why three pointers are king, and Ben Simmons refuses to shoot them. He actually refuses to shoot at all outside of the restricted area. He has shot nine times
outside of fifteen feet nine nine this entire season. Nine And just let that sink in for a second.
How many of those were heaves?
I don't even I don't even know. He's only made one. He's only made one of nine attempts outside of fifteen feet and he is your point guard. Yikes, he's actually because people will say, oh, Triste, he's gotten so much better, he's progressing, he's improving. No, he's actually gotten worse as a shooter as his career has progressed. So that's the facts. Did I also mention that he's the top three highest paid player in the league next to Curry. Damian Lillard
makes more than Damian Lillard Ben Simmons. Damian Lillard shoots nine times in a quarter outside of fifteen feet, Like what? So? The problem really is that when the playoffs come, things change, Transition gets taken away. This becomes a half court offense, guard play elevated. It just automatically happens, just based on
the teams that are gonna be in the playoffs. Coaches will scheme for you, and they will scheme for the fact that we all know Ben Simmons will not shoot They will scheme and say Ben, leave him open, let him shoot, let him shoot. He will not shoot. Teams are gonna pack the paint and double Joel and force every single other person to shoot. Sixers fans have a question for you, do you trust Seth Curry and Tobias Harris get you to the finals?
I don't know.
I don't know, because if Joel Embiid is taken away and Ben Simmons can't do what he does best, then what do you have? Even if your shooters shoot lights out. Even if those role players like Danny Green get hot, Tyrese Maxey get hot, the Sixers are still not going to be able to keep up pace with the likes of Brooklyn and Milwaukee, who you are scoring I think like one hundred and twenty points a game a lot's that's just not gonna happen. Why Because Ben Then he
defends the best scorer. We'll call it like brook or in the Eastern Conference, We'll say he guards Kyrie. Now you've got matchup issues on the perimeter elsewhere, because you have to have three guards on the floor at at any given time. Because you've got a player in Ben Simmons who's not a guard who can't score. So that's a big, big time issue because now that team can get buckets everywhere else besides the guard play, and the guards still will get off. Devin Booker the other night
still put thirty four on his head. Damian Lillard still put thirty on his head. So that's not going to make up. No matter how much he can defend, that will not make up for the ability to shoot on the other side. That's damning. I'm sorry, folks, I know that you love Ben Simmons. I know that you hate me because I'm pointing out all of the flaws that
Ben Simmons has. Someone said to me in my DMS the other day, Ben Simmons doesn't need to learn how to shoot, because then he would become a perfect player. And we don't need he don't need him to become a perfect player. All I want is him to attempt to shoot. Simmons is a problem because he will not shoot. He is one of the least efficient sixers as the primary ball handler for pick and roll. He can't lock down guards on the other end of the floor. I mean,
what are we doing? What are we doing? Like I don't It almost doesn't matter what I say. I have all these facts, I have all these stats that show you your man's is a problem. Your man's is not going to help you succeed in a bunch of different ways because of how the playoffs just are as a fact. And you won't listen, you won't hear me out. All you want to do is fight. All you want to do is tell me I don't listen to basketball or watch basketball, and how I should never speak about sports
ever again. Can you just imagine for your second, in your mind, for a second, what your team would look like with a legit point guard, one that could actually shoot, run the pick and roll, give embid some fucking space so that he can work on offense, like a James Harden who Philly wanted to trade Ben Simmons for Oof. You need a point guard, Philly fans who can put up thirty consistently. You need one that when it's five seconds left in the game, that you can scheme for
to hit a last second shot. There is no SENI no scenario where Doc Rivers is like three point two seconds left on the clock and we're going to Ben Simmons. There is no I don't even think that exists in the playbook. So until Ben Simmons will shoot the ball, He's like that ll bean coat, but one that I paid twenty five hundred dollars for, just an overpaid unicorn.
That becomes a liability in the fucking playoffs. We had a little drama bruin in Brooklyn, So we remember that whole thing with COVID and KD.
Right, mhm, oh yeah, quite well.
Yeah, he's missed a bunch of games because COVID protocol. He's never had cod COVID this season, could possibly be COVID immune, has had ninety negative COVID tests and yet has somehow missed five games due to COVID. KD remembers too. So the latest news is that KD is now out at least two games with a hammy string against the Suns and the Lakers and ESPN marquee matchups on national television.
Such a shame, Such a shame.
Why Why? Because I'm fucking petty. That's why I'm getting back at you, That's why. And I love it. I love it so much. I love Katie getting back at Adam Silver how muchever he can, taking whatever control he can do to just stick it to him. Payback's a bitch, That's what Katie's saying after the league held him out for two games this last time in three games this time, it appears he's getting revenge. Fuck the game everyone has
had on their calendar for the entire year Nets versus Lakers. Nope, not gonna watch that one now, just Kyrie and Harden. I don't know. Maybe if I wasn't lying on the couch for the last ten days, maybe my Hammi would be a lot more warm. Hammi's feeling kind of tight now. Just played the Warriors one game back after missing two and a half, and you know what, it's just tight all of a sudden again, too bad. Damn shame missing against the Suns, missing against the Lakers. I don't know
when I'll be back. Maybe that game against the Wizards on a Thursday night. I don't know. And you're probably thinking, Trista, you're insane. This is not how things go. Katie is a baller. He loves the ball. He would never do such a thing. He is one of the most hungry players in the league. He would just never, ever, ever do that. Guess what. KD has a podcast and on the latest episode, he pretty much came out and admitted exactly what I'm saying. He said, hope I missed the
Laker game just because of that. I might extend my quarantine just to miss that game, you know, the one that's supposed to drive all of the ratings and money and advertising for the league. I might just miss that game just so that I can laugh at y'all in the group chat. How is that for revenge? Oh my god? Yep. What this all tells me is there's two things that KD loves, and we know which one he loves more. He's a competitor and he is more petty than he
loves basketball. That's what we know. His pettiness knows no bounce. Kd's pettiness knows no bounce. I think we only have time for like maybe two.
Okay, all right? Leading off, Uh, why do you hate the Bucks? Trista? Do you not like small market teams winning?
Why do I hate the Bucks? Do I not like small teams? Small market teams winning?
Here's a little.
Fun fact folks should know. Grew up in Portland, right, and I grew up as a Portland Trailblazers fan, and around fourteen, I realized that there is no scenario where the Portland Trailblazers will ever win a championship when I'm alive. They just will not happen. The salary cap and Portland not being a great destination and it being a small city is just not going to happen. We're never going to attract free agents. And so that's going to be
the case for pretty much every small market team. And I learned that twenty years ago, and so I know what the fade is for a team like Milwaukee. I know what the fade is for a team like New Orleans because I have lived it my entire life. Secondly, when I'm in the media, which is where I came from, Big Jay journalism, all the media cares about let me just a little fun fact. All they care about our ratings.
We don't care about how good the basketball is, whether the actual matchups themselves are going to be entice because fans don't give a fuck. Fans care about markets, fans care about teams. That is what we are measured on is ratings. So if the ratings of the television is good, then the clicks on our content are better. So a Milwaukee Finals don't want that. Don't want that because the ratings are not gonna be good, and then our clicks are bad. And then my manager's Matt and they say, Trista,
you're performing thirty percent worse than last year. And I say, well, it's the Milwaukee Bucks. No one gives a fuck's that's the big time case. So yeah, I don't root for small market teams to do well. I'm sorry, that's not what anyone wants. The only team that I root for, the small market team is Portland, and that's only because
I'm a fan. If I didn't grow up in Portland, I would be feeling the exact same thing that I'm feeling about the Bucks, which is like, fuck them, win sixty games, get bounced the first round, because that's what we all want. I know that is a very tough pill to swallow. I don't even know. I think Phoenix is probably an exception. I think that they're a big market sort of big market team top ten, and they've
been relevant. I think also another thing is if that you've been relevant in like a quote unquote dynasty in the past, we like to have that nostalgia come back around.
Yeah, until like ten years ago when we started this like deep dive that we're on. We were I think, like the fourth most winningest franchise in the league. Yeah, like something like that. We've been consistently good for a long time for sure.
So I like the Bucks as if you if you said that the Bucks weren't the Bucks and they were another team, I would love them. They have a bunch of shooters, They've got Yannis. They they did everything that they could to keep Jannis. They have a new arena they swung for the future. Jannis will probably ask for a trade later, But like, you did everything that you could, Milwaukee. There's a reason though that when they won night, when they won sixty games, that no one in the NBA
wanted them to win. And how pissed I was when ESPN said that they had an eighty three percent chance of winning it all. I was like, yeah, fucking right, no way. Absolutely, the NBA one hundred percent. When they were in the Eastern Conference finals against Toronto, they were one hundred percent rooting for Toronto.
Oh sure, yeah, big time.
And Toronto is in another country. So that tells you everything that you need to know. That tells you everything that you need to know about small market teams. There are like six teams that the NBA wants to see. It's like the Celtics, the Lakers, maybe the Clippers, the Heat,
the Knicks that'll ever problem. Maybe the Nets now because the big big Stars Bulls maybe just to kind of reinvigorate, but I think they've kind of been a forgotten franchise now the biggest Do you want to know what the biggest lie is in history?
What's that?
Everyone loves the Cinderella story. The truth is, no one loves the Cinderella story. No one. We say we do, and then we're like, yeah, I've had a enough of Saint Mary's. I don't want to see him in my final four. That's just I want to see blue Bloods. That's period. We want to see Lebron, we want to see KD. We want to see Kyrie, and that's about it. That's it. We say like, oh, we fucking hate dynasties. No we don't, No we don't. That is fucking a lie.
Everyone wants glitz and glam, so I'm sorry, fan, Like the only person the only people that care about the Bucks and the Bucks winning and are invested in the Bucks winning are people that are either from Wisconsin, have family from Wisconsin, or they're from Greece. That's it. I'm sorry, that's the legitimate cold heart truth.
Last up we have is Fred van Vliet an All Star? What a tough question.
That's such a tough question. Is Fred van Fleet an All Star? I don't think they're gonna do it. I just it's released. It's sad it is. You talk about the NBA and how they're basically the Gestapo, and they decide based on storylines and how storylines lead everything. Fred van Fleet is a Cinderella story and and I love Fred van Fleet, but he's exactly what the NBA does not want people a name that people casual fans don't know. Yes, the real NBA fan loves some fucking Fred van Fleet.
He's he's just pulling that team out of the depths of hell yea and doing a little bit of everything. But my friend that watches like four NBA games a year and maybe tunes into the All Star Game is like, who's that? Who's that little dude with the side spin on his ball? Yeah, he s it's Fred van Fleet. So I don't think he's gonna I think he is an All Star but won't be an All Star. Do you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, for sure, Devin Booker for years.
He's that's Devin Booker for years. Exactly. Like when you're at a point that plays who are putting up ungodly numbers like Bradley Beal and still lose, are still becoming All Stars. That's how you know what the league cares.
About well in leading and voting.
Yes, yeah, it's like the Wizards. The Wizards current. The Wizards currently are the worst team in the East, and Bradley Beal is going to be an All Star. So that's where we are. Fred van Fleet, let's talk about the things that he's done well. He is. I think he's the top assisting shooting guard in the league or in the conference, in the Eastern Conference, like six and
a half assists a game. He's I think, rebounding like crazy this year, scoring more than he ever has, and he's probably the main reason that Toronto's still relevant because Kyle Lowry has been kind of on and off the court with injuries, the chemistry issue has been weird, Pascal Siaka has been up and down. Obviously, they lost a bunch of pieces, so I I think he deserves an All Star spot, but there's gonna be buzzier names that
end up getting voted in over him. I think he's tenth in voting right now in guards, which is fucking it.
Suck it suck buzzier. Are you implying LaMelo Ball might be employed?
No, but like I definitely think that wouldn't be something outside. I mean, if you want to talk about big names and names that drive storylines, like LaMelo Ball drive storylines. Oh yeah, and Lonzo's family. The Ball's family is a huge storyline. So yeah, I would say if the Hornets were like the fifth seed in the East, LaMelo Ball could for sure be an All Star because people would be like O. All the reason is because LaMelo is, like you forgot about Gordon Hayward. But whatever. That's the
that's it. So most people want Fred van Fleet that watch basketball, But these fucking idiots that don't watch basketball, they they're not voting for him.
So yeah, all.
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